This Is a Real State Senate Bill

By Jordan Bloom • January 3, 2013, 5:01 PM

…from Virginia, in its brief entirety:

[Summary:] A BILL to amend the Code of Virginia by adding a section numbered 46.2-818.1, relating to opening and closing of motor vehicle doors.

[Text:] Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia: That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 46.2-818.1 as follows:

12 § 46.2-818.1. Opening and closing motor vehicle doors; penalty. No person shall open the door of a motor vehicle on the side adjacent to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so. Nor shall the person keep the vehicle door open for longer than is reasonably necessary to load or unload passengers. A violation of this section shall constitute a traffic infraction punishable by a fine of no more than $100. No demerit points shall be awarded by the Commissioner for a violation of this section. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any law-enforcement officer, school guard, firefighter, or member of a rescue squad engaged in the performance of his duties.

You’d think the risk of having one’s door smashed off by a passing car would be incentive enough not to open it hastily, but apparently not.

The bill’s sponsor is, predictably, a Northern Virginia Democrat.

In other news from the VA statehouse, a Republican senator wants to exempt gold, silver, and a few other precious metals from taxation, union card-checks may be made unconstitutional, and a Virginia Beach delegate continues the quixotic annual ritual of introducing legislation to allow governors of the Old Dominion a second consecutive term.

Posted in Law.

12 Responses to This Is a Real State Senate Bill

William Dalton says:

January 3, 2013 at 6:05 pm

Is the purpose of this legislation to allow “law-enforcement officers” and other privileged functionaries of the state to open their car doors into traffic when it is NOT reasonably safe to do so? To keep their doors open and blocking traffic longer than necessary to load and unload their passengers? I presume existing law already sanctions any unsafe operation of a motor vehicle. So what other change would enacting this statute effect?
Kirk says:

January 3, 2013 at 7:43 pm

Perhaps contact the legislator in question and ask him the triggering event? I wonder if he’s responding to bicycle-riding enthusiasts.
Myron Hudson says:

January 3, 2013 at 8:05 pm

William: I believe this statute locks in additional predictable reveune at $100 a clip without bogging down the DMV in follow-up paperwork (tracking demerits). I also believe that is its only purpose.
Robb Davis says:

January 3, 2013 at 8:41 pm

As a “car-free” cyclist this bill makes perfect sense to me. Check out this story (true):
https://robbdavis.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/a-dooring-retold/
TomB says:

January 4, 2013 at 8:46 am

The usual way that legislation gets introduced and passed is of course that some interest group persuades a legislator to intro a bill, and then successfully lobbies the rest of the legislature to pass it. (With the introducing legislator of course typically helping by making deals to support or oppose some other measure in exchange for support on his or hers.)

I see no reason to doubt that this was the background here, with the interest group being cyclists like Robb, and very likely their main beef being with pickup/delivery people leaving their doors open while they fight to load or unload packages.

Why would cyclists (and indeed just ordinary auto drivers as well to some extent) want this?

Not really so as to dissuade ordinary drivers, or punish them: The average person ain’t gonna even know this law was passed.

Instead to dissuade drivers of delivery and pickup vehicles I strongly suspect—note the language specifically not cutting *any* slack to those unloading or loading packages or etc., with pickup/delivery companies very likely being made aware of this law—and then also for the utility of the law in relevant civil suits.

In ordinary negligence matters to establish another’s liability for damages you have to get a jury to agree they were negligent, and then that such negligence was causal.

As a general rule however if you can show that they violated a statute or rule, what’s called “per se” negligence is usually readily found by the sitting court, so absolving you from having to laboriously go before the jury and argue the somewhat metaphysical question of whether it is negligence to, say, be taking five packages of a certain size out of your vehicle … as opposed to ten, or twenty, or whatever.

With per se negligence then, and this statute, you ride into the door of a delivery car or van left open to handle packages—or say you swerve to avoid same and get hit by another vehicle—and it’s easier to convince a judge to find that this statute was violated and to have him answer the negligence question “yes” rather than having to persuade a jury to do so.

And if that person had been actually cited *already* with this law and was found guilty or pled same or didn’t oppose same, then the Court itself almost certainly isn’t going to have any problem finding negligence “per se.”

That’s my suspicion regarding the background here at any rate. Negligence “per se” cases are frequent in automobile liability situations, usually seen where someone was cited after an accident and found or pled guilty, and what they were cited for then being pointed to in the civil suit against them to establish negligence per se.

Usually however this doesn’t extend to the “cause” question that also must be answered (i.e., whether the negligence—per se or not) actually caused the accident/damages, and so that’s where you see lots of the fighting in such matters.

Just because you were negligent don’t mean that caused someone else’s damages.
Robb Davis says:

January 4, 2013 at 9:28 am

Just one more comment from a cyclist… The problem of “dooring” is not just a problem for “enthusiasts”. More and more of us bike to work, school and on errands. Many of us do so because we are cognizant of the destructive function of the automobile in the recent history of the USA. As I talk to “lifestyle” cyclists about why they bike, I hear explanations that would warm the heart of regular readers here at TAC. When one makes cycling ones primary means of transportation one becomes much more aware of one’s “nearby”. Laws that remind car drivers that there are others on the road, and give the police the means to cite dangerous behavior, do not, to me, appear to be the encroachment of the nanny state. They strike me as a useful public health tool.

Keep the tire-side down and be safe out there.
Jamie says:

January 4, 2013 at 9:59 am

I don’t think a law like this is unusual — I know it’s on the books in California. It’s for bicyclists and to help settle liability in “he shoulda swerved!” corner cases.
icarusr says:

January 4, 2013 at 10:11 am

“The bill’s sponsor is, predictably, a Northern Virginia Democrat.”

Mr. Bloom: I usually value your wisdom. This line is plain silly. One might even say is, predictably, a “conservative” semi-rant.

To be sure, there are lots of idiotic laws passed by legislatures high and low, and neither Democrats nor Republicans have a monopoly on idiocy. I recall a certain clamouring in the Republican-led House about the importance of keeping inefficient incandescents as the main lighting implement in the land, through laws passed by Congress. Many “conservative” blowhards were out there demanding Congressional action in favour of energy wastage, in the name of Liberty and God and the Bible – or whatever. So a law on a fine for blocking traffic by holding a car door open while you wait for your boyfriend does not strike me as excessively unreasonable.

And while, I am sure, this post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, surely in a site that routinely invokes Burke this sort of condemn-without-context is dissonant. I mean, the thing is, you don’t even have to be a cyclist to see the wisdom of having some sort of a rule for what might appear to be common-sense.
Jordan Bloom says:

January 4, 2013 at 12:32 pm

Icarusr:

Of course legislative idiocy is a bipartisan phenomenon. But I’d still say that in Virginia this sort of nannyish stuff is more likely to come from the northern part of the state, which is both more liberal and more densely populated. Also usually represented by Democrats. And while I don’t have any statistics on this, I’ll bet there are more bike riders too. That’s why it’s predictable.
TomB says:

January 5, 2013 at 2:29 pm

Jordan: Just how sure are you that this is “nannyish” as opposed to just *naturally* coming from the more urban part of the state, and being particularly aimed at pickup/delivery people and organizations whose operations present particular difficulty in urban areas?

Once again it wouldn’t seem that anyone believes that there’s much of a problem with ordinary people simply dawdling terribly when getting in or out of their car on the traffic side. And thus the glaring and to me at least probable central target of this law is pickup and delivery people in the cities.

Again, look at the law: It says you can keep your roadside door open as long as “reasonably necessary to load or unload passengers”, as conspicuously as can be not giving additional slack to those unloading anything else.

So pickup/delivery people still have some time, but only so long as it would take to handle passengers, thus highlighting (to me at least) what the real target of this law is.
Robb Davis says:

January 6, 2013 at 9:40 am

I am just not buying that this is an example of an overweening nanny state. I also don’t think the law is targeting delivery vans. I have happened on or observed over 10 “doorings” in recent years in my town. They are the result of car drivers who are simply not checking their mirrors or looking over their shoulders before opening their doors. The injuries are never lifethreatening but they result in bicylists being thrown into the street into the path of traffic.

The federal government has mandated dozens of safety requirements for automobilies that have made their use and impact safer for all concerned. We take these in stride and, if we have ever benefitted from them, we are glad they are in place. Of course cars are the “natural” form of transportation for Americans so we don’t even blink when new safety requirements are mandated.

However, when it comes to protecting cyclists–who contribute not at all to poor air quality, are generally more fit (less of a burden on an overtaxed health care system), and cause less wear and tear on our roads, all of a sudden a “special interest group” is “pressuring” the “nanny state” to opearte in its narrow self-interest.

Amazing.
Red Emma says:

January 7, 2013 at 2:25 pm

As a former bicycle commuter myself, I support legislation against “dooring.” But in fairness, a lot of delivery vehicles don’t even HAVE driver’s-side doors.