Ped fatality Saturday, Cyclist fatality Sunday

(3/10 and 3/11). A handful of interesting points: each driver was cited within a day or two of the incident. In the case of the pedestrian mowed down in a crosswalk, the driver was also cited for 28-672 (causing death by violation) which is a criminal (albeit a minor misdemeanor) charge. In the case of the cyclist, according to blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com the driver was cited for violating the 3-foot rule (28-735) and driving in a bike lane (28-815D). The police aren’t letting on why the driver so distracted that she was driving in the bike lane (and yes, it’s a real, full-fledged, designated bike lane), other than to say the investigation is continuing. As I pointed out in double-jeopardy-and-flawed-logic it’s unusual (around Arizona) to issue any citations until the close of investigation and getting the go-ahead from a county prosecutor — apparently Scottsdale does things differently.

It is gratifying to see Scottsdale issuing the 28-672 charge when appropriate… I have no way to check this but it seems way under-utilized. In the end, though, it may be little more than a slap on the wrist, see e.g. this case where it seems to have merely amounted to a $200 fine — hardly a behavior-changing penalty. Last month, Scottsdale also charged a driver making a bad left with 28-672 which resulted in the death of a boy riding legally in the crosswalk (a la Maxwell v. Gossett).

Pedestrian: Judith May, 69 / driver: Frederick Matschull, 72; Case TR-2012006196

Cyclist: Shawn McCarty, 53 / driver: Amy Alexander, 40; Case TR-2012006430.

lookup Scottsdale Municipal Court records by case number at scottsdaleaz.gov.

Lindsey Lucero – Mar. 12, 2012 03:16 PM The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A bicyclist died Sunday evening after being struck by an SUV on Thompson Peak Parkway about 4:30 p.m., Scottsdale police said Monday.

Shawn McCarty, 53, of Scottsdale, was traveling northbound in the bike lane when the female driver of a black Chevy Tahoe, 40-year-old Amy Alexander of Scottsdale, swerved into the bike lane, striking McCarty. It wasn’t immediately known what caused her to swerve.

Police were called to the scene just north of 100th Street on Thompson Peak Parkway, and McCarty was transported to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Thompson Peak Parkway was closed until about 11 p.m. Sunday. Police have ruled out alcohol, drugs and the driver’s speed as factors in the collision.

In a separate collision in Scottsdale, a pedestrian was fatally struck by a vehicle early Saturday.

Judith May, 69, a California resident, was killed after being hit by a pickup at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday. May was crossing the street on the east side of Scottsdale Road at Osborn Road when the pickup turned left and struck her. Police said there’s no indication the pickup driver, Frederick Matschull, 72, of Mesa, was impaired.

Both drivers were cited in the collisions.

Safety studies have consistently shown a net safety benefit for photo-red enforcement. Net means that there are fewer serious injuries and fatalities. A few studies have shown an increase in the number of collisions accompanying the safety gains. See, e.g. the IIHS study, Red Light Running Kills, linked at trafficsafetycoalition.com. Or more locally, also see Scottsdale-based redmeansstop.org.

Here is a list of items in the current session (spring 2012) of the Arizona Legislature, assembled by the Traffic Safety Coalition:

• SB1315 - mandate personal service or certified mail for photo enforcement tickets
• SB1316 - mandate that photo enforcement cameras cannot take pictures of red light running violations unless the light has been red for at least one second
• SB1317 - mandate a study of intersections with red light cameras
• SB1318 - force photo enforcement companies to obtain a PI License for each worker
• SCR 1029 - put photo enforcement ban to the voters for approval

As noted above Senate Concurrent Resolution 1029 is for the time-being anyway dead… The first thing I noticed that was odd is that they are all in the senate. Upon closer inspection all four of the the senate bills have only one sponsor, and all four are the same guy; a Frank Antenori (R-30, Tucson). He clearly doesn’t like photo-enforcement, and is apparently making it his life’s work to defeat it’s effectiveness; if not ban it outright.

Aside from safety issues, the cameras can, and do, provide evidence that has been used to solve crimes; including (that I know of) catching a hit-and-run driver who seriously injured a cyclist in Tucson, a hit-and-run-driver who killed a cyclist in Tempe, and a assault-robbery-murderer in Tempe.

Stats?

Arizona has a particular problem with red-light running; despite improvement over the years, Arizona continues to be over-represented. For example in 2009 Arizona had 37 red light running (RLR) fatalities while New York had only 29…. Arizona being three times as dangerous as New York on a per capita basis.

The words below, written over 10 years ago continue to ring true today, from a 07/13/00 article in USA Today, Ariz. has deadliest red-light runners in USA:

Arizona has the nation’s deadliest red-light runners, with three of the country’s worst cities for fatal intersection crashes, according to a study of federal transportation data obtained by USA TODAY….  Arizona had by far the worst death rate among states, with 6.5 fatalities for every 100,000 people… Arizona also had three of the four most dangerous cities. for red-light fatalities. Phoenix topped all urban areas, followed by Memphis, Mesa and Tucson

In addition, cities with speed limits of 45 mph and higher on surface streets faced more serious red-light -running accidents… The Phoenix police officer says said that with an average of 330 days of sunshine a year, it’s typically usually perfect driving weather. That doesn’t mean motorists drive perfectly, however. Just the opposite. “If we got more rain or inclement weather, maybe it would slow people down some, particularly at the intersections,” Halstead said says. “As it is, they zip around the city at a pretty good clip.” And, according to the institute’s study, Phoenix drivers run red lights at an unrivaled pace. The city has by far the nation’s deadliest rate of fatal red- light running crashes, nearly five times the national average. Arizona and other fast-growing Western states have been particularly stung by red light crashes “because their wide open roads are suddenly seeing schools, businesses, and busy intersections crop up,” says said Phoenix traffic engineer Paul Wellstone. “The West has a reputation for being a drivers’ paradise; a place you can lay on the accelerator and not worry about the traffic and dangers. That’s changing now. Cities are struggling with getting their citizens to slow down.”

 The FHWA has a page on red light running.

What it actually measures is the statistical likihood of having an auto insurance claim. Which Allstate claims, and I think sounds reasonable, as a proxy for the number of MV collisions. The next leap, which is demonstrably false, is that fewer collisions translates into “safety”. One glaring data point is enough to disprove this: cities of similar size are frequently and for good reasons ranked against one another; it just so happens that Phoenix and Philadelphia have virtually the same population, and are currently the 5th and 6th largest city in the U.S. Actual fatality data reveal that Phoenix is significantly more dangerous than Philadelphia, yet Allstate’s proxy data says just the opposite:

Source: NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts 2009 (latest year available), Table 124 811402.pdf, and Allstate (follow link above; current year result they refer to as 2011, is similar to 2005-2010 ). Notes: overall U.S. fatals/population/ratePer100K = 33,808/307,007,000/11.01

So, Allstate’s data merely shows that Phoenicians suffer from fewer fender-benders than Philadelphians; but say nothing about safety.

Why is Phoenix so dangerous? The main reason is probably because it’s “Dangerous by design”, with a higher priority on moving more cars, at higher speeds; and a lower priority on getting everyone to their destinations without being killed. More driving could explain some but not all of the gap; this, in itself, a symptom of poor land-use choices.

I threw Seattle into the table simply because of this recent op-ed that aggravated me: why-seattle-is-safer-than-phoenix. Phoenix and Seattle are quite dissimilar in population, but here again the Allstate data claims Seattle is far safer than Phoenix when it is just the opposite that’s true.

By the way

I always have trouble finding this page at www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov (which can be found by searching for FARS, then clicking on “publications”) where it lists publications like Traffic Safety Facts; e.g. 2009 Traffic Safety Facts Data Summary Booklet ; and 2009 Traffic Safety Facts FARS/GES Annual Report, they list back to about earlier 1990′s.

Distraction, whether it’s hands-free or handheld, whether it’s texting or talking, is deadly. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) said distraction-affected crashes killed 3,092 people last year

Handheld-only bans, such as that proposed in the city of Tucson, are at best not likely to improve safety much; and in fact may have perverse effects. If handsfree become explictly permitted, it may well change behavior of those who formerly chose to abstain entirely, thus increasing risky behavior rather than reducing it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, in late December “U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he won’t back a proposal to prohibit drivers from talking on cellphones, even hands-free devices, giving a boost to car makers and mobile-phone companies that stand to lose if regulators impose a ban” [wsj]. So there you have it, distracted-driver warrior LaHood won’t back a ban; along with an explanation of presumed pressure from business interests.

At this point, you might be wondering and confused about who-is-who in this Federal alphabet soup: What is the NTSB? This is a both interesting and intricate. One might think that NTSB resides under the DOT, however it turns out that is incorrect: “In 1974, Congress reestablished the NTSB as a completely separate entity, outside the DOT”.  The NTSB is run by a five member board; each nominated by the president for five year terms. Read that as far less politically sensitive, as compared to the Secretary of Transportation.

So Ray LaHood is Obama’s Secretary of Transportation; who runs the U.S. DOT, the United State’s Department of Transportation. And the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is the group, under DOT, tasked with highway safety.

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There is an enjoyably-cycnical view of the subject at LaHood says hands free calls are A-okay; throws NTSB under the bus.

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Recent DOT blog  fastlane.dot.gov touts enddd.org.

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At hand, I have the most recent, 2007, report from the City of Phoenix, which can be found here (was here), on the Streets Dept safety/collisions webpage.

To put some gross figures into context, in 2007 there were around 33,000 collisions of all types; and of that number there were 440 bicycle-MV, and 624 ped-MV collisions. (source: 2009 Phoenix Traffic Collision Summary (link dead as of early 2012), which tracks 5 years of data for comparison purposes).

[ by way of a brief update: I haven't looked closely at it but now there is 2010 version for overall traffic, but no bicycle-specific update; the trend over the past several years since 2006 has been a rather sharp reduction in the overall number of crashes; while the number of bicycle-MV has remain quite steady around. The overall crash number has declined steadily from a high of 35,200 in 2006 to 21,900 in 2010. Recession? The numer of bicycle-MV collisions hovered around 450 throughout that period ]

The data is simply extracted from the ALISS database, and note that these figures do NOT include freeways (see “Additional Information”); thus there would be appreciably more MV collisions, but virtually no more cyclists, and only a handful of additional peds actually occurring within Phoenix city limits.

What does the Bicycle Collision Summary Tell us?

Other than my standard complaints, e.g. there is no exposure data, and nothing is split by seriosness, the most compelling thing I’ve see is the data within graphical representations of where the bicyclist was located when the crash occurred (pages 10 and 11). I’ve recreated the graphical data and organized it into a table, below.

VC (Vehicular cycling, also called EC. Effective Cycling) tells us that “Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles”. To expand just a little, vehicular cyclists ride in visible, predictable manner, following the rules of the road; these methods have (long) been shown to minimize crash-risk to cyclists.

If there is more compelling data showing the vehicular cyclists are likely to avoid a MV collision, I’m not aware of it.

Based solely on the position in the road, I’ve categorized whether or not the collision happened while a cyclist was potentially cycling in a VC manner. A stunning 90% of the collisions involved non-VC position. The weasel words actually imply that the 90% figure is even higher — because position alone cannot tell us if the cylcist was following the rules of the road; e.g. a cyclist in the street, riding with traffic and running a red light, or stop sign is in the correct position, but most certainly not following VC principles.

90% is so high, it makes me wonder if there’s some flaw in the data or methodology.?

A word about sidewalk cycling. Riding on the sidewalk, and subsequently through crosswalks and across driveways is certainly legal (though this topic could apparently fill volumes, be sure to check here; sidewalk cycling itself varies by locality) but is also certainly leads to many collisions at driveway and crosswalks, particularly when the cyclist is riding counter-flow to adjacent traffic. Cyclists involved in this sort of collision are frequently wrongly cited for inapplicable violations; and are frequently wrongly “faulted” (listed as Unit #1);  this is a result of poor police training — though without looking closely at crash reports it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on.

* In the report, this figure was listed as 52 total; I got the breakdown of 37 against from Joe Perez, city bike/ped coordinator.

Against Traffic and Fault Assignment

Note that the number of collisions involving wrong-way in street cyclists is quite small; 24 (5%). These cases would almost certainly be faulted to the cyclist.

However, the number crosswalk+driveway collisions where the cyclist was going the “wrong way” is HUGE; 223 (51%). “Wrong Way” is in quotes because there is no such thing legally as going the wrong way on a sidewalk or along a crosswalk or driveway. These are the most likely to be reported as cyclist at fault in the OTHER category — this is wrong, yet police routinely make this mistake.

This potentially skews the supposed high ratio of cyclist at fault vs. motorist at fault (over 2 to 1), as presented on page 7 of the 2007 report as pie charts:

There were 84 cases where the cyclist was faulted for “OTHER”  (52% x 36.8% x 440); this is in addition to 30 “WRONG WAY” cyclist-faulted cases (52% x 13% x 440). Most if not practically all of the 84 should be assigned fault to the motorist and not the cyclist; the motorist turned across the path of cyclist where the motorist failed to yield.

Other Data

Since this is just extraced from ALISS; it would seem to be sensible and relatively inexpensive to extract consistent summaries for any and every locality — though for whatever (historical?) reasons those that I have see appear to present the data differently, and even present different data. Again, check out Understanding Collision Summaries for links to ADOT, Mesa, and Phoenix summaries.

Particularly interesting comparisons would be Tempe, where counter-flow sidewalk cycling is illegal, and Tucson, where generally speaking all sidewalk cycling is illegal. Of course, to make valid comparisons you would have to wonder or know how enforcement (or lack thereof) affects the number and direction of sidewalk cyclists.

Tom Vanderbuilt’s latest Slate column discusses jaywalking and why its enforcement is really just pro-car bias, and not the danger to pedestrians that is claimed. Tom is the author of Traffic:Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), and blogs at howwedrive.com.

Consider these statements of two officials from the Mesa Police Department:

Jaywalking, when a person walks anywhere other than a designated crosswalk, is a crime, Mesa police spokeswoman Diana Tapia said.

“…It is a concern and it’s illegal,” [Mesa Police Crime Prevention Officer Patty] Gallagher said

– Mesa reminder: Jaywalking not only illegal, it’s unsafe. The Arizona Republic January 9, 2008

First off, jaywalking is not in any way-shape-or-form a crime, it is a civil matter — but we can write that off to sloppy wording. More substantively, Ms. Tapia is apparently unaware (as are many drivers!) of the concept of an “unmarked” crosswalk! (*all* intersections have crosswalks; regardless of striping or no… unless crossing is expressly prohibited). Also, jaywalking (though not defined legally in Arizona) means “crossing between intersections”, which is typically not prohibited.

Sadly, both officials show either ignorance of the law, or disregard for what the law actually says.  (The Mesa, AZ ordinance is reproduced below). As is typical of jaywalking laws, crossing outside of crosswalks is rarely prohibited; in order for it to actually be illegal, it must be either between two adjacent intersections with signals, or in the “business district” (the Mesa business district is tiny).

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I see parallels here in what is an apparent pro-car/anti-ped bias of police departments spilling over to pro-car/anti-cyclist bias. For example, the Tucson Police Department routinely run stings at stop signs to ticket cyclists who roll through; which is illegal but rarely fatal (I’m not aware of any fatalities in Tucson caused by the cyclist running a stop sign). At the same time, police rarely (a total of 3 over an 18month period by Tuscon PD) ticket motorists for passing cyclists too closely — behavior that regularly kills people.  And this is all done under the aegis of enhancing cyclist safety — so be careful what you wish for when lobbying for additional money for enforcement, it is likely to get (mis)used for things that have no demonstrable link to our safety.

Mionske’s slant on the same topic.

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Mesa City Code, see Title 10 Section 3 part 19:

When Pedestrian Shall Yield. (Reso. 990,1771)

1. Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway. (Reso. 990,1771)

(F) Prohibited Crossing. Between adjacent intersections at which traffic-control signals are in operation, pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a crosswalk, and no pedestrian shall cross a roadway other than in a crosswalk in any business district.

Arizona state law is even more plain. see ARS §28-0793, Crossing at other than a crosswalk. See also azbikelaw.org/pedlaw/excerpts for a roundup of pedestrian laws.

Unmarked crosswalks at ‘T’ Intersections

(I’m warehousing this info here because I don’t know where else to put it, and I expect I’ll be able to find it if I keep it with the ped topic of jaywalking)

I was under the impression that there were crosswalks at all crossings of a T-intersection, and that it had always been that way — it turns out that it’s not always been that way…

In 1977, Kauffman v Schroeder (116 Ariz 104) a lower court declined to give jury instruction regarding §28-0793: “pedestrian must yield when crossing at other than crosswalk”. The driver appealed to the supreme court, who reversed the opinion, writing that the definition of crosswalk (at the time) required a sidewalk on both sides of an intersection.

In 1981, SB1201 passed, adding the words “prolongation or” to what is now ARS §28-0601(3).

In 1983, Boulware v Carbajal (138 Ariz 118) was a case very similar to Kauffman, both regarding pedestrians killed when crossing parallel to the terminating leg of a T intersection, and both regarding jury instruction of 793). I forget the details, but the court ruled that the change made in SB1201 was not merely “procedural” and thus not be applied retroactively. So I guess it was a party for the deceased pedestrian appealing, who apparently failed to get the new wording effective for their case, but perhaps the collision was from early 1981?? If that’s true it’s unfortunately, but I guess doesn’t matter now..

So T-intersections have crosswalks, whether or not marked.

Story mentions the Sean Casey fatality from 2005 where a junior high school student was killed while walking his bike through a crosswalk with a green light when he got whacked by a motorist who ran a red light. This whole story seems to have been a huge miscarriage of justice. A judge dismissed neg hom charges against the driver. And to add insult to injury, according to news reports the driver did not even pay her fine, or attend traffic school as ordered.

In any event the gist of the story is camera enforcement (among other factors) is credited with reducing crashes, according to Mesa Police commander Bill Peters: ”Crashes at intersections now monitored by cameras dropped from 694 in 2005 to 370 in 2010, Peters said.”

]]> http://azbikelaw.org/blog/mesa-traffic-cameras-to-stay-2-more-years/feed/ 0 http://azbikelaw.org/blog/they-drive-among-us/ http://azbikelaw.org/blog/they-drive-among-us/#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:16:38 +0000 azbikelaw http://azbikelaw.org/blog/?p=1064 Story and pic from the Ahwatukee Foothill News.  Note that this turn the driver inexplicably failed to execute has an enormous radius. I note that police are unsure if any of this is illegal, how about “failure to control”? :

Car lands on Lakewood fountain, Doug Murphy, 2010-04-12 (that date seems wrong)

A crash Saturday afternoon stopped traffic when a crane was brought in to remove the vehicle off the fountain at the entrance to the Lakewood area….

“It appears she was going to make a turn on 38thStreet and apparently her speed was too fast, or she got distracted, but whatever the reason, she missed the turn,” said Sgt. Bryant Rockwood….

Rockwood said that there were no signs of impairment and that officers were still investigating the incident. He said it wasn’t clear if a citation had or will be issued.

That’s some mighty bad driving. Note that the police didn’t release the driver’s name, so there’s no obvious way to look up court records to find out if a citation was issued.

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This one seems to fit the “they drive among us” category; though it’s just a run-of-the-mill case of pedal (brake-gas) confusion: View the shocking surveillance footage — came through that door like a shot! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h14UNm6yaWM. News report  nydailynews.com:

Florida police have released a shocking video showing a 76-year-old woman crashing through a supermarket with her car and plowing into shoppers.

Thelma Wagenhoffer, of Palm coast, injured ten people on Saturday afternoon — including a couple in their 80′s and a 3-month-old baby — when her 2004 Toyota Camry smashed through the glass entrance of a Publix market and tore through the store for some 50 feet.

Video of the horrific crash was posted on The Daytona Beach News-Journal’s website.

“When you see the video you realize it’s a miracle no one got killed,” Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Jerry Crews told the newspaper.

Three people, including Lupo Mario Hernandez, 83, who was pinned beneath the car, and his wife Maria Hernandez, 81, were seriously injured and recovering in hospitals in Daytona Beach and Palm Coast, according to the News-Journal.

The other injured were either treated or released over the weekend or walked away with minor injuries.

Lasaunda Hampton, 33, and her 3-month-old son, Tyshawn Davis, who was in a stroller, were among the first people struck by Wagenhoffer’s car.

In the video, they can be seen siting on a bench next to the entrance’s sliding glass door when the car suddenly comes barreling into view.

In an instant, the victims vanish, a trail of debris and wreckage left in the car’s wake.

“She just pushed everybody out the way like bowling pins,” Hampton told the News-Journal.

Hampton suffered injuries to her legs and had glass in her feet. The toddler escaped with just a bump on his head.

“It was like a little angel was watching over him,” she said.

Wagenhoffer, who was not injured, was charged with careless driving on Tuesday.

Florida police found no malfunction in the car that would have caused the crash.

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The disconnect Kaminski, and others of his ideological ilk, is this; that somehow streets can be made safer by ever-expanding the number and speed of privately operated motor vehicles. But this is simply not possible. Faster and more always equals more dead; mostly more motorists, but also more dead peds, and more dead bicyclists. The numbers are stark; comparing e.g. Phoenix with Seattle (metro areas), the Dangerous by Design survey estimates Phoenix to be FOUR TIMES more deadly to pedestrians than Seattle. The number spills over not just in pedestrian deaths, but also cyclists deaths, and also to MOTORISTS deaths; see e.g. Beyond Safety in Numbers: why bike friendly cities are safer (for everybody).

Thus Kaminski rejects car-user-fees as hair-brained; yet motorists are the source of enormous externalities — economic impacts that aren’t paid for by their users — from air pollution (never mind ‘global warming’), to mayhem, to free parking.

By the way, McGinn has only been mayor for the past two years; I’m not suggesting that McGinn has made it safer. It was already safe, relatively speaking — due in no small part to its general overall “anti-car” culture.

618 cyclists (person type 6 bicyclist, and 7 other pedalcyclist) were killed in 2010 in traffic collisions — and as noted at the link above, only collisions with motor vehicles in-transport are tracked by FARS. So for example, a bicyclist who lost control and died as a result of crashing into a tree would not be tracked here, nor would a bicyclist who strikes a parked motor vehicle.

The added information becomes a new “table” (in the parlance of databases), if you download the raw data files, it will be all found in the file PBtype.dbf

The information follows more-or-less exactly the PBcat, probably no coincidence. PBcat is the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crash Analysis Tool, and contains among other things the bicyclists direction, and a detailed crash type (or for the complete reference, see PBcat’s manual, appendix C)

So, say you were interested in bicyclists running stop signs; you would do a query and then a univariate split and take a look at Types 142, 144, and 147; all subtypes of “Bicyclist Failed to yield — Sign-Controlled Intersection”. There were 17+41+1 = 59 such fatalities recorded.

Since this is the first and only year where these national stats are available, they are of limited usefulness — that will change over time as the dataset grows and wil become a very useful comprehensive source of understanding bicyclist (and pedestrian) traffic fatalities.

PBcat in the wild

It’s not clear to me why, but the state of North Carolina had PBcatted all their ped and bike crashes statewide for many years; leading to a very rich database of statistical information. E.g. 12,000 bike crashes covering the period 1997-2008!

In Arizona, ADOT as part of the BSAP has PBcatted 746 bike crashes in the “concentration” areas but it only covers the state-highway system. See e.g. Table 1 in working paper 3 for the full breakout of crash types.