Month: May 2011

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Lesser fine for driver who hit bicyclist was [a police] blunder

[B’ Spokes: I would like to remind everyone of our Bicyclists Bill of Rights: "3. Cyclists have the right to the full support of educated law enforcement." With all the attention this crash gathered, you would think things would be doubled checked for accuracy. Whether this was a "simple" mistake or part of a long trend of what seems to be Baltimore Police going easy on at fault motorists who injure/kill cyclists, I cannot say but in either case I am disturbed, if you are too write your city council rep. https://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/citycouncil/ ]
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from Getting There by Michael Dresser

The Baltimore woman whose driving errors led to a crash that left bicyclist Nathan Krasnopoler in a coma with possibly permanent brain injuries has resolved the traffic charges against her by paying $220 – about half the amount she would have been fined if the Baltimore police had not erred in writing the tickets.

Jeannette Marie Walke, 83, pleaded guilty May 11 to negligent driving and failure to yield tight-of-way to a bicyclist in a designated lane. There was no indication in court records that she chose to appear in court. Such charges can be resolved by sending in a standard fine by mail.

Nathan Krasnopoler, a Johns Hopkins University student, collided with Walke’s car Feb. 26 when she turned in front of him on University Drive near the Homewood Campus. According to his family, he retains brain stem function but is not expected to regain consciousness. The Krasnopolers have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Walke.

Walke could have been fined $400 had not the police officer who wrote the tickets blundered.

The negligent driving fine was assessed at $140 rather than the $280 allowed under state law for cases involving a crash. On the failure-to-yield charge, she was fined $80 rather than the $120 she could have been assessed for an offense that contributed to an accident.

Terri Bolling, a spokesman for the District Courts of Maryland, said the officer wrote in the higher amounts but failed to check off the boxes indicating the charges involved a case that led to an accident and personal injury.

Bolling said that when the boxes are not checked, the fines default to the lower, pre-set amounts. She said the staff that enters the data into the court’s electronic system is not permitted to check the boxes or correct the amounts because the tickets are legal charging documents.

The police error comes after the department acknowledged mishandling the case up front by initially saying no charges would be brought against the driver. After a public outcry led by bicycle advocates, the police conducted a more thorough investigation and the State’s Attorney’s Office decided to charge Walke with the two traffic offenses.

Andrew G. Slutkin, the Krasnopoler family attorney who filed the civil suit, said he was surprised to learn that Walke had been charged the lesser fines. He said that while the family didn’t want to see the driver jailed, they believed it was important that she be charged because they felt she was “legally and morally responsible for the collision.”

“The family believes the fine should be the maximum available under the law,” Slutkin said. “If anyone deserves a break, it’s not this defendant.”
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When Bikes And Cars Collide, Who’s More Likely To Be At Fault?

by ELIZA BARCLAY
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Ed Beighe, who mans the Arizona bike blog Azbikelaw, crunched some numbers on fault from his state and found that 44 percent of fatalities from bike-car crashes in 2009 were determined to be the fault of the cyclist, while 56 percent were the fault of a motor vehicle driver. The most common collision was when a driver struck a cyclist from behind.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety published data on contributing factors in bike-car crashes. It found that in 2009, cyclists were at fault in 49 percent of crashes, while drivers were at fault in 51 percent. Failing to yield to right of way was the most frequent cause of the snarls.
And the Washington Post recently mentioned a 2004 report from DC showing cyclists more likely than motorists to be at fault in a crash.
But a older study from Hawaii had a different conclusion. Using police-reported crash data from 1986 to 1991, researchers found that motorists were at fault in approximately 83.5 percent of incidents, whereas bicyclists were at fault in only 16.5 percent of incidents.
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Md. comptroller calls for gas tax freeze over summer holidays

"It would lose us $2 million a day — that’s $6 million for three days. But I think it would be a big boost for the state’s economy and most of all, it would just give our citizens a break (from high gas prices)."
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[B’ Spokes: Do you really want to know what would be good for the economy? Give away $6 million in bikes, cargo trailers, racks and panniers. Empower the people to spend money and a verity of goods and services without sinking so much into just one thing that mostly profits out of state business.
Or maybe we should look at every parked car as someone begging for a hand out because they can no longer afford to be a profitable member of society by going lots of places like they once did. So cyclists could unite to form a chartable society and take some of that money we save and give it to "the poor" cars in the form of little gas cans and printed on the side of the gas can something like: "We know owning a car is expensive so here is enough gas to get you to the store and back so you can spend your money on more important things then just gas. Or you could go out and buy a bike like we did and save even more."
Of course giving away little cans of gas is silly but so is gas tax holiday. If you want to give people a holiday, how about $6 million worth of six Flags or Movie discounts? Why does the auto industry and only the auto industry benefit from such "deals", what’s wrong with spreading some anti-inflation around? It’s not like the price of gas is the only thing that got more expensive.
Assuming we get people to buy as much gas as they are saving in tax, that’s $5 million that Maryland is giving to the middle east and other places that produced the gas and less then one million will stay in the local economy (See "Cars, good for the economy".) It’s like co-opting "buy from local farmers markets because it’s good for the economy" with "buy anything but locally produced stuff." ]
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Catonsville Cyclists Ride For Rails To Trails

By Ed Davis – Patch

Ever wonder what happened to the "Streetcar Named Desire"? The car itself is living a life of retirement in New Orleans, but if Catonsville Rails To Trails had its way, its old trolley line would now be a bike path.

On a pleasantly warm, partly cloudy day on Sunday, local area bike riders got together at the Catonsville Farmers Market to embark on a 14-mile ride hosted by Catonsville Rails To Trails, an advocacy group for the conversion of old streetcar lines to bike paths. The ride was free, and went at a relaxed pace, covering the distance in about two hours.

The bike route interwove neighborhood streets with old trolley lines that have been turned into walking and biking trails. The organization has been working for more than a decade on the goal of re-purposing these relics of a bygone era, along with lobbying for more bike lanes on local streets and easier walking access on bridges and highways.

Patch got on its saddle and took pictures and video of the outing, and worked up some good healthy sweat in the process.

[There’s pictures in the linked article.]
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Light rail and pedestrians: Why not a crosswalk?

from Getting There by Michael Dresser

A light rail train was heading north on Howard Street in downtown Baltimore when it made a stop on the right side between Lexington and Saratoga. Dozens of passengers disembarked, and the vast majority of them crossed over the street in the middle of the block, just behind the train.

This may not be strictly legal but it is human nature. No amount of legislating or fulminating or lecturing will stop it. Rich or poor, black or white, male or female, young or old — it seems we all want to get from Point A to Point B by taking a straight line.

My question for the city Department of Transportation is this: Given that this is how pedestrians react to this configuration of transit and street, why not create a crosswalk at the point where they are going to cross anyway? Even when pedestrians are in the wrong, drivers are obligated to avoid hitting them anyway, so why not provide that extra measure of protection to people on foot?

Here’s a modest suggestion: Have one of those sharp traffic engineers with the department follow the light rail through town and chart where the passengers are crossing. Then design measures to protect them. It’s not as if Howard Street was intended to be a fast-moving street for drivers.

Yes, the city could wait for a fatality. Or, at the risk of sounding unoriginal, it could "do it now."

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Maryland Personal Injury News: AAA Joins Victims’ Families in Pushing for Stricter Vehicular Homicide Legislation

by Lebowitz & Mzhen
Traffic accidents that take innocent lives are some of the most regrettable events anyone has to face. Recently, the Maryland legislature assed House Bill 363 that essential says drivers who are found guilty of being grossly negligent in fatal car crashes will be facing a new prison term option from courts across the state.
According to news reports, the general assembly approved the bill that calls for "grossly negligent" drivers who are determined to have caused a fatal traffic accident will be looking at mandatory jail time. Previously, even reckless drivers’ actions were found to have resulted in a deadly automobile or motorcycle crash were not always help to account for another person’s death.
Under Maryland’s current statutes, a motorist could be facing jail following a fatal car-bike crash, but only if it can be proven that the defendant was grossly negligent. Many experts have suggested that some of the state’s prosecuting attorneys feel gross negligence is an extremely high standard to reach in court. The approach, according to earlier reports, was to get lower the standard to something closer to “substantial deviation from the standard of care.”
Naturally, demonstrating “substantial negligence” is typically more difficult than “ordinary negligence,” however it is easier than meeting the standard for “gross negligence.” It has been suggested that the standard of substantial negligence would apply to more instances of, say, vehicular homicides in which the defendant was found to be going twice the speed limit on a winding country road, or passing a slower vehicle on a blind curve.
Nevertheless, the new jail-time penalties likely to be used by state and local prosecutors’ offices may begin to make a dent in what seems to have become the painful and all too common occurrence of deadly car-bicycle accidents. The goal, as suggested by many observers, is to thwart the sometimes reckless behavior of motorists and even to reduce or eliminate fatal biking accidents, not unlike the way that DWI and DUI laws have helped to reduce the number alcohol-related traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities.
As Maryland auto and motorcycle accident attorneys and Washington, D.C., injury lawyers, my office has seen the results of road accidents involving passenger cars, commercial trucks and bicycle riders enough to know that new laws designed to protect cyclists and pedestrians are a step in the right direction.
According to news reports, advocates of better bicycle safety laws here in Maryland and in the District have been lobbying for this latest vehicular manslaughter bill many long years. Even the American Automobile Association (AAA) has joined the fray and added its muscle to the effort. While prior years have seen the bill become mired in committee, the last-minute lobbying apparently paid off with passage in the state legislature.
Based on the news, the loss of congressional candidate, Natasha Pettigrew, who was killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident last September, added to the impetus for the bill’s passage. Pettigrew’s mother had devoted much of her energy to gathering petition signatures and was apparently quite pleased that the legislation would soon become law.
Regardless, there is still much to be done before the roadways are safe for all bikers and pedestrians. Once the law is in place, then comes the enforcement and likely added public awareness campaigns to instill in motorists the possible penalties associated with killing another person through reckless or thoughtless actions.
Continue reading “Maryland Personal Injury News: AAA Joins Victims’ Families in Pushing for Stricter Vehicular Homicide Legislation”

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Student Essay Winner: How Would A Bicycle Change My Life

The bit that got me as I see way too many 12 year old girls that would relate to this. We really need to support free range kids.
"I am going to be 12 in May of this year and I would also like to lose my baby fat and a bicycle would sure help that situation. Next semester I will be playing the clarinet or the violin and I could take my bike to school and make sure that I am there for these classes and not have to worry how I would get home. Thank you for the opportunity in this contest to maybe see a dream come true of having a bicycle of my own."
Continue reading “Student Essay Winner: How Would A Bicycle Change My Life”