What is safe is virtually always legal. That is the basis of traffic law.

I know anything is possible, but is it conceivable that that interpretation would be realistically considered? The statute that requires the three feet places no obligation whatsoever on the cyclist. The position of the cyclist in the roadway is not a consideration. It discusses the responsibilities of the overtaking driver, wherever the cyclist might be. The burden is entirely on the overtaking driver.

316.083 Overtaking and passing a vehicle.

(1) ….. The driver of a vehicle overtaking a bicycle …. must pass the bicycle …. at a safe distance of not less than 3 feet between the vehicle and the bicycle …..

The eventuality you propose might require intentional exposure to an unsafe condition, which seems counter to all traffic law.

Your supposition does seem to give support to the proposal of some to eliminate the “far right” provisions entirely.

Thanks for the comments. We aren’t either. We don’t claim to know all the answers. We try to provide the information to bring attention to the lack of certainty in some of the statutes, and enable cyclists and others to make their own interpretations and decisions. We appreciate the views of everyone about the laws.

My understanding is that to have the status of a state-wide “precedent”, there must be court decisions at a certain level and case law that is definitive. If you have access to the legal precedent to which you referred, please advise us. If any of our other attorney friends can enlighten us, we would appreciate that.

If your reference is to decisions in lower courts, they are all over the map. That’s part of the problem. See this for one example:

http://flbikelaw.org/2010/03/two-citations-identical-circumstances-opposite-verdicts/

The dismissed citations mentioned were recently reaffirmed in that jurisdiction.

We should keep in mind that the burden for safety, the paramount consideration in the statutes, is not on the cyclist riding in narrow lanes, assuming the cyclist is otherwise riding legally. It is on the overtaking motorist, as it is in all overtaking and passing situations. See:

http://flbikelaw.org/2010/01/substandard-width-lanes-updated/

I would assume the legal department of a PD that publishes a legal bulletin is reviewing and approving such a document.

We would hope to eventually reach the point where all decisions on these matters will be decided uniformly, and cyclists and law enforcement will be able to rely on consistent application of the statutes. That may require some updates to the present statutes, and may become part of FBA’s legislative agenda. Your input will be helpful.

There is nothing in the statute that points to FDOT recommendations, nor any other guideline you can produce. Statutes that specifically mention Transportation and the respective mandates placed upon Transportation pertaining to traffic control devices is not synonymous with the greenbooks recommendations and supposed definition of a sub standard lane.

I don’t suggest that this will be the outcome–it is certainly the case that supporting documents, legislative intent statements for the original bills, FDOT rules, policy and proceedures manuals and the like, will salvage the desired interpretation, but I suggest everyone (at least mentally) play the old planning school studio game; the class is divided into two teams. Team one draws up a zoning code. Team two designs the ugliest, nastiest, most awful development they can think of that still conforms to the code. Team one then modifies their code. Team two designs a still worse development. The lesson is that the more involved you get trying to fix things with words, the more unintended consequences you create, especially if there are readers of those words with very different values, goals and prejudices. It becomes quicksand.

http://flbikelaw.org/2010/01/walk-bicycle-across-bridge/