GENEVA – European countries are increasingly pegging speeding fines to income as a way to punish wealthy scofflaws who would otherwise ignore tickets.
Advocates say a $290,000 (euro203,180.83) speeding ticket slapped on a millionaire Ferrari driver in Switzerland was a fair and well-deserved example of the trend.
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“Take the Lane” Court Case – Columbus OH
Michael O’Shaughnessy as ticketed under Columbus Municipal Code 2173.04 for not riding his bike as far to the right side of roadway as possible [Note the misstatement of the law]. He was apparently riding his bicycle in the middle of the curb lane on High Street…."controling the lane" in a manner that he felt was warrented due to traffic, weather, and road conditions. It was 11:30 at night, rainy, and low-no traffic on southbound High St near Nationwide…where he was cited by police.
He is being defended by Doug Morgan, who is on the Consider Biking Board of Directors. Assuming there are no other circumstances we’re aware of, the bicyclist’s behavior to protect himself and take a visible position….clearly falls within legal parameters. We feel that this court case will present an opportunity to educate cyclists, motorists, even the police force, regarding the rights and responsibilities of bicyclists.
Consider Biking worked for six months in late 2008 to provide leadership & feedback to the enhancement of the Columbus Municipal Code regarding bicyclists’ rights and responsibilities on our roadways. We have some very progressive language that protects bicycists that ride as "vehicular cyclists" on our roadways.
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Quotes for the day
“Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.” – P.J. O’Rourke
“The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man’s metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.” – Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity, 1974
“When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day’s sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue-jay’s call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else’s heart.” – Diane Ackerman
“The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.” – Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” – H.G. Wells
Child Labor – a 10-year-old boy moves a burden of plastic waste by bicycle down a city street in India, an unfortunate validation of the observation that “the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon.” –Bill Strickland, Quotable Cyclist
“The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.” – Sloan Wilson
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Doctor’s prison sentence isn’t a sea change for cyclists
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Still, drivers who enforce some imaginary version of the vehicle code by assaulting law-abiding cyclists tend to do so repeatedly; for this reason, I advise cyclists to report these incidents to police. A driver with a reported history of violent assaults will be less likely to get away with claiming, as Thompson did, that it was all just "an unfortunate accident." Real change will happen when law enforcement begins to take each report seriously, rather than waiting until serious injuries (or worse) have been inflicted.
But the most important change must occur within each of us, because when tempers flare on the road, nobody wins. The roads are common spaces, and their use is an ancient right for all — except motorists. The state allows them to use the roads, and far too often that revocable privilege is misinterpreted by motorists as having some sort of superior right to the road. More often cyclists are endangered by drivers who are simply too distracted, or otherwise too careless, to even notice the cyclist whose life they have just endangered. And just as cyclists notice — and remember — the occasional dangerous motorist, it is the occasional rude cyclist that motorists notice and remember. It is these minority of bad actors on the road that lead to much of the resentment toward each other.
The real issue here is not "scofflaw cyclists" or "motorists hell-bent on killing cyclists;" it is competition for limited road space. For that, motorists owe cyclists a debt of gratitude; merely respecting our need for safety is all the thanks we need. Every cyclist you see on the road represents one less car contributing to congestion. Yes, you may occasionally have to slow down for a few seconds, but those few seconds are offset by the time you save for every car that is not on the road ahead of you. Cyclists also neither consume gasoline nor contribute to climate change, and they cause far less wear and tear on the road than cars. These are benefits that accrue directly to motorists in the form of less demand for limited resources, driving regulations and limited tax dollars.
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Bicycling for all trips hits 1 percent
Blogging live from the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, one of the biggest events of the year for transportation nerds…er, professionals. I got an early look at the 2009 data from the National Household Transportation Survey. The NHTS is in some ways better than the American Community Survey because it asks respondents about all trips, so we can see bicycling’s share of all trips in the US.
Bicycling’s share of all trips in the US hit an even 1 percent in 2009. That’s up 25 percent since 2001. Bicycling’s journey to work and school numbers both top out at 0.7 percent
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Bicycling and the law by Bob Mionske
Facebook Refuses to Remove Group Promoting Anti-Cyclist Violence
by Matthew Roth on January 8, 2010
Screenshot from the Facebook group promoting dooring, among other acts that injure cyclists.A
number of Streetsblog readers have noticed a particularly loathsome
group that has sprouted up on Facebook and has a legion of fans. As of
this writing, more than 32,000 people are fans of “There’s a perfectly good bike path right next to the road you stupid cyclist,”
a group page with a bunch of anti-cyclist screeds and some pretty nasty
photos of bicycle crashes and car-on-bike violence. Facebook has
concluded that the group does not violate the site’s terms of use and
will not shut it down.
“It’s a stupid and offensive joke and unfortunately there are still
people who don’t see that bicyclists have the same rights as
everyone else,” said Marc Caswell, Program Manager at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “It’s a cruel example of the
ignorance of cyclists’ rights. We would encourage people to report it
as offensive.”
The
site is full of the vitriol one has come to expect online and in
anonymous comment sections, but unlike blogs or online forums, all the
fuming leaves a clear path to the users who posted it.
The first user to link the group was Ryan Woolcott,
who hails from Australia, and several of the references to road rules
are of British provenance or from former British colonies. In the
“About Me” section, it reads: “No matter how far to the left you are,
you’re taking up my road. My car is hard, and i am not slowing down!”
A photo from a road race on June 3, 2008 in Mexico, when a drunk driver killed one cyclist and injured more than ten others. Posted to the group by Sean TysoeIn addition to creating a counter group called “HELP REMOVE this HATE GROUP against cyclists!”,
a number of cyclists have become fans of the original group and have
posted agitprop in the form of bicycle photos. While there are
disturbing photos of cars creaming cyclists and road signs promoting
violence against cyclists, the photo album is full of pictures of the
kind of bike porn you might expect on Bike Blog or Fixed Gear Gallery. And there are easily as many photos of “Share the Road” signs as the opposite.
Streetsblog asked Facebook whether this group violates their Terms of Use, particularly sections 6 and 7, under
“Safety”:
6. You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
7.
You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic,
or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
Facebook’s
Simon Axten told us the group has been reviewed and deemed kosher by
the company’s staff. Presumably the reason they are not removing this
group boils down to how one interprets the phrase “actionable threats
of violence.” Here’s Axten’s explanation:
We
take our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities very seriously and
react quickly to remove reported content that violates our policies.
Specifically, we’re sensitive to content that includes hate speech
and/or actionable threats of violence. The goal of these policies is to
strike a very delicate balance between giving Facebook users the
freedom to express their opinions and beliefs, even controversial ones,
and maintaining a safe and trusted environment.We’ve reviewed
this group and determined that it doesn’t violate our policies. We
encourage users to report anything they feel does violate these
policies using the report links located throughout the site. Thanks.
Posted to the group by Chelsea KerrAny legal minds care to comment?
H/T Bike Portland.
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WEBINARS, WEBCASTS AND SEMINARS
WEBINAR: "Selection of Crosswalk Markings and Other Treatments at Unsignalized Pedestrian Crossings"
Date: Jan. 21, 2010, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m., EST
Presenter: Charlie Zegeer, Director, Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center
Host: UNC Highway Safety Research Center
Cost: None
Details (and registration): https://tinyurl.com/yegkdp9
Questions: <webinars@hsrc.unc.edu>
WEBINAR: "School Bicycle & Walking Policies: Addressing Policies that Hinder and Implementing Policies that Help"
Date: January 26, 2010, 2pm, EST
Presenters: RJ Eldridge, Toole Design Group; Robin Schepper, Murch Elementary School, Winner of the 2009 James L. Oberstar Safe Routes to School Award; Diane Lambert, National Center for Safe Routes to School; Leigh Ann Von Hagen, Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center
Host: Safe Routes Coaching Action Network
Cost: None
Details (and registration): https://tinyurl.com/yk3bj7t
Questions: Michelle Gulley <mgulley@americawalks.org>
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Two lane roundabouts not bike/ped friendly
A 3-minute video of pedestrians and bicyclists trying to cross what appears to be the exit of a very busy roundabout. The phrase “you can’t get there from here” comes to mind…
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TRAFFIC POLLUTION & DEMENTIA IN ELDERLY WOMEN
-> According to a Jan. 4th EarthTimes article, "Women who have lived near busy roads and who have been exposed to exhaust fumes for decades tend to have decreased cognitive performance in old age, according to a startling report by a team of German scientists."
"The closer the women lived to the highways, the higher was their exposure to particulate pollution and the more likely they were to show signs of mild memory and cognitive decline, the researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Environmental Research."
"This is the first study to find an association between cognitive impairment and long-term exposure to air pollution due to traffic. It is also one of a handful of recent studies to report a link between air pollution and brain function in people…"
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