Latest incident early morning hours of Friday Oct 17, 2014 when an un-named female 25 year old was suspected of being impaired, driving the wrong way on I-10 from 143 to downtown Phoenix, and causing 4 serious-to-critical injuries. Authorities are doing a very good job of protecting suspects’ identities, for some reason. Continue reading “Wrong-way freeway driver drama continues”
Author: ArizonaBikeLaw
AZPOST — Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training
It is important to get all Law Enforcement Officers properly trained on the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles; and how that affects bicyclists. A constant bone of contention is where-to-ride-on-the-road, and I have several types of (mostly general, not state-specfic) training materials linked there. Continue reading “AZPOST — Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training”
godaddy and ssh and cron
In the beginning, say from 2000-2013 or 14: my username is azbikelaw (probably not a surprise or a revealing security hole, seeing as how it is in the domain name); and I use that to log into ssh and everything is spiffy. When logged in to ssh, e.g. I see my files are “owned” by azbikelaw. So far so good. Continue reading “godaddy and ssh and cron”
Tucson hit-and-run driver kills cyclist; woman arrested
[Update 4/8/2016: the update is there is absolutely no update on the suspect; it’s been over a year and half. Besides the hit and run, FARS has her at .12 BAC]
9/25/2014 12:23am. Hit run. Driver arrested, suspect intoxication. Suspect Nichole Jacinto. Victim 58 y.o. James Frankiewicz. Another news reports says was struck from behind in bike lane. The area appears to have a striped shoulder; it even goes on to be to the right of a RTO lane at Grant.
Location: southbound on Oracle Rd near Jacinto St. (yes, that is a coincidence; the suspect’s name is also Jacinto).
The most-detailed reporting is at bicycletucson.com
Continue reading “Tucson hit-and-run driver kills cyclist; woman arrested”
Driver Sentenced: Phoenix police officer dies in fatal hit-and-run
Content moved, see Original story…
Off-duty Pima County Sheriff’s Deputy hit and thrown
victim 57 y.o. male off duty PCSO Deputy Art Gutierrez / serious but not life-threatening injuries. Driver: not mentioned. Picture indicates the car was an older Saturn sedan. Occured 9/16/2014 “afternoon” Tanque Verde near Dusty Lane in Pima County (outside of city of Tucson). Rear ended in the “bike lane”. Continue reading “Off-duty Pima County Sheriff’s Deputy hit and thrown”
Fatal Tempe Ped hit-and-run; Driver arrested
Friday 9/12/2014 ~ 9pm near McClintock and Apache, Tempe.
Victim was crossing mid-block; Jon Alguire. 29 y.o. suspect Justin Michael Gordecki booked on susp of hit-run, DUI and “False reporting to police” (hmmm?).
Criminal case CR2014144645; so far headed to trial 7/8/2015. It seems plain he is not going to be charged with the victim’s death (mid-block crossing), just a “simple” hit-and-run, along with probably a dui. Not sure what the holdup could be.
There was an additional unrelated ped-MV crash the same night in Tempe at Priest and University with “life-threatening” injury.
Are Cyclists Required to Carry ID? Are Pedestrians? Updated 2014
[2/23/2019 update: see story about 12 y.o. Hilde Kate Lysiak says Marshal Joseph Patterson stopped her as she was biking in Patagonia, Arizona. Various issues: asked her for identification?. “failure to comply with lawful order”? “illegal to video record”? ID? ]
[2/17/2015 update: Officer Ferrin of the Ore incident has resigned. ASU released a chief’s letter and an independent investigation commissioned by ASU performed by Investigative Research Inc. (apparently through public records?) I would describe as scathing, and that corroborates most of what I thought/said below, see the lengthy news story on azcentral — There is no law requiring peds to provide an ID card (in other words his saying “Let me see your ID or you will be arrested for failing to provide ID” is wrong, see Arizona v Akins, below); there was no ‘jaywalking’, see link below to the actual jaywalking laws; there was probably no probable cause for the arrest; he didn’t “almost run her over”; 5 days earlier the officer had a similar (but non-physical) power-trip incident over a crosswalk. and on and on. The transcript, see below, confirms Officer Ferrin doesn’t understand the (ID) law]
[2015 update to the Ore incident: in an apparent about-face, ASU has moved to terminate Officer Stewart Ferrin over the matter; apparently as the result of an un-released independent review by an “outside agency”. ]
In 1999 Tucson bicyclist Enol Daniel Ortiz Jr. spent the night in jail for not having ID on him. It appears that now (since 2003) cyclists and other non-motorists have no legal obligation to carry identification.
The update in 2014 is due to the unusual case of Ersula Ore, an English professor at ASU. She was apparently “jaywalking” when she got into an altercation with ASU police. From what I can see this on College Ave, somewhere north of University Dr. This is a public street in the city of Tempe (there seems to be some confusion and many erroneous comments about this; this location is not “on campus” or somesuch). Tempe’s codes for pedestrians are here; ASU is NOT in the “central business district”, the more-restrictive “jaywalking” code only applies in the CBD so it leads me to wonder if she was really jaywalking at all. Jaywalking codes, real or imagined, are frequently used to assert superiority by motorists (the police officers were driving cars) over pedestrians.
Continue reading “Are Cyclists Required to Carry ID? Are Pedestrians? Updated 2014”
Cyclist falls in roadway; then fatally struck by passing motorist
Wed, 8/27/2014 ~ 2030. Cyclist 69-year-old Andrew Yearby. In the area of 43rd Avenue and Crittenden Lane, Phoenix. This was initially investigated as hit and run, however police now believe the man fell in the roadway for unrelated/unknown reasons; and was subsequently run over by the driver of a Toyota Camry. Continue reading “Cyclist falls in roadway; then fatally struck by passing motorist”
Car-scooter crash in Mesa leaves 1 dead
Aug 2, 2014 ~ 7:30AM The driver of a car was speeding and possibly impaired when she failed to stop at t red light, rear-ending a stopped motor scooter driver, killing him. The delay in the arrest was apparently due to the driver’s hospitalization. Julie Ann Gutierrez was arrested 8/19 on suspicion of manslaughter; and MSCO is awaiting blood test results that could bump up the charge to 2nd degree murder.
Statistical note: motor scooters (and mopeds, and motorized bicycles) are categorized as motorcycles. Continue reading “Car-scooter crash in Mesa leaves 1 dead”
Yikes. Inattention/Distraction, much?
Rest assured the authorities are dealing harshly with the inattentive driver who caused a serious injury; she gets a traffic ticket “The driver of the Kia will be cited…”. That the driver will be immediately cited indicates police aren’t even bothering to look at any more serious charges — this distracted driver is facing 2nd Degree murder charges, exactly how are they different? He wasn’t looking at the road. According to the present story, something in the rear seat distracted this driver; somehow causing her to suddenly veer. So, this yields nothing more than a traffic citation — what constitutes recklessness. Endangerment/assault/aggravated assault — these are apparently not within the ken of the Phoenix PD, and/or prosecutor(s). “A person commits endangerment by recklessly endangering another person”. “A person commits assault by…recklessly causing any physical injury”. “A person commits aggravated assault if the person commits assault …and… causes serious physical injury to another”
One Road, 4 Treatments
Below for illustration is 4 different lane treatments commonly used on urban arterial roads — these all just so happen to be the same road, Chandler Blvd, in the City of Phoenix: Continue reading “One Road, 4 Treatments”
Rates of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatality by Vehicle Type
I first noticed several years ago when reviewing IIHS SUV safety data, that it has been noted by several studies published in the early 2000’s that a the risk of pedestrian death in a traffic collision varied widely depending on the vehicle type / bodystyle. The major categories of vehicle type are: Passenger Vehicles, Light Trucks (includes pickups, SUV, vans), Heavy Trucks, Motorcycles, and other (not sure exactly where Buses are).
Continue reading “Rates of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatality by Vehicle Type”
Arizona Governor’s Bicycle Task Force
Noted here for historical curiosity:
EXECUTIVE ORDER No. 86-4 established the Arizona Governor’s Bicycle Task Force in 1986 by governor Bruce Babbitt.
It was later repealed by executive order in 1996 by Governor Fife Simington. The stated reason for the repeal was ” in recognition of that fact, the Alternative Transportation Task Force created on June II, 1996 has been authorized to study and implement alternative
transportation systems”. EO 96-11
Here is an image of AGBTF executive orders 86-4 and 96-11 : ArizonaGovernorsBicycleTaskForce (in case the azmemory pages disappear).
You can read that : Establishment of Alternative Transportation System Task Force Executive order No. 96-7. I can’t tell what that task force may or may not be doing currently (or ever?).
No Excuse
There is no excuse for improperly engineered bike infrastructure. It takes on two forms, 1) simple straight-up wrong, and 2) “fake” facilities, those which masquerade as something they’re not; they’re in reality nothing more than shoulders, yet they are intentionally tarted-up to appear to be, and even be referred to as bike lanes (see e.g. Flagstaff, below). Continue reading “No Excuse”