Tag: law

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Deadly right hook again

It happened again. Another truck driver turned right at an intersection and killed a bicyclist in the bike lane. Once again, Portland Police Lt. Mark Kruger is making excuses for drivers and blaming victims. The Oregonian reports Kruger said “that solving the problem requires more than just faulting drivers.” How about we start with faulting drivers who have broken the law and killed someone due to their negligence?

Here’s what Kruger said to The Oregonian after Tracey Sparling was killed by the right hook:

“Bicyclists expect and are trained by activists groups that when you’ve got the bike lane, you can do what you want to do,” he said. “We have a lot of these collisions that don’t end in fatalities, but they are stubborn to the point that they won’t give up ground for the sake of safety.”

Does this sound like a man who is enforcing the law that protects cyclists? He is not and he wants to further erode cyclists’ rights by passing a law giving motor vehicles the right to drive in the bike lane prior to making a right turn. If passed cyclists would not only have to deal with the right hook from stopped traffic, cyclists would also have to deal with a moving right hook.

I see bike lane violations nearly every single day that I ride my bike. I would be extremely interested to see statistics on the number of citations the Portland Police Department has issued because I suspect that it is extremely low. Timothy S. Wiles, the driver in the Tracey Sparling case, has yet to be charged or even cited the $242 fine for failing to yield to a cyclist. According to all reports this is because Sparling was in the Wiles’ “blind spot.”

A couple of years ago we took some out-of-town friends to Hooters. We ordered the world famous hot wings. When they arrived we were shocked to find that they had what looked like many small hairs sticking out of them. When we told the waitress, she got the manager who told us, “Oh, don’t worry. Those are just feathers.” As if hairs were bad but feathers were good. I suppose some people would accept such an excuse but we haven’t been back to Hooters since.

Kruger sounds like that Hooters manager here: “Yes, an innocent biker was killed as the result of a truck driver not obeying the law, but it’s not what you think. It wasn’t the driver’s fault because he couldn’t see Sparling.” Well, Lt. Kruger, if that’s the case then the driver should be cited for negligence for driving a vehicle which impairs his ability to obey the law. The burden is not on the cyclist here – the law makes that completely clear. The burden is on the driver. If he fails to meet that burden, for whatever reason, he is in violation of the law and should be prosecuted. Find the best trucking company in Kansas City, you will be satisfied with the service. If you are looking for quality towing services check out Jim’s Bensalem Towing, this is a great company if you need towing in Bensalem.

As long as Lt. Kruger doesn’t see this as a crime, truck drivers will continue to run cyclists over with no fear of punishment. No awareness campaign can be mounted for truck drivers and no remedies can be put in place with respect to poorly equipped trucks.

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Idaho Stop Sign Law

Bike Portland has an interesting article about the “rolling stop sign” bicycle law in Idaho including an excellent letter from the Idaho Transportation Department. As a daily bike commuter, I wholeheartedly approve of such legislation and hope it comes to pass in Oregon.

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Parallel Parker in the Bike Lane

What a great day for riding Friday! No rain and sunny. I even took off my long sleeve shirt for the second part of the ride. Unfortunately, my perfect ride was ruined by a perfect asshole driver. As I made my way uphill on Broadway towards Alder (the very last block of my ride to work), a car cut into the bike lane and stopped directly in front of me. The driver signalled to parallel park and there was a spot immediately to my right. Traffic was dense to my left and there was not enough room for me to pass her on the right. Also, in downtown Portland, it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk. I stopped and considered the situation.

Having been a victim of the right hook before (numerous times but I last wrote about it here), I made a decision to try to inform this driver of her illegal actions. Thus, I waited for the bike lane to become unobstructed or for the driver to get out to discuss the situation. Of course, I was preventing her from completing her parking maneuver, but I thought I had the right of way, so I waited.

Soon the passenger opened her door, got out and walked past me to survey the parking spot. Evidently satisfied with its suitability, she approached me and proceeded to yell at me for being in the way. I ignored her until she asked if I would move, to which I replied that I was waiting for them to do precisely the same thing. Furthermore, I explained that she was illegally blocking the bike lane creating a hazardous traffic situation. This made her madder and she yelled some more.

Soon, a meter maid happened by and queried the passenger about the situation. She complained about the presence of a biker in the bike lane and requested that the meter maid do something about it. She asked me my side of the story and I gave it to her, adding that I was just waiting for them and would she be writing them a ticket for illegally stopping in a bike lane? “No, she wouldn’t,” she said, “because they have a right to cross the bike lane in order to get to the parking spot.” I pointed out that they had gone beyond that and were actually stopped in the bike lane and blocking bike traffic. She requested that I back up to which I asked if she would make the same request of a car in the street. She said yes, but her eyes said no. My requests for what exactly the law had to say on the matter fell on deaf ears and soon she walked away and started muttering into the radio she carried with her. This was a bit alarming.

Since I was starting to doubt whether I was on the right side of the law, when I noticed that another car had tried to pull into the disputed parking space, I took the opportunity to take my leave on foot via the sidewalk. As I walked away, the meter maid had some more choice words to which my response was to get her identification number.

When I got to my office, I looked out the window to the scene below where it had happened (yes, right underneath my window). The two women were still talking to the meter maid but there was no sign of the cops. The meter maid was writing something down as the ladies talked, but I have no idea what it was. The cops never did show.

Out of curiousity, I checked my handbook of Oregon biking laws. It is quite unequivocal about the fact that cars must always yield to bicycles in the bike lane. Always.

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TriMet passenger vs. bicyclist

 

TriMet_rider.jpg 

A recently filed lawsuit and an article about it in the Oregonian has stirred up the bicyclists vs. motorists pot here in Portland. As described here, Randy Albright is suing TriMet for an incident that happened as he biked across the Hawthorne Bridge two years ago. The incident can be summarized as follows:

  1. Bus passes too close to biker
  2. Biker catches up to bus when it has to stop for traffic
  3. Biker proceeds to yell at bus driver who ignores him.
  4. Biker moves self and biker in front of stopped bus (in the road) and continues yelling.
  5. Angered passenger moves to front of bus.
  6. Bus driver opens door for passenger (against TriMet regulations when not at a bus stop).
  7. Passenger disembarks, beats the biker up and moves him on to the sidewalk.
  8. Passenger gets back on the bus.
  9. Driver closes the door and drives off.

The driver did not report the assault to the proper authorities and the biker ended up in the emergency room where he got stitches for his split lip. TriMet released a video of the incident. Relevant excerpts of the video are used in the graphic below to show what happened.
bike_incident.jpg
 

The Big O also did a follow-up story a few days later that described reader reactions to the original story. The anti-bike and pro-violence sentiment of many of the readers is absolutely sickening to me.

Local and national biking blogs picked up on the story and published commentary. Here’s a few:

The Oregonian also had a few letters to the editor:

As one would expect from reasonable people, most are not pleased with Mr. Albright but most are even more outraged by the actions of the passenger and the TriMet driver. Mr. Albright’s suit is against TriMet but it’s important to note that the driver died some time after the incident in an unrelated boating accident. The passenger is still “in the wind” and there is a movement afoot to locate him, but the statute of limitations on assault will run out for Mr. Albright next month.

Sources-
http://sideeffectsofxarelto.org/xarelto-lawsuits/