Cash for Clunker killer sentenced

52 year old cyclist Charles Waldrop was killed by a hit and run driver who witnesses say was driving at a high rate of speed and swerving. Police say an anonymous tip lead to the apprehension and arrest of  23 y.o. Timothy Kissida after he traded (via the “Cash for Clunkers” program) a light blue 1992 BMW 325i w/damage consistent with hit-and-run.

Kissida plead guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced today, drawing 10.5 years in prison (which IIRC is the presumptive sentence). Not sure about the leaving the scene sentence.

The whole story should be in the minute entries for case CR2009-007394, but haven’t been updated yet.

[azfamily][original story on azbikelaw]

Some cyclists just won’t stay in the gutter

Flagstaff cyclist Justin Pryzby is at it again — not riding in the gutter.

Heading home from work, westbound on East Route 66 in the vicinity of Switzer Canyon Drive [google maps], he was pulled over by Flagstaff police officer. His offense? “RIDING HIS BICYCLE IN LANE NUMBER TWO OF THE ROAD WAY WHERE A BICYCLE LANE WAS PROVIDED”, according to the strangely detailed police report of the incident (the quotations from the report are for some reason in all caps, underlining added by me).

Is this a bike lane?

Officer is obviously fixated on the bike lane, and writes of it often “THE SUBJECT THEN WENT BACK INTO THE BICYCLE LANE AND I ACTIVATED MY EMERGENCY LIGHTS AND SIREN”….”THERE WAS A BICYCLE LANE THAT WAS PROVIDED”…”THERE WERE NONE OF THE EXCEPTIONS… THAT WOULD MAKE JUSTIN HAVE TO EXIT OR GET OUT OF THE BIKE LANE”

Here is a picture of a REAL bike lane

Officer charged the cyclist with two violations: §28-701E, and §28-815A.

The only trouble with Officer’s story is, there is no bike lane there. I confirmed this with City of Flagstaff multi-modal coordinator Martin Ince by telephone, and also with the State of Arizona (this happens to be a state highway) Department of Transportation Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator Michael Sanders.  It is self-evident from the photo that this could not possibly be a bicycle lane.  Nor is it marked with bike lane signage (e.g. R3-17), or ground markings. What about the lane, that is Lane number 2? It’s something under 11 feet — clearly narrow, see Take the lane. As far as I know, no one disputes the dimensions.

A real bike lane would have an R3-17 (or similar) sign

I have written before on the problems and confusion these edge-stripes-that-are-not-bike-lane-stripes cause — and this is that in spades, see e.g. Is this a bike lane?

The other charge, 28-701E, is inapplicable to bicyclists because it applies specifically to motor vehicles. See in Bicycles are not motor vehicles, and why it matters

The Trial

The first sign that something was out of the ordinary was the city exercising its option to be represented by counsel, somewhat (how much?) unusual for a civil traffic matter.

In any event the trial was held in Flagstaff Municipal Court, docket #M-9341-TR-2919994702  before Charlotte Beyal, Magistrate Pro Tempore. The city was represented by Assistant City Prosecutor Consuelo “Celo” Brennan. The cyclist represented himself.

The trial apparently went well. That is to say the judge understood and accepted the defendant’s position both that the lane was narrow and was therefore not responsible for 28-815A because of exemption 4, and that the other charge could not apply to a bicycle. Not responsible on both counts.

The Trouble with Flagstaff PD

Is it poor training? Or is this officer just out to get bicyclists who dare to exercise their right to the road? Or is it something more — is it an institutional bias?

Flagstaff recently was rewarded by LAB with a Silver Bicycle Friendly Communities designation. Enforcement is supposed to figure into that, and they got a “star” in that category. Not from what I’ve been seeing over the past 8 months or so.

I started a new tag: flagstaff-anomolies as there seems to a pattern of law enforcement and justice system problems in Flagstaff. In the wake of the NAIPTA-bus-bike fiasco,  “…the police department issued a department-wide training bulletin requiring all officers to review all bicycle laws, (deputy chief) Treadway said”. Sounds impressive? But who knows what sort of training they actually did?

11-year-old killed in crosswalk collision

An 82-year old motorist turning left onto Union Hills from 15th Avenue struck and killed an 11-year old girl riding in the crosswalk on August 5, 2010. The direction of the girl was not specified.

Names have not been released, Phoenix Police officer “Martos said the woman was not impaired and likely will not be charged. Police are still investigating.”

It wasn’t mentioned in any of the news reports but it is possible that it isn’t a bicycle, by definition bicycles are devices with wheels “more than sixteen inches in diameter”.

I’m not familiar with this area or intersection [google maps], though Union Hills Dr appears to be a typical Phoenix “car sewer”; 5 lanes of rush rush.

The mechanics of the collision are very similar to Maxwell v. Gossett, where the Arizona Supreme court found for the cyclist, and against the motorist who was turning through the crosswalk.

The so-called “left cross” is a common mode of collision; Bradley Jason Scott [tbagblog] was killed on Tempe a few weeks ago in a left cross (but not involving a crosswalk).

[azfamily][arizonarepublic][kpho]

Is it legal to ride in a crosswalk?

Setting aside the issue on the relative merits of sidewalk cycling…

By way of some more background on the legality of cycling in crosswalks; an analysis prepared by the Tuscon City Attorney’s office in 1998 found that (my emphasis) “…it is apparent that under the present state of law in Arizona a bicyclist is not prohibited from riding on or across a crosswalk…”.

It’s worth pointing out that this conclusion was reached in Tucson where it is patently illegal to cycle on the sidewalk. I am not aware of any Phoenix ordinance that affects crosswalks, thus we would fall back to the same cases and Arizona statutes analyzed in the above memo.

That being said, saying something is not prohibited is not the same as saying that the car driver must be automatically at fault, e.g. “the court held that bicyclists must still exercise due care and concern for their safety while about to enter or in the crosswalk”.

Bicycles aren’t vehicles

As we all know, bicyclists must follow the same rules as other vehicles; from time to time one hears of a story such as this one Read the rest of this entry »

Some cops REALLY don’t like critical mass

This is one of those sorts of stories you hear but just can’t quite believe until you see the youtube video.

The cop gets indicted. And later on fired/resigned. Pogan fired (or resigned or whatever. the good news is he is no longer in law enforcement).

The final outcome July 2010

http://azdailysun.com/news/national/article_c99bc0e9-e345-5361-aec8-9b3d67ab1332.html

…Jurors in April acquitted Pogan of assault and harassment in his encounter with pro-cycling activist Christopher Long. But Pogan was convicted of filing false documents after a witness’s video
contradicted his account in a court document.
…
Long, a sometime farmer and farmer’s market worker, wasn’t seriously hurt. He got a $65,000 settlement after suing the city. His lawyer didn’t immediately return a call Wednesday.

Pogan resigned last year from the New York Police Department and has been working construction jobs. His felony conviction will bar him from police work, in which he’d hoped to follow his father’s and
grandfather’s examples

.

An Historic Citation

This is an update to an earlier story involving cyclist Randy Mason and the driver of a Flagstaff city transit bus. Just a few days ago I wrote that I considered it “highly unlikely” the city attorney would recommend any citations; boy was I wrong!

In Bicyclist 2 Bus Driver 0 Daily Sun article, the city attorney is recommending BOTH citations (speeding and §28-735) be issued. This is official recognition of the law is a huge win for cyclist safety.

Though this story obviously isn’t over; I wanted to highlight some of the significant developments Read the rest of this entry »

Scottsdale cyclist’s death shows problems with law

The Arizona Republic today ran a heavily researched article concerning the death of Cindie Holub in Scottsdale in February. It also delved into some comparative history into other strike-from-behind cases.

[also, here is the original AZ Republic story about the death]

Scottsdale cyclist’s death shows problems with law, Ofelia Madrid and Jane Larson, Arizona Republic, 4/22/2010. Read the rest of this entry »

[verdict] Fatality in Tucson — driver was reportedly “weaving”

[Verdict April 12, 2010] The driver who killed Drake Okusako plead guilty, and received a 4-year prison sentence. “On March 1 he (Segebartt) entered guilty pleas before Pima County Superior Court Judge Deborah Bernini to the leaving the scene charge and a reduced negligent homicide charge” Read the rest of this entry »

The City of Flagstaff Hates Bicyclists

Speeding Flagstaff City bus skims by cyclist

[Really Breaking news: 3/18/2010 see new article on azbikelaw.org ]

[Breaking news; Thursday Feb 11, 2010 was media day, and this story is getting huge exposure. Today a short piece ran on channel 12 news out of Phoenix, and a longer detailed piece ran in the Arizona Daily Sun, Cyclist, city attorney in lane dispute. As of now the city attorney's office is saying "Staff at the city attorney's office has yet to make a final determination whether the state's 3-foot statute applies when a cyclist is in a bike lane" (but see below, "the Last Word") -- hint, read the law (link below), it's only like 3 sentences long. How long does a review take? the incident occurred almost two months ago.  Also a story published in The Noise, it's posted on the author's blog: City Shenanigans Leave Bicyclists with No Options, covering both the Pryzby and Bus incident.]

The City of Flagstaff (Police Department, and/or the City Attorney’s Office) has a new spin on not enforcing §28-735. They claim it doesn’t apply when cyclists are riding in a bike lane. (but see below, “the Last Word”) Read the rest of this entry »

Is this a bike lane?

In a word, No. None of these are bike lanes. But someone sure went out of their way to make it look so. They even moved the not-bike lane stripe over to make more room in the not-bike lane (center photo). [See Fig 1, here, for a picture and description of how an actual bike lane is marked]

What is the correct — both legal and safety — position for a cyclist to assume in these not-bike lanes? Just try to get a straight answer out of the-powers-that-be (in this case, the City of Phoenix) on that one.

The law is refreshingly clear: “If the lane…is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane” a cyclist may ride anywhere in that lane, §28-815(A)(4).

See other articles on critical width. Read the rest of this entry »