Projet de loi modifiant l'arrêté royal du 1er décembre 1975 portant règlement général sur la police de la circulation routière et de l'usage de la voie publique en vue d'instaurer le dispositif "vert intégral pour les cyclistes".
General information ¶
- Authors
-
CD&V
Roel
Deseyn,
Jef
Van den Bergh
N-VA Daphné Dumery
Open Vld Sabien Lahaye-Battheu - Submission date
- Dec. 6, 2017
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- traffic signs two-wheeled vehicle highway code road traffic
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PVDA | PTB VB
- Abstained from voting
- LE PP
Party dissidents ¶
- Benoît Lutgen (LE) voted to adopt.
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
April 4, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
President Siegfried Bracke ⚙
The rapporteur, Anne-Catherine Goffinet, refers to the written report.
Jef Van den Bergh CD&V ⚙
Research shows that we are increasingly riding bicycles. Today, the VAB also released figures on the use of bicycles in residential-working traffic, which is now close to 20%. The rise of the electric bike has a lot to do with this.
However, other studies also show that the safety of cyclists does not improve enough. This should cause us concern. The decrease in the number of accidents with injuries is less significant for cyclists and pedestrians than for other road users. The number of accidents with injuries generally decreases, but that of cyclists and pedestrians decreases less sharply. This is something we should be concerned about.
Several times a year are faced with dead-end accidents, often with very serious consequences for the cyclist. The demand for conflict-free crossings is increasing. They can with the proposed principle of all cyclists at the same time green or the square green for both pedestrians and cyclists prevent dead-end accidents. Motorized traffic is stopped in all directions. In this way, cyclists and vehicles cannot come into conflict with each other.
In Flanders several pilot projects are already underway with this principle but it has not yet been entered in our Road Code. This is what we want to resolve with this bill. The bill has a long history since the minister has always stated that he would inscribe the principle in the new Road Code that is being worked on.
At the end of this legislature, we must unfortunately conclude that the extensive work on the Road Code has not yet been completed. For example, there is another procedure in progress at the State Council. Therefore, we want to ensure that this will be included in the Road Code before the end of the legislature.
We have added some elements to this through amendments to improve the safety of cyclists in general. I refer, for example, to the measures to make three- and four-wheelers with a width of less than one meter equal to bicycles. As a result, bicycles for people with disabilities or backbikes with three or four wheels are now also allowed in pedestrian zones, school streets and against the driving direction in one-way streets.
Another amendment ensures that the maximum speed of motorised forward engines is aligned with European rules. It is limited to 25 km per hour.
Finally, children will now be allowed to cycle on the pedestrian path until the age of 10 years, instead of up to 9 years as it was today.
Vehicles will now have to keep one-and-a-half meter side-by-side distance from cyclists instead of one meter, as was previously the case.
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, with this bill and the added amendments, we have drawn up a whole package of measures to improve the safety of cyclists. This was necessary to promote their safety as strongly as that of other road users. We hope that in this way we can further stimulate cycling, both in residential-work traffic and for everyday use.