We have all seen the scene in Back to the Future where Marty McFly hitches a ride on the back of a car with his skate board and then again on a hoverboard to get around. We all thought, “how cool is that?!” However, is this a legal move to do in Seattle on a skateboard?
It is illegal to ride on the back of a car on a skateboard or any other bike or toy. There is actually a law on the books that I would like to coin the Marty McFly law: RCW 46.61.765:
RCW 46.61.765 Clinging to vehicles.
No person riding upon any bicycle, coaster, roller skates, sled, or toy vehicle shall attach the same or himself or herself to any vehicle upon a roadway.
I tried to look up the original bill to determine where the law came from and where it was established but I couldn’t. I would like to think that this probably came around during the time the Back to the Future movies came out but I cannot be sure. It may have been a popular thing to do when skateboards came out.
According to Wikipedia – Skateboarding, as we know it, was probably born sometime in the late 1940s, or early 1950s, when surfers in California wanted something to do when the waves were flat. This was called “sidewalk surfing” – a new wave of surfing on the sidewalk as the sport of surfing became highly popular.
I think it is probably pretty obvious why this is illegal. It is highly dangerous and a high likelihood of injury by the person riding on the back of the car. It could easily create a car accident whereby the skateboarder loses control because of the high speeds and either gets ran over by another car or is flung off their board causing injury.