Tucson Bike Lawyer

Congress and Church, any day now

Tom Thivener sent this around the other day, but I only just now figured out how to embed it. Biketopia!

–EBR

Very late notice on today’s Ride of Silence

From www.rideofsilence.org:

Tucson
Contact: Jean Gorman <--Send email
Distance: 9 miles
Notes: 2010 Ride of Silence Route for Tucson Central Location: (3 other rides exist)
The Tucson ride starts at Reid Park at west side Ramada #22, located at the Park’s northernmost parking lot on Country Club Road. Meet at 5:45 pm for light refreshments and send-off. The ride will commence at 6:00 pm, and the distance is nine miles.
From the parking area, head south on Country Club Rd., west on 22nd Street, north on Tucson Boulevard, east on E. Elm St. which becomes Pima St., south on Columbus Blvd., west on 22nd Street, north on Country Club Rd., and turn into parking lot.
Contact: Jean Gorman Karen Berchtold
prairiejean@aol.com keberchtold@yahoo.co
520 885 5299 520 207 5864

I can’t make it, but would like to. Hopefully the wide circulation of information about this ride makes my late notice of it irrelevant.

EBR

Bikejoy

Last night I was riding my bike home in the dark and as I was pressing slowly up a hill with a fully-loaded Xtracycle I heard the familiar sound of a bike bell, being rung quite vigorously. I looked to my side and could just make out a young child bent over the handlebars of his tricycle, furiously struggling to pedal up a hill. His mother was walking behind him. I think he was ringing that bell to give himself strength.

So I rang my bell back and he looked up with surprise, then after a pause rang me back again. His mother laughed and I pedalled on home.

–Erik Ryberg

BICAS given five-year lease in Citizen’s Warehouse

My readers know how much I adore and admire BICAS, Tucson’s Bicycle Inter-City Arts and Salvage cooperative. BICAS, in its 20th year now in Tucson, provides low-cost bike repair classes, recycled bike parts, and offers public, do-it-yourself, low-cost shop rental with experienced mechanics on hand to help you.

BICAS also has an art program that uses recycled bike parts. The education folks at BICAS regularly give classes and bikes to Tucson’s refugee community, youth, and low-income communities. They also provide, free of charge, ghost bikes for any Tucson-area memorial. What’s not to like?

Unfortunately, BICAS has in the past year or so been under continuous threat of being kicked out of the basement warehouse it currently occupies. The building is owned by the State of Arizona and leased to David Aguirre, a local figure of some reputation here in the Tucson art community. Aguirre sub-leases, or did sub-lease, the space to BICAS. He unsuccessfully attempted to raise BICAS’s rent over 100 percent last year, and when the State made him knock it off, he then told BICAS that they would no longer be permitted to use any of the bathrooms in the building. That edict was also reversed by the State.

Fortunately, the City recently took over the building from the State and asked for bids from the public for managing it. BICAS teamed up with the Warehouse Arts Management Organization and in return for a guaranteed five-year lease offered to pay a significant portion its rent up-front to help WAMO do needed repairs to the building.

Aguirre subsequently wrote to WAMO and asked them not to partner with BICAS, and stated that he intended to bid on the management of the building himself and was the logical best choice as a manager.

But in the end he didn’t even submit a bid, and today the City announced that WAMO would be granted the bid to manage the building. This means BICAS gets to stay for the duration of the City’s contract, which is five years.

I couldn’t be more pleased! As a board member of BICAS I have spent many, many hours and days fretting over the fate of this great organization should they have to vacate their crummy warehouse basement. It now looks like it will be some years before I have to go through that again!

–Erik Ryberg

A word of warning about Rural Metro Ambulance Corporation

I have finally had it with Rural Metro. I have had enough complaints from my clients about them that I am beginning to wonder if this is even a legitimate company.

Like most states, Arizona has a statute that allows ambulance services to charge for their services even if the person they treat was not the person who called them. (It’s A.R.S. 36-2239.) There are obvious policy reasons for this law — ambulance companies perform services for people who are unable to request them, and the ambulance employees need to be able to focus on aiding wounded people, not on getting paid.

But there is room for abuse in this system, and I am starting to wonder if Rural Metro might be taking advantage of it.

A client of mine complained to me that when Rural Metro came to his aid after he suffered a minor bicycle/car collision, he rejected their assistance. He had already phoned his wife, who was on her way, and he was not badly injured, mainly just scraped up. He had not called Rural Metro, but apparently the Sheriff’s Deputy who responded to the collision had done so.

Some time later, as my client was preparing to leave the scene with his wife, he says a Rural Metro employee came up to him and swiftly put a band-aid on him. He asked the man if he would have to pay for that service, and the Rural Metro employee assured him that he would not.

My client then went home with his wife. The next week he got a bill from Rural Metro for $912.49.

I called Rural Metro to dispute this bill. The woman I spoke with, Lisa, made a big show — it seemed rather staged — of doing an investigation to see if the bill was legitimate. But then she let out a sigh and said, oh, well, this call was from a Sheriff’s deputy, so if I had a problem with the bill, I would have to take it up with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office. Mmmhmm. Right.

She then informed me that even if my client had not been treated at all, even if he had rejected all treatment, they would still charge. I thought that was strange. I had not researched the exact wording of the statute, and I believed her, but it seemed odd to me that they could charge even if the injured person successfully rejected their aid. I asked her if Rural Metro would charge my client even if he had left the scene and they had never even laid eyes on him. She assured me that they would still charge him.

After I hung up I researched the law, and of course it does not say that. You have to be either transported or receive “basic life support services” in order to be charged. Lisa had not told me the truth. I wonder how many non-attorneys she has told this to over the years? How many people like my client have called to challenge their bill, but have given up after hearing this tall tale from Rural Metro employees?

In my case, Rural Metro has not backed down. They say they did provide “basic life support services” to my scraped-up client who actually wanted nothing to do with them. And they also say they do not ever negotiate a charge down. It’s a flat $912.49, and you can either pay it or watch your credit rating tank. They do, however, assure me that Lisa’s error was very unusual, and that they will speak with her so she does not tell people that any more. My problem is that the tone of every conversation I have ever had with Rural Metro — there are many — causes me to suspect that, on the contrary, Lisa was performing her job exactly as she has been trained to perform it.

So beware, readers. If you don’t think you need that $900.00 band-aid, make sure you have witnesses while you plead with Rural Metro to leave you alone and go away. If you need them, or think you might need them, they are probably good to have by your side, but if you don’t, they can be awfully expensive.

And don’t believe what they tell you on the phone.

–Erik Ryberg

Bicycling poised to destroy American civilization, says National Association of Manufacturers

I missed this response to Ray LaHood’s new bike-friendly transportation focus the first time it came around, back in March:

“Treating bicycles and other non-motorized transportation as equal to motorized transportation would cause an economic catastrophe,” Carter Wood, a senior adviser at the National Association of Manufacturers, told The New York Times. “If put it into effect, the policy would more than undermine any effort the Obama administration has made toward jobs. You can’t have jobs without the efficient movement of freight.”

Thankfully, it got resurrected today here, of all places.

–Erik Ryberg

Various “Share the Road” Signs generating controversy among signage experts

Above is a sign near Flagstaff, which a reader of mine alerted to me a few weeks ago.

And this sign, above, is from Tempe. Tom Thivener, City of Tucson’s Bike/Ped Coordinator, sent me this when I asked him about the Flagstaff sign. I had asked him if the Flagstaff sign was an official DOT sign, and if we could expect to see more of them around the state.

He did some looking into it and wrote me back to say, “The State and the Feds don’t want jurisdictions experimenting with signage without an official experiment process being undertaken. Sounds like Flagstaff will retroactively apply for experimentation process for the one sign they have. Could be a long process before anything like that is accepted for mainstream use.”

I guess progress is progress! I hope they can approve a sign soon and put some up around Tucson.

–Erik Ryberg

Kolb Access Road closure — is it a “Bicycle” problem or an “Unsafe Driver” problem?

Update: Above is a photo of the signs Matt Zoll, Pima County Bike/Pedestrian Program Manager, says are the appropriate solution to construction sites.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails about the decision to close the Kolb Access road to bicycles during construction, even though the speed limit there is now 15 mph, a speed almost any cyclist can sustain for the 1/2 mile-long closure, and a speed that is actually slower than most of the commuting cyclists who use that road generally travel.

The result is that bike commuters have to now make a truly dangerous detour.

Here’s the latest email exchange with the U of A over the matter, which I found quite illuminating. As usual with such exchanges, read from the bottom:

To “Ken Marcus”

Subject RE: Kolb access road closure to cyclists
Ken – thanks for the response. The word ‘almost’ is key regarding the
alternate route. I completely agree that up to the point of crossing the
RR tracks it is just fine. From there to the entry gate it is terrible.
I’m sure in car it seems like nothing, but 2 lanes of cars and trucks
are passing at 60 MPH on a curve with zero shoulder. All of us (the
cyclists) would take our chances with a little wet dirt any day.
Everyone likes to talk about going green, but when things get squeezed a
bit the knee jerk reaction is almost always to ban the bicycles. It’s
telling of course that you refer to the ‘bicycle issue’ instead of the
‘unsafe driver issue’.
Ironically in this case, we’d actually be a bit safer in the
construction zone because everyone would be going the same speed. The
large construction vehicle argument is nonsensical, if they are a threat
to bicycles they surely are a threat to motorcycles and other vehicles
as well.

>From *”Ken Marcus” *
> To Steve
> RE: Kolb access road closure to cyclists
Steve,
Thank you for your concern of cyclists on the Kolb Access Road. We have
looked at the safety concerns regarding bicyclist using the Kolb Access
Road and at best when there is no construction we believe there is a
bicycle issue because there is no bike lane. With the beginning of
construction the dangers for bicycles is even more acute since there is
small area with large construction vehicles, dust and wet dirt and
pavement. The road is governed by the Project Operation Agreement and we
concur with the Managing and Contract Operator’s decision to not allow
bicycles on the Kolb Access Road.
I did travel the Valencia , Old Vail Road to Rita Road route and found
it to have a bike lane and level shoulders for almost the entire route.
This appears to be a very safe alternative with very little added distance.
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns.
Ken

Ken Marcus
Director / CFO
University of Arizona Science and Technology Park
9070 S. Rita Road Suite 1750
Tucson, AZ 85747
Phone (520) 382-2482, Cell (520) 401-8636, Fax (520) 382-2499

> *From:* Steve
> To:* kmarcus@uatechpark.org*
> Subject:* Kolb access road closure to cyclists
Ken – I wanted to ask for your help with an issue we’re having with
Grubb & Ellis here at the Tech Park. I’m part of a group of cyclists
that regularly commute to IBM at the site. Many of us regularly use the
Kolb Rd entrance as it’s our most direct and safest route. With the
recent construction for the new Vail High School, G&E has taken the
rather draconian measure of banning cyclists from the access road for 3
months.
This is difficult for us to accept as the detour is quite lengthy and
more dangerous than the construction zone with there being high speed
traffic on Rita Rd combined with zero shoulder. Ironically the
construction zone is actually safer for us as it slows down the cars and
we can maintain the speed limit of 15 MPH through the construction zone,
which is less than 1/2 a mile.
The bottom line is that there is no rational reason to ban bicyclists
from the area. It’s no more dangerous for us than a motorcycle. I know
you are interested in making the site more green, and it would seem that
banning bicycles is a step in the wrong direction. Any help you can give
us in this area would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Steve

As usual, someone who doesn’t really know anything about bicycles or bicycling has decided to make a decision ostensibly to improve their “safety” and has offered (in my opinion) patronizing reasons for why his decision has done that, over the objections of many very experienced cyclists.

Of course, I suspect the real issue has nothing at all to do with the stated concerns for safety. The real issue is that the U of A wants to limit its liability wherever possible. (Cue up the anti-lawyer arguments now everyone.)

–Erik Ryberg

BICAS Fundraiser, this Friday! Art for sale by BICAS Superstars!

Behold the latest work by Troy Neiman, BICAS’s Shop Coordinator:

It could be yours if you hurry and buy your ticket to the BICAS/Ballet Tucson Urban Lunch Box Picnic and fundraiser, to be held this Friday.

Or, perhaps your tastes run to the more rugged, bikey look, in which case you will want this gorgeous piece by long-time BICAS employee, volunteer, and supporter Kenneth Armstrong:

Then there is beautiful piece by Raices Gallery and BICAS superstar John Salgado (who serves as BICAS’s Administrative Coordinator) for those looking for something more colorful and exotic:

Or maybe you’ll want this piece by BICAS’s master blacksmith, tall-bike builder, and local artist Zach Lihatsh If you do, be warned: you will be bidding against me, and I’m bringing my wallet. (I already have one of his pieces and I’m aiming to corner the market early, while I can still afford his work).

Each of these will be auctioned off this Friday at the annual Urban Picnic lunch and fundraiser, with proceeds benefiting BICAS and Ballet Tucson. A 45$ ticket buys you an auction paddle and a lunch, and if you act now you even get to sit at a table full of gregarious criminal defense and civil plaintiff’s lawyers, where legal advice of unknown merit or value will be dispensed at no cost.

Oh and and there’s more where those came from! There is also a silent auction packed with other art, from small, modest pieces to heavy-hitters including a Rufino Tamayo. (Yes you read that right.)

The fundraiser is from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM at La Encantada Mall. The live auction commences at noon for those who have only their lunch hour to purchase a Rufino Tamayo or Troy Neiman.

There are still seats available at my table. Please email me at ryberg@seanet.com if you would like to join me. I’ll be there at noon, cheering on all the pieces and showing how proud I am of BICAS.

–Erik Ryberg

What BICAS looked like yesterday

God I love that place.

–EBR