Arizona Bike Law Blog

Shoulder Use

— DRAFT —

Shoulder Use

When must I ride my bicycle on the shoulder? 

First, it’s important to define what a shoulder is, and isn’t.  ” ’Roadway’ means that portion of a highway that is improved, designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel, exclusive of the berm or shoulder”  §28-601(22). Our roadways are typically divided into one or more travel lanes in each direction, with a solid white stripe, called an edge line (often referred to as a fog line), at the right edge of the rightmost lane. The area to the right of the edge line is the shoulder. Note that not all roads have edge lines. It’s also possible to have a left edge line and a left shoulder, for example on a one-way street or divided road.

A quick word about bicycle lanes: bicycle lanes are not shoulders, and shoulders are not bicycle lanes. Bicycle lanes must be marked according to MUTCD specifications and designated as such by the local authority; this usually involving both a stripe and painted symbol ground markings and (now optional) “bike lane” regulatory signs.

In Arizona a bicyclist generally may travel on any shoulder  – because it is not prohibited by statute. However, on controlled-access highways jurisdictions may, and do, restrict bicycle use (§28-733). Likewise, local authorities may regulate the operation of bicycles on roads under their jurisdiction; although this is uncommon (§28-626 & 627).

Arizona has no mandatory shoulder use law. §28-815A specifies where, laterally, a bicyclist must ride when riding on the roadway. It contains no provisions for requiring removal from the roadway onto any shoulder, ever.

Bicyclists must ride “as close as practicable” to the righthand edge of the roadway; but only if the lane is wide enough to share, and have no general duty to not impede other drivers nor to travel as fast as motorized traffic, that is to say §28-704A  and §28-701E are inapplicable to bicyclists because they specifically apply to drivers of motor vehicles. Bicyclists, on two-lane highways, that is one lane in each direction, have a duty to pull off the roadway, when safe, if impeding five or more vehicles and passing is unsafe (§28-704C). If a shoulder is available and safe (e.g. clear of debris, wide enough to completely exit the roadway), a bicyclist under such conditions would be required to leave the roadway and allow traffic to clear.

Typical roads in urban settings are multiple lanes in each direction, and as such 28-704C is not applicable. The law presumes that faster traffic can overtake in one of the other available lanes, so bicyclists are never required to leave the travel lane.

xxx xxxxx, Esq. xxx Legal Advisor

xxxx is an attorney, specializing in representing bicyclists who have been injured in motor vehicle collisions. In addtion to his activities with CAzB, he serves as the chairman of the Enforcement Subcommittee of the Tucscon-Pima BAC. xxx is an LCI, a League Certified cycling Instructor. Contact him here.

— DRAFT —

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Some further references

• Bicyclists are generally granted the same rights and responsibilities as a driver of a vehicle, see §28-812.
• ADOT policy 1030: Controlled-Access Highways as Bikeways specifies exactly which freeways bicyclists are allowed to use (shoulder only).
• More about designated Bike Lanes.
• More about Edge Lines; see MUTCD Section 3B.06 Edge Line Pavement Markings

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Is Bicycling Dangerous?

Short answer: yes, as with all modes of transportation, it entails some danger.

Longer answer: yes, similar to the risk of motoring — perhaps twice as risky. but how to measure? (per mile, per trip?). Bike-MV collisions are currently running 2% of all in AZ. Bicycling represents perhaps 1%, i.e. twice the risk.

For the moment, this is going to be a catch-all for links and related info on the topic.

Links:

• http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/facts/crash-facts.cfm
• http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
• Mighk Wilson’s essay freedom from fear .
• My posts about the books How Risky is it Really? and Free Range Kids.

Read the rest of this entry »

DZBLs and Bicycle Facility Advocacy

For those who might not be aware of the problems created when a cyclist rides too closely to parked cars; this video is a powerful graphic illustration of what happens when a cyclist collides with an opened door of a parked car.

Not only are the injuries from striking the door potentially serious, the physics of the situation immutably means that the cyclist ends up being thrown into traffic. This last part is something that I had not been aware of…. so please watch the video….

Experienced cyclists know to avoid this danger by simply riding further to the left, unfortunately the timid or untrained gravitate too far to the right because they misunderstand the sources of danger.

So, then there’s a “door zone” near any parked vehicle which can lead to a collision, otherwise referred to as a “dooring”. The risk is heightened when a bike lake is placed too-near parking, thus the term DZBL, a Door Zone Bike Lane. Cyclists, quite naturally, expect to be able to safely ride down the middle of any bike lane.

Dan Gutierrez has an extensive set of photos and slides showing dimensions and examples in facebook photo album: Door Zone Bike Lane and Sharrow Clearance .(which apparently now must be logged into facebook to view, even though it’s public — damn facebook).

There are loads of other references on the internet, just search for DZBL or ‘dooring’ see e.g. commuteorlando.com , John Allen on dooring  . Read the rest of this entry »

Loop wall down, loop wall down!

12/29/2011: A wrapped (i couldn’t quite read what it said?) pickup pulling a trailer apparently lost control and (of course) drove over the sidewalk and knocked down a wall on the Warner-Elliot loop near Nambe Street. Here is the ahwatukee.com story; following their pattern, police didn’t identify the driver saying only he was a man in this 60s.

This is less than a mile away from the site where a driver lost control and iced a jogger, Rene Karlin, on the sidewalk back in August. Whatever happened to that investigation of the un-named driver? Why is the driver un-named? Nobody bothers to report. Nor did police bother to release the name of the elderly driver who drove into Lakewood’s fountain last year.

For some more wall knockings down see here, very popular pass-time.

In other news, I usually consider residential streets pretty calm and serene, and they usually are — then there was this parked car that got whacked on Desert Broom Way just two-door away from my house on (i guess the early morning hours of) 12/28/2011… It got hit really hard, though it’s not apparent from this pic, besides the obvious side-swipe damage, the rear wheel was pushed way ahead and the tire flattened; this car is going to need a LOT of work to get it right.

And while I’m on the subject, here’s a pic of a car I discovered abandoned a couple of weeks ago that had run off of Ray Road, crossed the sidewalk, and landed in the bushes. It must have been going pretty fast becasue jumping the curb flattened all of its tires. Sheesh. I imagine it was stolen.

AZ legislature tweaks DUI laws

UPDATE: 12/26/2011 ; new, reduced penalties kick in in a few days… DUI sentences to ease in 2012 for first time offenders:1st-time offenders will be rid of interlock devices sooner

——– original article follows ——–

The dramatic weakening of what were formerly among the most severe DUI penalties in the US take effect in mid-July 2011 – Hundreds of new Arizona laws take effect this week

In what seems to be annual ritual, the Arizona legislature passed and the governor signed changes to Arizona’s DUI laws via SB1200 (Spring 2011: 50th, 1st regular session).

There are a whole bunch of tweaks to the length of ignition interlock (IID), Read the rest of this entry »

NTSB calls for complete cell ban: LaHood backpedals

The NTSB has called for a complete ban on personal electronic communications device usage by drivers on the grounds that any non-emergency usage is unacceptable risky. Here is Deborah A. P. Hersman, NTSB chairman writing in USA Today on 12/15/2011:

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.

Story in the Scottsdale Times about 3-foot law

This is a freebie paper published under various names: The Scottsdale Times, The Ahwatukee Times, etc…

I was generally not terribly unhappy (see my general complaints about media bias ) with how it turned out. I was pleased that the reporter, Christina Fuoco-Karasinski, was willing to spend some time researching information I sent her prior to a phone interview, which itself lasted perhaps 15 minutes. The parts I spoke with the reporter about came out pretty well:

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, there were 1,914 accidents in Arizona last year involving automobiles and bicycles. A total of 25 bicyclists were killed by motorists in 2009, and 19 were killed in 2010. For comparison, a total of 762 motorists were killed [*] on Arizona roads during 2010, a fact Ed Beighe, of azbikelaw.org, a bicyclist activist website, says should be noted. “So while we’d all like to see bicycling be safer, bicycling represents a small part of an overall large problem,” Beighe says.

The number of injuries to bicyclists number in the thousands, however. There were 1,648 reported injuries to bicyclists in 2009 and another 1,583 in 2010.

“Most bicyclist-motor vehicle collisions occur when one or the other is making a turn movement [this probably would have been better stated as "turning and crossing" movements] — and not overtaking,” says Beighe, who stresses that he is not a lawyer. “But the relatively few overtaking collisions (bicycle struck from behind by a passing motorist) that do occur tend to be more serious than average.”

He says the 3-foot passing law is helpful in raising awareness among motorists. It shows drivers what to expect when overtaking and what they should see. However, Beighe says, the law itself is difficult to enforce and, in fact, “very, very few” citations have been issued outside of a collision, where it is often irrefutable that the motorist encroached upon the 3-foot right-of-way.

In many cases, when a bicyclist is struck and either injured or killed, no citation is issued for not allowing for three feet of clearance, says Sterling Baer, co-founder of Not One More Cyclist and himself an avid cyclist. The reason is that the cause of the accident often becomes a criminal act rendering the 3-foot citation irrelevant, as it takes a backseat to more serious felony charges.

“It actually hides or sort of skews the real statistics that show many of these kinds of events are happening,” Baer says.

berth rights: State law affords bicyclists a 3-foot right of way. Just try telling them it’s unsafe.

* The 762 figure is mis-stated. There were a total of 762 persons killed in fatal traffic collisions. Since 19 pedalcyclists and 155 pedestrians were included within that total, that leaves 588 motorists killed. See adot-2010-crash-facts for references.

$4,155 Per Year and Automobile Enslavement

So, it all started as a brief news item, with a handful of tantalizing facts

“…the typical American household will have spent $4,155 filling up this year, a record. That is 8.4 percent of what the median family takes in, the highest share since 1981″ —  At gas pump, 2011 was the year of the big squeeze. The AP / By Jonathan Fahey, December 19, 2011

It wasn’t clear to me who said so, but there was a reference to an outfit called the OPIS (Oil Price Information Service) and the facts seem to be wholly drawn from this item blogs.opisnet.com from their blog. Read the rest of this entry »

DUI Brake Light Conviction tossed

“When it comes to brake lights, one is enough, at least according to the state Court of Appeals. In a unanimous decision Friday, the judges threw out the drunk driving conviction of Aaron Fikes.” – verdenews.com Weird, i’m not seeing anyone like Arizona Republic covering it; at least according to a search… I heard a short mention of it on KJZZ news.

Since the case was out of Tucson, it would have been heard in the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two. And sure enough, it popped right up under recent cases: STATE OF ARIZONA v. AARON RAYMOND FIKES CR20110124. Note that the driver was up on serious charges, aggravated (indicating other/previous problems; such as previous simple dui convictions, or suspension, or driving dui with a minor in the vehicle) DUI, and driving on a suspended license, for which he was sentenced to 4 months in jail and 3 years of probation.

In short, the conviction was tossed because the traffic stop was found to be without just cause, and therefore the evidence that the driver was DUI should have been supressed. The State Attorney General’s office vows appeal to Arizona Supreme Court. Read the rest of this entry »

How Risky is it, Really?

There’s a wonderful book written by author and former journalist David Ropeik that explains risk perception (and MIS-perception) in elemental terms; How Risky is it, Really?.

His explanations go all the way down to the biological and evolutionary level — think adrenalin, amygdala, and the fight/flight response — and it’s all very fascinating. Everyone should read it.

More to the point here, his “confessions” as a former journalist i think go a long way to explain the persistent problems with media stories regarding risk (p. 165):

Before I go on, mea culpa. I was a daily television reporter for 25 years, and most of the things that journalist do that make the world sound like a riskier place than it is, I did…. I regularly played up the dramatic aspects of my stories, emphasizing the negative or the frightening or the controversial, and deemphasizing (or omitting altogether) the aspects that would balance things out of put them in perspective… I never lied… But I did what most journalists do: I made choice that would make my stories more newsworthy, more dramatic , and more likely to attract attention. And that left my views with a distorted and more alarmning view of the world than was actually the case.

Framing

In chapter 2, Bounded Rationality, he explains several shortcuts we (everyone) use to determine whether something is safe vs. risky. Among them is how any particular issue is “framed”; this is critical in any sort of news story. Consider the following two statements:

Which sounds scarier to bicyclists? Which reinforces notions of danger? Is 1,500 injuries (or 19 fatalities) a lot, or a little?

The thirteen Risk Perception Factors

1. Trust
2. Risk vs. Benefit
3. Control
4. Choice
5. Is the risk natural or human-made
6. Pain and suffering
7. Uncertainty
8. Catastropihc or chronic
9. Can it happen to me?
10. Is the risk new or familiar?
11. Risks to children
12. Personification
13. Fairness

These factors fuel what Ropeik terms the Risk-perception Gap; which leads to poor decisions being made both by individuals and by society.

Free Range Kids

Along the same idea, is so-and-so’s book Free Range Kids, which I am now reading (Jan 2012)