Vulnerable users — Utah Permit Test

Utah law defines a vulnerable user of the highway as a pedestrian, a person riding an animal, and a person operating a skateboard, skates, a bicycle, a scooter, a motorcycle, or a wheelchair on a highway.

The list is everybody with nothing around them. When a car and any of these meet, only one side is protected.

Utah law defines a vulnerable user of the highway as a pedestrian, including a person engaged in work upon a highway or utilities facilities along a highway or providing emergency services within the right-of-way of a highway, a person riding an animal, and a person operating any of the following on a highway: farm tractor or implement of husbandry without an enclosed shell, skateboard, roller skates, in-line skates, bicycle, electric-assisted bicycle, electric personal assistive mobility device, moped, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter, motorcycle, and wheelchairs.

A person who distracts or tries to distract a vulnerable highway user with intent to cause injury or force them off the roadway may be given a traffic citation, and points are assessed on conviction.

Swerving at a cyclist for a laugh is a citation with points, not a joke that nobody can prove.

A person who distracts or attempts to distract a vulnerable user of a highway with the intent to cause violence or injury or force a vulnerable user off the roadway may be given a traffic citation.

People walking, jogging, riding bicycles, or operating pedestrian vehicles can be hard to see and sometimes do the unexpected, so a driver must keep the car under control and be ready to react.

They are small, quiet and unpredictable. Expecting the unexpected from them is the whole of sharing a road.

Besides being hard to see, they sometimes do the unexpected.

Who counts as a vulnerable user of a Utah highway?

A person riding a bicycle. The list is everybody with nothing around them. When a car and any of these meet, only one side is protected. Utah Driver Handbook 2026-2027, p.74: “Utah law defines a vulnerable user of the highway as a pedestrian, including a person engaged in work upon a highway or utilities facilities along a highway or providing emergency services within the right-of-way of a highway, a person riding an animal, and a person operating any of the following on a highway: farm tractor or implement of husbandry without an enclosed shell, skateboard, roller skates, in-line skates, bicycle, electric-assisted bicycle, electric personal assistive mobility device, moped, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter, motorcycle, and wheelchairs.”