Bill would ban cell phone use by novice teen drivers

Here’s a news item that has a pretty good rundown on SB1056, introduced by John McComish (R-20, which happens to be my district).

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the NTSB has called for a total ban on use of portable electronic communications by drivers — thats text, talk, handsfree or not — the whole shootin’ match.

This bill is a total ban; but targets only permitees and new drivers under 18 (but only for six months); which seems like a pretty logical place to start. The youngest drivers don’t have the experience and also tend not to understand the consequences of their actions that only comes with maturity and experience. When questioned about difficulty of enforcement, McComish pointed out that it is a secondary offense, like seat-belt laws, and that it will give parents a useful tool.

In case you’re wondering how this affects bicycle riders; it doesn’t. The licensing statutes are in Chapter 8, and bicyclists are only bound to follow Chapter 3, 4, and 5, see 28-812.

The hearing in front of the senate Public Safety and Human Services committee 1/18/2012 (direct link, does that work?) was very good; it’s near the end, and is about 10 minutes. This bill is something of a follow-on to some graduated driver’s license restrictions (the Teen Driver Safety Act, enacted in 2007.  Bill number?). Stuart Goodman spoke in favor on behalf of AAA; i would like to quote him, and i might be in the minutes(?) but in sortof paraphrase he said that according to CDC the number one cause of death for teens is traffic collisions; that the graduated license restrictions were good/helpful and there is evidence that as from 198?-2007 as alcohol-involved teen deaths have decreased,  the overall rate of teen fatalities has remained largely unchanged… and that is largely attributed to an increase in distracted driving as becoming the primary culprit. He then rattled off a bunch of age-related stats that seemd to indicate teen deaths are way down (due presumably to graduated license restrictions, like nighttime driving, and limiting the number of passengers for novice drivers). It passed unanimously out of committee.

Here are the new sections, as introduced:

28-3154

C. A PERMITTEE SHALL NOT DRIVE A MOTOR VEHICLE WHILE USING A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR ANY REASON EXCEPT DURING AN EMERGENCY IN WHICH STOPPING THE MOTOR VEHICLE IS IMPOSSIBLE OR WILL CREATE AN ADDITIONAL EMERGENCY OR SAFETY HAZARD. A PEACE OFFICER SHALL NOT STOP OR ISSUE A CITATION TO A PERSON OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE ON A HIGHWAY IN THIS STATE FOR A VIOLATION OF THIS SUBSECTION UNLESS THE PEACE OFFICER HAS REASONABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THERE IS ANOTHER ALLEGED VIOLATION OF A MOTOR VEHICLE LAW OF THIS STATE.

28-3174

F. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN SUBSECTION K OF THIS SECTION, FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS THAT A CLASS G LICENSEE HOLDS THE LICENSE, THE LICENSEE SHALL NOT DRIVE A MOTOR VEHICLE WHILE USING A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR ANY REASON EXCEPT DURING AN EMERGENCY IN WHICH STOPPING THE MOTOR VEHICLE IS IMPOSSIBLE OR WILL CREATE AN ADDITIONAL EMERGENCY OR SAFETY HAZARD.

Bad Drivers and friendsofcalholman.com

(motorist) Cal Holman was killed in a horrific traffic collision in 2007 involving very high speeds and alleged street racing. Going on 5 years later a lot has and continues to happen, the two other drivers have eventually plead guilty to certain crimes, one went to prison. The other involved driver is currently requesting his probation be reduced.

The site friendsofcalholman.com is doing, and has done an excellent job of making things that we rarely see available; such as the actual plea agreements.

On a larger scope, they have exposed these two men’s driving history; again something we rarely get to see. According to friendsofcalholman the two,

Van Brakel was driving an AMG Mercedes, after hitting Cal Holman his car continued 75 feet past the intersection. Van Brakel hit first on the passenger side. He did not sustain any injuries in the crash…  Since 2004 there have been 7 tickets for various moving violations. Driving 55 in a 35 zone, 67 in a 40 zone, and failing to yield in a cross walk are a sample of his driving record… Van Brakel has several pervious driving violations. One ticket in 2004, was for doing 120 miles per hour in a 75 miles per hour zone. [link]

and the other:

Aronica’s Mustang flipped on impact and landed in the ditch on the side of Scottsdale … Aronica was injured with a broken arm and his passenger had minor cuts…. Since 2002 Aronica has had 13 citations. On December 3rd, less than four weeks prior to the accident where he hit and killed Cal Holman, he was cited for doing 88 miles per hour in a 60 miles per hour zone. This was in Texas while he was traveling to Arizona… Other citations include speeding. In Virginia speeding 84 in a 65 zone, in Florida traveling 20-29 miles per hour over the posted speed, again in Virginia speeding 79 in a 65 zone, in Maryland he had four speeding violations, and in Michigan he has 3 violations for speeding including a careless driving and a 78 in a 55 zone. [link]

This really makes me wonder how such repeated dangerous driving behavior can be tolerated — why weren’t their licenses suspended or revoked before they killed somebody? Traffic collisions, even after a marked decline, continue to be a leading cause of death for Americans. Who’s minding the store?

Do drivers stop at stop signs?

I thought this was completely non-controversial. We all know that a full stop is required (for bicyclists, too, by the way) by law, always,  and that there is no wiggle room. Do drivers slow down? Yes, often. Do they make a full stop? Rarely.

Or rather, it completely depends on traffic — if there is conflicting traffic they do (usually) stop; otherwise RARELY. Here is a brief clip where 1 driver stopped (well, almost, but I’ll give it to him) to yield to cross-traffic, and then the next SIX rolled through without stopping:

If that’s too short for you, here is a longer clip that I didn’t even bother to count — the story is exactly the same; DRIVERS RARELY STOP AT STOP SIGNS.

For the technically curious: there is no (marked) crosswalk in this direction, nor is there a painted stop line, here is the statute regarding stop signs: §28-855.

Why do they do it?

See Stop Sign Compliance for discussion and links to some social research studies that offer some explanations. In social research, it is referred to as an example of a “folk crime” (dubbed so apparently by H. L. Ross in 1961, see Traffic Law Violation: A Folk Crime, 8 Social Problems 232).

The more direct explanation is people (drivers and cyclists are people, after all!) act in ways that they perceive as rational and reasonable, and pay scant attention to the letter of the law.

Do drivers stop before making a Right Turn on Red?

It is the same story. Here’s a clip in case you are interested (sorry, but you’ll have to skip in about 40 seconds in order to be able to see the traffic signal).

Do bicyclists run Red Lights?

Here is an interesting published article that goes along along with the compliance theme  from AAP: Riding through red lights: The rate, characteristics and risk factors of non-compliant urban commuter cyclists, via a posting at www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/motorists-front-of-judea-what-have-the-cyclists-ever-done-for-us/

Hit and Run in Arizona

Hit and Run (H&R), also called leaving the scene, failure to stop, fleeing the scene, occurs anytime a driver is involved in a collision, and fails to fulfill their duties. These duties include, first and foremost, stopping, and remaining on the scene in order to complete both paperwork-type things like exchange identification, and also include a duty to “render reasonable assistance…” to anyone injured.

>> AN ASIDE: imposing a duty to render aid under pain of imprisonment is a fairly unusual thing under the law. perhaps there’s some latin phrase? to put it another way, most criminal laws specify what things people must not do, not what they must do <<

It will come as no surprise that bicyclists and pedestrians are over-represented as victims of H&R drivers. For example, 24% (6 of 25) of the cyclists killed in Arizona in 2009 were H&R victims (Manner and Fault in Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities: Arizona 2009). I can’t find a bicyclist national figure?? should be an easy extract from FARS. Likewise, pedestrian-victim H&R rates are high, 18% nationwide using 1998-2001 FARS data ( DOT HS 809-456 2003). By contrast, only >> 1 or 2% <<  of  motorists killed are victims of a H&R driver (should be an easy extract from FARS data? I developed the guesstimate from AAA factsheet: “Nearly 1,500 people die annually (1994-2003) in hit and run crashes… Approximately 6 in 10 fatally injured victims are pedestrians” )

H&R is highly correlated with other illicit behavior, such as DWI/DUI and driving on a suspended or no license.  And alarmingly, things are trending worse: “Between 1998 and 2007, while the total number of annual pedestrian deaths decreased, the proportion of hit-and-run pedestrian deaths has in fact increase” ( Factors associated with hit-and-run pedestrian fatalities and driver identification MacLeod, 2009).

Recognizing that H&R is a particularly odious and cowardly crime, the penalties can be significant. For example, in the case of a serious injury or death, the crime is a class 2/3 felony (2 if the fleeing driver caused the wreck, 3 if not). To put that in perspective, manslaughter is a class 2 (see roundup of homicide types). Below are excerpts involving H&R involving serious injury and death.

Felony   Mitigated  Minimum    Presumptive Maximum   Aggravated
Class 2  3 years    4 years    5 years     10 years  12.5 years
Class 3  2 years    2.5 years  3.5 years   7 years   8.75 years
Class 4  1 year     1.5 years  2.5 years   3 years   3.75 years
Class 5  .5 years   .75 years  1.5 years   2 years   2.5 years
Class 6  .33 years  .5 years   1 year      1.5 years 2 years

So, in summary, it sounds pretty harsh: somewhere around 3.5 or 5 years in prison, which must run consecutively to any other sentence imposed, and a 5 year driver’s licence revocation. The prison sentence can vary widely depending on if there are any prior felonies, or mitigating, or aggravating factors.

…

Reality Intrudes

I don’t have any way to extract statistics on sentencing, but it seems like i’ve been noticing case after case with very light sentencing for H&R so here goes the anecdotes.

Cody Ryan Davis Case

Case CR-2010137585 in Maricopa County Superior Court. On July 10, 2010 Moto-cyclist Bradley Scott was killed while proceeding straight through a green signal, “Police (said) video shows Scott was legally riding a bicycle with the flow of traffic”. Hit-and-run driver Cody Ryan Davis was arrested about a week later and subsequently plead guilty in a plea agreement. The main element was a guilty plea to leaving the scene, a class 3 felony. As I read the sentence, he received 1 year (to be served in county jail, not prison; oh, and it includes work release), 3 years of probation, and a handful of seemingly small fines. I don’t know how the 5 year license revocation works, but i am hoping it is automatic, the agreement doesn’t say anything about it. I am told by a source familiar with these matters that this is a pretty standard deal (suspending the sentence).

So I have a bunch of questions: Why a class 3 and not a class 2? It certainly appears Davis was at fault in the collision. But setting that aside, how in the world do they get 1 year for a class 3 felony? 13-702 seems to clearly indicate that no less that 2 years is legal — and that would be including mitigating factors, of which I don’t think there are any; none are mentioned in the agreement.

Was Davis DUI at the time? There is this mention of alcohol in the agreement, during probabtion Davis may “Not consume or possess any substances containing alcohol”. So since Davis fled and hid out for days, nobody knows legally whether he was or wasn’t. As mentioned previously, H&R drivers are highly correlated with DUI  (MacLeod, 2009). In the event that Davis was DUI, he clearly made the right decision to flee — the DUI would have led to a manslaughter charge (5 years presumptive. And that’s in prison, not county,  and no work release AFAIK).

But that was the whole point in stiffening the penalties for H&R, to remove the incentive to flee.

Nathan Tom Bartley Case

The lead in the yumasun.com story says it all:

The driver in a hit-and-run accident that killed a 15-year-old Yuma boy earlier this year (1/13/2011) will receive probation instead of prison under the terms of a plea agreement.

Nathan Tom Bartley, 18, an Arizona Western College student and football player at the time, pleaded guilty Friday in Yuma County Superior Court to one count of attempted obstruction of criminal justice and one count of tampering with physical evidence. The plea agreement stipulates that he be sentenced to a term of probation.

In return for his guilty plea, a charge of failure to stop at the scene of an accident involving a fatality was dismissed.

This deal was cooked up by the LaPaz County Prosecutor because of a conflict within the Yuma County’s office — the deal, of course had to have been blessed  the (Yuma County Superior) Court. Case number CR-201100131, the case minutes with the actual plead deal aren’t up yet. Since the leaving-the-scene charge was dismissed, that means no license suspension. Nice.

…

HIGH PROFILE CASE, still developing: Sam Abate was seriously injured while riding his bicycle in Tucson, the driver fled the scene. Police arrested Abigail A. Allin several days later. The defendant is supposed to enter a plea today (7/29/2011).

Legislative History

Over the years, the H&R statutes hadn’t changed much.  Then relatively recently, legislators recognized the problem that weak penalties for H&R, especially compared to DUI penalties, were encouraging motorists involved in collisions to flee the scene. As a result, penalties were increased twice in the recent past. In 2002, Forty-fifth Legislature Second Regular Session, Chapter 228, added the part about making the prison sentence consecutive (in addition to, as opposed to concurrent which is really like getting no penalty at all) and other penalty. It also added that lengthy license revocation period. “Representative Foster, sponsor of the bill, stated that the law right now requires you to stay and render aid if there is injury or potential death. However, those laws are not being enforced.”

Penalties were increased again in 2007, 48th Legislature, 1st Regular session, Chapter 154 the criminal category of the crime was increased by one across the board. This, for example, elevated a hit and run resulting in a fatal or serisous injury to a class 2 (same as manslaughter!), which is where we are today. There was little discussion and the bill passed unanimously according to the minutes of both house and senate transportation committees.

…

The site deadlyroads.com is a pretty good resource, unfortunately, the site doesn’t seem to be updated but still has some well written essays and background info.

Hold the horn

Horn honkers take note, hold off on blowing that horn, it’s generally illegal.

§28-954.  Horns and warning devices

B. If reasonably necessary to ensure the safe operation of a motor vehicle, the driver shall give an audible warning with the driver’s horn but shall not otherwise use the horn when on a highway.

From ADOT Share the Road Pamphlet

Arizona Department of Transportation
Bicycle and Pedestrian Program
Mail Drop 310B
206 S. 17th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 712-8141
www.azbikeped.org
© 2008 Arizona Department of Transportation.
Created by the Pima County Bicycle and Pedestrian Program,
Matthew Zoll, Program Manager.
Design and illustration by David Burnham, Pima County Graphic Services

…

Horrific Crash kills 4 Motorcyclists

The driver of a heavy commercial dump truck piled into a group of motorcyclists who were stopped at a red light; reportedly he was distracted.

Phoenix Public Safety Manager Jack Harris described the scene “I have never seen such a horrific accident involving so many motorcycles,”

The crash 3/25/2010 at Carefree Highway and 27th way, Phoenix, initially killed 3, a fourth died a few days later. Several were seriously injured, including a Phoenix Fire Captain in critical condition.

Today the Arizona Republic is reporting in a 3/27/2010 story that the driver has a string of infractions, many of which sound like technical/equipment-related, and several of them were dismissed. However, the driver has an outstanding citation for failure to control about two weeks ago in Scottsdale, related to an (apparently minor) collision. These cases pop up on a search of the Arizona Supreme Court case lookup. But strangely, the reporter seems to be unaware of additional actions in Maricopa Justice Court, including one just dated just a couple of days before the huge crash. (search on Michael Jakscht)

The investigation is still ongoing, but with no hints of impairment the likely outcome, barring a surprise, will be a traffic ticket and no criminal charges.

The Surprise

Driver in fatal Phoenix motorcycle crash booked on 4 manslaughter counts, 4/06/2010 & Bond for driver in fatal motorcycle crash set at $1 million, 4/07/2010, AZ Republic.

Phoenix police arrested Jakscht on suspicion of driving under the influence of methamphetamine. Read the rest of this entry »

Update on Van Brakel’s manslaughter sentence

There is an update to the who-is-at-fault-in-a-left-turn-collision story from 2007 where former state representative Cal Holman was killed while making a left turn at an intersection and was struck by two motorists who were criminally-speeding, and appeared to be racing.

One motorist, Travis Aronica, plead to endangerment and got probabtion.

The other motorist, Robert Van Brakel, was found guilty of manslaughter and received a five year sentence (which seems light to me, i thought the presumptive for manslaughter is 10.5 years?). Van Brakel (who i presume, is currently imprisoned?) won a review of his sentence by a different judge, claiming improprieties by the sentencing judge. He is scheduled to be re-sentenced ”from scratch” by a different judge; because of re-sentencing rules it is extremely unlikely he would draw more than the original 5 years. This is currently scheduled for 8/12/2011.

As Laurie Roberts put it in her July 27, 2011 column “One of the racers gets probation. The other gets five years in prison. Really, that’s what they got… Both men had lousy driving records and both were charged with manslaughter.”

You can also read about the case at friendsofcalholman.com , but be careful because reading that is what got Judge Ryan “in trouble”.

Couple killed while walking on sidewalk

From the never-ending Are Cars Dangerous? and Seriously, how often does this happen? files:

Randy and Doris Bjerken, of Palmer, Alaska were in town visiting Randy’s dad… out for a stroll at 10AM on Mother’s Day when. BAM! An SUV jumps the curb and wipes them out.

Police say the driver, Andrew Whalen, 23, fell asleep during the May 8 incident and are recommending neg hom charges. Read the rest of this entry »

Prescott road-rager found guilty

In an incident where a car driver was driving waaaay too close to cyclist Paul Katan. Katan is a certified cycling instructor and works for Prescott Alternative Transportation.

[dailyCourier]

“…a jury convicted the Jaguar driver, Jack Ingebritson, 64, of misdemeanor (criminal) charges of endangerment and reckless driving. On Tuesday, Prescott City Magistrate Arthur Markham fined Ingebritson $1,500, ordered him to perform 32 hours of community service and go to traffic survival school.”

Inquiring minds wonder: how is it that the trial was in some unspecified June date, and the story just made it to the newspaper on July 14,2010? I tried to look up the court records for the rager, but didn’t find anything (Prescott muni, and justice are not online there).

There was a follow up editoral a few days after the news story.

Did the punishment fit the crime? Were the charges appropriate?

The convicted rager “… admitted that he was five to six inches from the bike, according to the police report.” While Ingebritson was clearly guilty of endangerment, and reckless driving, it seems to me that his actions were an assault; he intentionally placed his weapon a few inches from the victim.

Here is a roundup of Arizona’s assault and endangerment statutes.

The news article refers to “endangerment”; if they are referring to §13-1201. a violation of which is a class 1 misdemeanor, I have to wonder about the magistrate’s judgment — a small fine and a few hours of community service for such a (potentially) dangerous crime?

I’m thinking/wondering if a more appropriate charge would have been assault, and potentially aggravated assault.  “Generally, the essential elements of assault consist of an act intended to cause an apprehension of harmful or offensive contact that causes apprehension of such contact in the victim” [legal-dictionary]. Note that the act does NOT need to result in any actual contact, or any actual physical harm, just creating the apprehension is enough. The guilty man intended to drive very close to the cyclist, it was not accidental.

On the other hand, violation of §13-1203(A)1 is also a class 1 misdemeanor (the same as endangerment, seems a little odd?). To be guilty of aggravated assault, §13-1204, a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument would have had to been used in committing the assault. Personally, I find that multi-ton, multi hundreds of horsepower automobiles can be dangerous instruments. Anyway, aggravated would bump up the crime to some level of felony.

The other charge which the defendant was found guilty of was reckless driving. That would be 28-693, and is a class  2 misdemeanor. Nothing was mentioned regarding the driver’s license of the culprit. Which leads me to believe the magistrate was letting him off too easy.  “In addition, the judge may require the surrender … of any driver license of the convicted person…  and may order the driving privileges of the person to be suspended for a period of not more than ninety days”. Why no revocation, or suspension?

Arizona sees surge in DUIs tied to medicine

Arizona sees surge in DUIs tied to medicine; AZ Republic, 4/08/2010.The gist of the article is that there is better detection; resulting in more DUI’s for non-alcohol.

One wonders how this ties into crashes involving injuries and death. Is blood routinely drawn, even when the driver passes field sobriety tests, as was the case of the dump truck driver who killed 4 motorcyclists recently?

Apparently blood was drawn from the driver who killed Allen Johnson — the investigation of which dragged on for 5 months culminating in a traffic ticket. Conversely, presumably no blood was drawn from the driver who killed Jerome Featherman. That case wrapped up with a couple of traffic tickets more-or-less immediately. Both cases were handled by the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, and in both cases impairment was not suspected. Was the driver who killed Featherman under any influence of prescription drugs? We’ll never know for sure.

It seems to me that blood should be drawn in any serious injury crash, and most certainly in EVERY crash involving a fatality. What are the rules?

Another problem is what to do with the results; The 21 year-old driver who killed Lance Adams (walking on the SIDEWALK, for cryin’ out loud!) was never charged despite Ambien (sleeping pill) , Darvon (a narcotic pain reliever),  plus some marijuana in his blood. In that case, police recommended charges but the prosecutor wouldn’t bring any. Setting the marijuana aside; the warning for both these medicines has warnings not to drive (as do many, many medicines).

Background Info on drug impairment

Ambien / Zolpidem

Zolpidem (sold under the brand name Ambien) is a short-acting nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic with quick onset, and short (2 – 2.6hrs) half-life. It is well known that it can cause driving impairment, particularly when not taken as directed.

In hunting around for quantitative info on Ambien impairment, I ran across work from WSLH, the Wisconsin State Laboratory for Hygiene. Within their perview is the Medical Toxicology Section which performs alcohol and drug analysis for law enforcement agencies in support of Wisconsin law enforcement. Zolpidem Impaired Drivers in Wisconsin A Six Year Retrospective, William R. Johnson, et al. [.ppt of presentation][view online]

A white paper from the IECP :  Zolpidem and Driving – A Dangerous Mix [.pdf][view online] has some useful summaries.

Some interesting info on voluntary vs. involuntary acts with respect to drug DUI from this CA defense attorney firm.

Here are two published papers, with PubMed link (and also, click on either and check out the “related”):

• J Forensic Sci. 2001 Jan;46(1):105-10. Zolpidem and driving impairment. Logan BK, Couper FJ.
• WMJ. 2003;102(6):79-83. Forensic Toxicology Program: alcohol and drug testing in Wisconsin drivers. Harding P, Liddicoat LJ. [full .pdf article]

Ambien/zolpidem prescribing info – warnings (emphasis added): “Patients should be cautioned against engaging in hazardous occupations requiring complete mental alertness or motor coordination such as operating machinery or driving a motor vehicle after ingesting the drug, including potential impairment of the performance of such activities that may occur the day following ingestion of Ambien”

Here’s a handy reference list to drugs/driving: nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/job185drugs/index.htm