The bicycle is the most energy-efficient mode of transportation ever devised. With an input of about enough energy to power a light bulb, a bicycle and an adult rider can get going about 10 mph on flat ground. But bikes stay this efficient only if you keep moving.
Apply your brakes or coast to a stop going uphill and all that lovely kinetic energy vanishes. When driving a car, you press the accelerator to get up to speed. On a bike, you’ve got to earn back all that speed.
Cycling is growing in popularity in Arkansas. The momentum cyclists are building here is every bit as important as the inertia they use to keep moving around roads and trails.
That’s why Arkansas’ new Act 650 is so important. Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the bill into law April 2, making it just the third of its kind in the nation after Idaho and Delaware. Come July 1, it will allow people on bikes to treat stop signs as yields and to treat red lights as stop signs. A cyclist must still stop to avoid any immediate hazards and yield to pedestrians and traffic in the intersection.
Simply put, Act 650 will allow people on bikes to retain and use their rolling energy. As someone whose job it is to get more people to ride bikes, I couldn’t be happier. Biking in Arkansas will be more fun, more free and more safe. The year after Idaho enacted its law, cycling injuries dropped by 14 percent. More than 35 years later, studies keep suggesting that the law hasn’t made biking there less safe.
Does the rolling stop (or, in current biking parlance, “Idaho stop”) unfairly favor cyclists on our roads? I argue no. We commonly apply special permissions and restrictions to different vehicles, as when we set tractor-trailers’ speed limit lower on some highways. And in practice, a person on a bike has 360-degree visibility, can stop across short distances and can hear in all directions — all advantages over a driver inside a glass-and-steel car. The law is just granting the cyclist greater license to use best judgment.
Taking agency away from police and giving it to individual citizens is a common definition of responsible, limited governance. These laws empower people to take responsibility for their own well-being while disempowering police from ticketing people who conduct themselves safely. In the Arkansas Legislature, the law drew widespread support from Democrats and Republicans alike.
So come July when you see a cyclist look both ways and roll on through that stop sign, don’t worry. That’s an Arkansas stop you’ve just witnessed, and it’s truly cycling in its natural state.
Dane Ei ing is the Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs coordinator for the city of Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas. He may be reached at dei ing@uark.edu.