The Shootout and Last Night’s BAC Meeting
Last night’s Bike Advisory Committee Meeting was pretty much dominated by the Shootout issue, but I was surprised by how things went because I thought the Pima County Sheriff’s Department would have had to answer for their actions on the ride.
Lots of people showed up and the BAC handed out cards to those who wished to speak; they also reduced the amount of time people had to just two minutes. However, only a handful of Shootout Riders spoke at the meeting, so this was probably unnecessary.
During an earlier sub-committee meeting the Sheriff’s Department had shown a video they made that evidently shows the Shootout Riders taking two lanes and urinating on the side of the road.
Those who spoke for the Shootout Ride addressed, first, the horrible judgment of the Sheriff’s Deputy who drove into the ride and caused the group to wreck, and second, the need to find a way to keep this ride happening.
The Sheriff’s Department though did a pretty good job of setting the agenda by showing their movie. As far as I know they didn’t utter a word about the deputy’s judgment; instead they somewhat curtly answered questions about that by stating that the affair was under an internal investigation because one of the riders had filed a complaint. Would it be under investigation if no rider had filed a complaint? Is driving a car in that fashion considered appropriate by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department? They never said, and the BAC didn’t ask.
I thought this was particularly odd given some of the statements in the police report, which, judging from how many copies have been downloaded from my website, many in the room must have read.
If you know anything about committees you know what the proposed solution was: make another committee. So they did that, and are inviting Shootout riders to participate.
The next agenda item featured Jonathan Moser of the Pima County Attorney’s Office, who gave a report on the Paul L’Ecuyer incident, which I reported on quite a bit here. Moser prosecuted Arrington, who struck and killed L’Ecuyer, and he discussed the case in passionate terms. We are lucky to have Moser prosecuting these cases because he is a bicyclist and a person who understands how vulnerable cyclists are.
Finally was a brief agenda item on the problem of assaults on bicyclists in Tucson. At the last meeting I brought this issue up again and was abruptly shut down by the Committee, whose secretary told me that he has ridden thousands of miles in Tucson without ever being assaulted and that my examples of assaults are simply “dots” in a wider “circle” and do not show a pattern.
He stood by that characterization last night, but others on the Committee disagreed with him this time and asked me to continue informing them of incidents of assault in Tucson. He was still dismissive and asked for a show of hands of how many people in the room had ever been assaulted in some fashion and seemed pretty surprised by how many folks raised their hands.
I was pushed to the ground once by a passenger in a car and only narrowly escaped serious injury (I just missed hitting a fire hydrant with my face on the way down), so his comments over the past weeks have rubbed me the wrong way.
–Erik Ryberg
March 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Was it Roger Carillo who was in denial about cyclist assaults? I tried to get in to see Nina Trasoff and they would only let me speak to him. He didn’t believe my examples of being hit, assaulted, etc. and basically said it was my fault for riding where I shouldn’t. Even though I was hit (hit and run) at University and 6th, and the most recent assault (object thrown at me) was on Pima.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
No, it was the BAC Secretary, Rich Corbett. But unfortunately his views are widely shared.
Another problem is that Corbett badly wants Tucson to get its “Platinum” bike-safety status, and thus has a perverse incentive not to talk about or acknowledge those features of Tucson that might suggest we don’t deserve that status.
EBR
March 13th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Eric,
When does Corbett’s seat on BAC expire? Sometime soon I hope.
localmusicfan
March 14th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Eric, my impression of cyclist advocacy from the BAC is that it’s pretty much nonexistent. It was COMPLETELY inappropriate and irrelevant for the sheriff to show that video of select scenes from the Shootout — I can’t believe your BAC even permitted that on their agenda.
And for them to ignore the assaults — unbelievable!
March 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
So the way to get him to act is to hit him (and Tucson leadership in general) where it hurts – not only fubar the platinum, but even try to downgrade from gold. Document everything we know of – assaults, police action and inaction, BAC action and inaction – and communicate directly with whoever assigns those ratings as a group of concerned cyclists whistleblowing on a city trying to defraud its way into a rating it doesn’t deserve.
Who does assign those ratings anyway?
March 14th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I thought Tucson is Silver level Bicycle Friendly Community, but I could be wrong. League of American Bicyclists does the judging of this. I agree, it does sound like they need a downgrade.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Bicycle advocacy from the BAC is very high. The long view is that riding here now is much nicer than 20 years ago and that is due to efforts of persistant people working through the system as best they can. Bicyclist get screwed in the political process as well as on the road, however. The BAC is a small group of people mostly with day jobs. These recent events have provided evidence that they are unprepared to deal very well in this area. Hopefully, the BAC will soon realize that their cordial but ineffective relationship with enforcement is going nowhere and develop a legal force capable of influence from the top down rather than the bottom up.
I agree the Platinum level rating should not occur in a community that is experiencing problems to the degree they are happening here. I suspect the League of Bicyclits would not want to compromise the validity of the rating by awarding it to an area
where professional cyclists are subject to threatening behavior.