WEST VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE

2024 REGULAR SESSION

Introduced

House Bill 4885

By Delegates Summers, Mallow, Phillips, Tully, Horst, and Cooper

[Introduced January 18, 2024; Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary]

A BILL to amend and reenact §17C-10-6 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to prohibiting a person from standing, laying, kneeling, or sitting in the roadway for the purpose of blocking traffic.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

ARTICLE 10. PEDESTRIANS' RIGHTS AND DUTIES.

§17C-10-6. Pedestrians on roadways; soliciting rides; blocking roadway prohibited.

(a) Where sidewalks are provided it shall be unlawful for any pedestrian to walk along and upon an adjacent roadway.

(b) Where sidewalks are not provided any pedestrian walking along and upon a highway shall when practicable walk only on the left side of the roadway or its shoulder facing traffic which may approach from the opposite direction.

(c) No person shall stand in a roadway for the purpose of soliciting a ride from the driver of any vehicle.

(d) No person shall sit, stand, kneel, or lay in the roadway for the purpose of blocking the flow of traffic.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit persons from sitting, standing, kneeling, or laying down in the roadway for the purpose of blocking traffic.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.