Bicycle law in the United States

Bicycle law in the United States is the law of the United States that regulates the use of bicycles. Although bicycle law is a relatively new specialty within the law, first appearing in the late 1980s, its roots date back to the 1880s and 1890s, when cyclists were using the courts to assert a legal right to use the roads. In 1895, George B. Clementson, an American attorney, wrote The Road Rights and Liabilities of Wheelmen, the first book on bicycle law, in which he discussed the seminal cases of the 1880s and 1890s, which were financed by Albert Pope of Columbia Bicycles, and through which cyclists gained the right to the road.

By the mid-1980s, a substantial body of law pertaining to bicycles had developed, and a few attorneys had begun specializing in bicycle law. Today, attorneys specializing in bicycle law represent professional athletes, as well as average cyclists, on issues ranging from professional contracts, to traffic accidents, to traffic tickets. In addition, attorneys specializing in bicycle law may advise cyclists on other legal issues, such as bicycle theft, insurance, harassment of cyclists, defective products law, and non-professional contractual issues.

The development of the bicycle occurred over a period of some seventy years, during which time it enjoyed three separate booms in popularity. And yet, throughout that seventy-year period, cyclists had no legal right to use the roads or walkways. With the twin developments of the safety bicycle and the pneumatic tire, bicycles enjoyed a new boom of popularity, beginning in the 1880s, and culminating in the bicycle craze of the 1890s. Until the 1890s, the bicycle had been the plaything of wealthy young men. Now, for the first time, the bicycle came within reach of the middle class, and by the end of the decade, within the reach of the working class. The resulting tidal wave of popularity meant that roads which had hitherto been the province of horses and horse-drawn carriages were now increasingly crowded with cyclists; in some large cities, recreational cyclists numbered in the hundreds of thousands on the weekends. This enormous surge in new cyclists inevitably led to chaotic conditions and conflict between cyclists, horses and horse-drawn carriages, and pedestrians. This conflict was exacerbated by the fact that few traffic laws were in place to regulate traffic. Furthermore, nobody really knew if existing laws even applied to cyclists. Unused to sharing the roads, carriage-drivers challenged the right of cyclists to even be on the road, sometimes with physical force, and sometimes with the force of law. Municipalities passed restrictive ordinances, and eager to collect a new source of revenue from fines, law enforcement agencies set creative traps to ensnare unwary cyclists. Thus, the stage was set for a legal battle cyclists asserting their right to use the roads, and those who would ban them from the roads.

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