two pedestrians died in Philadelphia after being hit by errantcyclists

December 21st, 2009
Philly’s Pushback

In October, two pedestrians died in Philadelphia after being hit by
errant cyclists. Now, anti-cyclist sentiment is on the rise.

A NOTE: Part Two of Traffic Injustice will be the next post on the
Road Rights blog. What’s happening in Philadelphia is more pressing
and Bob Mionske covers that here.

By Bob Mionske

It began with a mystery.

On October 15, Philadelphia police found 40-year-old Andre Steed lying
injured in the street, bleeding from severe head injuries. He was
taken to a hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma.

There were no witnesses on the scene when police arrived, and no
explanation for how Steed, a paralegal at a Philadelphia law firm, had
been injured, so Steed’s colleagues put up fliers asking for
information about his injury. In response, two people claiming to be
eyewitnesses came forward; they said they heard a loud noise, then saw
Steed and another man laying on the ground. The other man had been
riding a bicycle. He got up, and admitted that he had swerved out of
the path of a car and hit Steed. He adjusted his handlebars, and then
fled the scene.

Police now had eyewitnesses, and a description of a suspect, and began
an investigation. Then, on October 24, Steed died.

Steed was not the only pedestrian to die after colliding with a
Philadelphia cyclist that month. On October 8, Tom Archie, 78, was
waiting to cross the street at the intersection of Passyunk Avenue and
Pierce Street, watching for an opening in traffic. When traffic
abated, Archie stepped off the sidewalk, directly into the path of a
cyclist who was riding against the flow of traffic on the one-way
street. Unable to stop in time, the cyclist plowed into Archie,
knocking him off his feet. Archie hit his head, and was knocked
unconscious; he was transported to a hospital, where doctors
discovered a massive blood clot and bleeding on the brain. Archie
never regained consciousness; on October 25, the day after Andre
Steed’s death, Archie was taken off life support, and died. The
cyclist who collided with Archie had remained at the scene and
subsequently sent a “beautiful letter� expressing his regrets to
Archie’s widow.

And thus, within the space of a day, two pedestrians were dead after
colliding with errant cyclists. Still, one detail in these reports
troubles me. If two eyewitnesses saw the aftermath of a collision
between Andre Steed and a hit-and-run cyclist, why did they leave
Steed lying bleeding in the street? Why didn’t they call police?
Perhaps Steed did collide with a cyclist, just as the witnesses claim,
but the fact that they left him lying in the street raises questions
about the veracity of their accounts. There may be answers to those
questions, but so far, we haven’t had those answers—primarily because
until now, everybody has accepted the eyewitness accounts at face
value.

Nevertheless, two pedestrians had died, and regardless of whether the
circumstances surrounding Steed’s death need closer examination, Tom
Archie’s death was due to a cyclist who was ignoring the traffic laws.
The result was a backlash so massive that it engulfed all Philly
cyclists, scofflaw or not.

Philadelphia media led the charge, with an almost daily barrage of
news articles and opinion columns with an anti-cyclist slant. Taking
up the banner and joining the fray, two Philadelphia Councilmembers
stepped forward with separate legislative proposals targeted at
cyclists. Together, the proposed ordinances would:

Increase the fine for riding on the sidewalk from $54 to $300
Increase the fine for riding with headphones from $3 to $300
Increase the fine for riding “brakeless� fixies from $3 to $1,000,
with a provision that if the fine is not paid, the fixie would be
confiscated.
Require all bikes to be registered, and to have a license plate.

At first glance, the proposed statutes may have seemed just the thing
to rein in Philadelphia’s lawbreaking cyclists. After all, there isn’t
much deterrent value to a $3 fine. However, for anybody taking more
than a cursory glance at the issue, the proposed statutes seemed more
like political hay made at the expense of an easy scapegoat.

For one thing, it’s widely alleged that Philadelphia police do not
enforce the existing traffic laws, whether the offender is riding a
bike, or driving a car. To illustrate the point, consider this Youtube
video, in which an overwhelming majority of vehicle operators proceed
through an intersection in complete disregard of three stop signs and
a flashing red light. If the laws are simply not being enforced, no
amount of new legislation is going to change problem behavior.

Questions of enforcement aside, an even deeper problem with the
proposed laws is that they do not address the behaviors associated
with the pedestrian deaths. Consider, for example, the fact that
neither pedestrian death was due to a sidewalk cyclist. Both
pedestrians were injured in the roadway; Tom Archie was run down when
he stepped into the street and a wrong-way cyclist he did not see was
unable to stop in time, while Andre Steed was allegedly run down in
the street by a cyclist who then fled the scene. Both wrong-way riding
and hit and run are currently against the law, and the proposed new
laws do nothing to further address either problem.

Similarly, increasing the fine for riding with headphones might
increase the deterrent value of the statute, but again, neither death
was alleged to be the result of a cyclist who was riding while wearing
headphones.

Brakeless fixies? Same thing. Neither death was alleged to be the
result of a cyclist riding “without brakes.� Yes, the cyclist who hit
Tom Archie was unable to stop in time, but there was no allegation of
the cyclist being on a fixie or riding his bike without brakes—he was
riding the wrong direction and Archie quite innocently didn’t think to
look for him. So why go after fixie riders? Because the fixie
subculture is primarily a youth subculture, and youth subcultures are
traditionally targeted by authorities in our society. Consider, for
example, the similar societal reactions to the hot-rodders of the
1950s, in which young people were singled out for police attention
based on the modifications they made to their cars. In Philadelphia,
fixies were not at issue in either death, and yet the most hysterical
overreaction was directed at fixie riders, with proposed fines of
$1,000, or confiscation of the bike, for bikes not equipped with a
brake.

Regardless of whether you think fixies should be equipped with brakes
or not, think about this—when was the last time anybody proposed to
confiscate the automobiles of Philadelphia’s drivers for equipment
violations? And just how many accidents are Philadelpia’s fixie riders
causing to justify this overreaction? It doesn’t take much probing to
see that fixie riders are just the latest in a long line of youth
subcultures singled out for special scrutiny by the authorities. By
the time today’s fixie riders are entering middle age, it will be some
new youth subculture that’s getting the stink eye from somebody with
“authorita.�

And then there’s the question of whether Philadelphia even has the
authority to enact the anti-fixie legislation. Under Pennsylvania law,
local government is authorized to pass local traffic laws on the
operation and registration of bicycles. However, local authorities are
not authorized to legislate on the equipment of bicycles. Furthermore,
if the state and a municipality both have legislation prohibiting a
specific behavior, state law mandates that prosecution for an offense
will be under the state law, rather than the local law, and if the
citation is made under the local law, it will still be deemed as
prosecuted under the state law. This means that Philadelphia’s
proposal to fine fixie riders $1,000 or face confiscation can have no
effect under Pennsylvania law, because under Pennsylvania law, the
penalty for that offense is lower.

The widest net, however, was cast for all cyclists, with mandatory
registration—the favorite cudgel of anti-cyclists everywhere—proposed
for all Philly cyclists. At least this proposal bore some faint
relationship to Andre Steed’s death, since in theory a license plate
affixed to a bike may aid in identifying hit-and-run cyclists.

But back up a step and ask if hit-and-run cyclists are a significant
problem in the larger context of pedestrian-versus-car dangers. Easy:
they’re not. The number of hit-and-run cyclists doesn’t even come
close to the number of hit-and-run drivers on the road. In fact, the
number of pedestrians injured or killed by all cyclists pales in
comparison to the number of pedestrians injured or killed by drivers.
And that’s just looking at the problem quantitatively. When you also
take the severity of injuries inflicted into account, you start to get
the picture on the real safety issues pedestrians face. Think of it
this way—if you had to choose one, which would you rather get hit by:
a 200 pound bike/rider going 15 miles per hour, or a multi-ton SUV
going 45 miles per hour? Now choose where our attention should be
directed on road safety issues.

None of this is to say that reckless cyclists shouldn’t be brought to
justice—they should. However, requiring cyclists to put license plates
on their bikes is the least effective approach to pedestrian safety,
because it does nothing to address the real safety issues pedestrians
are confronted with.

But putting all other facts and reason aside, wouldn’t a license plate
have helped police apprehend the cyclist who allegedly ran down Andre
Steed? Maybe. Occasionally, even hit-and-run drivers are apprehended
based on a license plate. But far more often drivers who flee the
scene of an accident are apprehended based on a vehicle description,
and corresponding damage to the vehicle. And that’s just the drivers
who are caught; often such drivers are not apprehended at all. So if
hit-and-run drivers, who have license plates prominently attached to
their vehicles, nevertheless usually get away from the scene without
eyewitness descriptions let alone the license plate number, wouldn’t
that also be the case with hit-and-run cyclists? Consider this fact,
for example: two eyewitnesses to Andre Steed’s fatal collision left
the scene and never contacted emergency services. How likely is it
then that they would have bothered to write down and report the
license number of a fleeing cyclist?

Although apprehending hit-and-run cyclists is the rationale offered in
support of the proposal, as is the case everywhere, it’s not really
the point of the proposal. As I noted in License to Ride, those who
call for registration of cyclists see it as a way to attack cycling;
the real intent of these types of proposals is punitive.

As is always the case with such punitive measures, while it sounds
practical, requiring Philadelphia’s cyclists to be registered is an
unworkable idea, because nobody has yet devised a means to require
cyclists in one city to register their bikes, and enforce that law
when cyclists who do not reside in that city bring their bikes there.
Automobile registration works precisely because it is statewide, and
universally required. Bicycle registration does not work, because it
is neither statewide, nor universally required.

The punitive backlash against Philadelphia cyclists was a 180-degree
reversal from what had up until then been the city’s arduous courtship
of cyclists—and maybe that was the point, and to be expected. In 1987,
Bicycling named Philadelphia as the worst city in the country for
cycling. Twenty years later, Michael Nutter was elected mayor, and in
furtherance of Mayor Nutter’s efforts to remake Philadelphia into
America’s leading green city, began instituting changes intended to
make cycling a safe and viable means of transportation. In June, Mayor
Nutter issued an executive order requiring the city to give equal
treatment to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The city responded by
creating a new east-west downtown corridor for cyclists—the first of
many cycling improvements to come. That corridor was created by
removing two car lanes, one in each direction, and reconfiguring them
into bike lanes. Drivers who had previously believed that they had an
exclusive right to the road, were suddenly confronted with the hard
truth that they were going to have to share road space with
Philadelphia’s cyclists.

And that is when the pushback against cyclists began, when
Philadelphia allocated some road space to cyclists. The next day,
Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky responded to this
perceived “injustice� by proclaiming, literally, his hatred of
cyclists. One month later, with two pedestrians dead, the anti-
cyclists in the City of Brotherly Love had their opportunistic moment
to make political hay out of two tragedies completely unrelated to the
new bike lanes.

But as Philadelphia’s cyclists have come under attack, they have
organized their own response. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater
Philadelphia has opposed the suggested legislation, arguing that the
councilmembers are taking the wrong approach to road safety. As
Campaign Director Sarah Clark Stuart notes:

Bicyclists shouldn’t be singled out when the problem is all road
users – motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians – bending the law to
suit their own needs, with little if any consequences. The absence of
adequate enforcement has led some road users to develop bad habits
that endanger themselves and others.

Alex Doty, the Bicycle Coalition’s Executive Director, highlighted
just how misguided the proposed laws are when he observed that the
proposed fines will “be out of whack with those imposed on motorists�:

For example, a driver running a red light is currently fined $119.
The councilman proposes raising the fine for riding a bicycle on a
sidewalk from $54 to $300. Bicyclists riding on the sidewalk pose no
more danger than a motorist running a red light.

In fact, cyclists riding on the sidewalk pose far less danger than a
motorist running a red light. “In the end,� Doty notes, “the best way
to get bicyclists off the sidewalk is to engineer streets so they feel
safer on the roads.�

And the pushback doesn’t end there. Philadelphia Bicycle Insurrection
is a new grassroots movement that self-organized in response to the
proposed bike laws. Within the space of a month, they’ve established a
website, are on Facebook and Twitter, and have gained over 1,000
members. Their mission?

To push back, hard, at negative publicity, openly hostile press
coverage and politically opportunistic smear campaigns aimed at
bicycle users in Philadelphia. We’re here to hold politicians and
media accountable to the truth.

It’s still too early to tell how all of this will play out, but one
thing is certain—Philadelphia’s cyclists aren’t going to be pushed
around. Stay tuned.

(Research and drafting provided by Rick Bernardi, J.D.)

Bob Mionske is a nationally known cycling lawyer with a practice
exclusively focused on representing cyclists. An advocate for the
rights of cyclists, Bob is the author of Bicycling & the Law , the
first book written for cyclists on their legal rights and
responsibilities since 1895. Bob is also a former U.S. Olympic and pro
cyclist; Bob represented the United States in the 1988 and 1992
Olympic games, and was the National Road Race Champion in 1990,
amassing a record of over 100 wins during his racing career.

If you have a cycling-related legal question or a comment about this
blog, please submit it below. If you have a private legal question for
Bob, please submit it to Bob and he will try to privately respond to
as many of these questions as he can; some questions may be selected
for answering in Road Rights. General bicycle-accident advice can be
found at www.bicyclelaw.com . For more of Bob’s perspective on bicycle
law, be sure to visit his blog , and for Bob’s take on bicycle
culture, visit www.velologue.com .

Important notice:
The information provided in the Road Rights blog is
not legal advice. The information provided on this public web site is
provided solely for the general interest of the visitors to this web
site. The information contained in the column applies to general
principles of American jurisprudence and may not reflect current legal
developments or statutory changes in the various jurisdictions and
therefore should not be relied upon or interpreted as legal advice.
Understand that reading the information contained in this column does
not mean you have established an attorney-client relationship with
attorney Bob Mionske. Readers of this column should not act upon any
information contained in the web site without first seeking the advice
of legal counsel.

http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadright...g-_-roadrights

On Jan 9, 9:34Â*am, Ablang wrote:
December 21st, 2009
Philly’s Pushback

In October, two pedestrians died in Philadelphia after being hit by
errant cyclists. Now, anti-cyclist sentiment is on the rise.

A NOTE: Part Two of Traffic Injustice will be the next post on the
Road Rights blog. What’s happening in Philadelphia is more pressing
and Bob Mionske covers that here.

By Bob Mionske

It began with a mystery.

On October 15, Philadelphia police found 40-year-old Andre Steed lying
injured in the street, bleeding from severe head injuries. He was
taken to a hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma.

There were no witnesses on the scene when police arrived, and no
explanation for how Steed, a paralegal at a Philadelphia law firm, had
been injured, so Steed’s colleagues put up fliers asking for
information about his injury. In response, two people claiming to be
eyewitnesses came forward; they said they heard a loud noise, then saw
Steed and another man laying on the ground. The other man had been
riding a bicycle. He got up, and admitted that he had swerved out of
the path of a car and hit Steed. He adjusted his handlebars, and then
fled the scene.

Police now had eyewitnesses, and a description of a suspect, and began
an investigation. Then, on October 24, Steed died.

Steed was not the only pedestrian to die after colliding with a
Philadelphia cyclist that month. On October 8, Tom Archie, 78, was
waiting to cross the street at the intersection of Passyunk Avenue and
Pierce Street, watching for an opening in traffic. When traffic
abated, Archie stepped off the sidewalk, directly into the path of a
cyclist who was riding against the flow of traffic on the one-way
street. Unable to stop in time, the cyclist plowed into Archie,
knocking him off his feet. Archie hit his head, and was knocked
unconscious; he was transported to a hospital, where doctors
discovered a massive blood clot and bleeding on the brain. Archie
never regained consciousness; on October 25, the day after Andre
Steed’s death, Archie was taken off life support, and died. The
cyclist who collided with Archie had remained at the scene and
subsequently sent a “beautiful letter� expressing his regrets to
Archie’s widow.

And thus, within the space of a day, two pedestrians were dead after
colliding with errant cyclists. Still, one detail in these reports
troubles me. If two eyewitnesses saw the aftermath of a collision
between Andre Steed and a hit-and-run cyclist, why did they leave
Steed lying bleeding in the street? Why didn’t they call police?
Perhaps Steed did collide with a cyclist, just as the witnesses claim,
but the fact that they left him lying in the street raises questions
about the veracity of their accounts. There may be answers to those
questions, but so far, we haven’t had those answers—primarily because
until now, everybody has accepted the eyewitness accounts at face
value.

Nevertheless, two pedestrians had died, and regardless of whether the
circumstances surrounding Steed’s death need closer examination, Tom
Archie’s death was due to a cyclist who was ignoring the traffic laws.
The result was a backlash so massive that it engulfed all Philly
cyclists, scofflaw or not.

Philadelphia media led the charge, with an almost daily barrage of
news articles and opinion columns with an anti-cyclist slant. Taking
up the banner and joining the fray, two Philadelphia Councilmembers
stepped forward with separate legislative proposals targeted at
cyclists. Together, the proposed ordinances would:

Increase the fine for riding on the sidewalk from $54 to $300
Increase the fine for riding with headphones from $3 to $300
Increase the fine for riding “brakeless� fixies from $3 to $1,000,
with a provision that if the fine is not paid, the fixie would be
confiscated.
Require all bikes to be registered, and to have a license plate.

At first glance, the proposed statutes may have seemed just the thing
to rein in Philadelphia’s lawbreaking cyclists. After all, there isn’t
much deterrent value to a $3 fine. However, for anybody taking more
than a cursory glance at the issue, the proposed statutes seemed more
like political hay made at the expense of an easy scapegoat.

For one thing, it’s widely alleged that Philadelphia police do not
enforce the existing traffic laws, whether the offender is riding a
bike, or driving a car. To illustrate the point, consider this Youtube
video, in which an overwhelming majority of vehicle operators proceed
through an intersection in complete disregard of three stop signs and
a flashing red light. If the laws are simply not being enforced, no
amount of new legislation is going to change problem behavior.

Questions of enforcement aside, an even deeper problem with the
proposed laws is that they do not address the behaviors associated
with the pedestrian deaths. Consider, for example, the fact that
neither pedestrian death was due to a sidewalk cyclist. Both
pedestrians were injured in the roadway; Tom Archie was run down when
he stepped into the street and a wrong-way cyclist he did not see was
unable to stop in time, while Andre Steed was allegedly run down in
the street by a cyclist who then fled the scene. Both wrong-way riding
and hit and run are currently against the law, and the proposed new
laws do nothing to further address either problem.

Similarly, increasing the fine for riding with headphones might
increase the deterrent value of the statute, but again, neither death
was alleged to be the result of a cyclist who was riding while wearing
headphones.

Brakeless fixies? Same thing. Neither death was alleged to be the
result of a cyclist riding “without brakes.� Yes, the cyclist who hit
Tom Archie was unable to stop in time, but there was no allegation of
the cyclist being on a fixie or riding his bike without brakes—he was
riding the wrong direction and Archie quite innocently didn’t think to
look for him. So why go after fixie riders? Because the fixie
subculture is primarily a youth subculture, and youth subcultures are
traditionally targeted by authorities in our society. Consider, for
example, the similar societal reactions to the hot-rodders of the
1950s, in which young people were singled out for police attention
based on the modifications they made to their cars. In Philadelphia,
fixies were not at issue in either death, and yet the most hysterical
overreaction was directed at fixie riders, with proposed fines of
$1,000, or confiscation of the bike, for bikes not equipped with a
brake.

Regardless of whether you think fixies should be equipped with brakes
or not, think about this—when was the last time anybody proposed to
confiscate the automobiles of Philadelphia’s drivers for equipment
violations? And just how many accidents are Philadelpia’s fixie riders
causing to justify this overreaction? It doesn’t take much probing to
see that fixie riders are just the latest in a long line of youth
subcultures singled out for special scrutiny by the authorities. By
the time today’s fixie riders are entering middle age, it will be some
new youth subculture that’s getting the stink eye from somebody with
“authorita.�

And then there’s the question of whether Philadelphia even has the
authority to enact the anti-fixie legislation. Under Pennsylvania law,
local government is authorized to pass local traffic laws on the
operation and registration of bicycles. However, local authorities are
not authorized to legislate on the equipment of bicycles. Furthermore,
if the state and a municipality both have legislation prohibiting a
specific behavior, state law mandates that prosecution for an offense
will be under the state law, rather than the local law, and if the
citation is made under the local law, it will still be deemed as
prosecuted under the state law. This means that Philadelphia’s
proposal to fine fixie riders $1,000 or face confiscation can have no
effect under Pennsylvania law, because under Pennsylvania law, the
penalty for that offense is lower.

The widest net, however, was cast for all cyclists, with mandatory
registration—the favorite cudgel of anti-cyclists everywhere—proposed
for all Philly cyclists. At least this proposal bore some faint
relationship to Andre Steed’s death, since in theory a license plate
affixed to a bike may aid in identifying hit-and-run cyclists.

But back up a step and ask if hit-and-run cyclists are a significant
problem in the larger context of pedestrian-versus-car dangers. Easy:
they’re not. The number of hit-and-run cyclists doesn’t even come
close to the number of hit-and-run drivers on the road. In fact, the
number of pedestrians injured or killed by all cyclists pales in
comparison to the number of pedestrians injured or killed by drivers.
And that’s just looking at the problem quantitatively. When you also
take the severity of injuries inflicted into account, you start to get
the picture on the real safety issues pedestrians face. Think of it
this way—if you had to choose one, which would you rather get hit by:
a 200 pound bike/rider going 15 miles per hour, or a multi-ton SUV
going 45 miles per hour? Now choose where our attention should be
directed on road safety issues.

None of this is to say that reckless cyclists shouldn’t be brought to
justice—they should. However, requiring cyclists to put license plates
on their bikes is the least effective approach to pedestrian safety,
because it does nothing to address the real safety issues pedestrians
are confronted with.

But putting all other facts and reason aside, wouldn’t a license plate
have helped police apprehend the cyclist who allegedly ran down Andre
Steed? Maybe. Occasionally, even hit-and-run drivers are apprehended
based on a license plate. But far more often drivers who flee the
scene of an accident are apprehended based on a vehicle description,
and corresponding damage to the vehicle. And that’s just the drivers
who are caught; often such drivers are not apprehended at all. So if
hit-and-run drivers, who have license plates prominently attached to
their vehicles, nevertheless usually get away from the scene without
eyewitness descriptions let alone the license plate number, wouldn’t
that also be the case with hit-and-run cyclists? Consider this fact,
for example: two eyewitnesses to Andre Steed’s fatal collision left
the scene and never contacted emergency services. How likely is it
then that they would have bothered to write down and report the
license number of a fleeing cyclist?

Although apprehending hit-and-run cyclists is the rationale offered in
support of the proposal, as is the case everywhere, it’s not really
the point of the proposal. As I noted in License to Ride, those who
call for registration of cyclists see it as a way to attack cycling;
the real intent of these types of proposals is punitive.

As is always the case with such punitive measures, while it sounds
practical, requiring Philadelphia’s cyclists to be registered is an
unworkable idea, because nobody has yet devised a means to require
cyclists in one city to register their bikes, and enforce that law
when cyclists who do not reside in that city bring their bikes there.
Automobile registration works precisely because it is statewide, and
universally required. Bicycle registration does not work, because it
is neither statewide, nor universally required.

The punitive backlash against Philadelphia cyclists was a 180-degree
reversal from what had up until then been the city’s arduous courtship
of cyclists—and maybe that was the point, and to be expected. In 1987,
Bicycling named Philadelphia as the worst city in the country for
cycling. Twenty years later, Michael Nutter was elected mayor, and in
furtherance of Mayor Nutter’s efforts to remake Philadelphia into
America’s leading green city, began instituting changes intended to
make cycling a safe and viable means of transportation. In June, Mayor
Nutter issued an executive order requiring the city to give equal
treatment to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The city responded by
creating a new east-west downtown corridor for cyclists—the first of
many cycling improvements to come. That corridor was created by
removing two car lanes, one in each direction, and reconfiguring them
into bike lanes. Drivers who had previously believed that they had an
exclusive right to the road, were suddenly confronted with the hard
truth that they were going to have to share road space with
Philadelphia’s cyclists.

And that is when the pushback against cyclists began, when
Philadelphia allocated some road space to cyclists. The next day,
Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky responded to this
perceived “injustice� by proclaiming, literally, his hatred of
cyclists. One month later, with two pedestrians dead, the anti-
cyclists in the City of Brotherly Love had their opportunistic moment
to make political hay out of two tragedies completely unrelated to the
new bike lanes.

But as Philadelphia’s cyclists have come under attack, they have
organized their own response. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater
Philadelphia has opposed the suggested legislation, arguing that the
councilmembers are taking the wrong approach to road safety. As
Campaign Director Sarah Clark Stuart notes:

Â* Â* Bicyclists shouldn’t be singled out when the problem is all road
users – motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians – bending the law to
suit their own needs, with little if any consequences. The absence of
adequate enforcement has led some road users to develop bad habits
that endanger themselves and others.

Alex Doty, the Bicycle Coalition’s Executive Director, highlighted
just how misguided the proposed laws are when he observed that the
proposed fines will “be out of whack with those imposed on motorists�:

Â* Â* For example, a driver running a red light is currently fined $119.
The councilman proposes raising the fine for riding a bicycle on a
sidewalk from $54 to $300. Bicyclists riding on the sidewalk pose no
more danger than a motorist running a red light.

In fact, cyclists riding on the sidewalk pose far less danger than a
motorist running a red light. “In the end,� Doty notes, “the best way
to get bicyclists off the sidewalk is to engineer streets so they feel
safer on the roads.�

And the pushback doesn’t end there. Philadelphia Bicycle Insurrection
is a new grassroots movement that self-organized in response to the
proposed bike laws. Within the space of a month, they’ve established a
website, are on Facebook and Twitter, and have gained over 1,000
members. Their mission?

Â* Â* To push back, hard, at negative publicity, openly hostile press
coverage and politically opportunistic smear campaigns aimed at
bicycle users in Philadelphia. We’re here to hold politicians and
media accountable to the truth.

It’s still too early to tell how all of this will play out, but one
thing is certain—Philadelphia’s cyclists aren’t going to be pushed
around. Stay tuned.

(Research and drafting provided by Rick Bernardi, J.D.)

Bob Mionske is a nationally known cycling lawyer with a practice
exclusively focused on representing cyclists. An advocate for the
rights of cyclists, Bob is the author of Bicycling & the Law , the
first book written for cyclists on their legal rights and
responsibilities since 1895. Bob is also a former U.S. Olympic and pro
cyclist; Bob represented the United States in the 1988 and 1992
Olympic games, and was the National Road Race Champion in 1990,
amassing a record of over 100 wins during his racing career.

If you have a cycling-related legal question or a comment about this
blog, please submit it below. If you have a private legal question for
Bob, please submit it to Bob and he will try to privately respond to
as many of these questions as he can; some questions may be selected
for answering in Road Rights. General bicycle-accident advice can be
found atwww.bicyclelaw.com. For more of Bob’s perspective on bicycle
law, be sure to visit his blog , and for Bob’s take on bicycle
culture, visitwww.velologue.com.

Important notice:
The information provided in the Road Rights blog is
not legal advice. The information provided on this public web site is
provided solely for the general interest of the visitors to this web
site. The information contained in the column applies to general
principles of American jurisprudence and may not reflect current legal
developments or statutory changes in the various jurisdictions and
therefore should not be relied upon or interpreted as legal advice.
Understand that reading the information contained in this column does
not mean you have established an attorney-client relationship with
attorney Bob Mionske. Readers of this column should not act upon any
information contained in the web site without first seeking the advice
of legal counsel.

http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadright...s-pushback/?cm...

Very enlightening, thanks for sharing.

Lewis

*****

Awful story!!

Cannot believe someone would leave Steed lying there dying.

Compelling blog post and something to really think about.

Thanks for the information

Originally Posted by mischastar

Awful story!!

Cannot believe someone would leave Steed lying there dying.

Compelling blog post and something to really think about.

Thanks for the information

I can't believe someone died being hit by a bike. I could see really injured- by a 30inch Schwinn Beach Cruiser. Either way those anti-bike people law proposals are stupid.