Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bicycle law in California (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was withdrawn by nominator. Which is me. The article's now in a fit state to keep. &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   09:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Bicycle law in California
AfDs for this article: Articles for deletion/California Vehicle Code - Bicycle Relevant Sections
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

My concerns over this article are illustrated by a couple of quotes from its current talk page and its first AfD nomination.

The article has not noticeably improved since the above was written three years ago, and is very unlikely to ever do so. &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   15:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The article is almost entirely the work of a single author,. &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   16:24, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I wholeheartedly agree. Not only were my admittedly non-exhaustive comments on the talk page not addressed, but additional primary sources/original research have been added since I added the comment and related tags.  Accordingly, I doubt that the article will substantially improve, and I also think it's unlikely that the vast majority of the article will be removed.  For those reasons, it seems appropriate to delete the article.   AgnosticAphid  talk 18:39, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also note that admin who closed the prior nomination forty months ago wrote, "Recommend something be done with this article swiftly. I can't enforce the requested time restriction on a renomination, but the article in its present form/location appears to have legitimate concerns that are unlikely to fade away. Fritzpoll (talk) 17:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)" AgnosticAphid  talk 18:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. First, most if not all interpretations of the vehicle code in this article are supported by secondary sources, including: Wachtel, Forester, Bluejay, Mionske, Pein, and Bernardi.  I also suggest this is a special case, and perhaps IAR needs to be invoked.  Let's at least consider whether Wikipedia is improved by the deletion of this article.  To that end, according to traffic statistics, this article routinely gets 1500-2000 hits per month.  Considering it's such a narrow topic (which also explains the scarcity of secondary sources on the topic), that's pretty impressive, and demonstrates the utility and value of the information in the article to our readers.  It should also be noted that the published vehicle code is not a typical problematic primary source.  It is written specifically for the public at large and so that anyone can understand it.  I fail to see how Wikipedia is improved by removing this article, based solely on rules designed to remove material that creates problems which are not created by this article.  --Born2cycle (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Wikipedia is not furthered by the inclusion of articles of dubious accuracy.  And let's not beat around the bush, that's exactly what this article is and that's why we have rules prohibiting original research and reliance on primary sources.  I don't think that the California Vehicle Code was "written specifically for the public at large so that anyone can understand it."  You can read about the history of the California Codes in the corresponding article, which makes no mention of public usability.  In fact, that article states that relying solely on them might not be advisable:  "The Codes form an important part of California law. However, they must be read in combination with the federal and state constitutions, federal and state case law, and the California Code of Regulations, in order to understand how they are actually interpreted and enforced in court."  The California Codes are not a special sort of primary source that warrant ignoring all rules about the limits on the scope of editors' original analysis.  For example, as I mentioned in my comment on the talk page of the article, to which you declined to respond or address here, "So too, even the statement that bicyclists, like everyone else, have to move over if there's 5 people behind them needs a source. What if, for instance, there was some other provision of the CVC that specifically provided that bicyclists were exempt from CVC 21656 [the law that says to move over]? Primary sourcing wouldn't reveal that; hopefully a reliable secondary source would."  I'd also like to point out that many of the statements the article really are legal advice, which is to be charitable a bit in tension with WP:IANAL.  (In other words, the usefulness of legal pointers about California biking law seems questionable given that Wikipedia expressly tells all of its readers that it doesn't give legal advice or offer legal opinions  and won't represent that any legal articles are accurate.)
 * I also do not think that the fact that up to 70 people visit this page daily really means that it's an appropriate wikipedia article. There are lots of other affiliated projects that I'm sure would love to have a detailed exposition of biking law in California, even if it's not based exclusively on reliable secondary sources like Wikipedia articles are supposed to be.  See also WP:USEFUL (just because it's useful doesn't mean it belongs on Wikipedia), WP:NOHARM ("Just because having an article does not directly hurt anyone does not mean it should be kept"), and WP:POPULARPAGE ("just because an article is popular does not mean it is within the project scope.").
 * Finally, while it is true that a few of the subsections of the article have secondary sources (the reliability of which I have not attempted to determine and of which other editors seem dubious), overall the vast majority of the article does not. And the article is not moving in the correct direction.  The article hasn't been substantively revised in quite some time, and the most recent references that were added were in connection with synthesis of primary sources.  Nor does it appear that there is a commitment from the usual editors of this article to move it in the right direction or even to acknowledge that the problems discussed here are valid.
 * Because this article has major reference problems, because there is a minimal amount of acceptable material, and because there seems to be no indication that either of these things is about to change despite the passing of a substantial amount of time since they were first mentioned, I think the article should be removed.  AgnosticAphid  talk 20:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Addressing the only specific example provided... you speculate that it's possible some other provision of the vehicle code might exempt bicyclists from having to comply with 21656. Do you really think it works like that?  That they put in a section a something that says drivers must do X, and then in a section b say that section a does not apply to certain types of drivers? Without at least referencing that section b in section a?  If so, that would require everyone to have knowledge of all sections of the vehicle code to understand any section of it, which would make it practically useless. And yes, usefulness alone, or popularity alone, or no harm alone, are not reasons in and of themselves good enough reasons to keep an article.  But taken all together I suggest they make a compelling case for keeping.   --Born2cycle (talk) 22:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There are lots of specific examples of missing sources in my comment on the talk page. But anyway, you absolutely do need to have an exhaustive knowledge of the vehicle code to be able to definitively interpret any section of it.  There are lots of exemptions in the Vehicle Code (and all the other California Codes) that are not mentioned in the sections to which the exemptions apply.  If you're really interested, you could reference the first example I could immediately find, which is that  contains an exemption to  that is not mentioned in the latter statute.  I'm sure there are other examples, but this one should suffice to rebut your categorical statement.  And even leaving that particular possibility to one side, the sections are not always interpreted by courts to mean what their text suggests, which is why the California Codes article notes that you also need to be familiar with case law and applicable regulations to confidently interpret them.   AgnosticAphid  talk 22:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, that's true in many cases, including 460/461. Good point.  But is there anything in the article which you can identify as being inaccurate because it is contradicted by actual/known exemptions rather than ones you speculate about?  When every relevant source agrees on an interpretation, and no relevant source disagrees, isn't it acceptable to include that interpretation?  There is no source that questions that 21656 interpretation, and no mention of any exemption for bicyclists mentioned in any source anywhere, so far as I know.  Do you know otherwise?  --Born2cycle (talk) 22:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would submit that you're missing the point. While I am a California attorney (which isn't relevant), I'm not an expert on biking law or the vehicle code.  So no, I don't know otherwise.  I doubt anybody else does, either.  But the whole point of using secondary sources is that if we pick reliable ones we won't have to sit around speculating about whether our interpretations are correct!  The fact that neither you nor I nor the other ten editors who read this know for a fact that you're wrong doesn't mean it's okay to include an unreferenced statement until someone better informed comes along.  In any event, there are lots of sections of this article that simply don't have any secondary sources at all, including the discussion of CVC 21656.  So it's not really fair to suggest that the absence of contrary sources supports your position.   AgnosticAphid  talk 22:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to note the words of Jimbo, with which I think you may be familiar: I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar.   AgnosticAphid  talk 23:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, then, I suggest you find someone who is an expert on bicycle law and ask them if there is anything inaccurate in this article. Let us know.  Until then, I get your point, I disagree, and I see nothing productive that can come from further discussion, since by your own admission you're not an expert on the topic of this article. Jimbo's comment, by the way, sounds like something that was said in the context of BLPs.  Also, I can't help but wonder if as a California lawyer your exuberance in getting this article deleted is not at least partially motivated by wanting to reduce the amount of helpful information there is available here to potential lawyer clients.  I mean, the more we can learn without a lawyer, the better we can defend ourselves.  I know people who have relied on information and references in this article to win in court, without a lawyer.  Not questioning your good faith.  Just wondering if there might be a subconscious factor at play here.  --Born2cycle (talk) 00:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how claiming that I am "exuberan[t]" about deleting this article -- which isn't accurate; I wasn't the nominator, and my talk page comment was months ago -- because I want to "reduce the amount of helpful information there is available here to potential lawyer clients" is anything other than a personal attack. You're suggesting that I have a personal interest in deleting this article because I want Californians to be uninformed about bicycle law so that they will come to me rather than wikipedia.  That's really not appropriate (or accurate, given my wholly unrelated field of practice, but whatever).  The statement from Jimbo I referenced is not about BLP, it's about verifiability "more generally."  In fact, you referenced the BLP part of it in your RFC about "lane splitting," a decidedly non-BLP issue, and it seems like everyone agreed with you.
 * The important point here is that there are many, many, sourcing problems with this article, and nobody seems committed to recognizing, much less fixing, them.   AgnosticAphid  talk 00:27, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I apologize. I recognize the sourcing is not ideal, but I've seen many articles with sources that were much worse, so I didn't think it was a priority to fix them.  Not to mention that it's difficult.   By the way, CVC 21202, which is specific to bicyclists, explicitly states, in  (a) (3), that bicyclists are subject to the provisions of 21656. How the encyclopedia, much less the world, is better off by deleting this information still escapes me.   --Born2cycle (talk) 00:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete, essentially a how-to and OR legal guide; I see several blogs and other self-published materials in the secondary sources, hardly enough to back up some of the broad legal claims made in the text. The amount of traffic on the page is hardly surprising given the topic, but that means little. Hairhorn (talk) 20:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Would you mind providing a few examples of the "broad legal claims made in the text" that you think are not sufficiently backed up? Thanks!  --Born2cycle (talk) 20:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * "Racing and drafting bicycles is legal", for starters.... although I'm not sure a debate on particular examples is the way to save the page. Hairhorn (talk) 01:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That interpretation of the law is properly referenced to two sources .  Did you read that?  --Born2cycle (talk) 02:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There was only a single working reference when I made that comment; a book by an engineer that is given as the reference for the the claim "it is perfectly legal for bicyclists to draft and race on open public roads in California". What things are "perfectly legal" is a matter decided by courts. Hairhorn (talk) 02:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * So until a matter is decided by the courts, we have no idea if it's legal or not? What utter nonsense.  Much of the vehicle code has never been challenged in court, and yet we (including driver's manual writers) have to understand it and decide for ourselves what is "perfectly legal".  Anyway, I fixed the other link.  If you disagree with the sources, take it up with them, but that's no argument to remove sourced and verifiable material, much less an entire article. Per WP:PRIMARY: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." The indisputable fact is that the sections regulating racing and drafting refer specifically to motor vehicles, and bicycles are not motor vehicles.  The cited sources put 2 and 2 together for us, but these "descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge."  Are you questioning whether racing or drafting of bicyclists is legal in CA after reading these primary and secondary sources, or without reading them?    --Born2cycle (talk) 03:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, Wiki isn't really the place for a legal guide, this is exactly the issue raised in the first AFD. Hairhorn (talk) 03:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not a legal guide, nor a how-to manual; it's an encyclopedic article about a legitimate legal topic about parts of a primary legal source based on secondary sources books and articles as well as the primary source. Similar articles about less obscure topics include: Preamble to the United States Constitution, Article One of the United States Constitution, etc., etc. Please note especially that second one, which quotes specific sections of Article One, and then interprets them, with references, just like this article does.    --Born2cycle (talk) 03:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Inspired by the style/format used in Article One of the United States Constitution, I changed all calls to the Quotation template in this article to be calls to the quote template instead.  I realize it's only a style issue, but maybe those Quotation colored boxes were too much, and causing people to misinterpret the type of article this was.  What do you you think of it now?  Bicycle law in California.  --Born2cycle (talk) 03:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep This nomination should be a wake-up call to Wikipedians that shows the potential for abuse of the PRIMARY rule, but the Guantanamo prisoner articles were not. I'll just go on crying "Wolf!" while others prefer to think of the wolf as just misunderstood. Or useful. Anarchangel (talk) 01:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The what were what? Are you here to debate the questionable utility of this article, or to make a point about something completely irrelevant? &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   11:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand. I don't see why prohibiting people from making off-the-cuff legal analysis with no sources (primary sources may as well not be a source for verifiability purposes) is a bad decision.   AgnosticAphid  talk 16:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree this AfD is misuse of PRIMARY. WP:PRIMARY states: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge."  If you think there are any uses of primary sources, including "legal analysis", in this article that do not meet this requirement, please point them out so that they may be fixed.  --Born2cycle (talk) 16:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is a non-exhaustive list of claims made in the first half of the article that are either unsourced or rely on primary sources. Compiling this was a bit exhausting and seems somewhat futile so I couldn't get to the second half, but maybe someone else can.  The problems are pretty clear, at any rate, so it shouldn't be difficult for enterprising editors to figure out.
 * "Bicycle-relevant divisions" has no source for the statement that the referenced parts of the vehicle code are the only ones dealing with bicycling.
 * The discussion of CVC 21650 is based on primary sources. The "because of CVC 21200 ..." claim is problematic.  You're synthesizing these two primary sources to reach a conclusion that isn't stated in either of them.  See WP:SYN.
 * The CVC 21703/23109 discussion is likewise a synthesis. You're listing all the various implications of Wachtel's claim about "motor vehicle" provisions not applying to cyclists, but I don't see where Wachtel anywhere makes any of these statements himself.
 * The CVC 530 discussion is based exclusively on primary sources. It also synthesizes a number of primary sources to make claims not stated in any of them.  Who says "shoulders are not 'improved, designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel'; vehicular travel on shoulders is prohibited"?  This claim has no source.  There are freeway shoulders by my house in Oakland where cars are permitted to drive during rush hour.  There is a portion of Interstate 580 where the bike path is in fact on the shoulder of the freeway.  Who says 21202's "roadway" excludes the "shoulder"?  The point is not to discuss the merits of your analysis, the point is that relying on primary sources is problematic because what may seem to be obvious conclusions are usually not quite so obvious as they appear, which is why we verify our claims by relying on reliable secondary sources.  This is especially the case when using statues as secondary sources, because like I pointed out earlier they have exceptions and wonky definitions that you wouldn't always know about from relying on the primary source of the lone statute itself.
 * For CVC 21202(a), there are many problems. While there is the one secondary source, it really doesn't support many of the statements made in the article.  First of all, who says that it is "rare" for an exception not to apply?  Second, who says that the AASHTO's 14-foot recommendation is equivalent to the definition of "substandard width lane" set forth in section 21202, subdivision (a)(3)?  You conflate the two with no supporting source.  Why are Texas' rules about lane width at all relevant?  Nor is there any source for your discussion of right turns and driveways in residential areas.  It's just more of you personally think this law would require in residential areas.  Why are Born2Cycle's opinions about the requirements of the California Vehicle Code the appropriate basis for an encyclopedia article?  There's simply no verifiable evidence that the listed exceptions are interpreted in the manner in which you assert.
 * In sum, I'd say that this article is drowning in sourcing problems. Your off-the-cuff analysis of a primary source does not belong in Wikipedia.  Yet the only response I've seen here is a claim that for some reason the California Vehicle Code is some kind of "super source" that's so easy to interpret and so obvious in its implications that it somehow warrants ignoring all of our rules about sourcing.  But I think that if there is one place that we should definitely enforce our rules about sourcing, it's when we're dealing with legal texts.  After all, we have hundreds -- thousands -- of judges who spend a significant part of their jobs just sitting around thinking about how to interpret statutes just like these.  AgnosticAphid  talk 19:34, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd like to pre-emptively apologize for repeatedly saying "you" rather than "the article."  AgnosticAphid  talk 20:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I've addressed most of these concerns.   I think part of the problem is that citations in the article have been removed instead of being marked as dead when the original location referenced storing the Wachtel paper from the 1995 UCD Environment Law Society symposium disappeared.  Anyway, I'm restoring and fixing it as much as I can.  Of your list, the only area I have left is 21202.  But I assure you these are not my personal opinions.  They are supported by multiple secondary sources.  It's a matter of finding them.  --Born2cycle (talk) 22:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know. You didn't really fix all of the things I mentioned.  The article still has the first two problems I noted.  I'll admit, the third thing looks alright at first glance, I think.  The CVC 530 thing is still a synthesis.  I reviewed Mr Wechtel's article and I don't think he links his statement about riding on the shoulder to CVC 530 the way the article does.  It's more of a synthesis of his statements and the text of the code.  You admitted 21202 is a problem.  More importantly, what about the rest of the article?  It's much worse than the things I explicitly mentioned above.
 * It's good that we're sort of making incremental progress with certain sentences here and there, but really the entire topic is inherently problematic. It really just is a legal guide and how-to manual.  The article is not some kind of exposition of the history of biking laws in California, or the social consequences of biking laws, or really anything else other than a discussion of the text of the actual biking laws themselves.  You admitted as much above, when you argued to keep it because it's useful, popular, and not harmful (all "arguments to avoid in deletion discussions" as I pointed out) and revealingly stated, "I know people who have relied on information and references in this article to win in court, without a lawyer." Wikipedia is not a how-to guide or a legal or any other kind of guide.
 * Perhaps in some kind of exceptional instance, we could have an article that breaks all the rules -- a how-to guide based on primary sources. This is not that kind of exceptional instance.  This is a complex topic that at best treads perilously close to constituting legal advice.  It's full of primary sources about this questionable topic.  It seemed like when this was first discussed forty some months ago that the article was supposedly moving in another direction ("swiftly") to stay.  It really hasn't moved much of anywhere at all.  After all this time, I just can't see the commitment to the wholesale revisions that would be necessary to keep this article.  I would say that at best there have been gracious cosmetic revisions.   AgnosticAphid  talk 06:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Finally, I'd like to point out that nobody will even admit that the article is misusing primary sources. How is this AfD a misuse of WP:PRIMARY? This non-recognition seems like a poor starting point for a kept article. But maybe I'm really just off my rocker and don't understand what a primary source is. AgnosticAphid  talk 06:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course the CVC is a primary source for what the CVC says. It's a misuse of PRIMARY to base an argument for deletion on the grounds that this article uses that primary source.  Using it is not a problem, as long as we also have secondary sources which refer to it, like the Wachtel, Forester, and Mionske sources do.  --Born2cycle (talk) 16:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep, the article needs significant cleanup, but it's most certainly an educational and encyclopedic topic of value to readers and editors alike. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 05:57, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Well folks, I've completely (and I mean completely) overhauled the article. The big problem was that it wasn't structured like an encyclopedia article at all. After fixing that, dumping all the glaring synthesis and great big chunks of redundant and/or duplicated text, it actually looks worth keeping. I no longer have any objection to it existing, providing that no more "X and Y, therefore Z"-type stuff is added to it. &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   18:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's really quite an impressive and laudable improvement. The article's claims are much more appropriate to the sources and the article is more encyclopedic.  I'm not totally convinced of the appropriateness of the topic itself -- but I don't really even know what kind of objection that is exactly (notabililty? seems wrong somehow) and I can't say that the article turns me off the way it used to. Given your proviso, and in light of my general inexperience with deletion discussions, I can't say I'm still willing to support deletion.   AgnosticAphid  talk 21:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.