A Connoquenessing Township man testified Monday, Dec. 15, in Butler County Common Pleas Court the state police trooper who followed him as he rode his bicycle on Route 68 in Butler Township in October 2022 was impeding traffic — not him.

Brendan Linton, 30, testified in his defense against a summary charge of a pedal cycle operated at safe speed not to impede traffic in a nonjury trial before Senior Judge Kenneth Valasek.

The trial ended shortly after 1 p.m. when Valasek said he would take arguments and evidence under advisement before rendering a decision.

Linton was convicted of the same charge at a summary trial following a July 31, 2021, traffic stop on the same road, but in Connoquenessing Township. He appealed the conviction to state Superior Court, which upheld the verdict. He appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to Superior Court.

At his summary trial Monday, Linton said he rides 3,000 to 4,000 miles a year to combat diabetes and has ridden in 26 Pennsylvania counties and several other states since 2006 or 2007.

He said people have the right to ride a bicycle on a road, a 2012 state law requires bikes to maintain a speed appropriate for it and to make reasonable efforts not to impede traffic.

The law allows motor vehicles to give bikes a 4-foot berth when passing even if that means crossing the double yellow center line, he said.

Linton said bikes are not always required to pull off the road to the berm to allow cars to pass. A narrow berm, rough pavement, gravel, debris, manhole covers, sewer grates, driveways and intersections make it dangerous to ride a bike on a berm, and those conditions exist on the berm along Route 68 where police pulled him over, he said.

He said he rarely, if ever, rides on the white fog line that delineates the right side boundary of a traffic lane.

On Oct. 25, 2022, he said he rode his bike on the right side of the westbound lane and slowed down when there was no traffic in the eastbound lane to allow Trooper David Wellington to pass him, but he didn’t.

“I took efforts not to impede the normal movement of traffic,” Linton said.

Two cameras — one facing front and one facing rear — mounted on his bike recorded several minutes of footage preceding and during the traffic stop that was played in court.

Linton said the video showed that Wellington and the line of cars behind him on the two-lane road had numerous opportunities to pass him while there was no traffic in the oncoming, eastbound lane.

Wellington said he drove directly behind Linton for about 2 miles at 5 to 8 mph before conducting a traffic stop. The speed limit on that section of Route 68 is 35 mph, he said.

Linton was riding slightly to the right of the center of the lane and made no effort to allow the traffic behind him to pass, Wellington said. He said Linton had ample opportunity to at least ride on the fog line to let traffic pass and not impede traffic and there are several locations along Route 68 where the berm is wide enough for Linton to pull over.

He said he was not able to safely pull Linton over before he did because of traffic in the eastbound lane and curves in parts of the road prevented him from seeing traffic oncoming in the eastbound lane.