| NJ legislators & bicycles in the news
From today's paper .....
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON — New Jersey may have unresolved problems with taxes, child
welfare and gangs, but lawmakers are ready to crack down on one
perceived danger: talking on a cell phone while riding a bike.
A legislative committee has approved a bill that would make it illegal
for people to use a hand-held telephone while riding a bicycle on a
public road. Hands-free devices would be allowed and lawbreakers would
face fines ranging from $100 to $250.
Assemblyman Jon Bramnick, a bill sponsor, said the measure is meant to
protect bicyclists and the people they may strike when riding and
yakking at the same time.
"That is, in our judgment, a danger to pedestrians as well as to the
bicyclists themselves, due to the fact that now they have one hand on
the handlebars, they're talking to someone and they're on a public
highway," said Bramnick, a Union County Republican.
The bill -- among 6,928 introduced this session by New Jersey lawmakers
-- was given the nod Thursday by an Assembly public safety panel and now
can be considered by the full Assembly. The Senate has taken no action
on the idea.
Pete Garnich, owner of Knapp's Cyclery in Lawrence, said it's a waste of
time.
His store takes people out on weekly group rides and Garnich said he
can't recall anyone talking on a cell phone while riding a bike.
"I wouldn't say it's a problem," he said. "You can't breathe and talk.
It's absolutely ridiculous."
In 2005, 784 people were killed -- including 17 in New Jersey -- and
45,000 were injured in bicycle crashes in the United States, accounting
for 2 percent of traffic fatalities, according to the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration. The agency today couldn't immediately
determine if statistics were kept for crashes involving cell phones and
bikes.
(While 25 percent of the nation's bicycle fatalities in 2005 involved
alcohol, the state attorney general's office says it's not illegal to
bike while drunk in New Jersey.)
Bramnick admitted he also has no data on injuries caused by distracted
riders. He called the cell phone biking bill "a common sense proposal"
based on observations he and others have made "in the more densely
populated communities."
Not all legislators are eager to support the measure.
"As my father used to tell me, 'You can't legislate common sense,' and
that's exactly what this bill tries to do, as the Legislature has
already tried to do on so many other occasions," said Assemblyman
Richard Merkt, R-Morris. "Is anyone dumb enough to use a cell phone in a
dangerous manner while riding a bicycle really going to be smart enough
to know about or pay attention to some legislator's new law? Seems
unlikely to me."
It was unclear today when legislators might take more action on the
bill, or when they would take up other proposals offered by lawmakers.
Those include declaring September "Handwashing Awareness Month," a plan
languishing in an Assembly health committee.
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