Hit and run can sometimes be hard to prove, but fortuitously a driver matching the description triggered a red light camera nearby before striking Abate: ”"The woman driving, talking on her cell phone, weaving in and out of traffic, and caught moments earlier by the red-light camera”. I am a big fan of photo-red enforcement. (see this murder case that was solved in part with photo-red evidence. Photo evidence was also instrumental in arresting a suspect in this cyclist hit-and-run killing)

One hopes the prosecutor will be seeking the bad driving involved — and not just the hit-and-run. The hit and run came after the collision; the bad driving before certainly seems like reckless driving, or some sort of assault.

Abigail Allins has a traffic case TR-10037413 from April 2010 for running a red light and no insurance for which she did not appear — which is probably where the “driving on a suspended license” is coiming from.

Plea Deal Pulled

fox11az.com reported on July 27th that the prosecutor has withdrawn an unspecified plea deal for unspecified reasons. The defendant is scheduled to enter a plea on July 29th — I’m not sure exactly what charges have been filed because it’s not up on caselookup and strangely I don’t see anything at Pima County Superior Court (or its search page). It was reported earlier charges would be felony hit/run, endangerment, and tampering with evidence.

No news as of Aug 3…

Inmate lookup results:

NAME: ALLIN, ABIGAIL ALETA DOB: 10/24/1989 AGENCY HOLDS: NO

LOCATION: JAIL-EAST-1Q BOOKING#: 110525005 CHARGES: 3

COURT: JUSTICE COURT #1 CASE#: CR11107610A <--- 1

BOND AMT: $ 75000.00 TYPE: Secured

UPDATE: Police arrest suspect 7/17/2010 [abc15] “Tempe police say Cody Ryan Davis has been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the death of Bradley Jason Scott, 32, who was struck and killed at Southern Avenue and Rural Road around midnight last Saturday. Police say video shows Scott was legally riding a bicycle with the flow of traffic at the time he was struck and killed… police say he made admissions related to the incident”

Over on the TBAG blog, the question was raised about lights.  I am *guessing* that since police went out of their way to say things like “Police say video shows Scott was LEGALLY riding a bicycle… “, that the cyclist had a light.
There was also some discussion of motorized bikes in general; for a lot of minutia about motorized bicycles; see this entry.  The short answer is that the motorized bicycle law wasn’t really thought through, and has a bunch of holes and gray areas.

…

Police are seeking the driver who killed a motorized bicyclist around 11:45pm Saturday, July 10, 2010.

The cyclist was killed as he rode eastbound on Southern Avenue near the intersection of Rural Road. The vehicle was described as newer model gold or champagne-colored Ford Taurus or Mercury Sable.

Police released traffic camera footage in the hopes that will lead to locating the driver, you can view the footage at [fox10news][abc15]. The driver made a bad left and really plowed into the cyclist who was proceeding straight ahead.

[evtrib]

Arizona legislators are seeking to prohibit cities and localities from running any sort of photo enforcement, including both speeding and red light cameras. Here is why I like red-light cameras: red light runners compilation and if you don’t like that one there are dozens more like it.

SB1352 (or SCR1029, which would become  yet another ballot initiative, is also in play). As of this minute the senate bill has been narrowly voted down. You can follow the SB1352 here (select the 50th, 1st regular session; if need be)

Republican Sen. Frank Antenori brings up the well-worn chestnut that the only problem at signal-controlled intersections is too-short yellow lights (and this despite the already-statutory requirement to set yellow lights per MUTCD, see last year’s HB2238 discussion ) . Just  watch the video.

Arizona continues to have relatively poor overall traffic safety. Arizona’s fatality rates are around 20% worse than average. Arizona’s rates are well over twice as dangerous as the safest states. Legislators, to the extent they feel any responsibility for this continued poor performance seek to help the situation by trying to remove all photo enforcement because…. oh yeah, I forgot, cameras cause collisions, remember?

Here is an arizona group that appears like it doesn’t dabble in politics: www.redmeansstop.org

Here is what  Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa said:

… the cameras, particularly those designed to catch speeders, are built on a misunderstanding of Arizona law. He pointed out that, in most cases, the statute makes it illegal to go faster than “reasonable and prudent.” That, Pearce said, requires a police officer to consider all the factors like weather, time of day and level of traffic, and not just the posted limit. “It is a suggestion, whether we like it or not,” Pearce said. A camera set at a specific trigger point, he said, cannot compensate for those factors

No word on what he thinks about the law requiring stopping at red lights — perhaps he thinks it should be up to the driver to decide? Or maybe there’s a misunderstanding there too?

And switching to speeding for a moment, you should also not take his suggestion lightly (the bit about reasonable and prudent); Exceeding the posted speed limit is in all cases prima facia evidence of violating 28-701 (Arizona’s speeding statute). And his “in most cases” weasel words have some major exceptions, spelled out in 28-701B where the maximum speed limit is absolute; school zones (15mph), residential (25mph), commercial (25 mph).

IIHS

The IIHS has put up a collection of studies, facts & figures, Q&A’s here. It was also the subject of their Feb monthly status report. Interesting breakdown of who is the victim:

• 36% The red-light running driver
• 12% passengers in red light running vehicle
• 6% pedestrian, bicyclist, other
• 46% occupants of vehicles that didn’t run light

They didn’t mention red light running bicyclists; they may have been excluded from the sample of 676 red-light-running fatalities in 2009.

Police reported Wednesday that they have solved two savage and infamous Valley crimes: one a 21-year-old Arizona State University student dragged to death in May…

Sifting through 500 leads, using photo enforcement, advanced computers and the U.S. Marshals Service, Tempe police Tuesday booked Joseluis Marquez, 20, on first-degree murder in the death of Kyleigh Sousa, 21.

A photo-enforcement picture of Marquez driving a golden 2008 Dodge Charger, snapped May 8 in Tempe, was key to the arrest, said Tempe Police Cmdr. Kim Hale. The car, a rental, was traced to the Los Angeles area.

Finding the car, detectives worked backward to identify the driver, who traveled between California and Arizona, police said.

It was 18 days after the photo was snapped that Sousa was fatally dragged outside an International House of Pancakes at 225 E. Apache Blvd. Marquez, driving the Dodge, snatched her purse and drove off, police say. Sousa, her hands entangled in the purse straps, was dragged 30 feet before falling to the asphalt parking lot, suffering a skull fracture and detached artery.

…more

I don’t quite follow the timeline, or the exact role the picture played.

Photo speed-enforcement may not be gone for good.

Gov. Jan Brewer doesn’t like photo enforcement; she put in her guy to direct DPS, Robert Halliday.

a “top commander” (number 2?), Lt. Col. Jack Hegarty seems to sort of like it. In any event he lobbied for a law (bill number? “The DPS bill passed and was signed into law on May 7″ ) that that give DPS control of any future program. This is probably a good idea, as it at least theoretically removes some of the opportunities for political meddling.

Bill s from the 49th 2nd Regular session relating to photo enforcement:

• SB1018 (Chapter 266): Photo enforcement procedures. apparently this it the bill referred to in the article, but i don’t really see how this gives DPS control(?)
• HB2338 (Chapter 213): the yellow light business.

“When Redflex alerted the media that DPS was canceling the contract, speculation was rampant that Gov. Jan Brewer made the decision to dismantle the controversial system to score political points. But Brewer’s nominee to run DPS, Robert Halliday, insisted the decision was his”

The law on red lights

In brief, the law says a driver must not enter the intersection when the light is red.

As usual, the first stop is a review of the Arizona Revised Statutes. Arizona law does not follow the UVC with regard to where a red violation occurs. Here are the relevant Arizona statutes:

• §28-645 Traffic Control Signal Legend: “3. Red indication…traffic facing a steady red signal alone shall stop before entering the intersection“
• §28-601 “8. ‘Intersection’ means the area embraced within the prolongation or connection of the lateral curb lines” — this is called the “enforcement line”

So, the enforcement line is well forward of what many people perceive as the start of the intersection.

Curiosly (well, curious to me anyway) is that unlike at stop sign intersections, drivers are under no obligation to stop before entering the crosswalk at a signalized intersection.

Oh, and by the way; irrespective of signal timing, drivers must not enter an intersection even if the light is green, until the intersection has cleared of any/all traffic from a previous cycle: “Vehicular traffic facing a green…  shall yield the right-of-way to other vehicles and to pedestrians…”

Tucson problems: as usual, there are special problems in Tuscon. Sigh. Apparently they use trailing green arrows. So, i guess this precipitates a need for a yellow arrow; this apparently leads to a lot of consternation with photo-enforced intersection with arrows; see e.g. this news item. This coupled with some oddly-shaped intersections causes much grief, e.g. River and Oracle.

Photo enforcement and the new law

Now, a sidenote; It’s sad, but true that something like traffic signal timing becomes a political football, particularly with respect to the duration of the yellow phase.

This tidbit from Phoenix will keep using traffic camera, The Arizona Republic, May 14, 2010: “(Phoenix police officer Bill) Fisher and others at the Phoenix Police Department said the city’s yellow-light timing is set at four seconds or longer, one second longer than the federal standard of three seconds, to provide motorists with additional time to stop on red” — is incorrect; there are definitely 3-second yellows in Phoenix. See, for example 44th and Chandler Blvd, or 46th and Ray Road.

In any event, our legislators (who consistently maintain that we already have enough laws) enacted a law that mandates that the engineering standard be modified to include a provision that the minimum yellow cycle be 3 seconds. Having legislation dictate engineering standards seems like a bad idea — but there you have it. The engineering standard is (already) specified by §28-641 is the MUTCD with Arizona supplements, and is maintained by ADOT.

A new provision of the law adds that any photo-red enforcement must meet engineering standard for yellow duration at that signal. So, if you get an officer-issued ticket at an out-of-spec signal, I guess you are out of luck.

A provision that would have provided a mandatory 1-second “grace period” to phot0-red was dropped.

[news item about new law] [another news item about new law]

HB2338 (select 49th Legislature, 2nd Regular session), here is the enacted law, chapter 213.

I don’t know of any intersection that doesn’t already meet the requirements of the new law — therefore I would tend to believe that the new law was more a statement by anti-photo-enforcement partisans than about improving safety.

The Engineering Story

Here is the section of the ADOT manual with calculations; section 621 Signal Phase Change Intervals.

There is a calculated minimum green time; but that’s based on how many cars are expected to be waiting to go. In effect, the minimum is practically zero.

The main attraction is calculation of yellow. Note that the formula takes into account the approach speed of traffic, and that figures for deceleration and reaction-time are taken to be conservative constants.

The design of the formula gives legally operating (e.g. not speeding, not so impaired their reaction time is longer than normal) time to stop during the yellow interval, thus avoiding a violation of 28-655.

I would point out, that the “approach speed” is a huge bone of contention with certain groups. The speed variable is supposed to be the 85th percentile speed, however “The posted speed limit may be assumed to be the approach speed when an engineering study or 85th percentile speed data is not available.”

Calculation of the all-red phase is discussed below.

Impact of timing on cyclists

Cyclists will often complain that, at the minimums, there isn’t enough time to cross before the light changes to red; or worse still, before the conflicting traffic gets a green.

To deal with this, the yellow phase should not be lengthened, “Excessively long yellow vehicle change intervals may encourage driver disrespect and unsafe operating practices”. It also doesn’t fix anything, cyclists will just enter the intersection later.

Rather the only guaranteed-safe thing to do is to lengthen the all-red phase.

The calculation of the all-red phase depends on the width of the intersection (plus 20 feet as a safety margin), and the posted speed limit. So for crossing an typical wide-ish arterial road (80 feet), at 40mph posted it comes out to be, say, 2 seconds. However for a cyclist traveling at, say, 15mph, it would almost 4 seconds without any margin of safety added.

[more goes here]

Also no word yet from the many legislators who have vowed to increase DPS patrols on highways, claiming that will enhance safety. Arizona faces record budget shortfalls, and it isn’t clear where money for increasing patrols would come from. The budge shortfall just got a little bigger, now that the Redflex contract has be canceled (well, not renewed) — because as the critics like to point out; the program made money for the state.

Unaffected are city-run programs, which are used for both speed and red-light running enforcement on surface streets (not on limited-access highways).

Arizona to eliminate speed-enforcement cameras on freeways, The Arizona Republic, 5/06/2010

Despite the camera-foes’ protestations to the contrary, the FHWA has no legal standing, can not make laws, and is not a legislative body (For Arizona, the Arizona state legislature is).

An image of the FHWA letter is linked at that article, above. I don’t know who this guy, Paul Pisano, from the FHWA is, or what axes he may have to grind but he does make some loaded statements, e.g. “under the provisions of the Uniform Vehicle Code, which is the basis of the motor vehicle laws of most states, the stop line, or crosswalk if there is no stop line, defines the point beyond which a red light violation has occurred”. Again, the Arizona state legislature exclusively makes the laws in Arizona. Sometimes they adopt things that are in the UVC, other times not.

At issue is an odd-ball intersection somewhere in or near Tucson (something about River and Oracle Roads), where there is unusually large (reported to be 43 foot) distance from the stop line to the intersection’s violation line. the city(?) placed an additional line and the word “WAIT”. This all does sound confusing, and it probably means this particular intersection should be looked at. [this intersection appears to be a complete car-sewer; many many many lanes wide, along with humongous curb radii leads to a disgusting mess see google maps aerial]

Arizona law does not follow the UVC with regard to where a red violation occurs. Here are the relevant Arizona statutes:

§28-655 Traffic Control Signal Legend: “3. Red indication…traffic facing a steady red signal alone shall stop before entering the intersection“

§28-601 “8. ‘Intersection’ means the area embraced within the prolongation or connection of the lateral curb lines”

Curiosly (well, curious to me anyway) is that unlike at stop sign intersections, drivers are under no obligation to stop before entering the crosswalk at a signalized intersection.

…

Here is a pretty reasonable discussion thread about the topic.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has quietly recanted all or most of the loony things that he said back in February. I say quietly because according to the Arizona Republic, the prosecutor’s office issued guidelines in a memo to DPS back in April on how to prosecute such cases; and apparently nobody else knew about it until now.

The loony things said back in April were that cameras were unconstitutional (Thomas: “you can’t cross-examine a camera”), or that there is no statutory basis for any criminal speeding charge based on photo evidence. For more about the February statement see here, and scroll down to “Thomas Says No to Criminal Speeding”.

As the article Speed-camera evidence OK in criminal cases, The Arizona Republic, Dec 07, 2009 points out, most or all of the evidence comes out of the camera, the additional requirements can be fulfilled after the alleged incident:

The memo notes that “no list is exhaustive” when it comes to evidence necessary for criminal prosecutions but states that:

• The police report must establish the time, place and manner of the alleged criminal speed violation. (Such information is recorded by a photo-enforcement camera.)

• The police must establish the identity of the driver to be charged with the misdemeanor. (DPS is supposed to verify the driver before sending out a violation notice.)

• Every driver should be contacted and interviewed. (There are DPS officers who target frequent photo-enforcement violators and those caught traveling at criminal speeds.)

• If photographic evidence exists, police have to provide a witness who can testify to the veracity of the photo-enforcement system. (As with radar guns and Breathalyzer equipment, DPS has officers qualified to testify about the photo-enforcement system.)

The story mentions that about half of the 4,500 criminal complaints have been dismissed on procedural grounds (perhaps that will change now with the “memo” guidelines?). In any event, of the other half it says about 300 have plead guilty, and doesn’t say what happened in the other almost 2,000 criminal cases. Maybe nobody knows? there is a large backlog in justice courts.

How will this play with the County Attorney’s pronouncement (see Thomas says no to criminal speeding) that he will not prosecute any criminal case based solely on photo evidence?

For those who don’t follow Arizona state politics; the GOP is ideologically opposed to any sort of photo-enforcement because, among other reasons, they believe it is an encroachment on freedom. The statewide (along highways, as a practical matter this means freeways in Phoenix metro area) camera program, furthermore, is considered to have belonged to former Democratic governor Janet Napolitano. The balance of Napolitano’s term is being filled by Republican Jan Brewer, Republicans control both legislative houses — where there are several attempts to do away with the camera program in its entirety. But for a historically large state budget deficit, they would presumably have already succeeded. The loss of fine revenue being too much for even some Republicans to bear.

Links to stories: AZ Capitol Times, AZ Republic

Case Dismissed

the final outcome is is simple — case dimissed by JP John Keegan (something about the “Arrowhead” district). Az Rep story about dismissal.

Mecum claimed that his *arrest* was “politically motivated”. There are various conspiracy theories floating around, eg. left and right. Most revolve around Keegan’s GOP political affiliations (former mayor of Peoria, former legislator, wife of former superintendant of ed Lisa Graham Keegan).

Andy Thomas refused to bring charges, the Phoenix city attoney’s office did.

That all being as it may, Keegan routinely tosses all photo radar violations. He has a novel theory that they violate the 4th Amendment (equal protection). the theory is that if an officer issued the same ticket, the fine would have been greater.  In other words, he’s protecting camera-caught speeders from lower fines…. whaaaa?

By the way, the rightie blog linked above further claims the arrest by DPS (because they had no warrant) was completely illegal, claiming a violation of unreasonable seizure — in Atwater v. Lago Vista they made such a claim; that arrest for a misdemeanor w/punishment only a fine, but they lost at the US Supreme Court. The blogger claims that “warrantless arrests” are prohibited under Arizona law but provides no references.