Dooring Bill Dies, 3 Foot Passing Still to Be Heard

BudVye February 13, 2013

Update: “3 Foot Passing” was removed from SB1060 and is now dead for 2013.

A big disappointment today in the House Transportation Committee as SB736/ the Dooring Bill was supported by me, Jay Paul, Tim Miller of 2015, Charlie Finley of the Motorcycle Dealers Assn., and Mark Blacknell of the Washington Area Bicycling Assn. only to have Del. Garrett of Lynchburg move, and Del. Cox of Hanover second the tabling (killing) of the bill. That motion failed by a 8-6 vote, leading me to believe that the bill might be reported by a similar margin. Alas, it was not to be as Del. Dudenhefer of Stafford reversed his vote on the motion to report, resulting in a vote of 7-7 meaning that the bill was not reported.

Probably most frustrating to me was the fact that 7 members of the 22 member committee were not present, including three who had voted for the bill in SubCommittee, and whose votes I had counted on. In fairness, I must report that several votes I was not counting on also were absent, so that had every one been there I think the vote would have been very close, and we may well have lost, but I would have liked to see everyone on the committee present and voting, just to see where they stand.

I then went over to the Courthouse, but was unable to get into the courtroom, which again was filled to capacity. Having been there the entire time on Monday, I can report that the report by Reed Williams in the Times-Dispatch was 100% accurate and complete. Champe Burnley, who was also there the entire time today, reports that the trial will definitely wrap up tomorrow, so we will await the verdict.

Before that, we have the final 7 a.m. SubCommittee meeting of this session, at which SB1060/the “3 foot passing and don’t follow too closely” bill will be heard, and we get another chance to see if we can a bill reported out of this 7 person subcommittee, over the strong opposition of Chairman John Cox and his right hand opponent of cycling, Scott Garrett. Hopefully, all the members will be there, and if so, I’m hopeful we can get the bill reported.

I’ll let you know in the morning.

Thanks to everyone who contacted their delegates in support of the bills.

Update: the “following too closely” part of SB1060 made it through commmittee, but “three foot passing” was stripped out.

Read Sen. Chap Peterson’s blog post about his dooring bill.

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