Sidewalk Cycling in Arizona

Cycling on the sidewalk is generally far more dangerous than doing so properly in the roadway. All stats and studies that I am aware of reinforce this fact. For example, in the city of Phoenix’s 2007 Bicycle Collision Summary in the majority of the bike-motor vehicle collisions the cyclist was riding on the sidewalk just before the collision. (308 of 440 total collisions = 70%); and these numbers are pretty consistent, in the previous 2005 summary, it was 72%.

What about legality, though? (roundup of laws across 50 states here) Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Founder of Yuma Bike Club killed in head-on collision

[Update: on 9/1/2010 the driver was cited Case Number: M-1442-TR-201001097, Somerton Municipal Court]

Cyclist Doug Flynn was killed, and at least one more rider injured, in a head-on collision last year (Sept 24, 2009) by a driver trying to pass a large farm tractor on a two lane roadway.
[for a line-item on each fatality since 2009; follow this link]

A tribute to Doug posted on the YBC’s website reads “Yuma Bike Club is Read the rest of this entry »

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 is the presumptive sentence for a class 2 felony, see 13-704). The leaving the scene charge resulted in some sort of suspened sentence w/probation.

Case number CR2009-007394, the sentence is in this minute entry.

[azfamily] [original story on azbikelaw]

Some cyclists just won’t stay in the gutter

[Breaking news: there is an even newer victory over the city of Flagstaff's harassment of cyclists legally using the roads: on Oct 29, the cyclist prevailed AGAIN in court... I will be writing up another article covering that in more detail soon. So at trial, the court dismissed 1 count 815A, TR-2010007979; and the 2 further 815A counts were dismissed on a motion from the prosecutor, TR-2010007976. Though i may have the case number mixed up because 2010004702, an 815A and 701E is also dismissed]

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

Heading home from work on June 9, 2010, 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  that this is not a bicycle lane.  It is not 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 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.”

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] The kpho piece says in part that “police are trying to determine if she was riding the crosswalk or in the street, because, police say, it is illegal to ride in a crosswalk…”

Where does such patently false, mis-information come from?

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”.

Please see Sidwalk Cycling in Arizona for more details and references, especially Maxwell v. Gossett.

The Police Report

Phoenix Incident number 10001096939 [I had gotten the number off by a digit from phoenix traffic records, I may have written it down wrong, in any event that caused a large delay in analysis. Victim Madeleine Pila Driver: Marguerite Savarese.

The ACR is available from the city of Phoenix online, there is presumably a DR as well available from Records but I do not have that.

The narrative in its entirety is succinct and very desricptive:

Traffic unit 1 (pedalcyclist) was riding her bicycle southbound in the crosswalk on the west side of the intersection of North 15th Avenue and West Union Hills Drive. Traffic unit 2 (vehicle) was making a left hand turn from norhtboun 15th Avenue to westbound Union Hills Drive. Unit 2 collided with unit 1 in the marked crosswalk. As a result of the collision, the operartor of unit 1 was pronouced dead at the collision scene by responding paramedics

THE TRAFFIC UNITS ARE LISTED ALPHABETICALLY BY LAST NAME

Note that in Arizona, “Unit #1 is the vehicle, pedestrian, pedalcycle or animal rider that caused the collision or was most at fault” (refer to ADOT AZ Crash Manual; links here), there is no provision for assigning units in any other way. To do so destroys the usefulness of statistics in the ADOT crash database (ALISS). If police are going to do this, it should be corrected before submitted for final inclusion in the database — was this done? It’s not clear.

Though there would seem to be no confusion in assigning fault, the cyclist was for no apparent reason listed in Block 20, Violations/Behaviors  ”13. Failed to keep in proper lane”. This is non-sensical. From the narrative the cyclists should have been assigned “1. No Improper Action”. See Maxwell v. Gossett for further verification that the cyclist was doing nothing whatsoever wrong in riding through a crosswalk.

Though there seems to be no confusion about what the driver did, the driver was listed in Block 20, Violations/Behaviors  ”16. Inattention/Distraction”. That may well be true, however, it is apparent from the narrative that the driver committed a “7. Made Improper Turn”

In short, the driver was most-at-fault, and should have been assigned unit number 1 along with the violation/behavior noted above, and should have been cited (according to court records, the driver was not cited).

There is also an apparent error on the ACR but doesn’t affect the outcome, Block 14 Type of intersection is marked as “12 (Controlled Access Area) Intersection Related”. The intersection is not in a controlled access area (a.k.a. a freeway interchange) and should presumable be “2 Intersection Related”.

The ADOT Database Record

This is IncidentID = 2414621

In addtion to what was described above as errors done by the investigating officer on the ACR (and signed off on by a supervisor), the following errors and inconsistencies were noted in the ADOT crash database record:

• AlcoholUseFlag: 1 (but that is not supported by the report?)

…

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.

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 the city attorney went on to completely flip-flop on the citations, requesting and receiving a dismissal, 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 »