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I'd be happy to add what I can to those articles. At the moment there is little I can do aside from make a quick comment, however. Come June I should have time.
Just glancing at the articles, I think they are good in terms of what most people could do. I could offer some advice on interacting with the police, which to me basically came down to periodically checking in with them and also doing some of the work for them, like contacting Uber independent of the police. I also worked from the assumption that the police cared about my case and that any slowdowns were the result of them having too much work to do. In this case, those assumptions seem accurate. While I do think there's a lot APD needs to do on cycling issues, ultimately little of this frustration should come out when talking to the police. The most I did was mention that the guy wasn't being charged with almost hitting me despite that being illegal too, but clearly they decided to not charge him with that.
One thing not mentioned in those articles: Cyclists need to be more proactive. By the time an incident has occurred, if you don't have solid evidence, you've probably already lost your case. A helmet camera is part of this, but as my experience shows, it is not sufficient. We should make a list of good additional sources of evidence beyond witnesses. There are also some best practices involved with helmet cam usage like shouting out plate numbers. One random idea is to make a business card you can fill out in an incident to keep track of important information. A business card is small enough that cyclists can carry it with themselves at all times. Having a checklist reduces the chances of missing important details.
ggw, I appreciate your support. Throughout this I kept in mind that this is a valuable opportunity to learn about how the legal system works, so even if there is no conviction, I can still learn something for next time. Because, unfortunately, we all know things like this will keep happening. This is just a small victory in the larger battle for respect on the road.
If you're willing to share your story, I'm interested in order to better learn how cyclists can navigate the legal system. Feel free to send me an email.
An update from the attorney I've been in contact with:
He pled last week to the Disorderly Conduct charge we discussed, so no more court settings. Up front he completed the bike safety class per your suggestion, an anger management class, and 15 community service hours – and paid a fine and court costs on the reduced charge.
Thank you for the time you put into providing us evidence, and discussing the incident with us.
So, in the end, a conviction.
The second piece of evidence was the fact that he was an Uber driver and Uber had GPS tracking placing him at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. While most bad drivers aren't rideshare drivers, it's worth checking if they are because this extra piece of evidence proved crucial here. Uber didn't reply to the police's first subpoena, but after I sent them the video they coordinated with the police and the ball got rolling again. I don't know what happened the first time around.
One final thing that I learned from this: The camera I used records the time in the video, but not all video players will display the time. I didn't know this, and in fact, the time my camera was set to was wrong. I've set the time on the camera now and will keep this in mind in order to more accurately place when events occurred.
I've said before that taking the budget for non-violent drug "offenses" and putting it towards violent offenses that are ignored (e.g., violence against cyclists) could lead to dramatic changes in bike safety. I sympathize with the police in that they don't really have the budget for bike safety issues, but it's not that our society doesn't have the money in general.
Good point about firearms.
I don't know if the guy has a record or how to check if he does. The prosecution's attorney probably looked into it though, as he told me that he looked into whether I have a record but couldn't find anything. I assume that he did that because the defense might try to argue that I've made false claims before or something.
I said they could reduce the charge to disorderly conduct if he does what I mentioned earlier. Here's my thinking: Going from a misdemeanor to a lesser misdemeanor isn't much. The decrease from a felony to a misdemeanor was much more significant. If I were to do this again I would push the police harder to charge him with a felony. My thinking is that reducing the charge to disorderly conduct will increase the probability of a conviction, as I'm not confident that a jury would be sympathetic towards me. My main concern is for the defendant to improve their anger and hatred issues, but I also think having a criminal record would serve as a warning to others as I'm not confident the defendant will improve.
If this guy isn't convicted of merely disorderly conduct given the evidence, I think that would just show the extent of the bias against cyclists.
The next court date is February 21.
I spoke with the same attorney who called me earlier. They now have the video and showed it to the defense.
Apparently the defense's lawyer indicated that the defendant didn't do anything wrong because I wasn't in the bike lane. This is ridiculous as bike lane use is not required when turning left, in fact, to my knowledge you're required to move from the bike lane. (I checked the TTC, sections 551.103 and 545.101b.) Plus, even if I was breaking the law, how does that justify breaking a worse one? Obviously this argument is weak.
The attorney I spoke with indicated that the defense might claim the defendant felt threatened by me following him. I made sure to leave plenty of space between myself and his vehicle when I approached because I didn't want to give the impression that I wanted to harm his vehicle or him. My only intention was to tell him to drive better. The attorney stressed that it could be hard to get a jury to understand why I followed the driver.
Anyway, he asked me if I'd be okay with offering to reduce the charge to disorderly conduct if he'll take an anger management class and bike safety class. What do you all think? I told him I'd give him an answer by Friday. I told him that I definitely want to see this go to trial.
I didn't mean to imply that the defense wouldn't hear about the video until the trial. Just that neither the defense or the prosecution had the video.
I received a voicemail from an attorney at the Travis County attorney's office today. Seems that they couldn't find the video online, so I emailed the link to them.
The fact that I got a call from them I assume means that the suspect didn't plead guilty. I got the impression that their defense attorney wasn't aware of the video either, so they might be in for a surprise, despite the fact that the suspect acknowledges that he's being recorded in the video...
Thanks for all the information on the courses, all. At this point I'll take what I can get. If he does an online course, that's something. I've already made it clear to the DA's office that a course would be good so it's in their hands.
Anyway, the arraignment is still scheduled for 2020-01-17 at 8:30 AM at CC5. I won't be able to make this one, but if someone else goes I'd be interested in what happens.
Hmm... I had assumed the bike safety course offered by Bike Austin was hands-on, but they don't seem to offer a course as of right now. I could have sworn that they did in the past. In that case, I would be interested in learning if there are any nearby hands-on bike safety courses.
I checked this site for Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas: https://www.bikeleague.org/content/find-take-class
The only class I could find was for teaching people to be instructors for the safety class.
I guess that even an online class is better than nothing. If the arraignment has been delayed then presumably I can still call the DA's office, so if anyone has any better ideas let me know here. Might be reasonable to recommend that he goes on one of the large group rides with a chaperone?
I'd say 10% probability he'll spend any further time in jail for this crime. No idea on any fines. I'd guess they'd hit him with whatever is standard for this. I told the DA's representative that at a minimum I'd like him to get help for his anger AND take a bike safety course so he can see things from our side. They seemed to think that was reasonable so I'm hopeful at least that will happen.
The court date changed to 2020-01-17 at 8:30 AM. I was there on time this morning but his name wasn't listed on the display, so I checked and the arraignment was delayed by one month. I'm not sure what to make of this. Might mean that he intends to fight the charge and wants more time to prepare, though the date could have been changed for other reasons like scheduling difficulties.
If he intends to fight the charge then I'm interested in how. I think he'd have to invalidate the video and secondary evidence to win. I'll be paying close attention as I'm interested in how well video evidence would be accepted in court.
I got the letter, but it didn't say anything about where the first court appearance is beyond what was online. So it's the "County Court at Law No. 5", "Floor 4, Room 140", wherever that is. I'll show up early to make sure I figure this out.
That your video evidence, which clearly shows your assailants face, was not good enough for APD (fighters for the status quo), is bullshit at the highest level. The system is so clearly rigged against everyone not in a car, and this story shows that.
The detective I was working with seemed to believe they had identified the right guy based on the video and plate number. She suggested multiple times though that this wouldn't be enough to convince the DA that the case would be successful. Oddly enough when I spoke to someone in the DA's office, they hadn't seen the video, so who knows what's actually going on.
Practically speaking I had to take what I was told at face value. I needed to get more evidence. I've been thinking about making a list of additional sources of evidence when I write my article. Unfortunately what I used here can't be used for most bad drivers.
Bonus points for calling out the license plate in case the video didn't pick it up.
Yes, this is a habit I got from watching tons of helmet cam videos on YouTube. In this case the video had only one frame with a partially legible plate number, so it was critical that I repeated off the plate number. I'll often repeat off plate numbers of random cars around me for practice and in case they do something dangerous. Highly recommended to others. I've even recommended this to drivers with dash cams.
In retrospect I should have repeated the guy's place number when pulling up to him rather than afterward, and also positioned my bike better for an easy getaway. One thing I did do right though was keeping my distance from his vehicle. I know from experience that some drivers who almost run you over freak out if you get close to their vehicle. You almost ran me over and I'm the threat? So I keep my distance.
Not surprisingly, they charged him with the wrong crime.
The detective originally planned to charge him with aggravated assault. Not sure why it was downgraded. My guess would be that it's harder to get a conviction for aggravated assault, so they downgraded to increase their chances of conviction.
Thanks for locating the mug shot, too. I had searched but couldn't find anything.
One additional point: It is worth noting that the driver is not being charged with almost running me over, despite that being illegal too (and arguably more dangerous than what he is being charged with). It was only because he decided to use a screwdriver as a weapon that this went anywhere in my view.
I don't want to go into details in public before the court date (it might help the driver's defense), but the video alone was not enough to arrest the driver. It helped, and may have been necessary for an arrest, but ultimately I had to do my own investigation to get the police a second independent piece of evidence placing the driver at the scene at the time of the incident.
I'll post to Cyclist Video Evidence around Christmas. I'm also planning a page on my website that I'll link to here. On that page I'll put many details about the case, with a particular focus on how to work productively with the police in the future.
Helmet cam video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trSB3mK78bs
Back in September I was preparing to turn left when a driver almost hit me head on. That driver then made their own left turn nearby. Thinking I could get them to pay closer attention in the future, I followed the driver and spoke with them. (I've already heard from many people that this was my mistake. Let me say that I think talking to most drivers is worthwhile but you only need one crazy to make it not worthwhile...) The driver escalated fast, pulling out a screwdriver and thrusting at me at one point. I honestly thought he was likely to stab me. Because I was straddling my bike, I couldn't easily go anywhere aside from towards him. After he thrusted at me I left. I rotated the bike, started riding away, shouted out his plate number, went to a place where I could see him if he followed me, and called the police.
After a long process, the driver has been arrested and has a court date: Dec. 17 at 9:30 am. You can look up some information about the case online:
https://publiccourts.traviscountytx.gov/dsa/
Case number: C-1-CR-19-501593
Anyhow, if you want to attend the arraignment as an observer, feel free to come. I'll be there. I'll post later about the court room as I'm still waiting for a letter with details.
Edit: I think it might be "Floor 4, Room 140" as that's what's listed on the misdemeanor records page. Still waiting for the letter.
This has been a learning experience for me. Years ago I was very enthusiastic about video evidence, but over the years my enthusiasm has waned as it became clear that video alone isn't enough. I've definitely learned a lot about holding bad drivers accountable through this and I'm glad the process got this far, regardless of the conclusion.
The TX Supreme Court's reversal is awful. Cyclist hostile laws like recreational use statutes need to be eliminated...
I'm a well-known pessimist, but I don't think the city put in the crossing as a CYA move, I think they were generally trying to improve the situation. It does seem like an improvement over the nothing that was there before. I think the fact that's not working is drivers' fault, not the City's.
Sorry, I was unclear. I think the yield signs are mostly done as a CYA move. Some of the crossings at I-35 and Dean Keeton have TWO yield signs. Obviously these signs aren't effective. I think if you asked most drivers who went through those crossings they wouldn't be able to tell you if there were any signs at all, much less what the signs say. Any competent traffic engineer should know that these signs won't do much if anything as far as I'm concerned. So the question is why they are added at all. My guess is that the traffic code says to add signs to improve compliance, so that's what the engineers do rather than deviate from the code and increase their liability. I know from my experience as an engineer that it's not uncommon for parts of an engineering code to have no empirical backing.
I've thought before that standards committees are good places for activism...
If I'm wrong about the traffic code here in Austin, let me know. I'm a research engineer, not a "professional engineer", and I haven't read the local traffic code or even know where I could get a copy. I've tried to speak to traffic engineers in the city to learn more by calling 311 but for the most part I haven't been successful.
That's quite a project, btrettel. What do you plan to do with your data?
I'm mostly interested in characterizing the extent of the problem. I probably would post it online but I don't intend to publish it formally. I might take RedFalcon up on his offer to help present this to the BAC. I attended one of their meetings in the past and thought it was a waste of time to be honest.
I just changed the experimental procedure: I'll now flip two coins. If the second coin is tails then I'll take off the vest before approaching I-35. I'll put it back on afterward because I believe it improves my safety, though. I also realized that I would sometimes wave at drivers on the no-horn days and I decided to stop doing that as few cyclists will wave. So the small amount of data I've collected so far probably is not useful now, but this is a longer term project, so I'm not worried.
Your vest looked British to me, and then on closer inspection I see that the site selling it is indeed in England. If that's working here, then maybe any safety vest would work (which I used to wear).
Yes, I ordered it from the UK. I'm not aware of a US style equivalent but would buy one. My own experience suggests that quite a few people think I'm a cop when I'm wearing it. There's a study that says police style vests don't make drivers pass cyclists any farther, but if I had to guess what the most important effect would be, it would be making drivers slow down. I believe drivers treat me differently wearing the police style vest than a normal one.
In theory, the City did their part: Only a few years ago there was nothing there (I biked through it for decades), but now they've marked the crossing with green paint, put in separator flags, and YIELD TO BIKES signage. In a reasonable world that would be enough, but this is Austin, where drivers are more selfish even than average.
Whenever I see a "share the road sign" or a sign saying to specifically yield to cyclists, that just makes me believe the road is dangerous. Rather than improve the safety of the road, the city tries to "cover their ass" by putting up signs that the vast majority of drivers don't look at. That way if anything bad happens the city can just blame the driver, rather than the city's own bad design. As far as I'm concerned, such signs should increase both the driver's and the city's liability.
When I ride Dean Keeton under I-35, and I do it fairly often, I hold my line in the traffic lane far to the left of the paint and have never had any sort of conflict with another vehicle while doing so.
I agree with you and ride that way normally. For the purpose of the experiment I'm using the bike lane as the city intends as the goal is to show precisely how unsafe the road is for most cyclists.
I'm surprised that you never had any sort of conflict, as even taking the lane I can recall eastbound drivers trying to get onto I-35 turning directly into my path as I'm riding west.
I've been riding with a helmet cam since 2013 or so. I used to post videos on YouTube, but I've been too busy for the past few years to continue. I've since built up a large backlog of video.
There are multiple reasons to record video:
1. Makes you ride safer. (You're being recorded, so you don't want to do anything stupid on camera.)
2. Allows you to analyze your own riding to see how to avoid problems.
3. Intimidates some drivers into treating you with more respect. (My catchphrase has become "You know you're being recorded right?" when some drivers stop to yell at me.)
4. Documents crashes. The authorities are biased against cyclists and we need all the objective evidence we can get. This was my original motivation after reading this article where video was the only reason people believed a cyclist's story.
The only time when I intentionally stopped recorded since 2013 was when I worked briefly for the US Army and I was legally not allowed to record part of my commute. I'd record until just before the checkpoint.
As Michael Bluejay said, don't expect video to solve everything. I was assaulted by a driver in early 2018. I had HD video of the entire incident from my helmet cam and rear camera. The police could hardly have cared less. They did take my statement and put on a good show, telling me how important addressing road rage is to them, but there was no followup beyond a call I got later where they asked me for the plate number. They didn't want to look at the video. To my knowledge nothing happened after the police asked for the plate number. [Edit: I removed some details.]
I've actually started collecting data on the I-35 crossings on Dean Keeton. Every time I interact with a driver at one of those crossings, I put an entry in a spreadsheet and copy the helmet cam video to my computer. I think those crossings are particularly bad and the city really has no excuse for this. There are so many things they could do that aren't expensive to improve the crossings (simple rumble strips would probably go a long way).
I'm doing an experiment as part of this: some days I use an air horn as I approach the intersection and some days I don't. In the morning before I ride to work I flip a coin. Heads means I use the air horn in the test area, tails means I don't. (Today is tails.)
While it's early, I believe the air horn makes a substantial difference. Most drivers aren't paying attention for cyclists. I also think that my new police style hi-vis vest is making a difference, though this isn't part of the experiment.
Linked below is an excellent summary of state recreational use statutes as of 2006. This is the law that UT's lawyers are citing.
https://theraf.org/sites/default/files/ … ussion.pdf
The states which define cycling as recreational are: CO, ID, KY, LA, ME, MN, MO, MT, NY, OK, RI, SD, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI
The states which do not define cycling as recreational are: AL, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, IL, KS, MD, MA, MI, NE, NH, NM, NC, ND, OH, OR, PA, TN, WY
Ambiguous states: AZ ("ride"), AR ("Any other activity undertaken for exercise"), CA ("riding"), IN, IA ("other summer and winter sports"), MI ("any other outdoor recreational use or trail use"), NV ("(l) Crossing over to public land or land dedicated for public use."), NJ ("any other outdoor sport"), SC ("summer and winter sports")
Number of "recreational" states: 19
Number of "not recreational" states: 21
Number of ambiguous states: 9
DC seems to be missing, so I'll have to track the laws there down later.
For a while I've felt that this website, which compares cycling laws in different states, was incomplete and had a clear agenda: http://iamtraffic.org/advocacy-focus-ar … -by-state/
For example, despite the mentioned website liking North Carolina, North Carolina is one of the few contributory negligence states, which makes it very unattractive for cyclists in my view. Now, thanks to the creativity of UT's lawyers (one way to put it...), another way to increase liability for cyclists has emerged.
After sending a followup message saying that I no longer intend to donate to UT in the future, I received the following reply from Carlos E. Martinez, the president's chief of staff:
Mr. Trettel,
Thank you for writing the president’s office regarding the law suit involving UT Austin. I am responding on behalf of President Fenves.
We appreciate your perspective as a student and cyclist in our community; it helps us keep in tune with those important to us. Due to pending litigation, we cannot comment further.
Thanks again for writing.
Carlos
I sent the following email to UT's president on May 7, 2019 about a legal case where a UT driver hit a non-UT cyclist. I am yet to receive a response. UT's lawyers have been trying to get out of liability for this by arguing that cycling is inherently recreational and therefore because the cyclist was not affiliated with UT, they were only present for recreational purposes and the university is not liable if a non-UT person is injured during recreation on the UT campus.
Dr. Fenves,
I am a PhD student in mechanical engineering here at UT.
I was dismayed to recently read the university's attempt to deflect liability when a university driver collided with a cyclist:
https://www.statesman.com/news/20190426 … ity-issues
The university's argument that cycling is inherently recreational is dismissive to those like myself who use bikes for transportation only, and not recreation. A non-UT driver would clearly not face the same argument. UT's argument is literally discrimination against cyclists. This is a strongly anti-cycling stance that I believe is a mistake for the university, regardless of whether it is legally correct.
While I am glad that the courts have so far dismissed the university's arguments, I am not happy that the university has appealed the court's decision and appears to intend to continue making the same arguments.
The university already asks me periodically for donations. Why should I donate to an organization that argues against my interests?
Please reconsider the legal arguments UT's lawyers are making, and drop the appeal. Cyclists should not be treated as second class citizens.
I'm starting to check which states have laws similar to those cited by UT's lawyers just in case their argument is found to be successful.
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