This week US Congressman Joe Neguse, who represents Colorado, launched the Magnus White Bicycle owner Security Act of 2024 (H.R. 10347), laws designed to guard susceptible street customers, together with bicyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, street staff in building zones and lots of others. The invoice requires the mixing of superior automated emergency braking (AEB) know-how in new autos for enhanced security.
The federal invoice was named in honor of 17-year-old Magnus White, a US 17-18 males’s junior cyclocross nationwide champion and rising star in mountain biking who was killed in July 2023 when a driver of a automobile struck him from behind whereas {the teenager} was on a coaching rider close to his house in Colorado.
“We will not deliver Magnus again. That ache won’t ever go away. This invoice is not nearly know-how—it is about saving lives when drivers fail,” Jill White, mom of Magnus and co-founder of the non-profit group The White Line, stated in a press launch.
The proposed laws specifies that each one new autos weighing beneath 10,000 kilos could be required “to incorporate AEB methods able to detecting and responding to susceptible street customers in numerous circumstances”.
Along with cyclists, the invoice identifies ‘susceptible street customers’ as “all people not protected by a car’s construction”, together with pedestrians, motorcyclists, customers of e-scooters, e-bikes, and skateboards; folks utilizing wheelchairs; street staff in building zones; and folks working farming gear.
This invoice duties the US Division of Transportation to develop guidelines for AEB implementation inside three years as soon as the invoice is handed, and automakers would wish to conform throughout two mannequin years. Beginning in 2029, car producers should make each automobile with AEB, in response to a brand new security rule handed in April this yr by the USDOT’s Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration.
“I’m deeply impressed by Jill and Michael’s continued braveness and advocacy, turning their ache into goal and honoring Magnus’s reminiscence by serving to to make our roads safer for everybody. The Magnus White Bicycle owner Security Act implements common sense options that forestall tragedies and finally save lives,” stated Assistant Chief Neguse, quoted within the press launch from The White Line.
White had been driving his bike in preparation to compete on the 2023 UCI World Mountain Bike Championships in Glasgow. 5 months after his dying, the Colorado State Patrol turned over their investigation to the Colorado District Lawyer’s workplace and a 23-year-old girl, Yeva Smilianska of Westminster, Colorado, was charged and arrested on fees of felony vehicular murder.
The trial was set to start December 16, 2024, a yr after the formal fees and arrest, however Colorado Public Radio reported that after a request for continuance was introduced on November 7 by prosecutors, “prosecuting and protection attorneys agreed that the trial couldn’t proceed with out Trooper Sean McCall’s testimony”. The brand new date for the trial has been moved to March 17, 2025.
