Video: Houston cyclist uses flagpole to enforce often-ignored passing law

Armed with a flag on a flexible pole, a Houston, Texas rider has taken to YouTube to highlight the frequency with which drivers disregard the state’s passing law, which requires motorists to give a cyclist a three-foot gap when overtaking.

“They hit the flag, they're breaking the law,” Dan Morgan told Channel 2 Houston. “Houston has a local ordinance designed to protect so-called vulnerable road users.”

As you might imagine, some car-loving Texans are none too pleased at having to give a cyclist more space than needed to avoid skimming his forearm hairs, no matter what the law says.

“I don't think they understand the law and there's a lot of driver entitlement that goes on in Houston,” Dan Morgan said. “Drivers will roll the window down and start cussing me out so I tend to fight fire with fire.”

And his campaign to physically demonstrate how much room cyclists are legally entitled to has made the local news:

But although he passes his videos on to Houston police, no drivers have been ticketed for disregarding the passing-distance law and hitting his flag.

Morgan has been posting his rides and encounters with irate drivers on YouTube in videos like this one:

On Facebook, Morgan says: “This was filmed in Houston Texas on what will soon be my normal daily bike commute route - riding with the flag is the ONLY time I am passed safely (most of the time) - the flag has been hit a total of 10 times while filming and I am on my second flag because the first one was broken by a driver hitting it.”

Many commenters have pointed out that a pole and a flag alone maybe don’t get the message across, but Morgan’s way ahead of them.

He plans to roll out a new flag shortly, and has corporate sponsorship to have multiple copies made that he intends to hand out to other Houston cyclists to help spread the word.