Another phoney bike lane.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Saturday, October 13, 2007
azbikelaw.org
This is a placeholder, the updated blog is here. Please visit my main site azbikelaw.org
Contact info is there.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney;
Azbikelaw is for bikes and bicycling law/legal and safety info especially as it relates to Arizona AZ cyclists.
topics include
Contact info is there.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney;
Azbikelaw is for bikes and bicycling law/legal and safety info especially as it relates to Arizona AZ cyclists.
topics include
- Arizona Revised Statutes.
- sidewalk cycling.
- helmet law (coming)
- where to ride.
- local news items (Phoenix and in particular Ahwatukee, and the southeast Valley -- Tempe, Mesa, Chandler)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Azbikelaw blog shadow copy
visit the azbikelaw.org main blog for updates.
Cleapor Fatality — Mesa police stonewall
October 4th, 2007The stonewall has broken, and a flood of details that implicate the cyclist as being at fault in the collision have been released in an AZ Republic article published October 13, 2007. Why it took until now, weeks after Mesa police declared there would be no citations issued is baffling. Mesa police spokesman Detective Chris Arvayo could have (and in my opinion, should have) either released these explanations sooner, or simply stated the investigation was ongoing. He either said, or left the impression that the case was closed without saying why. Read the rest of this entry »
More Shocking Arizona Fatality Stats
September 28th, 2007Some of the 2006 state-by-state figures are now available, as I predicted — Arizona leads the nation – fatality rates in Arizona which were already high, have climbed again. The Arizona per capita traffic fatality is rate is now 46% higher than the US as a whole. The rate is now over 3 times worse than the “best state”.
And for bicyclists, there is hopeful news, the 2006 number of fatalities at 29 seems to be in line with historical trends. The 2005 number was atypically high at 35. Read the rest of this entry »
Phoenix Bans Text Messaging
September 21st, 2007The City of Phoenix became one of the few (only?), places in the US that specifically bans text messaging. I would be much more happy to see a statewide ban — so to the extent that this is being used as leverage against a recalcitrant legislature I think it is a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »
Super Extreme
September 19th, 2007The latest crop of new DUI laws goes into effect soon. The most notable changes are mandatory ignition interlocks for any, including first time, DUI, and a new category of above extreme DUI. Read the rest of this entry »
Moped and Motorized Bicycles in Arizona
September 19th, 2007Every now and then an unusual story involving bicycles, in this case motorized bicycles, and a point of law comes along. Surely, this is one of those cases. It revolves around a relatively new law enacted ??, that defines a whole new category: motorized bicycles. Read the rest of this entry »
Pecos Death Trap?
September 16th, 2007Is Pecos Road here in Ahwatukee (Phoenix, AZ) a death trap?
In the recent past there have been 3 fatalities along Pecos Road. The most recent serious collision which occurred Friday September 14, 2007 is strikingly similar to the crash on December 2, 2003 that took the life of Sarah Wintz. The other fatalities were in 200x, xxxxx was T-boned while attempting to enter Pecos Road at Desert Foothills Parkway, which at the time was before the traffic signal was installed. And in November 2004 cyclist Don Anselmo was killed on the shoulder as a driver simply drifted off the road.
Police seek white Viper
September 16th, 2007This is a rather sensational story. It will be interesting to see how police handle it. Can the white Viper be found? It is a relatively rare model, and of course even fewer of them are white with blue stipes, it doesn’t seem like it should be very difficult to find the car. Read the rest of this entry »
Carbon’s New Battleground
September 13th, 2007WSJ article Carbon’s New Battleground, Sept 12, 2007 describing the choice as basically between cap-and-trade scheme vs. a carbon tax. The carbon tax is virtually universally favored by economists as being superior. So we will end up with a cap-and-trade system that is susceptible to political nonsense. Read the rest of this entry »
Insurance Considerations
September 13th, 2007
I’m reading Bob Mionske’s excellent book Bicycling & the Law (available from velogear), here is what I distilled out of the section on car insurance and liability systems as it relates to Arizona. Read the rest of this entry »
Critical Width
September 6th, 2007
Here are two shots of Chandler Blvd in Phoenix westbound, the first one is approaching 24th Street, and the second is at the intersection with 24th Street. Read the rest of this entry »
Driver arrested in quintuple(!) fatality — excessive speed and red-light-running alledged
September 5th, 2007A driver was arrested on suspicion of five counts of manslaghter (see homicide categories) and 3 aggravated assaults. What makes this unusual is the absence of suspicion of DUI. We shall see what the prosecutor does with it. This is a tantalizing comment: “data recorded when the truck’s airbags deployed substantiated detectives’ findings that Myers was driving at ‘an excessive speed,’ “. Data recorder? We (the public) often hear that these sorts of crashes are tragedies but not crimes — because the prosecutor claims that they can’t prove anything. Read the rest of this entry »
The Disneyland Model
September 5th, 2007John Semmens is an AZDOT project manager who also writes free-market oriented policy papers — he is perhaps best known locally for his vociferous opposition to Phoenix’s light rail. John is now affiliated with the Independent Institute — a free-market-leaning think-tank that I had heretofore not heard of. He had an op-ed published last Saturday in the Wall Street Journal that contained some novel, perhaps radical, ideas about how private auto insurance should be used as a lever against dangerous drivers; he dubs this the “Disneyland model”, and makes some good points. Though, he does not even mention the role of law (criminal) enforcement (as in criminal charges: homicide, assault)… perhaps he was space-limited. Also, his general idea — privatizing licensure — seems sound but how would this help the problems caused by those who simply go without? In any event it is a welcome look at publicizing one facet of the problems created by private automobile usage.
What is the deal with the 39,000 deaths figure? Fatalities have been running around 43,000.
The full text is here: On the Road. September 1, 2007 op-ed, John Semmens, Wall Street Journal
Double Jeopardy and Flawed Logic
August 26th, 2007Talk about getting away with murder…
Yet police didn’t confiscate her driver’s license. Had this been a DUI case, Sgt. Joel Tranter told me, they would have taken it and notified the state Motor Vehicle Division so it could administratively suspend Gilbert’s license. But police don’t pursue DUI charges in manslaughter cases, for fear of jeopardizing the more serious charges.
“The (administrative suspension) law does not apply to homicide or aggravated assault cases because those are criminal,” Tranter explained. “They aren’t traffic investigations.”
In other words, if you drive drunk, you lose your license. But if you drive drunk and kill someone, you can keep driving.
Hentoff [the victim’s family’s attorney] calls the police department’s interpretation of the law “absolutely flawed logic.”
Driver in DUI-death case still at the wheel, Laurie Roberts, The Arizona Republic. Aug. 25, 2007
We’ve heard this double jeopardy business before from the police department, and I wish someone would look into it more seriously. This is the same theory that ends up letting off negligent drivers scot free, when the criminal charges don’t materialize. See, e.g. No penalty for fatal crash on Pecos Road, AFN August9, 2006.
Aside from all of that, and aside from the accused’s repeat offenses, isn’t $5,000 bail for manslaughter too low? Isn’t there some sort of guideline for these things?
Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, prosecutors brought manslaughter and aggravated assault charges against Gilbert in July and asked that bail be set at $75,000. So, of course, Commissioner Eartha Washington set it at $5,000.
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