from Road Rights by JeanneEmery
No cyclist wants to relive a collision—but it pays to read the police report
By Bob Mionske
Picture this: You’re riding home from work, obeying all traffic laws, when a car knocks you off your bike. A few days later, you order the police report (usually about $10) and find mistakes in the account. Maybe you were unable to give a statement because of injuries, or you gave one while you were in shock, and you now believe it was incorrect. Or—even worse—you discover that the officer blamed you for the collision. What can you do?
First, the good news. A police report is not usually allowed as evidence at trial. Although officers can testify about what they saw, they cannot typically testify about what somebody else observed. (Not surprisingly, there are exceptions to the rule against hearsay evidence, and judges do occasionally allow such reports to be introduced at trial.)
In any case, a cyclist involved in a crash should check the police report for accuracy and have it amended if it’s erroneous. Doing so may strengthen your case with the driver’s insurance company, and prevent the need to go to trial. And if you were ticketed, an amended police report may convince prosecutors to drop the charges.
Try to review the report as soon as you are able. It will be more difficult to make changes after the report has been finalized. When you speak to the investigating officer, ask that your account of the incident be added to an amended report (see “Make Your Case,” below). If you present your case politely, the officer may be willing to amend the report. But if you file a complaint or make accusations of bias, you risk turning a potential trial witness into your adversary. Ask when the report will be finalized, and check back before that date to make sure that your addendum appears in the final document. If you are questioning the conclusion that you were at fault, the officer will likely be unwilling to shift blame to the driver, but you may be able to persuade him or her to take a neutral stance. This will place the responsibility for determining fault where it belongs: with the jury.
MAKE YOUR CASE
Disputing a police report? Here’s the info you’ll want to submit.
1) A written statement describing your disagreement with the report, in as much detail as possible.
2) A signed affidavit a sworn statement attesting to the truth of the addendum.
3) Photographs or any other evidence that supports your account.
4) Records of treatment you received—if you suffered an injury that affected your ability to give a statement at the scene.
Research and assistance provided by Rick Bernardi, J.D.
Continue reading “Set the Record Straight”

While these kind of posts don’t usually attract a lot of attention, I hope these little "sound bites" from larger more detailed articles give you some feel for what’s really going on with planning "requiring" use of the individual automobile. So while there are some interesting numbers and studies in the article, here is the final paragraph of the article from Strong Towns Blog by Charles Marohn:
If you want a simple explanation for why our economy is stalled and cannot be restarted, it is this: Our places do not create wealth, they destroy wealth. Our development pattern — the American style of building our places — is simply not productive enough to sustain itself. It creates modest short-term benefits and massive long-term costs. We’re now sixty years into this experiment, basically through two complete life cycles. We’ve reached the "long-term", and you can clearly see we’ve run out of options for keeping this Ponzi scheme going.
Continue reading “The Growth Ponzi Scheme”

from Streetsblog Capitol Hill by Tanya Snyder
According to an analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology of 2002 mortgage data, 250 people applied for mortgages every day in Chicago, and only 150 were approved. The top reason for rejecting the other 100? Applicants had too much credit tied up in car ownership.
…
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/06/07/how-car-dependency-turns-suburban-dreams-into-foreclosure-nightmares/

[B’ Spokes: For a bit of an introduction, readers of this blog know that Maryland has a terrible pedestrian fatality rate and I will assert that we need to break the perception that roads are for the sole purpose of accommodating cars and that bicyclists and pedestrians are trespassers. If we can make things safer for pedestrians cyclists benefit and if things are safer for cyclists pedestrians benefit. Any thing that says “We accommodate ALL users of public space (roads) equally will help.]

It was broadly observed that the construction of an
improved pedestrian facility resulted in an increased proportion of pedestrians using the desire line at the
location of the improvement.
A key outcome of this analysis is the importance of pedestrian desire lines to the location of new or
improved pedestrian facilities. The utility of a facility is maximised when it is placed on pedestrians’ most
desirable crossing path – ie a facility that does not lie on the path that is most preferred by pedestrians
may not be utilised by a large proportion of pedestrians in the area, as was the case with the Collingwood
St kerb extensions.

[B’ Spokes: Now contrast that with Baltimore County’s (to name just one) and the “We do not accommodate j-walkers, we ticket them.” type of pedestrian safety “improvement” program.]

• Safety was rated as the most important factor considered by pedestrians when choosing a location to
cross the road.
• Pedestrians at all of the study sites reported feeling safer while crossing the street after the
implementation of the new pedestrian facility.
• At five of the eight study sites, the average ‘after’ safety rating was 2.5 or more (out of a maximum of
3), indicating that these facilities had been successful in providing the perception of an extremely safe
crossing environment.

[B’ Spokes: Can you guess what Maryland typically does to improve pedestrian safety? If you guessed the one on the bottom, your are right! I really think having the 4th highest pedestrian fatality rate gives us some right to demand that the State crank it up a notch for pedestrian safety and where needed crank it down a notch on the (over) accommodation of cars.]
Continue reading “Benefits of new and improved pedestrian facilities – before and after studies”

…
Akerson told The Detroit News that, rather than have the government incrementally increase fuel efficiency standards over the next several years, “You know what I’d rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas.”
“People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans,” he said.
Akerson isn’t the first representative of a major U.S. automaker to come out in favor of a higher gas tax….
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/06/08/gm-ceo-we-ought-to-just-slap-a-dollar-tax-on-a-gallon-of-gas/

From "More or Less" on BBC4: Good info about the safety of cycling beginning at about ten minutes into the broadcast, running for seven minutes.
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreorless_20100903-1248a.mp3
There are a lot of good points here about comparing apples with apples. I will also note that the leading cause of death for 1-31year olds is automobile accidents. Additionally the 5-25 year olds make up the bulk of bicycle crashes so if you are outside of that age range bicycling looks more attractive then driving, at least in my opinion. Listen to the broadcast for more points why bicycling may not be as dangerous as we thought (we need more data to say so with any degree of certainty but the clues are there.)