Streetsblog Los Angeles

SB 910 Veto Message

Supporting vague driving standards that endanger California’s cyclists is no longer a partisan issue.  S.B. 910, which would have mandated a three foot passing cushion when drivers pass cyclists at speeds over 15 miles per hour was universally supported by Democrats in the Assembly and Senate. But that didn’t stop Governor Jerry Brown from vetoing S.B. 910 because he was worried that mandating that drivers slow down to fifteen miles per hour before passing a cyclist or asking them to pass at at least a three foot distance would create either rear-end collisions or long lines of traffic.

Advocates of safe driving laws pointed out that in the 20 states that have similar laws, there has not been one case cited where a crash was caused by a motorist adhering to the law.  But that wasn’t good enough for Brown, which isn’t surprising since his veto statement also implies that its more important to keep motor vehicle traffic moving than it is to protect the safety of cyclists.

Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) was similarly confused by the Governor’s veto and the incoherent logic behind it.

Obviously I am disappointed with the veto, but I am also a bit confused. It appears the Governor’s biggest concern with the bill revolved around the 15 MPH provision. However, that provision actually made it easier for a  motorist to pass a cyclist and allowed for a much smoother flow of traffic. The Governor seems to be advocating for a strict, minimum three foot buffer in which a motorist cannot pass, under any circumstances unless that pass can be made with at least three feet between the motorist and the cyclist. I agree that that would be safer for the cyclist, but it would not, in any way address the concerns the Governor raised in the veto.

The California Bike Coalition, who had championed the law from drafting through passage, was equally blunt.  Jim Brown, the Coalition’s Communications Director, writes, Read more…

Bicyclists in Malibu, and bicyclists who drive here to ride on Pacific Coast Highway, have reason to be cautiously optimistic about a few recent developments. Tempers at City Hall are cooler, the cops’ attitudes on PCH have changed subtly, and there is some progress to report on safety improvements. But watch out!

Last year, we had a little girl slaughtered by a suicidal motorist who had driven into oncoming traffic before hitting the child, a pedestrian. The Malibu Public Safety Commission reacted by asking the local deputies to crackdown on bicyclists, and issue one bicyclist a ticket for every moving violation issued to a driver.

Plus, the sheriff’s deputies who patrol PCH for the city were interpreting the Vehicle Code in a most-aggressive manner, and were — at the City’s request — issuing tickets for bicyclists for obstructing traffic. Protests that state law allowed bicyclists to ride in traffic lanes – instead of the shoulder – were ignored.

The sheriff’s department attended a summit meeting between bike clubs and the city commissioners. Eric Bruins, a bicyclist with the patience of a saint, won them over with a studied, reasoned argument about the nature of crashes on PCH, and the way bike laws are enforced across California.

Credit needs to go to the city commissioners and the sheriff’s office, who made an effort to listen to bicyclists. The city commission backed down on the punitive ticket bikers quota idea, and all involved expressed support for sharing the lane instead of requiring bikes to ride amidst the parked cars and bumps on the shoulder. Read more…

Over the past several weeks, it seems YouTube videos of police behaving badly in Southern California are dominating our discourse.  The now famous “don’t touch my junk” video in San Diego has become a national sensation, and a national headache for the Transit Security Administration.

But over two nights last week, I twice saw local news reports on a YouTube Video taken by a German tourist pulled over by the California Highway Patrol in Barstow, CA on his way to Las Vegas.  The media are fascinated by the officer’s salty language and his lame put downs.  For example, he asks “Germnay Boy” why he’s driving in “my country.”  Later in the video, the CHP officer makes a couple of references to how the driver would be sexually abused were he to be sent to jail for reckless driving.

Charming.

The CHP is now investigating the officer’s conduct.  And well they should.  In addition to his verbal abuse of the German tourist, he did something far more offensive.

The verbally abusive officer failed to give the driver a ticket.  The German tourist was driving 98 miles per hour at the time of the stop, 28 miles over the speed limit.

Maybe the Whittier Daily News and other newspapers that syndicate Officer Al Perez's column, "Ask a Cop," ought to consider changing the name to something else.  Maybe "Ask a Cop, but not about bicycle laws."  Or, "Ask a cop, but be prepared to do your own fact checking."

A couple of weeks ago, the Whittier Daily News published a column by a California Highway Patrol officer that contained such blatant misinformation of state law concerning bicycling law, that the community responded with outrage.  It didn't take long for the officer to be thoroughly debunked, and earlier this week he responded with another column, chock full of references to state and county law that still manages to get it wrong.  After the jump you can read Streetsblog's response to this week's offering.

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Another Southern California newspaper has made the mistake of asking a member of the California Highway Patrol about a law regarding cycling.  And as we’ve seen in the past, that means that misinformation has been published, unchallenged, in a local newspaper.

Today’s victim is the Whittier Daily News, who has a local column entitled "ask a cop" where readers ask a member of the CHP a traffic question.  This week, Officer Al Perez, of the Santa Fe Springs Division, tells the touching story of a father and son out on a bicycle ride and the father leaping to his small child’s defense when a motorist crosses into a crosswalk, endangering the son.  I picture myself in that role at some point in the future, although I hope I have the courage to teach my son to bike in the street, even from the start.

However, to Officer Perez, this was an unforgivable offense.  I recommend reading the entire piece of misinformation, but here’s an excerpt to give you an idea of how Officer Perez works:

Can you imagine the grief if the turning vehicle had struck the child on the bicycle?

The
child could have been injured or even killed, and he would have been at
fault in the collision. You might be asking, "How could the child be at
fault if he was in the crosswalk?"

The answer is because the child was a bicyclist, as opposed to a pedestrian.

Bicyclists and pedestrians are two distinctly different things as defined by the California Vehicle Code.

Section
21200(a) of the California Vehicle Code partially reads: "Every person
riding a bicycle upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to
all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this
division."

I added the emphasis on the words "upon a highway" in order
to point out that the California Vehicle Code does not prohibit anyone
from riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, but as soon as the child rode his
bicycle off the sidewalk and into the crosswalk, he entered the highway
and became subject to the rules of the road.

Section 21650.1 states: "A bicycle operated on a
roadway, or the shoulder of a highway, shall be operated in the same
direction as vehicles are required to be driven upon the roadway." 

While Perez’s case may make sense to someone who has no idea about bike laws, you would hope that a member of the State Police would do ten seconds of research before giving bad information to an entire community, further tarnishing the CHP’s tenuous reputation with cyclists for understanding basic laws.

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More and more states are adopting laws that  protect cyclists from passing cars by requiring that cyclists receive a three foot buffer on their left before any vehicle can pass them.  According to a recent USA Today article, fourteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the three-foot-law and it has already passed one legislative body in New Jersey.

Often times the "Three-Feet-Law" is included in a package of safety laws for .  In Colorado it was accompanied with a law making it illegal to throw bottles at cyclists.  In Wisconsin, it was accompanied by a law spelling out the illegality of "dooring" cyclists, even if it is done "accidently."

Needless to say, California is not one of the states that has the 3-foot-law on the books.  There was an effort in 2006 to pass legislation authored by Assemblyman Nava (D-Santa Barbara) that would have changed state law that currently requires drivers to give cyclists a "safe distance" when passing to one requiring a hard three feet.  However, that legislation died in committee after a lobbying effort from members of the trucking industry and the California Highway Patrol.  The CHP’s opposition should come as no surprise after the group charged with keeping our highways safe lobbied against legislation that would help keep speed limits from being raised by speeders and trips over itself to distribute misinformation about cyclists’ rights.

Read more…