Tag Archive for traffic safety

Today’s Nuclear Summit ignores a more urgent holocaust

April 13, 2010 / / 8 comments

When I open the administrative page for this blog, one of the first things I see is a list of the top 10 search terms people have used to find it.

Yesterday, eight of those terms represented people looking for information about Jorge Alvardo, the Bahati team pro cyclist killed by an 18 year old street racer in Highland, CA last week. So far today, nine of the top 10 search terms were about the same subject.

And that same pattern was reflected throughout the past weekend, ever since I wrote about his death on Friday.

Of course, that’s nothing new.

I see the same thing every time I write about a high profile incident, whether it involves someone well known, or a local physician testing his brakes in a Brentwood canyon.

I just wish I saw the same level of interest when I write about ordinary cyclists who lose their lives in less inflammatory incidents.

And that’s the problem.

We’ve reached a point in this country when the death of a cyclist or a pedestrian or even a family killed in a collision with a motor vehicle barely makes the news. We may pause for a moment to consider the tragedy, whisper a small prayer if we’re so inclined, then we go on with our lives, barely aware of the continuing holocaust that takes place on our streets every day.

In 2008, the last year statistics are available, 716 cyclists were killed on America’s roadways. Along with 4,378 pedestrians, 5,290 motorcyclists and 26,689 drivers and passengers. And another 188 people killed on the roads who couldn’t be classified for one reason or another.

Don’t bother doing the math, I’ll do it for you.

That’s 37,261 people killed on the streets and highways of the U.S. alone — let alone the hundreds of thousands killed around the world each and every year.

The real tragedy is that’s good news, because that number represents a drop of almost 10% from the 41,259 people killed in 2007.

Yes, over 37,000 people — not just statistics, but real human beings with hopes and dreams, families and friends — killed by motor vehicles in a single year is an improvement.

And I only hope it turns your stomach as much to read that sentence as it did mine to write it.

Now consider this.

The total number of people killed in nuclear attacks since the end of World War II 65 years ago is zero.

That’s right. Zero.

Which is not to say that the nuclear summit taking place in Washington, DC today isn’t important. Nuclear weapons, whether in the hands of nations or terrorists, have the potential to kill tens of thousands, if not millions, in just seconds. And reducing or eliminating that threat should be one of the highest priorities of every government around the world.

But yesterday, Constance Holden, a 68-year old woman riding her bike, was struck and killed by a 5-ton National Guard truck providing security for one of the summit’s many motorcades just five blocks from the White House.

A conference intended to prevent one holocaust ended up contributing to another. Yet like almost every other death on our streets, it barely made a blip in the news outside Washington.

We’ve gotten used to it. And accept it as part of our daily lives, just another risk we take when we leave our homes every day.

37,271.

That’s good news. Right?

Thanks to Noah Salamon for the heads-up on the death of Constance Holden in Washington DC yesterday.

……..

Condolences to the men and women of the LAPD, who buried one of their own today, and the family and loved ones of Officer Robert J. Cottle, killed while on duty with his Marine Reserve unit in Afghanistan last month.

……..

The LACBC is looking for volunteers to conduct a survey of pre-sharrow cyclist behavior. Bike corrals come up for a vote at Wednesday’s TranspoComm meeting. Hoover Street goes on a road diet as LADOT celebrates 1.64 miles of new bikes lanes — only 48.36 to go to match what NYC will do this year; on the other hand, L.A. Eco-Village reported it first and better. Big changes could be underway at L.A.’s Department of Planning; how that will affect bike planning is TBD. Long Beach’s bike-friendly mayor — at least judging by results — is up for re-election Tuesday. Photos from last weekend’s San Diego Custom Bicycle Show. The bigger, better newly transplanted U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame opens in Davis later this month. An Arizona driver gets four years for the death of a popular cyclist and soccer coach. An Anchorage woman commits to not driving for a month by freezing her car keys in a bucket of water; I hope she took the alarm remote off first. Most cyclists fit into more than one box. Advice from Chicago for beginning bike commuters. Evidently, biking with a Burley in tow is a rare thing around Beantown. Two South Carolina teenagers face felony assault charges after they push a cyclist off his bike from a passing car; read the comments only if you have a strong stomach and need to feel superior to someone. A Georgia State University cyclist says roads are made for cars, and Critical Mass should get a permit. Last weekend marked the Blessing of the Bicycles in New York and Toronto; ours is coming up next month. A Toronto cyclist dies a week after falling from his bike. Montreal may finally get bike racks on its buses. Photos from Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix classic. Britain has spent £2.4 million to build an online bike route planner, despite the fact there’s already a better one. What Brit cyclists should ask for from their politicians. From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like London’s bike scene is thriving, while Dr. Who has nothing on the city’s tweed-clad cyclists. Dublin’s bike share program may be the world’s most successful; only two bikes have been stolen and both were recovered. Adelaide cyclists plan a memorial ride for the third South Australian cyclist killed this year. Turns out low-fat milk is the ideal post-ride recovery drink — and chocolate milk is even better.

Finally, it turns out there’s an equivalent site to all those hot girls on bikes websites for you hot man lovers out there; oddly, my photo isn’t on there.

Go figure.

Category: General / Tags: , , , ,

Why change the law, if no one’s going to obey it anyway?

July 30, 2009 / / 4 comments

One more thought about this week’s topic before I climb down from my soapbox.

As I noted yesterday, states and towns across the country are reforming their traffic laws to encourage bicycling and help keep riders safer on the roads. But without adequate enforcement, even the most well-reasoned reform is meaningless.

Consider Tucson, where Erik Ryberg — the Tucson Bike Lawyer — reports that not one driver has been cited for violating Arizona’s three-foot passing law in the first six months of this year, and only three all of last year. This despite the fact that several local riders have been struck by cars, which would seem to indicate that the drivers were just a little closer than that.

Or take Tennessee, which has a well-deserved reputation for failing to enforce its own three-foot passing law — even in a recent case where a popular cycling advocate was killed when a truck passed so close that it hooked his saddlebag and threw him under the trucks back wheels. It’s gotten so bad that the governor himself has weighed in on the subject.

Then there’s California’s highly publicized ban on using a hand-held cell phone while driving. Despite the inherent dangers of distracted driving, and the relief felt by cyclists around the state when it finally took effect, the law has been almost universally ignored.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, over 200,000 tickets have been written for violations of the law so far. Yet you don’t have to watch traffic very long to observe a passing driver holding a phone to his or her ear. And virtually every time I have a close call with a motorist, it’s almost a given that the driver will be holding a phone.

Don’t believe me?

Try it yourself. Next time you’re out on the street, watch the passing cars and see how many drivers you can count with their cell phones illegally plastered to their ears — or God forbid, texting. And note how closely those drivers correlate to the ones actively demonstrating a high degree of stupidity behind the wheel.

Then again, there’s no shortage of traffic laws being to be ignored these days.

Once you get tired of counting cell phones, try keeping track of how many moving violations you see. From everyday scofflaw-isms like speeding, failure to signal, illegal lane changes and failure to come to a complete stop, to more exotic moves like making a three-point U-turn while blocking oncoming traffic, or cutting across four lanes of traffic to make a right turn from the left lane — all of which I saw on a brief two-mile trip through Century City this afternoon.

And don’t forget to include yourself in that tally — and yes, Idaho stops count, even if there is valid evidence to back them up.

The unfortunate fact is, many people, both drivers and cyclists, feel they can do whatever they want on the roads these days. Because experience has taught them that they will probably get away with it.

Go back to that little test counting moving violations. All those people on the roads you saw break the law, exactly how many of them were stopped by the police as a result of their actions?

Chances are, the answer is zero. Because there simply aren’t enough police officers on the streets to enforce traffic laws, especially not here in L.A.

And without enforcement, there is no compliance.

And without compliance, even the most well-reasoned Bike Safety Law will be absolutely meaningless.

So yes, we need to change the law. But more than that, we have to find a way to enforce the laws we already have.

………

Mark your calendar for the Brentwood Grand Prix on Sunday, August 9th. Long Beach cycling photographer Russ Roca and his wife a documenting a cross-country, then international, bike tour. A popular cyclist from my home town is recovering after being critically injured when struck from behind on a group ride. Also from Colorado, the state police now have a dedicated phone line for cyclists to report dangerous and aggressive drivers — yet another idea we might want to copy. Tucson police follow-up if a driver leaves the scene after hitting another car, but hit a cyclist? Not so much. Iowa considers banning bikes from farm-to-market roads. New York’s city council votes to let bikes into the workplace. The Cycling Lawyer, non-Tucson edition, explains how to respond to, and hopefully defuse, road rage. Before and after shots of Ashford, England’s new carnage-free shared road space. Finally, that DIY virtual bike lane that everyone wants just won the International Design Excellence Award.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , ,
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