Biker’s Update: Boub Reconsidered
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
That day, by a vote of four to three, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against Jon Boub (a case I wrote about for the Reader in 1998, on June 19 and November 20). In 1992 Boub, a former triathlete, rode his bicycle onto a wooden bridge in western Du Page County after a work crew had removed the asphalt filler, leaving inch-wide gaps between the bridge’s planks but not posting any signs warning of the hazard. Boub’s wheel jammed in one of the gaps, and he was thrown off his bike and severely injured.
Until then, bicyclists had been able to recover damages from negligent local governments, so Boub sued, asking that his medical bills be covered. Wayne Township fought him all the way to the state supreme court, arguing that under the Illinois Tort Immunity Act bicyclists were only permitted users of ordinary roads, not intended users, and therefore local governments had no responsibility to consider them when maintaining roads. The court bought that argument, stating, “Highways, streets, roads and bridges in Illinois are primarily designed and intended for use by vehicles, and not by bicycles.”
This year the senate’s Bicycle Safety Restoration Act (SB1014), sponsored by Elgin Republican Steve Rauschenberger, has been rewritten to take the municipalities’ concerns into account. It grants bicyclists “intended and permitted” status on roads, though governments retain immunity in the case of an injury caused by conditions “hazardous only to a person riding a bicycle.” It also reduces the level of liability protection for bicyclists on signed routes, which removes the disincentive to create such routes.
