Author: ArizonaBikeLaw

Ahwatukee gets a new road

[UPDATE; this is the original material, circa 2009] Since Ahwatukee, part of the city of Phoenix, has been built-out now for years, I don’t get to say this much. Ahwatukee is getting a new road. It connects 40th and Pecos to the Wild Horse Pass (new) Hotel-Casino / Resort  / Rawhide on the Gila River Indian Reservation. The road opened to traffic to coincide with the grand opening of the new hotel/casino, Oct 30, 2009.

Views of Estrella Mountains to the west
Views of Estrella Mountains westbound on Willis Rd

For cyclists going “around the mountain”, this means it will no longer be necessary to cross over I-10 to get to Maricopa Road, usually via S 56th Street, and then cross back over to pick up Maricopa Road. Here is a map of the general vicinity (the new road is not shown yet). Continue reading “Ahwatukee gets a new road”

Distraction receives attention

The US DOT put on a major two-day Distracted Driving Summit. Here is a news story about the conference from the WSJ.

There was a media blitz including e.g. major press push from AAA, and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

The federal government announced via executive order an immediate ban on texting for employees while driving government vehicles or while driving on official business in any other vehicle.

Legislation will be pushed which will ban texting while driving for federally regulated drivers, such as bus, truck, drivers. In addition, legislation to “encourage” states to likewise ban texting will be likely be introduced. The feds have no direct control over what legislation states enact — but (a big but), they can tie such things to withholding of federal monies, a la seatbelt and age-of-drinking, and 0.08BAC laws.

While all of this sounds good on the surface, my take is that is designed to make it appear to be getting tough on DD (distracted driving) while more-or-less ignoring the bulk of the problem. Why not a ban on talking on cell phones? (the “handsfree” business is just subterfuge). Or why not just enact real penalties for distracted drivers who harm others? This driver received a $254 fine for KILLING somebody. Here’s another driver — the police, because of an oversight, didn’t even write the citation. Just two examples of a huge class of inattentive drivers; drivers distracted by who-knows-what. They are apparently either sleeping, or daydreaming or actively distracted — though they rarely admit to the latter.

What does this all mean?

While I’m glad that distracted driving is receiving attention — it looks to me in looking at the press that the powers-that-be are setting up texting as the scapegoat. Texting will eventually be made illegal everywhere; but we will still have all sorts of other inattention being ignored, like talking on cell phones.

…

here is a blurb that ran in many media stories, but I have to find the source, note that it refers to cell phone use in general, not texting in particular:

A study performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 955 deaths and 240,000 accidents in 2002 could be attributed to cell phone use. The study was conducted in 2003, but the results weren’t made available until last week…

morganlee.org has some good cell links, Motherjones article on the study, and reference to a lawsuit here.

Crime and punishment

[for more current information on 28-672, see this article]

Most traffic infractions in Arizona are strictly civil matters, if a driver is found responsible he or she is generally subject to a fine of not more than $250 (§28-1598), and no jail time is possible. Some infractions specify their own penalties, for example the “Three foot rule” (§28-735) includes enhanced penalties of up to $500 or $1000 if a motorist seriously injures or kills a cyclist when overtaking unsafely (the enhance penalty does not apply if a bike lane is “present and passable”).

A handful of infractions specify criminal penalties, for example DUI, excessive speed, reckless driving. These are in and of themselves relatively minor criminal offenses, for example excessive speed is a class 3 misdemeanor (the least serious criminal classification).

If the conduct results in a serious injury or death, AND the police/prosecutor believe that the conduct was “criminally” reckless/negligent, then we leave the realm of traffic law and enter the generic assault or homicide laws; i.e. Arizona has no  “Homicide by Vehicle” statute (perhaps we need one?). According to wikipedia, Arizona is one of only 3 states that lacks such a law. Vehicular homicide laws, though, are both a blessing and a curse — they make it easy for prosecutors to charge, but at the same time they are generally very low-level crimes (unless aggravated by, e.g., DUI).

That being said, there is one more statute of interest, §28-672, that “criminalizes” simple negligence when death or serious injury results, but only for a prescribed set of infractions:

  • §28-645(A)3(a): Running a red light
  • §28-729: failure to drive in one lane
  • §28-771: failure to yield to vehicle on the right (generally applies to uncontrolled intersections)
  • §28-772: Bad left
  • §28-773: drive out at stop sign (see also, 855B, below).
  • §28-792: Running down a pedestrian in a marked OR UNMARKED crosswalk
  • §28-794: Not exercising due care around a pedestrian
  • §28-797 subsection F, G, H, or I:  Disobeying various school zone rules
  • §28-855(B): Running a stop sign
  • §28-857(A): Disobeying school bus stop signs

…

 

There are a couple of related statutes, §28-675 and §28-676 , that have more serious penalties for exactly the same list of infractions as with 28-672, but apply if the driver’s license has been yanked (and only when yanked for cause relating to previous illegal bad driving).

…

Although the penalties are relatively minor, it would seem this is a good start. But. It appears to me that this law if rarely charged. Why not?

Ok, so here’s the thing. Despite what would have to be a very common crime, there appear to be no more than a handful of these cases (I’ve outlined a couple of them here). Consider that just in the city of Phoenix, every year there are ~ 160 fatalies, and ~ 1,600 serious injuries (there are ~ 16,000 injuries, and ~ 10,000 injury collisions.  The city’s stats don’t break down serious vs. non-serious. A 10% rate is to be expected). [These are the 2007 figures from the City of Phoenix]

So how many of these 1,700 or so cases result in 28-672 charges? The most serious recklessness cases become homicide/aggravated assault. In some cases, the driver is injuring/killing himself, so no charges would be possible. And the biggest exclusion is many of these don’t stem from a moving violation that is included in the definition.

Detroit, hollowed out

Cars have a horrible tendency to hollow out cities from the inside; so it’s not surprising that Detroit should suffer disproportionately. The author of an excellent article from this past Saturday’s WSJ  In One Home, a Mighty City’s Rise and Fall: Price of Typical Detroit House: $7,100,  pointing out, I’m sure with intentional irony:

“By then (the early 1940’s), the street had slipped a notch in desirability. Detroit’s well-to-do moved to more grandiose housing in Grosse Pointe and other suburbs, their commutes made possible by the very automobiles that had made them rich” Continue reading “Detroit, hollowed out”

Who is at fault in a left-turn collision?

A high profile collision involving a school bus turning left at a signal, still under investigation — the news article doesn’t let on who the police believe is responsible for the collision that killed two motorists. The collision occurred in Phoenix at Union Hills Drive, and 12th Street. The speed of the car was reportedly excessive. The bus was turning left, and the car was straight-through; this is a signalized intersection; the news story doesn’t give any indication of the status of the signal. Continue reading “Who is at fault in a left-turn collision?”

Green Valley cyclist killed

the Arizona Daily Star is reporting a fatality in Green Valley (near Tucson),
Green Valley cyclist, 84 killed in vehicle collision.

[2020 review: in this incident, the driver should have been charged with 28-672, a criminal misdemeanor, for failing to maintain proper lane. This would have mooted all the nonsense below about how much to fine the driver for the infraction of failing to pass at more than 3 feet]

It is very unusual for police (in this case the Pima County Sheriff’s Office) to cite immediately. The normal pattern in fatal collisions (see e.g. Allen Johnson) is nothing gets issued, a lengthy investigation (most of elapsed time is due to waiting on tox results)  is conducted, after which the prosecutor declines to file criminal charges, and finally traffic citations are issued. Will there be no further investigation? Seems hasty. Entry at tucsonbikelawyer.com also see zero-citations-so-far-for-three-foot-passing-rule-in-tucson-this-year for interesting facts about just how rare citations for 28-735 are.

There was a nice article about Jerome in the Green Valley News, interesting discussions about criminal negligence at tusconbikelawyer.com

The case was settled for only $254 in fines, covering two citations, according to the GV News “David Armstrong, 76, of Green Valley, pleaded responsible to ‘overtaking bicycles – fatal,’ and ‘driving in the bike lane’ and was fined $140.50 and $113.50 respectively”. No word as to why the fine for violating §28-735 , which carries a fine of “up to” $1,000,  was settled for far less — not that it really makes much difference, but after all what’s the point of having enhanced penalties for more serious outcomes if the judge/magistrate doesn’t apply it? It was Case number TR-20091755 in Green Valley Justice court.

I have no idea how the fines are arrived at. The fine schedule according to the list for ddp (but defensive driving school isn’t an option, I’m just using it to look up court fees), for Green Valley is $120 court fee plus $40 state fee. Perhaps that is where the $140.50 comes from? Which I suppose means the “enhanced” part if it is $0.

Here is a google maps street view of N Desert Bell Drive. It appears to be a full-up bike lane; albeit with “old” bike lane signs and the diamond markings. the street view when I checked it in March of 2012 was dated April 2008, so I don’t know if it’s been updated with the new MUTCD 2003 signs/markings.

2009 AZ Cyclist Fatality Grid

By Alexis Huicochea
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.03.2009
advertisement
An 84-year-old bicyclist died this morning after he was struck by a car in Green Valley.
Jerome Featherman was riding south on North Desert Bell Drive, near West Calle de Oro, at 9:38 a.m. when a motorist drove into the bike lane and hit him, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.
Featherman was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, she said.
The driver of the car – David Armstrong, 76 – was given a citation on suspicion of violation of the three-foot passing rule causing death and driving in a bike path.
The three-foot passing rule states that when passing a bicycle that is going in the same direction, a motorist has to leave a safe distance between the vehicle and the bicycle of not less than three feet until the vehicle is safely past the bicycle.

Who’s Responsible?

There is a claim floating around that some study has concluded that motorists are responsible for some 90% of car-bike collisions.

This would be a lot higher than is generally appreciated. I’ve grappled with this a little bit before in Understanding Collision Summaries, where I pointed out an inexplicably high proportion of  “other” violations assigned to bicyclists.

So far, I’ve found a page at projectfreeride.org with a table that is said to be source from Tomlinson, David. Conflicts Between Cyclists and Motorists in Toronto, Canada. Link to a .pdf on the Velomondial.net.

The same claim can be found in a newslettery article dated Aug 19, 2009 on a University of Toronto website entitled Smart Cycling. the information was supplied by a physcian, Dr. Chris Cavacuti, who is also involved with projectfreeride. And a correction with that article that was posted Aug 26:

In the interview, Dr. Cavacuiti is quoted as saying “The [Toronto Collision] study concluded that cyclists are the cause of less than 10 per cent of bike-car accidents”. Dr. Cavacuiti has asked us to make readers aware that the Toronto Collision study was actually designed to look at the cause of bicycle/motorist collisions but not culpability.

It is actually several studies conducted by the Charles Komanoff and member of the Right of Way organization in New York that concluded that concluded that cyclists were strictly culpable for less than 10 per cent of bike-car accidents.

Dr. Cavacuiti would like to apologize for any confusion this error may have caused.

On the projectfreeride page,  in a statement summarizing Tomlinson’s findings, the page at projectfreeride says “In fact, cyclists are the cause of less than 10% of bike-car accidents in this study”. Is that really what Tomlinson found? Or should the correction mentioned above be also applied to the projectfreeride page too?

This claim got picked up by the Freakonomics blog, garnering wide exposure.

Skepticism at the commuteorlando blog. Links the 90% claim back to Komanoff’s group Killed by Automobile paper. More links here on cycledog.

(more to come…)

See my own figures for manner-and-fault-in-bicyclist-traffic-fatalities-arizona-2009 which, according to the police reports/investigation, found motorists most-at-fault in about 50% of fatal traffic collisions between a MV and bicyclist in 2009.

Another hit-and-run; this time Mesa

A cyclist was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in Mesa in the early-evening timeframe. Monday Aug 24, 2009.  Police arrested Benito Gil-Mendoza, 31,  on suspicion of aggravated assault and hit-and-run.

The azcentral story says the collision was 6:30p. Sunset that day in Phoenix is 7:03p. No mention of lights was made in either of the news stories.

How will this one play out? After all, three hours is a long time. The suspect will likely deny he was drunk at the time.

Continue reading “Another hit-and-run; this time Mesa”

Queen Creek hit-and-run; driver arrested

Another bicyclist fatality, the fourth fatal Phoenix metro area hit-and-run in just over two months.

See Phoenix hit-and-runs disturbingly similar for a rundown on the other three.

According to MCSO, on 8/15/2009 ~2am three cyclists were EB on Ocotillo Rd ne

ar 228th St, the motorist was WB in the EB lane — i.e. head on. The motorist fled the scene and MCSO later arrested Gary Foshe, 53. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) provides police services to the town of Queen Creek. The name of the suspect is probably actually Gary Lynn Foshee — there is a 53 year old by that name with a civil traffic case in justice court June

of this year (is that in addition to the DUI in Scottsdale 2006, mentioned in the EV Trib article below?).

There are some pictures of a roadside memorial at queencreekevolves. The victim’s name was Russell Jenkins. Pics of the ghostbike memorial here, and here. Continue reading “Queen Creek hit-and-run; driver arrested”

MAG Stats

There was a nice little piece in the local West Valley paper, Surprise a safe zone for bicycle riders.

They make some rather outlandish claims, though.

According to figures recently released by Maricopa County Association of Governments, Surprise has one of the lowest rates of injuries and fatalities in the county.

Surprise has an average rating of 5.08 per 100,000 of its population for bicyclist injuries and fatalities and 6.31 for pedestrian injuries and fatalities from 2003 through 2007, the latest statistics…

This contrasts with other neighboring cities such as Peoria — with ratings of 16.43 for bicyclists and 11.71 pedestrians, and Glendale — with 26.68 for bicyclists and 31.27 for pedestrians.

Tempe ranks as the most dangerous city for bicyclists with a rating of 93.57 injuries and fatalities per 100,000 and 54.5 for pedestrian injuries and fatalities.

Is bicycling really almost twenty times more dangerous in Tempe relative to Surprise? One imagines it has more to do with the amount of cycling relative to population. And other distortions, e.g. maybe ASU students aren’t counted as Tempe residents.

Here is MAG’s Transpo Committee page, to see the data referred to in the story, open page Crash Trends in the MAG Region 2001-2007 and then click on “Injuries and fatalities per 100K population”, and a table with per-city data pops into the same page below the existing stuff (thanks to Sarath for pointing that out).

Phoenix Hit-and-runs disturbingly similar

There has been a third fatal hit-and-run in Phoenix, the third within two months — one in June, one in July and one (so far) in August.

Just after midnight this past Saturday,  52 year old cyclist Charles Waldrop was killed by a hit and run driver who witnesses say was driving at a high rate of speed and swerving. Police say an anonymous tip lead to the apprehension and arrest of  23 y.o. Timothy Kissida after he traded (via the “Cash for Clunkers” program) a light blue 1992 BMW 325i w/damage consistent with hit-and-run.  He was booked into the Maricopa County jail and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal collision and tampering with evidence. (KPHO, abc15, azcentral) (CAzBike blog). According to case minutes from 04/08/2010 “The parties anticipate that this matter will resolve prior to Trial.”. Kissida was ultimately sentenced to 10.5 years in prison.

This is disturbingly similar to another incident just 4 weeks ago; also in Phoenix, also in the early morning hours of Saturday, also hit-and-run. In that case, though, police apprehended and was arrested someone soon after the collision. See South Phoenix Hit-and-run for details on that incident.

There was a third nighttime hit-and-run fatality in Phoenix back in June, see Driver confesses to hit-and-run killing

As a note on media coverage; something I normally have complaints about, I have to give credit where it is due — The azcentral.com (and abc15.com carried the same quotes), sourced to police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson was unambiguous: “The cyclist, 52, was riding home from work and was in full compliance with the bicycle laws. He was riding with a bike light and a rear flashing light in the bike lane.” In the June fatality, police said “Police say that Thompson was riding his bike legally”.

Recap of the Criminal Cases

Index to the three, with outcomes, all drivers were caught and were subsequently convicted of various crimes, though the outcome varied quite a bit:

  • June incident: driver worked a plea for simple hit-and-run; very brief sentence. Presumably because there was apparently no impairment.
  • July incident: driver went to a full trial — found guilty of neg hom among other crimes. Was sentenced to 6 year PLUS a consecutive 3.5 years for the hit-and-run (VERY unusual) — this seems to be his “punishment” for going to trial vs. working a plea deal.
  • August incident: driver plead to manslaughter and got 10.5 years. due to plea deal, the hit-and-run he also plead to netted no incarceration.

 

 

…

2009 AZ Cyclist Fatality Grid

36th and Equestrian traffic circles

Ahwatukee is getting two traffic circles courtesy of the City of Phoenix’s collector street mitigation project. One at Equestrian Trail and Appaloosa Drive, and the other at 36th and Coconino Streets. At the same time, the bike lanes were re-configured on 36th Street. Equestrian Trail also has a bike lane; that has not been altered other than to allow for the circle. Continue reading “36th and Equestrian traffic circles”

Drunken driver Sentenced in Cop’s Death

Salvador Vivas-Diaz was sentenced to the maximum of 16 years in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter after driving drunk and hitting Phoenix PD Officer Shane Figueroa head-on. The officer was responding to a call at the time.

Traffic collisions, not, say, guns, are the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths of police officers. See: More Police Killed by Traffic than Guns.

“Alcohol-Related” vs. “Alcohol-Impaired”

2007alcoholrelatedfromwsjIn last week’s Numbers Guy WSJ column, Carl Bialik examines a dust-up between MADD and the (beverage industry-backed) Century Council. They published a bar-chart of alcohol-related fatalities broken down by BAC levels.

Note that the term alcohol-related means simply that any of the drivers involved had a BAC of 0.01 or greater.

What intests me, however, is how the chart looks if we include all fatalities and how the same chart would look. Continue reading ““Alcohol-Related” vs. “Alcohol-Impaired””