Month: February 2013

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U.S. DOT to Challenge AASHTO Supremacy on Bike/Ped Safety Standards

by Tanya Snyder, Streets Blog
For years, the federal government has adopted roadway guidelines that fall far short of what’s needed — and what’s possible — to protect cyclists and pedestrians. By “playing it safe” and sticking with old-school engineering, U.S. DOT allowed streets to be unsafe for these vulnerable road users.
But that could be changing. The bike-friendliest transportation secretary the country has ever seen told state transportation officials yesterday at AASHTO’s annual Washington conference that U.S. DOT was getting into the business of issuing its own design standards, instead of simply accepting the AASHTO guidelines.
Normally, the Federal Highway Administration points people to AASHTO’s Green Book, the organization’s design guide for highways and streets — and indeed, the agency is still directing people to the 2001 edition of the Green Book. Cycling advocates have long criticized the AASHTO guide, and the FHWA’s adherence to it, since even the most recent version doesn’t incorporate the latest thinking in bicycle and pedestrian safety treatments.
In FHWA’s new round of rule-making, DOT will set its own bicycle and pedestrian safety standards for the first time. The agency will “highlight bicycle and pedestrian safety as a priority,” LaHood said. (You can watch his entire speech on AASHTO’s online TV channel.)
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https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/02/28/u-s-dot-to-challenge-aashto-supremacy-on-bikeped-safety-standards/

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With Rapid Response Grant, WABA Improves Police Enforcement for Bicyclists in DC

By Mary Lauran Hall, Alliance for Biking and Walking
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What should advocates do when bicyclists are consistently incorrectly cited by local police? The Washington Area Bicyclist Association has a pretty good answer.
For the past several years, Shane Farthing, WABA’s executive director, had been aware of a disturbing pattern. Advocates consistently heard accounts from bicyclists who had been injured in crashes and had received citations that just didn’t make sense from Metropolitan Police Department officers. Many said they had been fined for breaking a law that was not applicable to the incident. In some cases, officers had assigned blame to an injured cyclist based only on a driver’s statement, without actually interviewing the bicyclist or witnesses. Some had even been cited for violating laws that did not exist.
These accounts led Shane and his employees to believe that MPD officers were not receiving adequate training on enforcing laws pertinent to bicyclists. In response, WABA launched a campaign “to advocate for and secure funding for the holistic training of MPD officers of the application of the law to bicyclists.”
The enforcement campaign kicked off in February of 2011, when WABA requested and received a DC Council Committee on the Judiciary hearing to assess MPD’s enforcement of laws pertaining to bicyclists. In response to the advocates’ testimony, the DC Office of Police Complaints issued a report confirming poor work by the Police Department. The report prompted several councilmembers and staffers to request that WABA provide better documentation of the types of incidents cyclists described in testimony.
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Despite egregious errors, the police department did not indicate willingness to make meaningful changes.
“Every time we would go to testify, the MPD would say that they already had these trainings in place and there was no problem,” said Shane. “We were in a he-said-she-said situation.”
WABA’s biggest challenge was furnishing solid evidence. “The limitation we faced at every stage was a lack of data,” Shane recalled. “Our crash tracker had a small sample size.”
“So we decided to put together good FOIA requests to analyze these crash reports.” Using the Freedom of Information Act, WABA would obtain the actual police reports that were relevant to the trends advocates had spotted in Crash Tracker responses.
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https://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org/site/index.php/site/blog/4354/

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Bike Law University: Summary of State Safe Passing Laws

[B’ Spokes: Here are some concepts in safe passing laws that the Maryland legislature has failed to incorporate.]

This law touches on three important concepts:

  1. Due care – By saying that a driver must exercise due care the law creates a relationship of responsibility for the driver of a vehicle approaching a bicyclist. Language stating a due care requirement may make it easier for bicyclists to hold a driver liable if hit.
  2. Defined distance – By stating that a reasonable and prudent distance is one of at least 3 feet the law makes it easy to publicize what is regarded as a safe distance and reinforces the most commonly required safe passing distance.
  3. Variable distance – By stating that a reasonable and prudent distance is one that varies with increased speed, the law makes it clear that three feet is not an absolute. What is safe can vary depending upon speed and road conditions. Recognizing this is rare amongst state laws that define a safe distance.

From: https://blog.bikeleague.org/blog/2013/01/bike-law-university-summary-of-state-safe-passing-laws/