Two Oklahoma statutes address the issue of impeding traffic.

47 Okla. Stat. § 11-804 applies to “motor vehicles” and says, “No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic . . . .”

47 Okla. Stat. § 11-1205 applies to bicycles and says, “Persons riding two abreast shall not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic and, on a laned roadway, shall ride within a single lane.”

What constitutes “normal and reasonable flow of traffic” has not been defined in Oklahoma and how Oklahoma courts apply and interpret this issue is unknown. What constitutes “reasonable” flow of traffic as it relates to bicycles has been addressed in Ohio.

In the Ohio case of City of Trotwood v. Selz, 2000 OH 48162 (2000), a cyclist traveling 15 mph was cited for impeding traffic. Ohio’s ordinance was virtually identical to Oklahoma’s statute in that it prohibited a vehicle from traveling at such a slow speed as to “impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic”.

The cyclist lost in municipal court and appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. The Ohio court likened bicyclists to operators of farm machinery and cited a Georgia case where the operator of a combine was cited for impeding traffic. The Georgia court said you have to look at what is a reasonable speed for that particular vehicle. In finding for the cyclist, the Ohio Supreme Court said,

“[H]olding the operator to have violated the slow speed statute would be tantamount to excluding operators of these vehicles from the public roadways, something that each legislative authority, respectively, has not clearly expressed an intention to do.”