Riding Your Bicycle

• Author: Christopher Waters
• Pages: 11-50

riding your bicycle » 11

chapter 2

Riding Your Bicycle

introduction

Many Canadians rst learn to ride a bicycle when they are children.

At that age, the ability to pedal away on a bicycle is an exhilarating

and emancipating activity. Our parents and members of our com-

munities often teach us basic rules about how to ride a bicycle on

the road or on a trail, but for the most part, we consider cycling a

freewheeling activity — one that provides fun and indep endence. As

children, and later as adults, we are often oblivious to the fact that rid-

ing a bicycle is a highly regulated activity in Canada. In fact, cyclists

and the equipment they use are subject to many rules under federal,

provincial, territorial, and municipal laws and regulations.

For the most part, the basic rights and duties of cyclists are

found in highway trac and safety laws and regulations at the prov-

incial, territorial, and municipal levels of government. The full body

of rules that regulates cycling also extends further to include many

other types of statutes, regulations, and bylaws, and include court

decisions as well. The rst main chapter of this book outlines the

most important legal rules that apply to riding a bicycle in Canada.

Some of you will disagree with a number of these rules. Manda-

tory helmet requirements galvanize debate. Bells on bikes are often

a source of mirth for sporting cyclists. Cyclists commonly disregard

full stops at stop signs, a car-centric rule that many cyclists perceive as

risky. From time to time, I discuss the merits of these rules below. But

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rules they are — if you do not like them, then know ing about them is

the rst step in changing them.

this chapter’s takeaways

» Cycling is a thoroughly regulated activity and cyclists generally

must abide by the rules of the road.

» Rules do vary from province to province and municipality to muni-

cipality and you should be aware of such things as dierent expect-

ations on helmet use, licensing, etc.

» There is a long list of things that you need to attach to your bike,

do on your bike, or not do on your bike.

» There is no better way to understand these rules than to read on!

statutory definitions

A good number of law books, and almost all statutes, start with

“denitions.” A book on bicycling law is no dierent, and “what is

a bicycle” is a surprisingly convoluted issue. This is especially the

case on the margins — for instance, over the issue of whether power-

operated or -assisted two-wheel vehicles are entitled to “bicycle”

status and should be allowed on bicycle paths.

bicycle

There is no uniform legal denition of what constitutes a “bicycle” or

a “cycle” in provincial and territorial laws. Some jurisdictions such as

British Columbia,1 Alberta,2 Nunavut,3 and the Northwest Territories4

specify that a bicycle is a device with three characteristics: (1) it has

any number of wheels; (2) it is propelled by human power; and (3)

it can be ridden by a person. Manitoba law provides the same, but

adds a qualication that a bicycle is propelled by human muscular

power “through the use of pedals.”5 In all four Atlantic provinces6

and in Yukon,7 a bicycle is a device propelled by human power upon

which a person may ride, but laws in those jurisdictions generally

restrict the legal denition to devices that have “two tandem wheels.”

riding your bicycle » 13

Neither Ontario nor Quebec highway trac laws precisely describe

what constitutes a bicycle, despite referring to such vehicles through-

out the legislation. In Saskatchewan, the relevant provincial law does

not explicitly refer to bicycles, but the denition of a vehicle is broad

enough to include them; the denition provides that a vehicle is “a

device in, on or by which a person or thing is or may be transported

or drawn on a highway.”8 Some First Nations exclude human-pow-

ered bicycles from their vehicular trac laws altogether.9

It is possible that provincial, territorial, or municipal regula-

tions will adopt a slightly dierent denition of a bicycle depending

on the purpose of the regulation. For instance, for the purposes of

implementing a mandatory safety helmet requirement for youth,

Alberta regulations dene a bicycle as “a cycle propelled solely by

human power on which a person may ride that has 2 wheels and

includes a bicycle with training wheels.”10

unicycle, tricycle, and quadricycle

Some statutory denitions of a “bicycle” exclude unicycles, tricycles,

and quadricycles. This is the case in New Brunswick, Prince Edward

Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, where laws regulating high-

way trac specify that a bicycle has “two tandem wheels.”11 In Yukon,

territorial legislation applies only to bicycles with two tandem wheels,

or to a device that has three wheels, “but not more than three wheels.”12

In Nova Scotia, the denition of a bicycle includes devices with either

two tandem wheels or four wheels.13 Ontario legislation specically

mentions that a “bicycle” includes a tricycle or a unicycle.14 In other

jurisdictions, a bicycle can have any number of wheels.15

power-assisted bicycle

Most provincial and territorial laws contain references to power-

assisted bicycles, commonly called e-bikes, electric bicycles, or

electric assist bicycles.16 There exist many types of power-assisted

bicycles as dierent technologies are available to equip these devices.

Power- assisted bikes and other “micromobility” devices — while

not the focus of this book — are growing in popularity. Sales and