MassBike has a long history of supporting police training to improve bicyclist safety. In fact, MassBike literally wrote the book on police training when it comes to bicycles, much of which is available on our website. Now the time has come to update our police training to reflect recent changes in the law and to better suit the current needs of law enforcement and bicyclists across our state.

The 2009 Bicyclist Safety Act included a police training requirement, and we are making consistent statewide implementation of this training one of our priority campaigns for 2011. We will be creating educational materials about bicycle-related laws, behavior by bicyclists and motorists, and issues that bicyclists face that officers should be aware of. We'll also work with state and local law enforcement to develop effective ways of delivering this training to new recruits and in-service officers.

Our plans got a jumpstart recently when the City of Boston asked us to assist the Boston Police Department's efforts to educate its officers about the laws related to bicycling. We put together a brand-new law enforcement guide, which includes information about bicycling laws and bicyclists, laws about motorist interactions with bicyclists, explanations of common bike-related pavement markings and signage, and more. We're working in collaboration with the BPD to make this work-in-progress the most useful training and reference tool possible. We'll post the final product in our "publications" section.

We appreciate that the City reached out to MassBike for our expertise in bike law and education. It's a great way to begin our new police training campaign!