---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 21 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO RULES OF THE ROAD."
description: "This Act enhances penalties for drivers who cause serious physical injury, as defined in § 222 of Title 11, to a vulnerable user, as defined in this Act. For a person to be guilty under this Act, the injured vulnerable user must be lawfully using a highway, defined in § 101 of Title 29 as \"the entire width between boundary lines of every way or place of whatever nature open to the use of the public as a matter of right for purposes of vehicular travel . . . .\""
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "149"
identifier: "SB 78"
citation: "Delaware SB 78 (149)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["David P. Sokola", "Edward S. Osienski"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 8
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2017-05-05"
last_action: "2017-10-05"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/72b0c807-139e-4d5d-8feb-ebd4f28fa3eb"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=25723"
source_hash: "e85e683e6a0360c4622c909140fd619a1dc74bfde40ae1773a24a2f1bf86c077"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 78 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 21 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO RULES OF THE ROAD.

This Act enhances penalties for drivers who cause serious physical injury, as defined in § 222 of Title 11, to a vulnerable user, as defined in this Act. For a person to be guilty under this Act, the injured vulnerable user must be lawfully using a highway, defined in § 101 of Title 29 as "the entire width between boundary lines of every way or place of whatever nature open to the use of the public as a matter of right for purposes of vehicular travel . . . ."

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=25723&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB78)

## Votes

- SM — **38–0** (pass) · lower
- SM — **18–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- David P. Sokola — primary (person)
- Edward S. Osienski — primary (person)
- Bryan Townsend — cosponsor (person)
- Ernesto B Lopez — cosponsor (person)
- John Walsh — cosponsor (person)
- Stephanie L. Hansen — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2017-05-05** Introduced and Assigned to Transportation Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2017-06-07** Reported Out of Committee (Transportation) in Senate with 1 Favorable, 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage`
- **2017-06-21** Amendment SA 1 to SB 78 - Passed By Senate. Votes: 20 YES 1 ABSENT `amendment-passage`
- **2017-06-21** Passed By Senate. Votes: 18 YES 3 ABSENT `passage`
- **2017-06-22** Assigned to Transportation/Land Use and Infrastructure Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2017-06-28** Reported Out of Committee (Transportation/Land Use and Infrastructure) in House with 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2017-07-01** Passed By House. Votes: 38 YES 1 NOT VOTING 2 ABSENT `passage`
- **2017-10-05** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/72b0c807-139e-4d5d-8feb-ebd4f28fa3eb`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).