Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And good morning again. Back on Friday, January 16 in house transportation. There is a section here on cycling safety education outreach, signage deployment. We had some pieces that maybe we could put some background on that from last year's e bill. And there's the whole four foot rule and a lot of other things that we'll probably hear a bit more about. And what we're looking for is a request of members of the committee, some updates on sort of where we're at in bike safety education, the changes in the law, and what we're doing about education in that area. So we appreciate that you're in today. So Amanda, if you're ready, that's the background of why this particular section is a committee request. So thank you very much for coming in.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: Thank you, everyone, chair, for inviting us to come and speak and give an update to the committee on the safety and outreach activities that are going on. I am Amanda Holland with the Agency of Transportation and with the Safe Systems section. You heard Jesse Devlin speak earlier this week. And the active transportation unit is one of two staff in that group. I'm gonna talk today about vulnerable road user safety education in general. And then I will address two slides on the forefoot passing rule. I gotta do this with my There we go. So, build off of what you've probably seen from other agency staff, it's a safe systems approach. As it was presented by my colleagues, offers redundancies in or requires redundancies in the approach. Our safe system safety culture through education is our agency strategy, supported both in the strategic highway safety plan and the bicycle and pedestrian strategic plan. And just put this in there just as a refresher for when we're talking about the vulnerable road user. It is defined as all of these points in statute. In terms of our programming and active transportation, we're focusing on the pedestrian operation wheelchair and mobility device, bicycle, and other non motorized and motor assisted bicycle or electric bicycle. So, we institute laws to establish clear rights and responsibilities for each roadway user. These are just some examples of some of those rules that we have for each of our different types of users, for motor vehicles, bicyclists, pedestrians. And to have a safe roadway system, we need to know how to use the system and have a shared responsibility for following it. So that's how we function out there. And under a safe systems approach, again, responsibility is shared by many. And so for this to be successful, both the government and service providers and advocates play a role to ensure safe roads and we partner to achieve our goals. And by having this partnership, just And this network, these are all people that we work with to do safety education. It really allows us to have an extensive outreach for how we're reaching constituents. We're the state agency, we can put out specific information that kind of goes broadly, but these other constituents can reach older adults conducting AARP. We have students for going after schools, driving, people that are just doing cycling and even transit riders. So it really broadens our network of who we can reach. And how we do safety education, just overall, it does happen in a variety of ways. This is just showing an example of things that we've done in the past. So we have printed I'm looking at my notes, stay on task. We utilize many different approaches. So we have media that summarize roads of the laws and

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: road rules, which which is

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: what you'll see to the far left with some of those print materials. Those have not updated in recent years, but that's one thing we are looking at, seeing how they might need to be refreshed. Both the agency of transportation and partners have done some videos to talk about how to videos, how do you travel, how do you interact with other users. There's different events that are done like bike rodeos, school presentations, which are done both by advocate groups and by law enforcement and the schools themselves through the Vermont Principals Association. And social media campaigns to remind folks of safe practices to follow. And so I'll just share some examples and give an overview of some of those specific efforts by partners recently. The first one I'll start with is more of a broad all road users safety education. And all of these efforts that I'll highlight are efforts that were funded through the State Highway Safety Office and the federal funding. And so this one is an effort from the State Highway Safety Office within the agency for Share the Road. We've already had an established drive well campaign that's a multi year campaign. And this past year, they developed this new material and campaign for Share the Road. And this campaign is focused itself at drivers. That's the audience that they're trying to reach, but it is making them aware of all of the types of users you might interact with on the road. And the reminder of in one of the slogans or taglines, if you will, in all of them is, Make sure you slow down and move over and share the road. That's an example of one type of outreach, and was shared, I believe, by Alison that this material is also available as a toolkit on our agency's website for other partners to use. This slide shows an example of our partnership with the Vermont Department of Health and their injury prevention group. We've partnered with them to create an additional campaign to target the general public on things such as be bright at night and visibility. A lot of their material does focus on the pedestrian groups, so reminders for how pedestrians can travel more safely. And they do events as well. One of those events is partnering with the Medical Reserve Corps and having an event and handing out reflectors to participants. Another one of our partners who you've just heard about from local notion is supported through the State Highway Safety Office and they've had various types of programming that they got for this year. As they talked about, the two complimentary programs that they're offering to school aged children is to target WalkSmart and BikeSmart to give them those skills they need to be confident and safe while they're traveling around the world. And just to highlight, so the State Highway Safety Office partnerships, they do partner with a lot of different, or we have a lot of different segments to those grants. So, some that are material that's specific to vulnerable road users, there's some that fall under different buckets. And this is highlighting some of those other buckets of partners that get funding, but they do have components of bike ped, bicycle and pedestrian safety education. So just to highlight a couple, the Rutland School District receives funding for driver simulators for use by students to learn about distracted driving in high school. The Randolph Police Department educates motorists on the rules of the road and consequences of violating traffic laws. They also do bike rodeos and use operation of safety gear. So how do you use a helmet? The Vermont Principals Association has received funding to also educate young drivers. And then the town of Milton and their police department have received funding in multiple years doing bike rodeos and raising awareness of school zones. So that's the lower picture there. So, these are efforts that are overall highlighting those walking and biking travel. And I just want to highlight the things I didn't talk about, but that are related, is all the safety education and outreach that's done related to distracted driving, speeding and impaired driving. And those efforts also have a corresponding impact on bicycle and pedestrian safety on the road. One other piece I will highlight in terms of safety education is Safe First to School programming. This program, the goal is to make walking, biking, rolling to school safer and more appealing, but it also has an aim to instill that knowledge in students and the youth of traffic safety laws and skills to encourage being safe on the road and also taking a different type of mode to travel. Let me make sure one update to share from last spring, the statewide point of contact for this program did transition back to the agency of transportation. We've been using the locomotion has been serving as a point of contact for the past, I don't know, 2017 to 2024, but tied to both funding and then an opportunity to gain efficiencies. We brought that back to the agency and allowing partners to focus more on the programming. So, I'm just highlighting that in our next steps that we are reorganizing the statewide delivery service. Again, to give a sense of what that is, it's just meaning like we have a website and there's one person that you might reach out to to say, I need help on this. Who What do I go to next? And so it might be telling that person, There's this research on our website, or you could reach out to one of our partners, the Regional Planning Commission, Local Motion, or the Health Department. So it's kind of making that first contact with someone and helping them find who can deliver the service or answer questions they're looking for. And so we are in the process of figuring out or reorganizing what that system looks like and how can we create a framework that is easy for us to be sharing information with our partners, such as even maintaining a school contact database and how do you think about it and relevant. So, we are doing that in coordination with our partners. And to talk to pivot and convey the status of efforts specific to the forefoot passing law. When that did go into effect, some of the messaging that did go out by ourselves and partners has shown. So one of the things we did was just to put it out there in social media and in a press release or what have you, just that this is now a law and conveying what the change in law was. For instance, in that middle graphic, the Vermont Health Department had already developed materials because they had already been messaging about the law with it being a recommendation. And that's been something that's been pushed since that law was changed. So that was an easy way for them to just be able to tweak that language. But again, this is something where from those original statutes that created for transportation, there has been safe passing. It was few care. And then we strengthened it for recommendation, and now we've made it more of a priority with required. Now let's talk about this next piece. The change of this law going from a recommendation to required, allows for the installation of an official traffic sign. I realized I didn't include it on this picture, but you would have seen it two slides ago on the one or this one slide ago on the on the local motions image. And this sign is available to put on local and state highways. And again, we'll go over in terms of what has happened since the law passing. The agency When this came out with the MUTCD, the agency our first priority was to go through all of our existing standards to ensure that we are in alignment with that. And as we were doing that review, we were able to see an immediate course of action for the use of this sign at and instilling it in instilling putting it into our engineering instructions for border crossings. So right now, when you cross the border on state highways, there are crossings that let you know, you know, what are the changes that block as you change jurisdiction. So there will be no drinking and driving, seat belts are required, no handheld devices. So this will be another sign that will accompany that package so that anyone coming in understands Vermont's rules. In terms of next steps, so I put on here, effective June 2025 is when that engineering instruction is effective. So that means that in terms of moving forward, when we go to do projects at those locations or need to update size due to asset condition, that those will be installed at that time. And we are in the process of the active transportation team and the traffic operations team is reviewing trying to determine how to develop consistent criteria for use of this sign elsewhere. So one of the things that's important is this is an informational sign that has a use case, but we need to determine how we're going to make that decision statewide. What kind of criteria? Is it a high use corridor? Is it related to shoulder width? What are some of the criteria so that we can consistently make those decisions? And again, we're looking at what kind of criteria would be applicable for state highways. The use by municipalities, municipalities would then be able to look at that criteria and adapt it as is applicable. I know we have had some municipalities reach out to us and they're also trying to determine how they could use this sign on their roads. And I think there are some municipalities that are also trying to determine what's the best use case.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm sorry. On that slide, is there such a thing as a map or a key that the state has that they would consider they mapped out? High bicycle use state highways? Or is it sort of a general idea? Or is it really an understood area that we think is more mapped out of what higher use bicycle areas? Just looking at that last term. I bicycle, use state highways. Is there such a map?

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: We do have a map from let me here. Wrong. Have a the 2016 I should say. We do have a use that's like the state highway. For state highways, we have a prioritization of corridors for high use to lower use. I really should have been more on the ball with that response. That is certainly what we do use for some of our project prioritization. We are looking at, in the future, we're needing to find ways that we could update that map because that was done as part

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: of a larger project, had a lot

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: of community input to identify if we were to When we're focusing our efforts for improvement, what are the high priority corridors that we should be looking at? So that would be one factor here.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Patricia McCoy? Yeah, when do

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: you anticipate science will be available? I know Mike Town is very interested in installing them on our town roads. We have some pretty well used white corridors in summer. Sure, we

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: I mean, municipalities, the update of the NETCD, which was I think December 2023, municipalities are able to put these signs up on their road.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I don't think that's well understood or appreciated that they can do that. Yeah, municipalities

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: follow the same standards as the state in terms of the MVCCD. So with it coming out, just like they couldn't put up a bicycle box or a bike lane and sign for that, as long as it's an approved sign for the roadway. So yeah, they are able to purchase and install signs on local roads. It's more the state roads where we are determining criteria.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So I could inform my town manager, for example, that they can just go in to whatever the MUTCD sign store is and get some signs, bikes, for passing signs and just put those up, is there, and they just follow, they would follow the guidance in the MUTCD about placement, things like that?

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: Correct. I I have learned that there are a lot of nuances to placing it, so it's spacing and all the other signs. But yeah, they would be following the provisions as laid out in the METCD.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Presumably they do this all the time for other purposes.

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: Right, thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: President Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So for state highways, housing do you anticipate that those high state hours, how soon do you think things could be put up?

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: I don't have a specific answer to that. I know that we it's something we're working on right now. I know that it's we are coordinating with other states to understand some of their criteria for this. This sign or this provision has been there since 2024. So, many states are in a similar process of trying to identify criteria. Some states that have developed some guidance had really just had some more general things, more like a context of the high priority, but we're trying to find some other criteria to be a little more nuanced, so we can be consistent with the approach. It depends.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: If you're having bicycles ask me, what

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: do you mean to do a

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: four foot bicycle? You've actually done it.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Think people are not necessarily aware.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's It's a good Representative McCoy and then White and then Pouech.

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: So do you know if we have installed any of these four foot bicycle passing clearance signs at any of the entrances to our state?

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: We have not yet installed. Have we had them manufactured or printed or whatever the verbiage is. Great. So at this time, and again, we made this official and effective, I should say, as of June 2025, so just this past June. And at present, our intent is to do that when there's a project. And we have not not taking action to go out and just put up one sign, just because that then a little bit more of a project of them needing to determine how you place it and movement the sign. So at present, the intent is to send in a project that's identified for those areas. I don't

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: have a schedule of when they might have. Well, because my sense is the four foot bicycle passing clearance, I'm talking about the entrance as to our state, not if you're doing work on interior in the state of Vermont. For instance, I have Route 31 that heads into Granville, New York, and we have the other signs posted there, but it's probably going to be a lot of years before you do any work on Route 31 heading to Granville. So that's what do you have a sense of just the entrance ones into this thing? Right, and so I guess I should you can get back to us and just, is there a schedule? And I can

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: be clear, there are sometimes, it doesn't necessarily need to be a highway project, it's just a project that includes signage for those. Yeah, I can get back to you. Great, thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, thank you, Amanda. So I too, like Representative Lalley, have a community that is desperate for bike signs. We're grateful to have you join us this fall to get a sense of the biking enthusiasm and the wish list there. And I'm not particularly familiar with the MUTCD, but I'm just going, looking on the website now and seeing a couple of SKU bike signs, but nothing about forefoot, which is what, I guess we're really looking for the forefoot and also the share the road. So maybe after this session, you can help me locate that. Something we are really eager to get some ordered and put up.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: Yeah, and I can follow-up with them because there have been some With the changes to provision. So I put up here, that's the sign, if you will, that would be up there because it could be three feet or four feet because some states do have three feet. So it's that would be the one sign. And I I believe I will get back to you, but I believe that with this going in, it has, in some instances, replaced or it's not as recommended to use the share the road sign. So I'll have to clarify that. Recommended to use? Well, yeah, like this has been some changes of preferring one over the other. So I need to double check that myself, but I can conclude that when I get back. And

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I would just comment that I think that we may be indicative of kind of a more statewide I'm not sure of how many municipalities know that these are available. Don't know if there's a messaging opportunity to reach out to municipalities to let them know that the signage is available and how to to access that.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: Yeah, no, it's a good one. Thank you, Nikki.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Representative Pouech. Yeah, hi, thanks, Amanda. And I think we talked about this maybe at the event we went to together. And I'll say, I'm disappointed after we passed this law, I've been hypersensitive looking for anything that comes from the state on the education and outreach. And I saw one Facebook post, and it's the one who saw a picture here and shows up somebody on a wheelchair and share the road and that's a good one. But I really had high expectations that we would see more. I spoke to some of the advocates and they really didn't see anything coming their way. It sounds like now there's been a change where the advocates aren't embedded in the program, as much as they were. So I'd like to know more about that. How much grant work, how much money is given to the advocates to do the education and outreach, because I'm not sure the states at this point really doing what was expected, what was hoped for. Signage is good, but the education piece I think is critical. And you gotta have that education piece and then the signage reminds people or informs people coming into the state. So I'm less about signs are important to reinforce what people have been educated for. So I just say just discipline.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: To get a response to you, can I finish my last couple of slides? Because I think the last one you'll at least get 12 rolling on that I included these two slides in here because they are conveying. So, these are two slides. The next two slides are from the 2021 bicycle and pedestrian strategic plan and our specific objective talking about education. This is just giving some examples of at that time, this plan was put together with a lot of stakeholder input, law enforcement, advocates, DMV. And so these are things that even they need to be tweaked after a couple of years. They identify things like develop a plan for safety education, identify efforts and their implications. So to your point, to date, we have a lot of partners that are doing great things. But part of our role of our team is how we can help those connect the dots. Are there ways that we could also be able to pivot? And a lot of our state highway safety office, the grant is putting out there and our partners are proposing things that they've identified as needs. And we're not necessarily directing those and telling them what we could use. So for instance, this four foot rule, when we put that out there, we don't necessarily say we need someone to do that education piece at this time. And so I'll just skip to this last page of just conveying the current and ongoing tasks of our unit. We are trying to strengthen the communication and collaboration with partners. That's an ongoing task. Be initiating a coordinated plan for safety education, kind of terming it like a communications plan, because in some aspects we have a lot going on, but it is hard to see where we might have gaps missing and to identify what partners would best address those gaps and assess targeted campaigns, whether it be the agency puts in for a proposal the next grant round or a partner. And then on the bottom, it's more related to training of the practitioners, but that also can be important. Just an update of, in this past year, we conducted seven trainings for municipalities and Fleet Street. So that's more facility side, but it's also another way to be getting education out there. So, I guess to answer your question, We are working with our partners and especially with another good new face that's come in is the Outer Mountain Highway Safety Alliance has a new executive director who also is pulling together working groups, one of which will be a vulnerable road user working group that'll also be identifying where are their needs and where are their strengths. So I think that that is something that is being worked on right now and explored, I know Locomotion is on

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: the board, so they're involved in that as well. Representative Booth? I would also suggest you reaching out to everybody's reconstructions and VLCT, I don't know how many hundreds of miles of roads, municipal roads, and it's probably, I daresay, probably more than state roads. So, thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: President Perf, we're gonna move on after this one to

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Regarding the sacred to schools program, it's part of the transportation alternatives, correct?

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: It's well, it's an eligible Eligible. Yeah.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It's funding. And and I know it's sometimes you give specific percentages to certain activities. But how I mean, is there a certain amount of money allocated for that? It's just that big pile of money and just depends on when you do the priority, what

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: projects rise to the top. Right? Sure, so at this time, we have not looked to fund the Safe Routes School Program through the transportation alternatives. We've been looking at other areas more on the highway safety funding side. So that is something that we are aware of as a potential source to be funding the program. But with some of the restructuring is getting an understanding of what are the base needs that we need for that program, and then what resources or funding does it need to be successful. Successful?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: There's no opportunity to take a school that wants a safer teaching tools program to apply through the transportation objective.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: I don't think safety and education is, I don't think so. I'm looking at some of the boundaries like nothing.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It used to be a separate program.

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: Yes. And then it was I'm sorry.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I wanna be clear, and I appreciate that you have a question, but I feel Pat's been waiting a long time too. Sorry. It's not your fault. It's my fault for not being a little more

[Amanda Holland (Vermont Agency of Transportation, Safe Systems)]: I can put

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: you out for about that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I want to make sure that our DMV witness, if it has to add to the conversation, Amanda, thank you very much. And then we can come back to it. I know some people have some pretty hard deadlines at noon for the budget piece and the Act 73 presentation. Then we had the forecast at one. And so please, let's see what you have to join to share with us.

[Pat McVanuman (Vermont DMV, Education Unit Supervisor)]: Thank you, Chair. I'm Pat McVanuman. I'm with the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles. I spent several hours with you last session, so I'm not going go through my background. I'll quickly say my background, about six years as an EMT on Rescue one in Burlington, and then thirty years as a law enforcement officer, fourteen with Burlington and the rest with DMV, and then now I supervise the education unit within enforcement and safety for DMV. So, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the education portion, and I know that's a concern and it's a concern for us, and I applaud you. I'm a strong believer in education. When I was on the road, I would make a decision if I was gonna issue a ticket or not based on will education work in this situation, or does it need to have to be a ticket? And if I thought education would work, that's what I want. And I'll give you an example. I had a young driver, just got her license, got pulled over for speeding. I pulled her over on North Avenue. She was in tears. I told her, I expect a call. This is what time I go back in the office to go off duty. I expect a call from your father or your mother. Go ahead, Addison. I will be at your door tomorrow morning to issue you a ticket. Dad was on the phone. I told dad what happened. He thanked me and he said, we will deal with it. I used to teach patrol procedures at the police academy, which is part of it is tactics on motor vehicle stops. And I would talk about education versus tickets or both if that's necessary. I would run her record prior to going down to talk about it. And she never got a speeding ticket. She still lived in Burlington because I lived off North Avenue also. Would see her in the store. But she never got, now did she ever get stopped again? I don't know, but not to the level of getting a ticket. Education does work. That's where we need to go first. And part of my background was I was the first SRO at the high school at Burlington. So education I know does work. So what are we doing for education specifically on the forefoot and as well as invites that? The outreach, the section of the statute that you passed last year deals with signals and crosswalk 1139C. Also the forefoot rule, which is ten thirty three is where that is found. What have we done? Not a whole lot right now. I will be really honest with you, not a whole lot. The only thing I can say is my unit, this falls under my unit because it is education. I have a three person unit, Frederick One, myself, and then Justin McLean, who oversees driver's ed. Justin and I were pulled out last year for the modernization program to do the testing for the new modernization program. We didn't come back into the unit until I believe it was October. So, that's on me. I think blame for that. But since then, we're starting to work on it. And no, we haven't reached out to our partners yet because we're trying to get our unit where we want to go with this. Then we're going to start reaching out to partners. Our hope is that the Alliance will work with us because of the vulnerable users. I represent D and B on the Alliance Board, and all three of us are going to be in the three different committees that the Alliance has formed for focus groups. And all three of us will be serving on the volunteers. In driver's education, we do cover it in our driver's manual and in our school bus driver's manual. Does it need updating? It most certainly does. We update it every year and we will be updating it for this coming year to put in language here. But it is in our driver's manual. Most of our schools that we license, as well as the agency of education driver ed schools use the AAA curriculum for their curriculum. There is a section in there that deals with vulnerable users, specifically bicyclists. And again, we can have sent out to our instructors, to our licensed instructors. We need you to include this, and that's our plan. But you need to include that it is now mandated for four feet is no longer recommended in that cell. Where else do they get the education as far as this when they're getting their license? Well, they get it in the driver's ed, but they not only get it out of the classroom portion, but they're also gonna get it behind the wheel, behind the wheel of vaccination. Hopefully, they're getting it when they're doing their forty hours with their licensed driver, their extra forty hours. So, hopefully there's some checking on that. As far as law enforcement, so years ago when I was still on the road for DMV, I came up with a educational program that dealt with specialized motor vehicles, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, antiques, in that, farm vehicles, all the specialized vehicles, is what happens with law enforcement is, I was a City Burlington cop, okay? I never dealt with a farm vehicle. So, my twenty years with the city of Burlington, I forgot a lot to do with farm vehicles. And that, so this gives officers a chance to brush up on things they may have forgotten. The electric bikes and bicycle laws was not included in that, but it is now being included. I'm in the project of developing that and putting it into that training. The training is an eight hour trainee typically, but what can happen is the department can choose specific blocks. So, for instance, Washington County has reached out to me. They want a block on the bike and e bikes, that the sheriff's department. So I told them that we will do that later on this winter or early spring. And that's in the works, yes.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Could you just clarify, so you're talking, you're speaking to educating

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: commercial drivers or? No, this is law enforcement. Law enforcement, okay. Gotcha, thank you.

[Pat McVanuman (Vermont DMV, Education Unit Supervisor)]: They're interested in knowing what the laws are because the laws have changed and e bikes are coming around. So, they want their deputies to know what the laws are, regarding those. Every bike regulation will be included in there, including the four foot. And so, as well as equipment, as well as what laws they have to follow, what motorists have to do. But that is also going to be included in there. And that is offered to any law enforcement agency that wants it. All they have to do is contact me and we'll make arrangements to do it. And again, it's a set of blocks, different training, diminished skills is in there. We no longer call it old age, diminished skills. I think I talked about that last year, because simply I could be 17 years old and have finished skills based on medication I'm on or an illness.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Or just being a teenager. Representative Pouech has a question

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: for I appreciate you touching yourself on what's been done, what will be done. The statute said that this should be done on or before 04/01/2026. So we have time to do that. And I would suggest maybe we could get before that or at some time in the session sort of an update on where it is. Again, I'll say this, piece of support. And including educating bikers and pedestrian folks, which could be at the schools or whatever. So that would be my suggestion that we sort of follow-up on, all right, where are we from either that. Did you have

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: much more or you all set? That's basically it. So thank you very much and thank you both for coming in to represent the agency and the department. I guess I would sum up by saying that there's a lot of members of this committee that asked for this testimony today to express the concern that we did pass a law. There is an expectation of education. Your office has released a press release as recently as 11/06/2025 about bike safety, and there's no mention of the four foot rule, which would have helped even in a small way. I think it's what the message from the House Transportation Committee is. I understand you have a middle of this dispute. Add this to the list, and please make sure there's progress and expect that we'll follow-up on it again at some point in the committee, whether it be later this session or for those that we're returning for next year. So I appreciate you coming in and being the face for your agency and your department. There is concern amongst the committee. There's still time to improve, and we appreciate the efforts you've made. We will look to revisit again. Thank you very