Category: safety

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.

 

 

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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.

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

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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.
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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””