The organizations Zaragoza Ciclista, Bielas Salvajes and Colectivo Pedalea, with the support of the state coordinator ConBici, have announced their decision to to bring to court certain articles of the new municipal ordinance of Zaragozawhich comes into force with compulsory bicycle insurance and concerns home insurance contracts.
The decision was announced in a statement by the three groups a week before it came into force after being approved before the start of the summer. The organisations denounce that this was achieved “without having incorporated practically any of the contributions carried out by cycling associations and having failed to respond to the allegations presented.”
From their point of view, they consider his approval as a “Unjustified and illegal attack on the promotion of cyclingwhich can only be motivated by prejudices and a retrograde vision of mobility.
The organizations expressed “a categorical rejection of the obligation to take out civil liability insurance to be able to ride a bicycle in the municipality”, a measure that they consider “unprecedented in any city in Spain or Europe”.
They defend it more than helping it. “have an immediate adverse effect”. Reporting that “the majority of home insurance policies, which until now covered bicycle liability, will stop offering this coverage.”
As the organizations themselves explain in the statement, these policies usually exclude compulsory insurance as a clause of their coverage, such as motor vehicles, weapons, hunting, dangerous dogs and, now, bicycles in Zaragoza. This would mean that “Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of urban cyclists could find themselves without coverageuntil they take out specific insurance.”
For this reason, both the cycling entities and the coordinator maintain that the requirement for this compulsory insurance “is not justified neither by the dangerousness of the activity nor by the number or severity of the damage caused.
Furthermore, the organizations emphasize “the lack of legal rigor of this measure” and remember that in Spain, competition in road insurance is state and not municipal.
They thus denounce the absence of an adaptation period so that cyclists can take out compulsory insurance, the obligation to carry the policy with them and the exclusion of minors and people over 65 years of age as insured, in addition to certain models of bicycles, which would prevent these people from cycling. for Zaragoza.
Not only did they stay there, but so did the organizations. They will challenge the articles that prohibit attaching bicycles to fixed objects from the street in areas without bicycle parking or which are congested, because “this makes safe parking impossible and represents discrimination against motorcycles, which can park on the sidewalks.”
