Category: safety

Driver confesses to hit-and-run killing

Marcello  Rojas, 43, the driver of a 2006 BMW was stopped for speeding June 9 ~ 10pm — this is unrelated to the crash. At that time he told police “he hit a guy on a bicycle”. According to police the victim, Billy Ray  Thompson, was riding westbound on Broadway “perfectly legally” which i took to mean, but the story doesn’t elaborate, that he was properly lighted/reflectored. No dui is suspected.

News reports: AZ Rep, ABC15 #1, ABC15 #2

This is one of a chain of similar fatal hit-and-runs in Phoenix that occurred in summer of 2009.

The Case

Superior Court Docket, case number CR2009-138233. According to the minute entry on 2/9/2010 Rojas plead guilty to hit-and-run w/death and was sentenced to 7 weeks in county jail with credit for 52 days already served (which i take to mean, he’s done with jail already); and a year probation.

According to the minute entry that went over the plea deal; apparently by pleading he got 28-661 knocked down to a class 3 felony (leaving the scene of a fatality that was not his fault. Versus a class 2 if it was his fault). Then, for whatever reason, for the purposes of sentencing this is considered a “non dangerous” offense. Which I guess is why it comes with such a piddly sentence.

2009 AZ Cyclist Fatality Grid

Crashes are the Leading Cause of Death…

I found this image lurking on the NHTSA website. MVCs (Motor Vehicle Collisions) are always the leading cause, though the exact ages vary from year to year, e.g. from Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes as a Leading Cause of Death in the United States, 2000 “motor vehicle traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for every age 2 through 33”. Note that this ranking is all inclusive; thus it includes things like suicide, homicide, and so forth.

Just like everything else in life, there are some nuances that are worth understanding. The simplest distinction is between internal (think disease) and external (think any sort of accidental death; car crash, drowning, falling…). These distinctions are detailed in the technical report, e.g. Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes as a Leading Cause of Death in the U. S., 1997 (emphasis added):

“As a major external cause, traffic crashes are the prime cause of accidental death in the United States, and this has been true for many years. Thus, for persons of all ages, traffic crashes alone in 1997 caused almost one-half of all accidental deaths that occurred….  “

For example, from Exhibit 5 here are the top 5 causes of “accidental death” for both sexes combined. MVCs DOMINATE the rankings.

  1. Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes 42,340
  2. Falls  15,477
  3. Poisoning  10,163
  4. Other and Unspecified Causes (including suffocation which was #4) 5,207

…

MVC’s (Motor Vehicle Collisions) are so horrifically high, that they have even snuck into the debate over Universal Health Care in the US. It seems that “unnatural” causes of death (MVC being the prime category) are so high in the US that they have significantly depressed our life expectancy. By adjusting the life expectancy data for all the OECD countries (except Luxembourg), the US catapults from last to first place! This is all according to University of Iowa researchers  Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider.

 

http://idmeglobalalert.com/images/DeathCauses05.jpg

nhtsa 810936 Leading Causes based on 2005 data

 Updated for 2009 data

“Motor vehicle traffic crashes were the leading cause of death for age 4 and every age
11 through 27 (based on latest available 2009 data)”
Source: National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Mortality Data, 2009… quoted from NHTSA Quick Facts 2012.

Photo unit snaps GOP party chief speeding 109 mph

This is just too wild to not comment on. Never a dull moment here in Arizona with respect to photo enforcement! Two weeks ago the world’s first photo radar murder and now we have a politician (he’s not a legislator, he works for the party) *arrested* for criminal speeding and reckless driving.

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? Continue reading “Photo unit snaps GOP party chief speeding 109 mph”

Negligent driver who killed 5 gets 1-year sentence

At this stage, with the investigation into Allen Johnson’s death still pending — there is understandably a lot of conjecture regarding what charges may be brought, or not brought, as the case may be.

I’ve seen this movie before, and the outcome is (almost) always the same — there are only two things that (reliably) bring criminal charges. They are DUI and leaving the scene.

If the exception proves the rule, and I think it does, take a deep breath and read the results of this quintuple homicide. This case gives one answer to the question: exactly what can a negligent driver do (besides the two aforementioned things) to get indicted for murder?

Laurie Roberts did a great job of bringing this story to light in her column (alternately see Laurie’s blog and entry on the same subject and the aftermath). A news story ran in the East Valley Tribune.

Roberts writes: “Then he did the smartest thing he could do. He hired Larry Kazan, the Valley’s go-to attorney for bad drivers – the ones who can afford him, that is”

The synopsis is, in case the links to those stories disappear: Robert Logan Myers III plead guilty to five counts of Neg Hom stemming from a collision where he was speeding and ran a red light colliding with a left-turner. In the deal where he got 1 year in jail (the nominal sentence would be 5 time 2.5 years), work release for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, payment of restitution of about $451,000, 4 years of probation. No mention of his driver’s license — of course how would he get back and forth from jail every day without one?!

The outcome of this, albeit highly unusual prosection, makes me wonder if pursuing criminal charges, heretofore what I considered the “holy grail” of holding someone responsible is the way to go. There must be a better way. ??

More Photo-enforcement in the WSJ

On the heels of last weeks “front pager” — Jenkins thows in his two cents in today’s column The War on Short Yellows. His punditry is undoubtedly astute: “One Arizona sheriff recently proved you could get elected by opposing speed cameras”. He should have stopped there, since his analysis of safety is lacking. Firstly, he either doesn’t know, or doesn’t let on, the scope of the problem. To put it simply, traffic collisions are the leading cause of unnatural death for all Americans (link to reference here)… this is a huge problem.

And the problem is even worse in Arizona; something he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about. Arizona rates (even after some fairly large improvements in recent years) far above US averages in both per capita fatalities, and fatalities per 100M VMT. So it should probably come as no surprise that the authorities in Arizona are trying out things like photo-enforcement. Which he, reflexively, believes is basically a jack-booted government gone wild.

He goes with the typical cannard — that supposedly the collisions prevented represent only a small fraction of all collisions. His exact stat was “Consider: Red-light running and speeding, the two main uses of traffic cameras, are implicated in fewer than 8% of accidents”.  He doesn’t reveal a source (possibly a talking point from the NMA?), I’m guessing it is 3% + 5%, and also guessing it’s the national causastion survey. In any event, the weakness is that these collisions are far more freqently fatal. Arizona has a particularly high fatal red-light running rate.

He even brings up Britian, yet he either doesn’t know, or doesn’t let on that Britian experienced a precitious decline in fatality rates through the 1990’s — coincident with the rise in photo-enforcement. Are the two related? One wonders, but Jenkins apparently doesn’t care or wonder. By the way, fatality rates are far below US rates (both per capita, and per VMT).

His solution? lengthen yellow lights. This would undoubtedly reduce violations. But unless the yellow is “short” (shorter than engineering standards) there’s no indication this would reduce collisions, though. And as to the other ten’s of thousands of deaths annually? Well he doesn’t even have a suggestion for that.

Is it safe to go to Mexico?

With all the negative press surrounding Mexican narco-violence lately , the following theme should sound familiar to azbikelaw readers:

Though the U.S. government says its records aren’t comprehensive, the leading cause of unnatural death in Mexico for an American tourist — by far — is car accident, according to State Department data…

—Is It Safe to Go to Mexico? Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2009

I could do without the “accident” — the preferred term is “collision” or “crash”.

2007 Arizona claims enormous improvement in VMT fatality rate

I guess it takes a long time for the VMT state-by-state rates to trickle out — but they are all here. The numbers are close to, but not the same as, ADOT’s 2007 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts.

The VMT fatality rate for 2007 is 1.69 fatalities per per 100 million Vehicle Miles Traveled. Continue reading “2007 Arizona claims enormous improvement in VMT fatality rate”

Photo Enforcement in the mainstream media

The WSJ (news side) did a story on photo enforcement. Since there’s so much activity on this issue in Arizona, we figured prominently in the story.

Overall, it strikes me that it was fairly typical of such stories. The point of view of photo enforcement opponents, “it’s all about the money” is well represented, and I think that’s fair. But what troubles me, though, is the lightweight treatment of the safety aspects and the science involved. Consider:

Studies are mixed on whether traffic cameras improve safety. Some research indicates they may increase rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes when they see posted camera notices…

A study of crash causes released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last July found about 5% of crashes were due to traveling too fast and 2% were from running red lights. Driving off the side of the road, falling asleep at the wheel and crossing the center lines were the biggest causes identified.

— Get the Feeling You’re Being Watched? If You’re Driving, You Just Might Be. William M. Bulkeley, the Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2009, p. A1

The truth, or rather, the problem with that analysis is it ignores the relative severity of rear-end vs. an intersection collision. The 5% figure is interesting and misleading at the same time. It refers to the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey.

The article also talks about use of automated license plate reading technology being used for other (not traffic enforcement) uses, such as catching those with outstanding fines or whatnot.

Meanwhile, just wandering around the internet, I noticed the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), a wonderful book by the way, Tom Vanderbuilt, blogged on the same article as well, with similar criticisms “to compare them so casually is typical of myopic mainstream-media reporting when it comes to traffic safety”. He also puts traffic dangerousness into terms of it being an externality of driving, just one of many, of course.

Comparative Traffic Safety

This reference, now a couple of years old, does a good job of exposing the poor job U.S. is doing traffic-safety wise:

Lives on the Line: US Highway Safety Targets and Achievements are Fatally Low

By the way, that site, www.policedriving.com, as its name implies puts a spotlight on police and driving. The Officer Down Memorial Page keeps detailed stats on the cause of death of all law enformcemnt officers killed in the line of duty — e.g. in 2008 the of the 134 officers killed in the US; about 70 were in traffic collisions (3 of those were as the result of pursuit, about 5 were intentionally “rammed”); by comparison, 40 were killed by gunfire (two of those accidentally), and only 1 by stabbing.
…

Why I support “Bikes safe at stop signs”

See Stop sign compliance for links to the present laws, and Bicycle stop sign changes proposed for the pending legislation.

There are a couple of serious objections to allowing bicyclists to legally roll through stop signs that should be considered:

1) Same Roads – Same Rights – Same Rules (SRSRSR). I find this argument specious at best and disastrous at worst. SRSRSR may be useful as a teaching aid, slogan, or PR position but simply does not, and can not, work as a legal position. In Bicycles are not motor vehicles and why it matters I explain why as a practical matter cyclists would be banned outright from most roads were we to actually be subjected to the same rules. There are a myriad of other, lesser, examples; pacelineing would be illegal, bikes would be required to have lights (24×7, not just at night), horns, and so forth, cyclists would have to be licensed, and thus children wouldn’t be allowed to ride bicycles (16″ or more wheelsize), bikes would require insurance and registration stickers (BLT, bicycle license tax, anyone?), there would be no riding on sidewalks statewide, nor would parking be allowed on sidewalks (I guess I would definitely have to get a kickstand).  §28-735, the “3-foot passing law” would have to be repealed.

Beyond the issue at hand, as a matter of consistency, advocacy of any sort of bicycle lane would have to be disavowed — “Same Roads”, remember?

2) Safety; my own feeling is simply that the cyclist’s self-preservation instinct is stronger than any law, and as such changing the law won’t cause any (additional) problems.

Beyond just feeling, my review of traffic engineering literature indicates that the problem at stop signs isn’t one of strict compliance, but rather one of driver-error, see Stop sign compliance for references.

Also, we have an actual example in the state of Idaho. In reply to queries about the law’s impact on safety Mark McNeese said “No impact; nothing changed; current behavior was just legalized”. His full comments are below. Boise and its metro area have populations of around 200,000 and 600,000 respectively. By comparison, Tucson is about 500,000 / 1,000,000, and Phoenix is even larger. Still, it’s hard to claim that Idaho’s almost 3 decades of real-world experience is irrelevant. Continue reading “Why I support “Bikes safe at stop signs””

DPS says photo radar major factor in drastic fatality reduction

Arizona DPS in a press release Dec 29, 2008 cited photo radar as a major factor in a 59% decrease in fatal crashes for the 80 days of “enhanced” photo-radar enforcement, compared to the same period in prior years on Phoenix metro highways.

A modest decrease in miles driven is also a factor.

The statewide fatality decrease in 2007 (over 2006) was dramatic, and it remains to be seen how this will compare to full AZ 2008 stats.

Photo enforcement remains controversial but report by ASU Civil Engineering professor Simon Washington  Evaluation of the City of Scottsdale Loop 101 Photo Enforcement Demonstration Program confirms not only safety benefits but also time and financial savings due to reduction in crashes.

On the other hand, critics claim that the cameras have no effect on safety; the most strident claim that cameras cause an overall increase in crashes — but so far at least that is all they are, claims.

the enabling legislation for the so-called enhanced photo (DPS / state-run) is 48th 2nd regular session HB 2210 “budget reconciliation; criminal justice” (which is very long and has lots of stuff in it; it was also apparently a striker because the original name was “regents; scholarships;”), see  §41-1722, [some updates 3/1/2013 — much has changed, in particular it looks like that statue is now missing due to repeal, see all of chapter 41; also see process-servers-and-personal-jurisdiction] which among other things gets rid of points, and changes (see changes to  process service requirement.

General rules for commencing a civil traffic violation “by filing” (photo tickets are filed as opposed to issued) are specified in 28-1592 and 28-1593; say that complaints must be filed within 60 days and served within 90 days from filing. There are exceptions if the incident involves a traffic collision and investigation. Do these rules apply to photo tickets? dunno, as far as i can see there are no alternatives. And how this jives with Rule 4(d), i dunno either, see below.

Here are a bunch of “emergency changes” to the Arizona rules of civil procedure, effective Sept 2008. These are mostly regarding the complaint and service provisions of phot0-radar violations.

…

There was an article in June 2009 issue of Perfectify magazine written by Arizona Attorney Monica Lindstrom Smile for the Camera (p.44). It gives some general background regarding service requirements

Under Arizona rules of civil procedure, Rule 4(d), a complaint must be served within 120 days. for purposes of a photo radar ticket, the “complaint” is the ticket and it is typically considered filed on the day of the violation (the day you were speeding or ran the red light). In other words, the government has 120 days to serve you with the ticket. If it fails to do so, then the ticket is dismissed — unless the government asks for more time. Beware some cities are using “alternative service” which can be by publication in a newspaper or posting it on your door. I recommend keeping up with the news in your area and doing periodic internet searchs to see if your city/town/county is employing this sneaky method.

I am not aware of any such “alternative service”.??

Strangely/inexplicably, she seems to not understand that there are no points associated with photo radar (speed cameras).

 

Thomas says no to criminal speeding

In a surprise move (a surprise to DPS, that is. Is this more politics than law?), Maricopa county attorney Andrew Thomas announced (Feb 24,2009) that his office will not charge motorists flashed at 20+ over with “criminal” speeding. Cities within Maricopa county, as well as everywhere outside of Maricopa are not affected by Thomas’ decision.It wasn’t clear to me if the DPS photo citations go to the city, or to the county by default (I’m guessing they go to the county?).

His whole explanation is silly; e.g. his claim that it is unconstitutional since “you can’t cross-examine a camera”. This is absurd, how does he support any other machine-based evidence? breathalyzers (or blood analysis machines), photographs, surveillance videos, wiretaps and so forth. they can’t be cross examined either.

In Arizona, criminal speeding is defined by §28-701.02 “Excessive Speeds, Classification”. The reference to 20 over isn’t completely accurate on the highway, it refers to over 85mph — i.e. 20 over if the posted limit is 65mph, but 30 over if it is 55. The general reasoning, which is said to be an “informal” opinion is that criminal requires a higher burden of proof than photo-radar alone can provide and as such they will decline any such cases. The DPS has indicated it will request a formal opinion on the matter from the Attorney General.

Attorney General says yes to criminal speeding

That didn’t take long. In a Feb 27th memorandum, Attorney General Terry Goddard knocked Thomas’ claims; “Mr. Thomas’ anecdotal explanations of potential abuses of the criminal process based on the use of photo radar do not provide a reasoned basis for an assertion that photo radar cannot be used to establish a criminal violation.”

“Arizona courts have similarly authorized evidence derived from other types of devices, such as video-tape recorders or cameras… there is no reason to believe the same rule would not be followed by Arizona appellate courts were the issue to be raised here.”

“Mr. Thomas states that prosecutions based on photo radar evidence would violate the Confrontation Clauses of the United States and Arizona Constitutions because a defendant would have ‘no opportunity to question or cross-examine a camera.’ Mr. Thomas ignores, however, the fact that non-testimonial evidence such as a surveillance tape or an Intoxilyzer test result is routinely admitted in criminal cases without implicating the Confrontation Clause. Under Mr. Thomas’ interpretation of the Confrontation Clause, the evidentiary use of surveillance tapes or Intoxilyzer test results, as well as any other mechanical measuring device, would be improper because there is no opportunity to question or cross-examine the tape or the measuring device. Furthermore, the United States and Arizona Confrontation Clauses, by their express terms, only afford a criminal defendant the opportunity to confront the witnesses against him… A defendant’s right to confrontation does not extend to physical evidence”

Thomas Responds

(do we have a dyfunctional system going here in AZ or what?) From KTAR story dated Feb 27th:

“[Goddard’s] main goal seems to be avoiding being pinned down on controversial issues,” Thomas said. “Quite frankly, that’s one of the reasons why this amazes me. You never hear him weighing in on the controversial, tough issues that I take on”

Then he switches to… drum roll please… immigration enforcement!

“Since the first year I took office, he and DPS have refused to fully enforce the immigration laws of this state,”… “DPS has released one van load after another of illegal immigrants stopped on our highways.”

Miles driven off sharply in 2008

First high gas prices, then the economic slowdown has meant a sharp decrease in miles driven in Arizona. “Arizona drivers put 295 million fewer miles on their cars in October compared with October last year, a 6 percent decline and the 11th consecutive month traffic has dropped”

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on crash rates for 2008. Arizona posted a huge drop in fatalities for 2007, the per-mile stats still have not been posted for 2007; though Arizona is perennially high compared to US as a whole. Continue reading “Miles driven off sharply in 2008”

Is walking risky?

Risk by mode share; walking is commonly considered “risky” but what does that mean? After all, all forms of transportation have some risk. When compared on a per-trip basis — as opposed to, say, a per-mile rate — we find that pedestrian fatalities are only slightly over-represented, both for Arizona and for US averages. For example, the Arizona estimated mode-share for all trips is 9.3%, whereas pedestrian fatalities were 12% of all traffic fatalities for the period 2003 to 2006.

Some authors have argued that walking (and cycling. See, e.g. Pucher) is wildly risky.

Reference:
ADOT’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plan Study, Working Paper 1, Exhibit 2-3.