08-11-2016, 08:55 PM
(08-10-2016, 05:24 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(08-10-2016, 05:02 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Basically, the police officer needs to be on the bicycle in order to measure the distance; this is not a method for remote measurement. So I don't know that this method would scale up well for large-scale enforcement, more likely it could be used for temporary local campaigns.
We have officers riding around town every day on bicycles. While it's less likely that driver's would pass a police officer too closely, I'm sure it does happen. These officers could write tickets for this offense.
That being said, I disagree that the officer must be on the bike. If an officer is following a vehicle that overtakes a bicycle, the officer should be in an acceptable position to know if it is too close. Obviously, it would have to be *way* too close, i.e., there is some margin of error, but it isn't unreasonable to expect officers to make this judgement.
Officers make other judgements, how close is too close to qualify as tailgating for example.
Absolutely, it is possible for an officer to judge "too close" without actually being on the bike. But for actual measurement, the officer needs to be on the bicycle in order for the equipment to measure the distance to the car.