B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act could be renamed the Road Safety Act as part of sweeping changes to bring it up to date and make it more bike-friendly, according to Vancouver lawyer David W. Hay.

Hay said he is chair of a committee expected to make recommendations to the provincial government this fall about changes to the Motor Vehicle Act that would make it “more friendly to vulnerable road users.”

“The time is now to recognize that we have new transportation priorities,” Hay said. “We have to change what we’re doing.”

Hay is a personal injury lawyer in Vancouver who specializes in collisions involving cyclists. Members on the committee recommending changes to the MVA include the BC Cycling Coalition, HUB: Your Cycling Connection, and the Trial Lawyers Association of B.C.

Hay was responding to recent changes in Ontario designed to make the roads safer for cyclists. They include increasing the fine range for “dooring” (opening a door into the path of a cyclist) from $60-$500, to $300-$1,000, allowing cyclists to travel on paved shoulders, and requiring drivers in motor vehicles to keep a distance of one metre when passing cyclists.

In Ontario, the Highway Traffic Act is also increasing fines for cyclists without lights on their bikes from $20 to a range of $60-$500. In B.C., a cyclist can be fined up to $109 for not having lights on the front and back of their bike.

Hay said B.C. already prohibits drivers from opening doors into a traffic lane unless it is safe to do so. Unlike Ontario’s provincial law, Section 203 (i) of the Motor Vehicle Act doesn’t link dooring to cyclists.

The fine in B.C. for dooring is $81 plus two driver penalty points.

Hay said that as much as 30 per cent of his practice involves cyclists who have been injured in collisions with doors opened by drivers of motor vehicles.

He said what Ontario has done is to increase penalties for behaviour by drivers that affect cyclists.

“We have nothing like that in our legislation,” he said.

In B.C., in a collision between a cyclist and a motor vehicle, the cyclist has the onus of establishing the driver’s negligence to recover damages from the driver’s policy. In Ontario, the driver has to disprove negligence.

“I’ve been on about reverse onus for years,” he said. “They have it in some of the friendlier jurisdictions in Europe. You can’t touch a cyclist there without inviting liability.”

Hay said he would like to see the law require drivers when passing cyclists to maintain a minimum distance of a metre and a half. Hay said 23 states in the U.S. have already established similar minimum distances for vehicles when passing cyclists.

“A lot of people are cynical. They say, ‘How are you going to enforce that?’” he said. “But it’s not always about enforcement. People generally respect the rule of law.”

He would also like to see the name of the act changed. He thinks the name Motor Vehicle Act is inherently biased because it favours motorized vehicles over other road users. He suggested Road Safety Act as much more inclusive name.