My comeuppance
vexation of the spirit July 8th, 2009
After yesterday’s post, which many found overly strident, I found myself this morning staring aghast as a young woman came barreling down my street, quite fast, right through a blind intersection with no regard whatever for the stop sign.
And what else?
She was riding no-handed.
Sigh.
–Erik Ryberg
July 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Take heart, Erik…it was a great
thread. You and Scott are both
correct. The unbalanced factor
is the judgement of officers who
may have a bias against cyclists.
Are there officers with a similar
bias against cars?
July 8th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I was thinking about this some last night. I live in a neighborhood that is a popular shortcut bypassing one of the infamous traffic-cam intersections (although shortcutting the busy intersection was still a problem even before the cameras went up) and we typically get lots of traffic speeding through our narrow residential streets at 50MPH and up. We’ve had lots of contact with various representatives of the city and TPD about the problem and what we’ve been told is that TPD is usually spread so thin that traffic enforcement is a very low priority, *EXCEPT WHEN THEY GET A LOT OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT A SPECIFIC PROBLEM OR AREA.* As to what “a lot” means, depending on what else is going on in town, it sometimes takes a dozen or more calls before they free up an officer to spend an hour or two in the neighborhood writing tickets.
If they’re tying up an officer better utilized on higher priority stuff just to troll for stop-sign running cyclists, I doubt it’s because he has nothing better to do, or because he has something against bicycles in particular – it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s because they’ve been inundated with “dangerous scofflaw bicyclist” complaints from area residents.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Scott–
You’re seeing it wrong. TPD has special grant funding to promote “bike safety.” They can spend that money any way they want that conforms to their general mission. They could buy kid’s helmets and give them away, they could do school presentations, they can step up investigations of bike incidents, or they can take the money and use it to pay themselves overtime to sit at intersections and write tickets. That’s right — overtime. Because as you point out, they are too busy in normal hours to waste time with this stuff.
That’s why I’m so infuriated by it. They’re just using bike safety funding to inflate their paychecks, piss off the cycling community, create public disdain for their office, and do nothing for bike safety.
That money could be used for training, for enforcement targeted at behavior that hurts bicyclists, for investigation of assaults that happen to cyclists, for investigation of hit and run accidents, or for bicyclist education.
EBR
July 8th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Oh and by the way every hour they spend sitting at those intersections is an hour they log with the League of American Bicyclists as evidence that Tucson deserves “Platinum” status.
EBR
July 8th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
If that’s the case, I agree that we would see better results spending the bike safety money and time elsewhere; but if the enforcement action takes any bite at all out of the number of clueless two-wheel dumbasses that I have to weave and dodge to keep from biting pavement on my daily commute, I hardly think it’s effort wasted or even net detrimental.
I know that you are in a unique position to hear every police misconduct horror story in town, and some of the ones you’ve mentioned here are certainly pretty appalling; I’m sure that would affect your point of view. Speaking for myself, I’ve been riding in this town for nearly 20 years – not overly cautious or meticulous about following the law, but just riding safely – and I have yet to get any grief from TPD for any reason; and not because they don’t see me, I pass them on the street a lot. On the other hand, I find myself having to work around stupid bicyclists a lot, not to mention the bad name they give all of us. It makes it very hard for me to take their side over TPDs when I see TPD issuing tickets to cyclists who think they are above simple and easily understood traffic laws that are in place to promote safety for everyone.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
time to take a cordless sawzall to those 2 stop signs on the third st. route… hehehehe… It’s still be just as safe an intersection if it wasn’t a 4 way. Seriously though, is there any way to petition for some of these intersections to be changed in favor of bike traffic flow?
July 8th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
The TPCBAC is so hungry for platinum status
that they believe anything TPD says about
concern for bike safety. The BAC is failing
to recognize cyclists needs in exchange for
checking off boxes for the LAB’s platinum
requirements.
No ‘friend to bikes’ or ‘concern for
safety’ is represented by, “Get up and ride
outta here or get a ticket you don’t deserve.”
I know this–there are officers who believe
bicycles do not belong on the road. It affects
their judgement and actions.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
After the experience with TPD and my husband’s death last summer, I want to kick the shins on anyone in the blue uniform.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:18 am
OK, I will say it…I don’t think there is anything wrong with approaching a stop sign, slowing down, looking both ways and proceeding across without coming to a full and complete stop. Especially if there is no car in sight. I do it all the time. I think, based on some of the postings I have seen here, that I can expect to receive a ticket eventually.
I am a scientist, so my reasoning is based on physics and safety. A bicyclist has very little momentum (because of very little mass) compared to a motor vehicle going the same speed. A car going 2 mph can kill a person–a bike can’t.
The basis for our laws is, presumably, public safety. And yet, mass is not considered in our traffic laws. It should be.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Have bike advocates in Tucson tried to reach out to the Police Dept? I know in Portland that bike advocates have gone out with the Police and targeted riders committing unsafe behavior like riding at night without lights and riding the wrong way. Then they handed out warnings and free bike lights. This way the focus was on education and improving bike behavior and safety. The Police would also benefit by understanding that cyclists are not the enemy.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
alison, Allowing bikes to yield at stop signs was almost made legal in AZ this spring, but was voted down.
Legal question: Even though the state voted against the yield at stop sign bill, can the city pass an ordinance to make it legal? Or is the state king?
July 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Does anyone here object to TPD targeting wrong way cyclists and riding at night without lights? This would be a big step toward reducing cycling injuries and deaths, not to mention a ton of paperwork for TPD.
If they are going to use grant money for law enforcement, then please enforce the laws that will compel safer riding behavior by targeting illegal riding that is actually dangerous!
July 10th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
ChipSeal,
The biggest safety issue with bicyclists is… car drivers, not lights or riding in the wrong direction. It seems like all the cyclists killed in the past year in Tucson were from right-hooks, left-hooks, and getting rammed from the rear, not bad illumination or sense of direction.
Target the reckless, psychotic drivers and you eliminate 95% of the problem.
July 11th, 2009 at 9:09 am
“Allowing bikes to yield at stop signs was almost made legal in AZ this spring, but was voted down” That’s true, it died in committee. It was probably politically doomed anyway, BUT it had almost no community support. At the committee hearing, ONE cyclist (besides the legislator who introduced it) showed up to speak in favor.
My collection of Arizona stop sign legislation:
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/tag/stop/