Bicycle Safety Education Act Enacted in 1999

Maine's Bicycle Safety Education Act is a comprehensive statute that focuses on safety education to prevent crashes and helmets for youth to mitigate the effects of those crashes that do happen. Here are a few highlights from the new law.

Statute Additions and Revisions

The definition of a bicycle has been rewritten to be more inclusive of all bicycles. It now states: "'Bicycle' means a vehicle primarily propelled by human power and operated by a person usually seated on a seat and driven on the ground on wheels by the operator." For the sake of clarity and uniformity in the new law, bicycle passenger seats (child seats), trailers, and bicycle taxi's were also defined for Maine State Statutes.

Safety Education

The law instructs the Department of Education to work with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine and other safety experts to develop bike safety guidelines for schools to incorporate this important information into their curricula.

Helmet Requirement

• The new law requires youth 15 and under to wear helmets when driving their bicycles on public roads and bikeways.
• The BCM also worked to protect cyclists rights by making sure that a contributory negligence clause was included (i.e. a child not wearing a helmet will can not be held at fault or given any lesser treatment if they are involved in a crash). This applies to not just the cyclist but their family too.

(Additional provisions were added in 2007 with the passage of L.D. 1808.)

Bicycle Retailer Assistance

• Bicycle Retailers will have to post or make information available about the new Bicycle Safety Law and the helmet requirement for youth 15 and under. We are hoping to help design just such a piece that will be attractive and informative but not take up too much wall or display space.
• Businesses that rent bicycles may charge a reasonable fee for helmet rental.

Enforcement

The new law stipulates that police officers may educate children and their parents that wearing a helmet is now the law - but there is no fine or punitive action. While there has been criticism that the law has "no teeth" we strongly advocated for this educational approach because the last thing we wanted to see was police officers ticketing children (and law enforcement officers concurred). Police officers involved also wanted it this way. Studies have shown that simply having a law dramatically increases helmet use which was one of the goals for the legislation.

Other

For several years the BCM has been training volunteers how to best teach bicycle safety to children with underwriting from the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation. We now have 75 volunteer Bicycle Safety Instructors all across Maine who can go into schools, or help with safety events. If you wish assistance from a volunteer instructor, would like to take a training course, or would like to refer requests for safety presentations to the BCM, please contact us. The BCM also coordinates Effective Cycling courses for adults (course is certified by the League of American Bicyclists). For more information about the Bicycle Coalition of Maine or any of their education or advocacy programs, please call or e-mail the BCM at (207) 623-4511 or info@BikeMaine.org.