The following is a guest post by Chip Seal of http://chipsea.blogspot.com/. He has had several run in’s with the Ennis Police Department and here is his personal take on this situation:
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I had learned to ride a bicycle in California, and rode it for thousands and thousands of miles in that state. So when I took up cycling again in Texas in 2006, I wanted to be sure I understood Texas bicycle specific law and how to safely navigate on a streetscape that had few wide lanes like had experienced in California.
Texas law was straightforward: In Texas, bicycles are vehicles, so they have the rights and duties of all other traffic. Texas cyclists have the statutory right to the roadway, (travel lane) and a duty to follow all the traffic rules like automobiles.
Four years later, and after traveling 12,000 miles in Texas traffic, I was confident that I understood what the Texas Transportation Code (TTC) said. The City of Ennis says that I don’t know what I am talking about.
The way they interpret the TTC, a cyclist in the City of Ennis must either abandon the roadway and ride on a shoulder any time other traffic comes by, or a cyclist can only operate on a roadway in a school zone. (The only place a cyclist can travel close to the maximum posted speed limit.) The Jury wasn’t clear as to which result they preferred.
One of the officers who ticketed me said under oath that he had only stopped two other cyclists in the past year, and neither of them for “impeding traffic”, the crime I am accused of. He also testified that I was the only operator of any type of vehicle that he had cited for impedance.
This surprised me, for there have been only a handful of cyclists in Ennis that I have seen over the past two years who were operating lawfully.
I was likewise surprised I had been the only illegal impeder he had ever seen! Indeed many common vehicles in and around Ennis cause other traffic to slow, but are commonly accepted and not considered “impeding”. For example, traffic is impeded all the time by folks making left turns, vehicles pulling a heavy load, driving below the speed limit when towing other vehicles, slowing to park or turn into a driveway, garbage collection trucks, mail delivery vehicles, and the operation of a farm or construction vehicles on the public streets whose primary purpose isn’t transportation.
I am therefore not fully convinced that my cycling has been treated like all the other vehicles by the City of Ennis. But maybe I am wrong about this. If so, I would expect any vehicle unable to keep up with automobiles, like farm equipment, will be ticketed if they venture into Ennis this year. It may be a new enforcement policy!
In fact, the roads in Ennis have ceased to be public roads if the severest interpretation of the jury is adopted. The only vehicles that would be allowed on the formally public streets of Ennis are those that have obtained prior approval from the government to drive on them, and are carrying documents that can prove that. No unregistered vehicles allowed.