Do the Rules of the Road for Chicago's New Electric Scooters Provide the City with Protection at the Expense of Riders?

Two Electric Scooters parked next to the bike lane on Milwaukee
Avenue in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood on June 19, 2019.
Photo by Brendan Kevenides

The e-apocalypse is upon us, or car-mageddon is set for roll back.  Maybe it's neither, or both.  Personal perspective matters a lot, but whether you think that they will create an unsightly mess or help reduce our city's over-dependence on cars, what is undeniable is that electric scooters have come to Chicago.

On June 15th the City allowed 10 different scooter companies to place a total of about 2500 electric powered scooters within a 50 square mile area on the West, Northwest and Southwest sides of the city, according to The Chicago Tribune.  To use one all you need is to download the scooter company's app to your smart phone, scan the scooter with your phone and go.  I had the opportunity to ride electric scooters from Bird and Lime earlier this Spring in another city and they are a blast to ride.  Simple, fun and efficient.

While riding one may produce a euphoric feeling of freedom, there are rules for operating an e-scooter in Chicago.  To qualify as an e-scooter, or "low-speed electric mobility device," a device must not have pedals, be no more than 26 inches wide, weight less than 100 pounds and be powered by an electric motor that can travel at no more than 15 miles per hour. Section 9-4-010.  The devices are defined much differently than are e-bicycles, referred to in the ordinance as "low-speed electric bicycles," and it is important to note the distinction.  Scooters must be equipped with a warning bell, a front white light, and a rear red light visible from at least 500 feet away, and hand and foot brakes, according to the permit requirements set forth by the City of Chicago.  As for the rules of the road, all "that apply to the operation and parking of bicycles shall also apply to the operation and parking of low-speed electric mobility devices." Section 9-52-130.  The rules that apply to bicycles regarding right of way, turning and stopping, also apply to e-scooters. 

There is, however, an important difference between rules applying to bikes and electric scooters when it comes to where they may be used.  Since 2011 the City of Chicago has installed many miles of marked bicycle lanes.  However, when a bike lane is present a person riding a bicycle is not required to use it.  They may ride in the street outside of the bike lane.  On the other hand, the City has apparently mandated that, "scooters are permitted to be operated only on the City's bike lanes or paths."  (Emphasis added.)  In the City of Chicago Requirements for Scooter Sharing Emerging Business Permit Pilot Program document, scooters vendors are required to "acknowledge and transmit to their customers" this limitation on use.  "Where there is no bike lane or path, scooters are allowed to be operated on city streets," according to the document.  This means e-scooters may be used on roads without a bike lane.  "But," the City document continues, "such streets [without bike lanes] are not intended to be used by scooters." (Emphasis added.)  That last part was probably written for lawyers like me.  What it means is that the City of Chicago is attempting to protect itself from liability should a scooter rider become injured after striking a road defect like a pot hole located outside of a bike lane.  With this language about intent the City is attempting to expand the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling in Boub v. Township of Wayne to apply to scooter riders.  That is a bad thing for scooter riders.

In its now infamous decision, Boub v. Township of Wayne, 183 Ill.2d 520, 702 N.E.2d 535 (Ill. 1998), the Supreme Court held that bicyclists are permitted but not intended users of Illinois roadways, unless the road at issue is specifically designated for bike traffic, e.g. with signs, markings, etc. Unless a roadway is so designated, a local municipality is completely immune from liability for a bicyclist's injuries caused by roadway hazards.  An Illinois municipality may be liable for injuries caused by a defect in a bike lane that it had notice of, but not for injuries caused by a defect outside of a bike lane, even if it knew of the danger posed.  Of course the case did not address electric scooters as they did not exist when the decision was handed down in 1998.  The City of Chicago's attempt to expand Boub to include e-scooters may end up being significant.  Even more so than bicycles, electric scooters, with their small wheels, lack of suspension and top heavy weight distribution (with a rider) are prone to crashing when they strike a road defect.  Lousy, pot holed and cracked streets, like in Chicago, are dangerous places for these devices.  A study published earlier this year which looked at e-scooter rider injuries in Los Angeles concluded that the devices were more dangerous than biking or walking.  An even more recent study, published in May by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention "found one in three riders were injured on their first ride" on a scooter.  In light these known dangers it is discomforting, to say the least, that the City of Chicago is inviting thousands of electric scooters to operate on our rough, pockmarked streets while attempting to limit its responsibility for causing injury where it has failed to provide safe infrastructure in which to ride.  Electric scooters are to be welcomed in Chicago.  To the extent they reduce car dependency, they are a net positive for our city.  (And did I mention that they're fun as hell?!)  But the right approach is for Chicago to do all in its power to make our streets safe for their use.  If the City is immune from taking responsibility for causing an injury it will have little incentive to fix its infrastructure.  It is wrong for Chicago to protect itself while failing to protect those it has invited to use these new devices.

If you think the better option for operating an electric scooter is on the sidewalk you best think again.  Doing so is illegal for adults.  To ride a bike or e-scooter on a sidewalk a rider must be under 12 years of age.  However, you must be at least 18 years of age to rent a scooter.  Individuals who are 16 or 17 years old may do so only with the consent of a parent or guardian.  So the bottom line is that no one should ride a scooter on a sidewalk in Chicago.

    

City of Chicago Refuses To Fix Road Hazard It Knew About. Cyclist Is Compensated For His Injuries.

Our client's bike wheel trapped by the
hazardous drainage grate at 4738 West
Lawrence. This photo was taken weeks
after the crash to demonstrate what had
caused his injuries.

The City of Chicago has lost its attempt to deny responsibility for injuries caused by a drainage grate that it knew posed a danger to bicyclists.  The grate, located in the 4700 block of West Lawrence Avenue, was identified by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) in 2006 as among those posing a hazard to cyclist and needing to be replaced.  The work never occurred. As a result, a 50 year old male cyclist suffered a broken arm when the front wheel of his bike became trapped in the grate in August, 2011. The grate was located within a clearly designated bicycle lane.

Our law firm filed a lawsuit on the bicyclist's behalf alleging that the City was negligent for failing to replace the dangerous grate with a safe one.  The City subsequently sought dismissal of the lawsuit claiming it owed the bicyclist no duty to replace the grate.  A Cook County judge denied the City's motion for dismissal, which recently lead to successful resolution of the case.  Unfortunately, the hazardous grate remains to this day.

The case arose from an incident in which our client was riding his bicycle in the marked bike lane westbound near 4738 West Lawrence Avenue.  The area is where Lawrence passes over the Edens Expressway.  The crash occurred just as the cyclist was approaching the bridge.  As he pedaled in the bike lane motor vehicle traffic to his left was backed up. Without warning, one of those vehicles veered into the bicycle lane causing the bicyclist to swerve to his right to avoid a collision. When the car swerved it blocked his vision of the sewer grate.  The front wheel of his bicycle dropped into one of the slots of the grate and became trapped, stopping his bike suddenly. His body was thrown forward off of the bike and into the street where he broke his arm.

With its dismissal motion the City tried to avoid responsibility on several fronts.  Firstly, it claimed that the grate was not located on City property and that it, therefore, had no duty to address the hazard.  Secondly, it argued that the cyclist was not an intended user of the place where the grate was located.  The City claimed that the grate was not in a bike lane, but was in the gutter area. Thirdly, the City claimed that it was the cyclist's fault for not watching where he was going.  Our firm filed a responsive brief demonstrating why each of the City's arguments should fail.  We explained to the Court that while the area where the grate was located fell under the jurisdiction of the State of Illinois rather than the City of Chicago, that the State had contracted with the City for the City to maintain its roadways, including the area where the grate was located.  Therefore, the City's argument that it owed no duty to cyclists to replace the grate should fail.

We also addressed the City's argument that the grate was not located in a place that a bicyclist was intended to be.  The City's position in this regard relied on the infamous case of Boub v. Township of Wayne, 183 Ill.2d 520, 702 N.E.2d 535 (1998).  In it, the Illinois Supreme Court created the rule of law that local municipalities may be liable to bicyclists only for injuries caused by a road hazard when the hazard was encountered upon an area permitted and intended for use by bicyclists.  In other words, the a municipality could be held liable only where the hazard was in an area explicitly designated for bicycle traffic like a bike lane.  In our case, the City argued that the grate was not located in the bike lane.  Here is a photograph of the grate as it was around the time of the crash:

The City argued that the bike lane goes from the white pained line to the cement gutter in which the grate was located.  To us, that seemed awfully convenient for the City.  Just under what authority was the City claiming that the bike lane ended at the cement "gutter" rather that the curb?  And just how was a cyclist supposed to know that the bike lane ended where the City claimed?  During the course of the litigation I took the deposition of CDOT Deputy Commissioner, Luann Hamilton.  During her deposition she she stated that on a road with no curbside parallel parking, the bike lane runs only to the gutter at the edge of the roadway. However, when shown a photograph of another bike lane along a curb in the City of Chicago -- the bike lane along Dearborn Street -- she admitted that the gutter area there is part of the bike lane.  Here is the photo from the Dearborn bike lane I showed to her:

She was at a loss to explain this inconsistency.  Furthermore, in an internal memo originated by Ms. Hamilton in 2006, the City had specifically identified the grate at issue as being within a "bikeway," and posing a hazard to bicyclists "because the slots of the grates are aligned parallel to the curb so that the wheel of a bicycle can easily get caught in the slots causing the bicyclist to crash."  We argued that the City itself had identified the grate as being within the bike lane.  We also had case law on our side.  In turned out that the City's argument was not novel.  The very same position was taken by the City of East Peoria, Illinois more than two decades earlier in Cole v. City of East Peoria, 201 Ill.App.3d 756, 559 N.E.2d 769 (3rd Dist. 1990).  In that matter a child was injured when she was riding her bicycle on the edge of a road, and the tire of her bicycle fell through a storm sewer grate with openings parallel to the edge of the road, just as in our case.  The grate at issue then was located "on the side of the road" between the curb and white stripes painted four feet from the curb. Cole, 201 Ill.App.3d at 759.  The girl's family alleged that the City had a duty to maintain the area free of such hazards and was negligent for failing to do so.  Intially, the trial court granted the defendant municipality's dismissal motion.  However, the appellate court reversed that ruling stating:  

The necessary factual question of liability is raised here by evidence that (1) the City       ordered a white line painted a distance from the curb (four feet), indicating an intention   the area be used by others than those driving automobiles; (2) the City became aware the area was being used by many bicyclists; (3) the City became aware that at least one         person had been injured locally when a bicycle tire was caught between similar grates;     and (4) the City had become aware that the type of grates used did not meet then existing standards and replaced parallel grates when they were damaged.  Thus, evidence was       produced that the City both intended and permitted cyclists to use the four-foot strip; it    was foreseeable that the use would continue; the condition was unsafe. . .

Cole, 201 Ill.App.3d at 761-2 (emphasis added).

The similarities between the Cole case and ours could not be overlooked.  As in that case, the City of Chicago placed a single white line the the left of the curb indicating that the area was to be avoided by motor vehicles.  The City was also aware of the dangers posed to cyclists by the grate as evidenced by the findings in the 2006 memo.  For these additional reasons we urged the Court to deny the City's request for dismissal.

The City's final argument, that the grate was an "open and obvious" hazard, seemed especially cynical.  The obvious implication of the City's position was that the crash was the bicyclist's own fault.  He wasn't paying attention.  We addressed this part of the City's motion in two ways:  Firstly, the danger posed by the grate was not open and obvious.  Sure, if you looked you could see a grate. But there are thousands of grates throughout Chicago.  Most of them are not particularly dangerous for cyclists.  However, that the grate at 4738 West Lawrence had very large slots that ran parallel to the direction of bike traffic would not have been obvious to a cyclist.  Secondly, under Illinois law, even if a danger is open and obvious if a person is likely to be distracted and therefore not notice the hazard then the defendant cannot escape responsibility.  In this case, the bicyclist was indeed distracted by a car which had entered the bike lane.  For that reason he was forced to alter his course and his bicycle wheel ended up caught in the grate.

The judge ultimately agreed with our arguments and did not allow the City to avoid its responsibility to compensate our client.  We were able to reach resolution of the case, providing our client with the means to pay his outstanding medical bills and compensating him for the considerable pain and suffering he experienced.  Sadly, however, the dangerous grate remains in precisely the same condition now as it was in 2006 and 2011.  I went out to take a look at it on March 28, 2015 and snapped the following photographs:

Approaching the grate cycling west on Lawrence.

This photo demonstrates how easily a bicycle wheel
can become wedged in the grate.

The grate swallows my front wheel.

We proposed making correction of the grate a part of settlement of the case.  At first the City's attorneys were amenable to this, but later declined to make the necessary fix.

Divided Illinois Appellate Court Expands Infamous "Boub" Decision

A divided Illinois appellate court has ruled that Illinois bicyclists are not intended users of alleys.  The important decision, handed down on September 27th, expands the Illinois Supreme Court's 1998 ruling in Boub v. Township of Wayne, 183 Ill.2d 520, 702 N.E.2d 535 (Ill. 1998) in which the Court held that bicyclists are permitted but not intended users of Illinois roadways, unless the road at issue is specifically designated for bike traffic, e.g. with signs, markings, etc. The notorious decision has meant that local governments cannot be held liable for cyclists' injuries on unsafe roads absent bike route markings

The recent decision in Berz v. The City of Evanston, 2013 IL App (1st) 123763, means that streets and roads are not the only areas where municipalities are free of responsibility for upkeep of areas where cyclists typically ride.  The case arose from an incident occurring in September, 2010 in which a bicyclist was injured when he struck a pothole in an Evanston alley running behind 1549 to 1555 Sherman Avenue, between Grove Street and Davis Street.  The pothole was 40 inches wide by 18 inches long by four to five inches deep.  The appellate court upheld the circuit court's dismissal of the cyclist's lawsuit against the City for failing to properly maintain the area because the alley was not specifically designated for bike traffic.  The Court noted that while bicyclists are permitted users of Evanston alleyways, the alleys are not intended for such users.  

Like the Boub decision itself, however, the ruling in Berz was not unanimous.  Presiding Justice Gordon dissented from the appellate court's holding, finding that alleys are intended for use by cyclists.  He stated,

In the Chicago area, it is common for garages to open onto alleys. It is also common, in the Chicago area as elsewhere, for people to store their bicycles, as well as their vehicles, in their garages. The obvious intended purpose of an alley that has garages opening onto it is to provide access to the things that people commonly store in those garages, such as bicycles.

Despite the fact that the paving of roads was initiated long ago thanks to bicyclists, Illinois remains an outlier when it comes to protecting cyclists from roads that are unsafe.  I am aware of no other state that has declared that paved roads -- and now alleys -- are not intended for use by bicyclists.  It is long past time for the Illinois legislature to step in and correct this judicial error.

Illinois Court Rules That Bicyclists & Motorists May Sue Municipalities For Injuries Caused By Negligent Road Repairs

A decision handed down recently by the Illinois Appellate Court may help bicyclists bring suits against municipalities for injuries suffered due to poorly maintained roads.  On August 29th, the Third District Court of Appeals issued its decision in Robinson v. Washington Township.  The decision allowed a case to go forward alleging that Washington Township may be sued for injuries sustained because of its failure to properly fill potholes.

The case arose from a 2008 incident in which a motor vehicle being driven south on Stony Island Road in Washington Township hit a pothole causing the driver to lose control and flip over.  A child riding in the vehicle was injured, giving rise to the litigation.  The lawsuit alleged that the defendant Township started repair of the road but did a lousy job leaving the street with "potholes, pits and uneven surfaces."  It was this hazardous condition that caused the crash which injured the boy.  Soon after the lawsuit was filed the Township moved for dismissal citing Section 2-201 of the Illinois Tort Immunity Act which protects governmental entities from liability arising from an act of "discretion" or the "determination of policy."  The trial court granted the motion, dismissing the lawsuit on this ground.  

Generally, a discretionary act involves "the exercise of personal judgment in deciding whether to perform a certain act or in what manner the act should be conducted." Robinson.  The appellate court disagreed with the lower court's finding, allowing the case to continue.  The Court found that once the Township exercised its discretion and decided to go ahead and fix the street, the act of conducting the repairs was "ministerial."  As such the Township had to act with reasonable care in fixing the street or risk liability if its negligent repair work caused injury.  The Court stated that

A public entity or municipal corporation exercises discretion when it selects and adopts a plan in the making of public improvements.  However, once the public entity is carrying out the plan, it acts ministerially and is bound to see that the work is done in a reasonably safe and skillful manner.  A municipality's act of repair is generally considered a ministerial act for which it may be liable if negligently performed. (emphasis added).

In Robinson, the lawsuit alleged that after the Township did the repair work it failed to remove debris, neglected to cover potholes and "left an uneven pavement surface."  This negligence, the suit alleged, caused the crash and the minor plaintiff's injuries.  The Court held that these allegations, if proved, were actionable.

Though the Robinson decision arose from a single motor vehicle crash, the implications for Illinois bicyclists from the Court's ruling may be quite significant.  Uneven pavement, potholes and roadway debris pose a degree of danger to bicyclists that is greater than for motorists.  It most instances, a four wheeled motor vehicle will simply thump over uneven pavement, its heavy suspension safely absorbing the hazard. Faced with the same road defect, a thin wheeled bicycle may be sent careening, tossing the rider into danger.  With the Court's holding in Robinson a bicyclist may bring a lawsuit against a municipality where its negligent repair work caused a roadway hazard that resulted in injury.

But...

There are two important limiting factors that bicyclists and their attorneys should keep in mind:  First, attaching liability to a local governmental entity for its negligent road repair work will only be possible where the work and subsequence crash occurred on a part of the roadway specifically designated for bicycle use.  The Illinois Supreme Court's infamous holding in Boub v. Township of Wayne creates a hurdle for bicyclists that need not be overcome by motorists when attempting to sue a municipality.  The Boub Court held that bicyclists are permitted but not intended users of Illinois roads.  Unless the road defect is in a bike lane, or other bike specific area, the injured rider may not bring his or her suit.  (Click here to read more about Boub.)  Secondly, the appellate court's ruling in Robinson merely allowed the injured child's suit to proceed to the discovery, or fact finding stage.  The Court's decision did not equate to victory and compensation for the plaintiff.  Based on the evidence discovered as litigation moves forward, the injured boy's family may still face dismissal of his case.  That is indeed what happened in a similar case, Wrobel v. City of Chicago.  In that matter, the plaintiff was injured when another driver's vehicle careened out of control after striking a pothole that had been shoddily repaired by city workers.  The City also brought a motion to dismiss the case under Section 2-201 of the Tort Immunity Act.  However, its motion was brought at the end of the discovery process, after evidence had been collected by both sides.  That evidence showed that city workers actually applied a great deal of complex decision making in how it went about repairing the pothole in question.  In light of that evidence, the appellate court held that the alleged act of negligence arose from the exercise of discretion and was not merely ministerial.  Therefore, the City was immune from liability.

Illinois Municipalities' Overreaction to Liability Concerns Slows Progress On Bicycle Safe Roadways

America's roads were paved for the benefit and at the behest of bicyclists. "The Good Roads Movement was founded in May 1880, when bicycle enthusiasts, riding clubs and manufacturers met . . . to support the burgeoning use of bicycles." The movement is credited with pushing for paved roads before the reign of the automobile. In 1929, one of the founders of the movement, Horatio Earle, stated in his autobiography, "I often hear now-a-days, the automobile instigated good roads; that the automobile is the parent of good roads. Well, the truth is, the bicycle is the father of the good roads movement in this country. . . All these battles were won and the bicyclist was accorded equal rights with other users of highways and streets." Notwithstanding this history, twelve years ago the Illinois Supreme Court declared that streets and roads in our state are for motorized traffic, not bicycles. In its now infamous decision, Boub v. Township of Wayne, 183 Ill.2d 520, 702 N.E.2d 535 (Ill. 1998), the Court held that bicyclists are permitted but not intended users of Illinois roadways, unless the road at issue is specifically designated for bike traffic, e.g. with signs, markings, etc. Unless a roadway is so designated, a local municipality is completely immune from liability for a bicyclist's injuries caused by roadway hazards. The Boub decision is an anomaly. Nowhere else in the United States has a state high court declared that bicyclists are not the intended users of the very paved streets for which their two-wheeling forebearers advocated. The fallout from the Court's decision has gone beyond merely barring individual bicyclists from pursuing justice. It has slowed progressive attempts to bring bicycle safe roads and streets to communities in Illinois. This broadly felt negative impact was predicted by one of the Court's own members. Justice Heiple, in his dissent from the majority holding in Boub, forcefully offered a vision into the future shaped by the misguided ruling of his brethren:

The principal effect of the majority decision will be to discourage municipalities from taking any measures to make roads safer and more hospitable for bicyclists. Because the majority precludes liability whenever the municipality in question does not intend for bicyclists to use its roads, a loss-averse municipality, in order to minimize its exposure to liability, might remove from its roads any evidence that bicyclists are intended users, such as bike lanes or special signs.

Boub, 183 Ill.2d at 539-540 (J. Heiple dissenting).

Sadly, Justice Heiple was right.

Some suburban municipalities in the Chicagoland area are resistant to creating bicycle lanes in their districts out of fear that doing so could expose them to liability under Boub, according to John O'Neal, Transportation Planner for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). John is one of the folks at CMAP responsible for developing a comprehensive regional transportation plan to include the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will. Part of the plan is to include roadway bicycle lanes. Though some municipalities in these counties have created designated bike lanes -- Chicago being the most obvious example -- John tells me there has been resistance from others and that the holding in Boub has been cited explicitly. The effect of that decision has been felt in other parts of the state as well. According to Ed Barsotti, Executive Director of the League of Illinois Bicyclists, "While we’ve seen quite a few towns (especially in urbanized areas) moving ahead in recent years, plenty of others are still stalled by the liability disincentive. In rural areas, the vast majority of county highway departments and townships are completely scared by the issue."

How great is the liability threat to a municipality anyway? The short answer is not very. I am a personal injury lawyer who represents accident victims in litigation, so I am not in the business of providing municipalities and their insurers defense strategy guidelines. However, one must face facts: It is awfully difficult for a victim to successfully pursue a claim against a local governmental entity for injuries caused by a roadway hazard even absent complete immunity protection. The obstacles are set forth in section 10/3-102 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. That law creates several substantial hurdles that must be overcome by a bicyclist injured due to a public roadway hazard. When suing a governmental entity the injured bicyclist must prove that:

1. The municipality was put on notice of the dangerous condition. The municipality had to know that a hazard existed within a reasonably adequate period of time for a fix to be implemented. However, if the municipality had a reasonably adequate inspection system in place for detecting bike lane hazards, and used due care in maintaining and operating that system, yet failed to detect the hazard, the municipality will be deemed not to have had notice.
2. The roadway condition that is alleged to have caused the injury was indeed dangerous.
3. The municipality was negligent in maintaining the bike lane.

Additionally, the bicyclist will likely have to defend against the notion that he or she was contributorily negligent in causing his or her injury.

Consider the following hypothetical: Smallville, Illinois has created a marked bike lane along the right side of its main thoroughfare. It has also implemented a program whereby a road crew inspects the entire distance of the bike lane on a monthly basis for hazards such as tree branches, garbage, holes, large cracks and the like. If a hazard is observed it is remedied within a reasonable period of time. One pleasant afternoon Sally Triathlete is riding her bicycle within a section of Smallville's bike lane. She is training for an upcoming competition so she is pushing herself, pedaling at a very high rate of speed. The day before Sally's training run Smallville's road inspection crew inspected the bike lane and saw nothing of note. The crew documented its inspection. That evening a violent storm blew through Smallville knocking a large tree branch into to the bike lane. During Sally's vigorous ride her front wheel struck the branch and she was propelled off her bicycle suffering serious injury. She subsequently hired an attorney wanting to sue the municipality for failing to properly maintain the bicycle lane. Tough case; one in which the prospect of success is low. Given the existence of a reasonable inspection system and the relatively short period of time between the creation of the hazard (the tree branch falling) and the collision between it and Sally's bike, Smallville will likely be found not to have had notice of the danger and likely will not be held liable for Sally's injury. Also, there will likely be serious questions raised about Sally's own negligence, particularly the speed at which she was traveling. I would frankly anticipate Sally having a difficult time finding an attorney willing to take her case.

If a municipality provides a service or amenity to its residents, then it must do so with care to avoid injury. However, both the Illinois legislature and Illinois' courts have consistently recognized the need to protect municipalities from litigation, lest they become financially overwhelmed by insurance premiums and the cost to defend against lawsuits. Attorney's who represent injury victims tend to only have success against local municipalities where injury is caused by the most brazen betrayal of the public trust. Municipalities in Illinois who decline to make their roadways safe for bicycle traffic for fear of liability following Boub are overreacting. Worse, their leaders are failing to protect the most vulnerable users of the roads, children and adults traveling by bicycle.