5.4 Cyclists, Animals and Carrying Passengers

Who else is on the left-hand road

Sections 5.1 to 5.3 taught the Rule of the Road for a driver in a motor vehicle. The Guyana Road Traffic Code does not stop there. Its Part 2 heading is ROAD USER ON WHEELS, addressed to all drivers and riders, including persons in charge of animal-drawn vehicles, and it points you at three further blocks: special rules for pedal cyclists, rules 52 to 67; special rules for drivers of motor vehicles including motor cycles and pedal-assisted motor cycles, rules 68 to 94; and rules 95 to 101 for animal-drawn vehicles. This section is independent OpenExamPrep study of the cyclist block, the carrying-passengers and drowsiness rules at the end of the motor-vehicle block, and the animals block. It is not a Guyana Police Force booklet and it does not claim official approval, review, or partnership.

Quick Answer: A cyclist uses a cycle lane where there is one, glances behind before moving off or changing course, rides never more than two abreast, sounds a bell before overtaking other cyclists, and must observe signs, signals, and Police directions when riding and when wheeling the cycle. By night a cycle needs a white front lamp fixed to the cycle and either a rear red lamp or an efficient unobstructed red reflector. Rule 93: not more than one passenger on a two-wheeled motor vehicle, sitting astride a proper seat securely fitted behind the driver's seat, with safety helmets for that passenger and for you; no more passengers in a four-wheeled vehicle than the seats are designed to take. Rule 94: if you become drowsy, STOP. Around animals: go slowly, give plenty of room, and stop if necessary.

Rules 20 to 51 — safety of pedestrians, moving off, keep left, overtaking, junctions, turning, and stopping — apply to cyclists as well as to other drivers and riders. The Code says so directly at the end of the cyclist block. A pedal cycle on a dam road and a minibus on Church Street share the same keep-left duty, the same look right, left, right again at a junction, and the same ban on overtaking at or near a corner or a pedestrian crossing.

Pedal cyclists: rules 52 to 67

Learn these as published duties, not as etiquette. The electronic paper can ask any of them, and a learner-driver candidate is also expected to know what the cyclist beside the car is required to do.

Position, overtaking, and the bell

• Rule 52: where there is a cycle lane, use it.
• Rule 53: glance behind before you move off, change course, overtake, or turn.
• Rule 54: NEVER RIDE MORE THAN TWO ABREAST, and ride in single file whenever road or traffic conditions require it.
• Rule 55: a cyclist should never overtake two cyclists riding abreast when there is other traffic on the road at or near the point of overtaking.
• Rule 56: a cyclist about to overtake others should sound his bell.
• Rule 57: on the narrower roads, cyclists riding abreast should move into single file when being overtaken by other cyclists or other vehicles.

Two abreast is the ceiling, not an entitlement. On a narrow East Coast stretch, on a village street with parked minibuses, or on the approach to a culvert, the Code's answer is single file. A driver who reads rule 57 also knows why a pair of riders should thin out as you close on them — and that rule 34 still forbids you to overtake a pedal cyclist if traffic is approaching from the opposite direction.

Control, load, and the line of traffic

• Rule 58: never carry anything that may interfere with the proper control of your cycle. Open umbrellas should not be carried so as to obscure vision.
• Rule 59: do not hold onto another moving vehicle or another cyclist.
• Rule 60: do not ride close to another moving vehicle.
• Rule 61: in traffic which has stopped or is slowing down, remain in your correct position in the line of traffic. Do not swerve in or out of the line. Give room for faster-moving vehicles to move away quickly.
• Rule 62: do not weave or wobble about the road.
• Rule 63: do not ride a cycle which is too big for you.
• Rule 64: before cycling, check that your cycle has efficient brakes, bell, tyres, lamps and rear reflectors.

Rule 61 is the cyclist's version of rule 39 (in traffic hold-ups, keep in your own lane). A rider who filters by swerving in and out of a stopped East Bank queue has broken it, and a driver who opens a door into that rider has broken rule 71. Rule 64 is the cyclist's version of rule 68: the pre-ride check happens before you join traffic, not after a lamp fails at dusk.

Signs, signals, and lighting by night

Rule 65: a cyclist MUST observe traffic signs and signals and the directions of Police controlling traffic, both when riding and WHEN WHEELING the cycle. Pushing the bicycle does not convert the rider into a pedestrian for sign purposes.

Rule 66: your front lamp must show a white light which can be seen from a reasonable distance, and the lamp must be FIXED to the cycle. A torch held in the hand, or a phone screen, is not a fixed front lamp.

Rule 67: you must have either a lamp showing a red light to the rear, or an efficient and unobstructed red reflector. A white patch on your rear mudguard is an added safety precaution — an extra, not a substitute for the lamp or reflector.

Carrying passengers and safety helmets: rule 93

Rule 93 sits at the end of the motor-vehicle block and is one of the shortest, most examinable rules in the package. It prints three prohibitions.

(a) One passenger, astride, on a proper seat, behind you. Do not carry more than one passenger on a two-wheeled motor vehicle, and that passenger MUST SIT ASTRIDE the vehicle, on a proper seat, securely fitted BEHIND the driver's seat. Three on a motorcycle is out. A passenger sitting side-saddle is out. A child perched on the tank in front of the rider is out, because the seat must be behind the driver's seat. A cushion tied to a carrier is not a proper seat securely fitted.

(b) Safety helmets. Do not carry any person on your motor cycle unless that person and yourself are wearing Safety Helmets. The Code writes the helmet duty into the carrying rule: if you take a pillion passenger, both of you wear helmets. The same sentence prints one exception: a safety helmet is not required when you are riding a pedal-assisted motor cycle. Learn the printed rule and the printed exception. Do not invent a helmet fine figure that the three-book package does not publish.

(c) Seats decide the number. Do not carry more passengers in a four-wheeled vehicle than the seats are designed to take. A hire car with five designed seats does not become a seven-seater because the passengers are small or the trip is short. That rule works alongside the Act's seat-belt equipment and wearing duties in Part VIA (taught in section 20.2) and alongside the Act offence of riding on the outside of a motor vehicle — running board, wings, fenders, or any outside position other than a properly constructed seat or a trailer drawn by the vehicle (section 20.1).

Drowsiness: rule 94

Rule 94: if you become drowsy when driving, STOP and proceed again only when you are sufficiently alert to do so in safety.

That is a stop instruction, not a slow-down instruction. It sits beside the Code's REMEMBER IF line ("If you're tired, slow down") and the Theoretical Programme's Yourself paragraph, which tells you not to drive at all unless you are alert, free from undue strain, and able to give full concentration. The three texts stack: do not start tired; slow down if tiredness appears; stop once you are drowsy. A night return from Linden, a double hire-car shift, or a pre-dawn run to Timehri is exactly where rule 94 is written for.

Drowsiness also destroys the defensive-driving sequence in Chapter 15. Reaction time grows with fatigue, so thinking distance grows before the brakes are even applied (Chapter 8). A driver who cannot recognise a hazard in time has already failed the first DDC verb.

The road user and animals: rules 95 to 101

Guyana's roads carry cattle, goats, dogs, horses, and animal-drawn vehicles. Part 3 of the Code gives those users and the drivers who meet them a short block of rules.

• Rule 96: make sure the road is clear before you let or take an animal out on the road.
• Rule 97: if you are riding a horse, keep to the left. The Rule of the Road does not change for a rider.
• Rule 98: if you are on foot leading an animal on a road that has no footpath, walk on the right-hand side of the road, keep between the animal and the traffic, and keep the animal close to the edge of the road. That right-hand-side instruction matches the pedestrian rule in Part 1: where there is no footpath, walk on the right so you face oncoming traffic.
• Rule 99: if you are driving animals along the road, send someone ahead with a red flag to warn traffic. After sunset, carry warning lights ahead and at the rear.
• Rule 100: go slowly when approaching or passing animals, give them plenty of room, and stop if necessary. This is the rule that binds the ordinary motorist. A horn blast is not a substitute: rule 76 still says the horn gives you no right of way.
• Rule 101: persons in charge of animal-drawn vehicles should pay special attention to rules 20 to 51, and must make sure the vehicle is properly lighted at night and fitted with reflectors at the rear.

Lights on animal-drawn vehicles

Every animal-drawn vehicle on any road during the hours of darkness must carry:

1. A lamp showing a white light visible from a reasonable distance to the front and from the rear of the vehicle. That light must be placed on the off side, not less than five feet from the surface of the road, so that no part of the vehicle, its equipment, or its load obscures the light.
2. A lamp showing to the rear a red light visible from a reasonable distance, on the centre of the off side of the vehicle, or a red reflector.

It is the duty of any person who causes or permits a vehicle to be on any road during the hours of darkness to provide the vehicle with the required lamps. The five feet figure belongs to the animal-drawn lamp; do not confuse it with the fifteen feet fire-hydrant clearance, the thirty feet junction clearance, or the fifteen yards street-lamp distance for certain parked vehicles in Georgetown and New Amsterdam (Chapter 14).

Warning plates for the same hazard sit in Chapter 12: sign 26, Beware of Animals, and sign 27, Animals crossing. A plate warns; rule 100 tells you what to do. Neither gives you priority over a cow on a village road near New Amsterdam.

Independent OpenExamPrep study of this cluster follows the printed cyclist, passenger, drowsiness, and animal rules. It does not invent a helmet penalty, a cyclist tread figure, or an animal-crossing right of way that the Guyana Road Traffic Code does not publish.