Street Smart 2007

It's Street Smart season again and I have to say that no matter what your feelings about the program's efficacy, it's impossible to argue with their ability to get media coverage. Everyone is covering this story. So what is Street Smarts? WaPo, want to cover this one?

Across the District yesterday, police were posted at several intersections looking for pedestrians and motorists who violate the law. The extra enforcement will continue every few weeks through the summer in an effort to crack down on violators and educate the public.

But it's not just cars and peds, bikes are in it too - though none of the articles really emphasize it. I heard last year's ticket stats. Most of the tickets went to drivers, and significantly less to cyclists and pedestrians. I feel like I put the stats up, but I can't find it. But my point is, that cops will be ticketing cyclists during this time. So, for those of you who play fast and loose with the rules, now is the time to find out what obeying traffic laws feels like.

Motorists driving in D.C. can be fined $50 for offenses such as failing to yield the right of way. Bicyclists face $25 fines for transgressions including riding in the wrong direction, running red lights and riding at night without a light. Pedestrian violations, such as crossing against the traffic signal, carry $20 fines.

Ignoring red-light running (which gets contentious), wrong way biking and riding at night without lights are both stupid and good ways to get hurt. Can we all agree on that?

The program is officially a Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Campaign and despite my light-hearted take, I think it's great. I'm willing to take a ticket for a rolling stop if the drivers around me are getting ticketed for speeding, turning without signaling and talking on cell phones (I was riding next to a cop yesterday who was driving and talking on his phone for 9 blocks - and I don't think it was a police emergency). From the mwcog website:

The campaign is aimed at saving lives and reducing injuries by changing the behavior of motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. The campaign uses a one-month burst of radio, billboards, bus advertising, print ads, hand-outs and posters to get the message out. Law enforcement agencies will step up their efforts to enforce pedestrian-related traffic laws during the campaign.

Pedestrians and bicyclists account for 25% of those killed on the Washington region's roads – over 2,600 injured every year, and 89 killed. Pedestrian fatalities outnumber homicides in many of the participating jurisdictions. This safety campaign aims eventually to reduce deaths by 10 percent.

25%. Wow. The Mayor chimes in:

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), an avid runner and bicyclist, said he is extra careful on the District's streets. "I see too many vehicles that are not obeying the laws," he said. "They aren't used to bicyclists. We're going to step up our enforcement."

Here's the article from last year's initiative.

Two years ago, the city launched Street Smart for Kids, which uses volunteers from the Washington Area Bicyclist Association to train schoolchildren in pedestrian and bicycle safety. Part of the training is done at intersections and sidewalks near schools, Branyan said.

And it got coverage on the Get There blog which pointed out that the photo op for this was at Thomas Circle.

The choice of Thomas Circle for today's safety campaign launch was interesting, because it illustrates another part of the solution, an engineering solution. When the District Department of Transportation completed the reconstruction of the circle last year, the new design included bicycle lanes on the outer part of the roadway

Which cyclists found interesting...

From a cycling perspective, the changes DDOT made there are an unmitigated disaster. The bike lanes are useful only if you need to make a 170 degree turn, as they go from one circle entrance to the next, and do not encircle the circle. It has become very difficult to go through the circle on Massachusetts Avenue, as since the "improvements" were made the Massachusetts tunnel has been illegally closed to cyclists, and the bike lanes act as if Massachusetts doesn't exist.

I recently spent some time watching cyclists at the circle. I didn't see a single one using the bike lanes. The more confident ignored the signs and went through the tunnel, the less confident rode on the sidewalk.

When I go through the circle, I'm almost always going on Mass - which is a pain. I can't (and don't - since I'm trying to obey the law as part of an experiment to see if I get treated better) go through the tunnel, and the road isn't designed for people going on Mass. Why? because it's designed for cars and cars go through the tunnel because for them it's not illegal. So I'm always going a weird way compared to other traffic and it makes it difficult (and the bike lanes are useless to me). Others comment on the mwcog pamphlet.

The advice to cyclists in the MWCOG pamphlet -- "Ride in a straight line to the right of traffic and about a car door width away from parked cars" -- does not reflect either the law or the current teaching on where to ride. What the law says, and what cyclists are now taught, is that cyclists must keep right only when the lane is wide enough for a car and a bicycle to ride side by side, and they are traveling slower than the speed of traffic. Maryland and Virginia don't specify an exact width for sharing, but DC says a lane must be more than 12 feet wide to share. Most lanes in DC are ten feet wide. When the lane is not wide enough to share, or if they are keeping up with traffic, cyclists should ride either in the center of the lane or in the right tire track.

That sounds right to me. And lastly, someone noted that the photo (above at left) shows a mail truck parked in the bike lane. Oh D.C.

Comments

[iconoclasst]

$25 (bike) vs. $50 (car) fine? Gotta love that logic, given the mass and speed differential between a car and a bike: so let's see, the potential harm a car can do in a collision/accident has been assigned a "value" that is only twice that of a bicycle--the message? Running a red light in a car is only twice as bad as running it on a bicycle.

As for the "stupid" acts of riding in the wrong direction or without lights at night, well, that should be left up to the cyclist, as should the decision to wear or forego a helmet. One could argue that having no or only one rim brake on a fixie is stupid and start fining accordingly. Thankfully, better thinking won out on that last issue and it appears to have been put to rest, at least for now.

I have to disagree with the idea that a cyclist should be happy to take his/her ticketing lumps as long as motorists do. Why does it have to be both or none? Cars and bikes ARE different, and I think they should be treated that way. The advantages over cars we cyclists have and MAKE (chiefly freedom--to move wherever, whenever, and however) should serve as incentives to leave the car at home and take the bike—they do for me, anyway . It’s the same with pedestrians. Why wait at an empty intersection for a walk signal to tell you when to cross when you have your own senses—because a law that professes to protect you tells you to? (And things like walk signals can do more harm than good; I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people immediately step off the curb without looking, straight into the path of a car that ran a red—or even one that just made a turn at an intersection—simply because a box on a pole “told” them it was okay to cross).

[Contrarian]

Well at least they got the amount of the bicycle ticket right. Last year there were reports of cyclists getting $75 fines for blowing stop signs.

From the DC Municipal Regulations:
2602.1 The following civil infractions and their respective fines set forth in this section refer
to bicycles and the operation of bicycles. The fine for any bicycle violation not listed
in this section is twenty-five dollars ($25.00).

[washcycle]

Well, you're not going to get any argument from me about bikes and cars being different and should be treated as such. I support changing the laws where appropriate, but in the interim it will probably be both or none. Both is probably better for cyclists than none.

I am not, however, ok with the "freedom" and "choice" for cyclists to not wear lights at night. No more so than I'm Ok with drivers having the freedom to not use headlights at night. There's absolutely no downside to wearing lights and it saves lives. Though I think the public is better served when non-light using cyclists are given lights instead of tickets.

Helmets are another issue. If they prove as useful as seat belts I might change my tune, but for now I think there's a lack of overwhelming evidence as to there efficacy. Still, I always wear one.

[Allen Muchnick]

The incompetence of some of our local bikeway planners and traffic engineers is appalling. Bike lanes are clearly inappropriate in all traffic circles, and the DC traffic engineer who signed off on the Thomas Circle bike lanes should be fired for professional malpractice. Similarly, DDOT has disrespected the travel rights of cyclists by needlessly and illegally banning us from the Massachusetts Ave tunnel under Thomas Circle. Finally, I have repeatedly notified MWCOG staff about the cycling misinformation this agency disseminates, but it just gets repeated in new publications.
Besides NOT riding to the "right of traffic" when traveling at about the same speed or when the lane is too narrow to share laterally, riding "about a car door width away from parked cars" is a recipe for a potentially fatal dooring crash.

[Contrarian]

Allen --

Do you have contact information for MWCOG? I would like to send them a note on this as well. Sometimes multiple voices have a better chance of getting an audience.

[Chris]

I agree with you on bike lanes in traffic circles, and I've written to DDOT about it before. (I've also bitched about it on this blog. I think they're trying to handle it as best they can, but I still think the lanes shouldn't be in the circle to begin with. (See my comments from my cycling team's blog here: http://www.racingunion.org/CommentView,guid,5ad9319e-fcb0-4881-8b10-220e16b76256.aspx)

Regarding lights, at the very least, in the city, I think people ought to have the little "blinky" lights in back. I use a headlight on my bike as well, though in city streets, it sometimes seems slightly less necessary. But, speaking of lights, does anyone notice the large number of cars who don't use headlights in the dark when driving in the city? It surprises me a little ...

[iconoclasst]

Hmm, you say:

"Well, you're not going to get any argument from me about bikes and cars being different and should be treated as such"...

but then align the two:

"I am not, however, ok with the "freedom" and "choice" for cyclists to not wear lights at night. No more so than I'm Ok with drivers having the freedom to not use headlights at night."

I think it's the same argument; bikes and cars are different and shouldn't be held to the same standards. Complicating the issue is the fact that no definition of a "light" has been proffered. Will the tiny Nog Frog blinky on my head tube preclude me from ticketing?...should it? Does it make me safe from night time collisions or just safe from night time ticketing?

[Chris]

Rather than what's legal or not, I'm thinking about what makes sense. I know - just from how I've seen motorized vehicles react - that I'm more visible when I have even a little blinky light. I don't know if such a thing is enough to prevent from getting ticketed, but I do know that it provides some small level of safety that's likely worthwhile. I'm fairly convinced that the only reason I'd get ticketed by the police for riding my bike is if there were some other factors involved (such as if I did something blantantly illegal that the police couldn't overlook or the police don't like cyclists).

[washcycle]

Bikes and cars shouldn't be held to the same technical standards, but they should be held to the same standard of safety.

So in this case, both should be visible to others at night (hence the blinky lights). But bikes don't need headlights (that was poor choice on my part) the same way cars do, because there isn't the same possibility to outride your vision [though a powerful front headlight might be needed by some].

I think the blinky light - or anything that increases visibility - helps to make one safe from night time collisions.

More importantly it makes it less likely a pedestrian will step in front of you. I break it down like this, if all a safety device does is improve your safety, then it shouldn't be required. But if it improves the safety of others, then it becomes something different.

[Contrarian]

I've never before heard someone advocate for the right not to use lights at night!

I try to be so lit up at night that motorists are scratching their heads and wondering what kind of aircraft has landed on the road ahead of them. My experience is that motorists treat a well-lit cyclist quite well. In fact, with good lights I prefer riding at night because the motorists are gentler.

And there are standards for lights:
"1204.2 Each bicycle, when in use at night, shall be equipped with a lamp on the front which shall emit a white light visible from a distance of at least five hundred feet (500 ft.) to the front and with a red reflector on the rear of a type approved
by the Director which shall be visible from all distances from fifty feet (50 ft.) to three hundred feet (300 ft.) to the rear when directly in front of upper beams of head lamps on a motor vehicle." (DCMR)

Alas, these standards are pretty meaningless as standards, and cyclists have the burden that they vary from state to state, but they do exist.

[Chris]

It occurs to me, in the city at least, a headlight on a bike is more about being seen then to see.

[Stan M]

This program would be fine, if the police were held to the same standard as the rest of us. Yesterday I observed a MSP cruiser rolling down the highway unattended, while the man in the driver's seat was busy with a cell phone in one hand, and working on his in-car computer with the other hand (and eyes). Had this guy gotten into a crash, it would have been spun into an incident of the "civilian" failing to yield, or some such. And had he been unfortunate enough to have gotten himself killed, his "hero's" funeral procession would have created yet another pointless traffic jam, and left all the neighboring police jurisdictions short-staffed for the duration.