Archive for the 'TPD shortcomings' Category
Keep this incident report
Turns out if you right-hook a police officer, you get cited for making an improper turn.
Buick nearly collides with UAPD bicycle officer
UAPD officers were on routine bicycle patrol in the area of University Boulevard and Park Avenue on Oct. 13 at 10:45 a.m. when a white Buick nearly collided with an officer while [...]
Tucson Dep’t of Transportation’s Platinum Fourth Avenue solution: get off and walk
In response to my concerns about bike safety on the Broadway approach to Fourth Avenue, TDOT Director Jim Glock says: get off and walk.
Concerns about bike accessibility at 4th ave underpass
Recent improvements to the 4th Avenue underpass are another example of how the city is making it easier to get around town. But some say [...]
AZ Daily Star weighs in on bike enforcement
The Arizona Daily Star has a depressing, simple-minded editorial about the Third Street bike enforcement that is occurring.
They say:
The recent, albeit limited, crackdown of cyclists who ignore the traffic rules of the road is a positive move, not because cyclists aren’t welcome in Tucson, but because our community is bicycle-friendly and keeping everyone safe is [...]
Try to remember to stop your bike at 3rd and Treat
AZ Star on The Great 2009 3rd and Treat Bicycle Sting.
It took six comments for somebody to bring up spandex, but, oddly, it took 85 comments before someone reminded us that cars are bigger and heavier than bicycles, and a full 103 comments before we learned that until bicyclists have to license their bikes and [...]
My biggest fear
I don’t drive often enough for it to be a very natural experience for me. I’m nervous as hell behind the wheel. And naturally, as tucsonbikelawyer, the thing that scares me the most is hitting a bicyclist.
Today I took the car to Ordinary Bike Shop to get some work done on [...]
More double standards at Tucson Police Department
I learned something interesting yesterday at a BAC enforcement meeting. When a motorists reports being in an accident in which the other vehicle fled the scene, if witnesses got the fleeing vehicle’s plate, TPD sends the owner of that vehicle a letter demanding to know what happened. (I’ve submitted a Public Records Act [...]
Read More..>>Alejandro “Beaver” Nunez, 1959-2009
Alejandro Nunez was killed while riding his bicycle on 22nd Avenue right at the intersection with South Sixth Avenue. The police did no accident reconstruction work. They did not paint the street or measure skid marks. They wrote a brief account from the perspective of the driver, which is that Mr. Nunez inexplicably [...]
Read More..>>Zero citations so far for “Three foot passing rule” in Tucson this year
A couple times a year I send a public records request to the City Court to determine how many people have been cited in Tucson for violations of the three-foot safe passing rule, A.R.S. 28-735 (A).
The statute reads:
“While overtaking and passing a bicycle proceeding in the same direction, a person driving a motor vehicle shall [...]
Is nothing sacred? Cops currently hiding on 3d Street bikeway to ticket cyclists
So say my readers. They are taking advantage of a stop sign obscured by foliage on 3rd Street between Tucson and Country Club.
Just yesterday I watched a bike cop ride the wrong way up Simpson Street in my neighborhood, make a turn onto Convent without stopping (he would have had a stop sign, but [...]
You want to get a ticket or dontcha?
One the things I find the most irksome about the Tucson Police Department’s various bad policies is their habit of telling wounded cyclists that if they have to write up an accident report they are going to give the cyclist a ticket.
Here’s how it works:
A cyclist gets hit by a car, and is lying in [...]