Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney at Schroeder Law LLC in Putnam County. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at Lee@LeeSchroeder.com or at 419-659-2058. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
Spring and summer boast weather that is much more conducive to bicycling. It’s a good time to get a refresher on the laws surrounding their use, whether you plan on using them for transportation or will just be sharing the road with cyclers.
In Ohio, bicycles should be used similar to other vehicles. This means they should be on the road, going with traffic, obeying signage and street lights, etc. Communities can adopt their own laws on use, but must remain consistent with the state laws. This means that some places may allow bicycles to be operated on the sidewalk, for example.
Some of the laws may have changed since you last had to think about them, so it’s worth reading up on the rules surrounding the use of bicycles.
Easter usually introduces warmer weather and the chance for many of us to pull our bicycles out of storage.
Ohio recently updated an aspect of its bicycle law. Beginning last month statewide, a car passing a bicycle must remain at least 3 feet away from the bicycle when passing that bicycle. Previously, the required clearance between motor vehicles and bicycles was a more subjective “reasonable distance.”
Read more about bicycle travel in Ohio in Lee’s article for the Lima News, “Legal-Ease: Bicycle travel in Ohio.”
Source: LimaOhio.com, “Legal-Ease: Bicycle travel in Ohio,” by Lee R. Schroeder, April 15, 2017.