What It Is, Or What Is It?

Joe Biden may not have the oratorical flair of Obama or JFK.  On the other hand, he also doesn't have his predecessor's predilection for ignorance, mendacity and just plain meanness.  And he never could have, even if he wanted to, come up with this:  "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

That last statement came from Bill Clinton when asked about his claim, "There is no improper relationship" with Monica Lewinsky.  Only a lawyer--which Clinton was--could ever come up with something like that.

With all due respect , I have to give him credit for understanding, even better than most other lawyers, just how much can hinge on the definition of a word.  A law can be interpreted in an entirely different way from how its framers intended because of the way even a single word, let alone phrase or passage, is understood.

(That, by the way, is why I think it's folly to try to live by literal readings of any text, whether it's a holy book, an epic poem, a country's founding document  or a novel.)

So I appreciate just how much effort it takes to write a law or policy that will have its intended effect.  When it comes to laws related to cycling, a question that needs to be answered is this:  What, exactly, is a bicycle?

Photo by Josie Norris, San Antonio Express-News

Claudia Ordaz Perez, a Democrat who represents El Paso in the Texas State Legislature has tried to come up with an answer.  She drafted HB3665, an attempt to clean up the Texas Transportation Code, in which a bicycle is seen as any two-wheeled contraption that can be ridden but isn't a moped. In her re-definition, a bicycle is any human-powered vehicle with two or more wheels, one of which is at least 14 inches in diameter. It also includes a clause that specifically includes mopeds.

The good news about that revision is that by saying "two or more" instead of just "two" wheels, adult tricycles are included.  And "human-powered" includes the hand-cranked bikes some disabled people ride.  

That definition, however, can also include bicycles that have gas or electric motors that assist with pedaling--or that run the bike after the rider pedals to start it! While I have nothing against such bikes, I think they should not be in the same bike lane--especially if it's as narrow as the one on the Ed Koch/Queensborough Bridge--as bikes propelled only by the rider's muscle power.

In yesterday's post, and others, I said that bike lanes and other infrastructure are useless and even dangerous--and laws related to cycling can cause more harm to everyone--if they're conceived and executed by people who don't understand cycling.  I also think that those who write the laws or design the bike lanes need to know what a bike is.