Month: March 2011

By Sanden Totten | KPCC California Public Radio
A new ordinance heading for a vote soon by the Los Angeles City Council would make it easier for bikers to sue aggressive drivers. Bike advocates are calling it a landmark law, but some drivers are wary.
Cyclist Jonathan Green says harassment is a fact of life for bikers.
"If you are out on your bike on a daily basis, it happens frequently," Green explains.
Green works for a project that recovers abandoned bikes around L.A. He says when a driver endangers him he takes matters into his own hands.
"I’ll carry my camera with me," he says. "And if someone harasses me, and I catch them at a stoplight, I’ll just take a picture of them. And get their car and license plate. And it changes people’s behavior because it makes them feel there is a certain kind of responsibility. You are no longer anonymous, you are responsible for your behavior."
Jonathan Green could soon do a lot more than just snap a picture. Within a few weeks, the L.A. City Council could approve the Bicyclists’ Anti-Harassment Ordinance.
The new law would make it easier for bikers like Green to sue when drivers harass, threaten, assault or intentionally distract them. It’s the first law of its kind in the country.
"What it really is is cyclists’ civil rights," says attorney Ross Hirsch. He’s represented bike riders in the past.
Hirsch points out there are laws to prevent harassment on roadways, but he says a lot of lawyers turn down these cases. The damages tend to be small, so a lawyer’s cut might not be worth it. But under the new ordinance, a driver found guilty would have to pay the lawyers fees on top of any damages awarded by the court.
"It makes it a little more lucrative for an attorney to take the case because that attorney will be getting attorney’s fees as damages," says Hirsch. He also notes the law would force a guilty driver to pay a cyclist three times the cost of damaged property or hospital bills.
Filling up his car at a gas station in Los Feliz, David Abrams doesn’t like the sound of that.
"Wouldn’t they be more inclined to fake stuff?" Abrams asks. "And you know, get in their path? Because lawyers get a lot of money from them."
"I think it’s too much power for them," says Nick Petro. Petro think when tempers rise both parties are to blame, no matter how many wheels they have.
"I don’t think they should be able to just sue at random. Because they are just as much responsible for being on the road as a person driving a car too."
But lawyer Daniel Jimenez says don’t expect the new ordinance to send a pack of lawsuits rolling through the courts.
"No, it’s not going to be that simple," says Jimenez, who also rides a bike regularly. "In those situations no one is going to be able to get all the evidence you really need. Because you are too busy riding a bike and too busy dealing with someone who is trying to harass you."
He says in the end, you still need witnesses, still need information on the car and driver – you still need a solid, compelling case to get to court. Most cyclist versus driver incidents won’t make it.
Still, the road wars in Los Angeles can get intense. Three years ago an incident between a driver and a pair of bikers in Mandeville Canyon turned bloody.
The driver, an emergency room physician, was convicted of assault and sentenced to five years in prison. He slammed on his brakes after pulling in front of two cyclists. One required 90 stitches after his head went through the car’s rear windshield.
Cyclist Jonathan Green hopes this new law will help cut down on rage like that.
"I mean I love biking, it’s a lot of fun, I can’t recommend it enough," says Green. "So, if these laws might make a change… I don’t know. You have to wait and see what happens."
For now, Green will keep hitting the streets on two wheels, camera in hand, ready to turn a confrontation into a photo opportunity.
Continue reading “New law seeks to curb biker versus car road rage”

[B’ Spokes: We support speed tables (like on Church Ln and Bedford Av in Baltimore County) Speed humps and bumps are hazardous to cyclists and penalize/discourage cycling on streets where such “traffic calming” is applied. Planners need to be aware that not all traffic calming is bicycle friendly and someone from the cycling community should be consulted before an application of traffic calming devices. I’ll remind Maryland planners that it is State law that the needs of bicyclists be a part of the planning process and repost the following article as a reminder of the potential liability (I’m looking at you traffic calming in NE Baltimore.) ]

from Streetsblog.net by Angie Schmitt

Just days after four-foot wide speed cushions were installed on a Palos Verdes Estates street, a 65-year old cyclist went down hard.

So hard, in fact, that he was still unconscious a week later. Yet local authorities say they can’t “conclude without a doubt” that the cushions were at fault.

Maybe not.

But it’s highly likely that a jury would — and no doubt, eventually will — conclude otherwise.

And that’s the problem. When what seems like commonsense roadway solutions are applied without consulting the cycling community — or at least, traffic engineers who actually ride themselves — it’s not just your safety that’s at risk.

It’s your tax dollars, as well.

Because the inevitable lawsuits that follow are either paid out of your tax dollars, or through a government insurance policy that’s paid with your tax dollars. And one that can often increase, sometimes dramatically, following a successful lawsuit alleging negligence.

In the Palos Verdes Estates case, Richard Schlickman, described as an experienced cyclist, skidded nearly 80 feet after losing control when he either hit one of the newly installed speed control devices on the 500 block of Via del Monte, or swerved to avoid them.

According the Daily Breeze, an unidentified cyclist who witnessed the incident said the speed cushions were the cause of Schlickman’s wreck.

“I saw him fall and slide down on the asphalt. It definitely occurred at that first speed bump there,” said the cyclist, who did not want to give his name. “I really think those speed bumps are dangerous. You’re going to see more accidents.”

Continue reading “The law of unintended biking consequences — cities ignore bike safety at your peril”

[B’ Spokes: It often comes up or assumed that cyclists are more likely to be at fault in a crash then motorist.]
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By Robert Hurst
THE EFFECT OF CHILD BICYCLISTS ON BIKE-CAR COLLISION STATISTICS IN NORTH CAROLINA, 1997-2008
When looking at accident statistics for a community or state’s entire cycling population, we are really looking at two very different worlds, the kids’ world and the adult world, which operate under completely different rules and circumstances. Mashing both data-sets into one huge ball of statistical mash means we won’t be able to learn anything from either of them. Any number that combines both disparate populations, with their vastly different behaviors and outcomes, will be meaningless.
For example, it is a commonly held and oft-repeated belief that bicyclists’ own law-breaking is the primary cause of most of their suffering on the roadways. But this is just a misapprehension caused by looking at data for the entire population of cyclists, including little kids, which shows that the majority of car-bike collisions can be blamed on the bicyclist. A closer look reveals that adults are far more likely to be riding legally than illegally at the time of a collision, while child bicyclists are much more likely to be riding illegally — so much more likely, in fact, that it blows up the entire business.
It’s striking how the numbers shake out in N.C.
https://www.pedbikeinfo.org/pbcat/_bikequery.cfm
Child bicyclists (15 and under) accounted for 61% of reported Bicyclist Failed-to-Yield Midblock collisions (789 out of 1301 total).
Child bicyclists accounted for 60% of Bicyclist Failed-to-Yield Sign-controlled Intersection collisions (698 out of 1159).
Child bicyclists accounted for 24% of Bicyclist Failed-to-Yield Signalized Intersection collisions (129 out of 537).
Adding these up, child bicyclists 15 and under accounted for a massive 54% of all reported Bicyclist Failed-to-Yield collisions in North Carolina from 1997-2008 (1616 out of 2997). That’s right, most of the reported incidents involving bicyclists’ failure-to-yield were caused by kids.
In contrast, child bicyclists made up only 13% of Motorist Failed-to-Yield Midblock collisions, 15% of Motorist Failed-to-Yield Sign-Controlled Intersection collisions and 13% of Motorist Failed-to-Yield Signalized Intersection collisions. Child bicyclists were involved in 13.8% of all Motorist Failed-to-Yield collisions, but over 30% of all reported collisions.
To put it mildly, kids are hugely over-represented in bicyclist at-fault crashes. A lot of the little offenders haven’t even removed the training wheels yet.
Looking only at the adult bicyclists, we see a starkly different pattern. In fact, we see the opposite pattern. The mirror image.
Considering the propensity of adult bicyclists everywhere to take liberties with the traffic laws, running lights and stop signs, we might expect to see a pattern of scofflaw bicyclists getting served their just deserts in the police reports. There is certainly some of that. However, the numbers clearly show that lawful adult bicyclists, at least in N.C., suffer substantially more from motorists’ failures-to-yield than unlawful adult bicyclists suffer from their own failures-to-yield.
Looking at the cohort of bicyclists aged 25-49, we see that this group reportedly caused 209 Bicyclist Failed-to-Yield Midblock crashes from 1997-2008, but suffered 325 Motorist Failed-to-Yield Midblock wrecks over the same period. They caused 183 Failed-to-Yield wrecks at sign-controlled intersections, but suffered 451 Motorist-caused wrecks at signed intersections. They caused 191 wrecks by running stoplights — sweet justice! — but 121 lawful riders were creamed by light-running drivers over the same time.
Overall, the entire bicycling population of N.C., in eleven years, caused 2997 failure-to-yield collisions, and suffered 2014 failures-to-yield at the hands of motorists — looks fairly damning when you see it like that. Bicyclists primarily at fault. Now, just look at the adults. Bicyclists aged 25-49 caused 583 crashes after failing to yield, but were on the business end of 897 motorist failures-to-yield. More than 3-to-2 in favor of motorist at-fault. A very different perspective.
The greatest danger to the adult bicyclist is not his or her own scofflaw behavior, as one might mistakenly conclude from looking at the whole cycling population, including little kids. The greatest danger facing the adult bicyclist is being overlooked by a driver while riding lawfully.
This is a crucially important fact which should be conveyed not just to cyclists but to police and courts — all those who become the caretakers, directly or indirectly, for injured or deceased cyclists, many of whom can’t speak for themselves. Bicycling advocates, if they are to live up to that label, must work to correct the misapprehensions of the past and convey the truth, even if that truth runs counter to long-held biases and assumptions. It’s much more difficult for adult cyclists to get a fair shake when they are judged largely by the actions of little kids riding out of their driveways or off the sidewalks at the ends of their blocks. But that’s exactly how adult cycling is judged these days, by planners, advocates and onlookers. It’s wrong, it’s silly, and it needs to stop.
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[B’ Spokes: BICYCLE SAFETY – What Every Parent Should Know https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110207122918306 ]
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A comment: I’ve looked at a number of years of crash stats for Portland, and if you eliminate the child cyclists, you find approximately a 60:40 motorist:bicyclist split in fault determination for adults only; if you include the child cyclists, those numbers are essentially reversed.
Continue reading “The effect of child bicyclists on bike-car collision statistics in north carolina, 19”

To be honest I could not get through the whole interview but it starts with Bob saying “Most of the enmity or disregard for cycling that I see doesn’t come from the fact that we are scofflaws, it comes from the fact…”
Let’s just say it’s worth hearing how Bob Mionske finishes that.

Listen to the audio track here: CDM Cyclist

from GOOD by Cord Jefferson

…
Akaiwa rushed to high ground and immediately called his wife of two decades. When she didn’t answer, Akaiwa ignored friends’ pleas to wait for a military rescue, instead rummaging up some scuba gear and diving into the dark, cold, debris-filled tsunami. Hundreds of yards of swimming later, Akaiwa found his wife struggling against the 10-foot current that had overtaken the couple’s Ishinomaki home.

…
With his family accounted for, Akaiwa hasn’t rested on his laurels. Rather, he’s spent the past two weeks heading into Ishinomaki in search of other trapped survivors. Armed with a backpack, a flashlight, a Swiss Army knife, and some water, he rides his bike around the wreckage and makes his own destiny.
Continue reading “People Are Awesome: This Guy Scuba Dived Into the Tsunami to Rescue His Wife and Mother”