Tucson Bike Lawyer

Archive for the 'TPD shortcomings' Category

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 [...]

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 [...]

Priorities

Last night somebody attempted to break into a car parked down the street a ways from my office. They didn’t succeed.
Right now there are four police officers swabbing it down for prints and investigating it. They’ve been there for awhile and it looks like they will be there for quite some time. [...]

Driver who killed TPD motorcyclist cited, but still no citations in Allen Johnson case

Several readers have written in to inform me that the driver who made a left turn into the path of Tucson Police Officer Peter Mannino has been cited with failure to yield and, more importantly, A.R.S. § 28-672, “Causing serious physical injury or death by a moving violation,” which could land her in jail for [...]

Update on injured El Tour rider, Gary Stuebe

This depressing news from Eric Post, another attorney in town who handles bicycling cases:
Would you please consider forwarding this to the bicycle community?
I spoke recently with Steve Leshner, the attorney for the Stuebe family and the family is not happy with how things are being handled. [...]

County waits for blood test results to determine if motorist is guilty in Allen Johnson fatality

It appears that even drifting into the bike lane route and hitting a cyclist from behind, even if the cyclist is a Tucson police officer, will still not get you a citation for violating the three-foot safe passing rule. It seems the local authorities believe you can only be guilty of that violation if you [...]

So far from home

People have been sending me this and I ought to post it but I am afraid that in Tucson it won’t make sense to anyone.
I got a call the other day from a fellow whose daughter had been hit from behind so hard she smashed the driver’s windshield. On the way to the hospital [...]

Not our city, not our mayor

(Map of locations of public bicycles in London)
Actually, I have no major complaints with Mayor Walkup, although I wish he would take local bicyclist’s concerns about law enforcement in this town a little more to heart.
But check out the sorts of things that come out of London’s mayor’s mouth!

I pledged to deliver a cycling revolution [...]