BIKE: more No Justice

[Michael Bluejay]

Sorry I'm just now replying to this -- I have around 4000 messages in 
my In Box and I can't keep up.

The data on BicycleAustin should not be used for the purpose that Dan 
is trying to use it for.  The justice section on BicycleAustin is 
*examples* of cases, NOT a *review* of all cases.  There's a big 
difference.  I stopped researching cases like these years ago because 
it took too much effort and because I couldn't see anything positive 
happening as a result of the time I was spending on it.  There may be 
(probably are) many cases I don't know about since I haven't looked 
into them.  When someone TELLS ME about a case, and it's covered in the 
news enough that I can get an idea of what happened, and I have time 
to, then I list it.  I don't list cases I've never heard of, that I 
don't have enough info to report on meaningfully, or those that I just 
don't get around to.  In short, my data is woefully incomplete.

It may be that if we had a complete set of data that the stats wouldn't 
look very different from what's in the table now, but we don't know 
that, so we can't say for sure.  What we *can* say -- and why the No 
Justice section is there -- is to show that there are a bunch of cases 
in which at-fault motorists don't get squat for killing us, while at 
the same time cyclists can go to jail for riding on the sidewalk -- 
even if they didn't kill anyone.

The studies elsewhere that Dan referenced (which I'm very glad to know 
about, and which I've gone ahead linked to from BicycleAustin now, 
thanks) are much more credible since they look at all the data in their 
region.

People say I'm going too far when I call cycling justice problems a 
civil rights issue.  But when a killer is less likely to face charges 
because of the group the victim belongs to, that's EXACTLY what a civil 
rights issue is.

BTW, few of you know this, but when the Ben Clough verdict was read I 
had planned to lock myself into a mess of dozens of bicycles at the 
intersection of MLK & Lavaca if the motorist was found not guilty or 
got no penalties.  It didn't happen because the court mistakenly told 
me that the trial was scheduled for a following week when in fact it 
was already over.

If I get killed by an at-fault motorist, I hope cyclists will avenge my 
death.  And the next time an at-fault motorist kills a cyclist in 
Austin, I think we all should do something about it.  I remember five 
years ago when Clough was killed, I urged restraint pending the outcome 
of the case.  I said we had never had a case where the driver was *that 
clearly* at fault and we should give the system a chance, not condemn 
the system before it had a chance to act.  But three years later the 
driver got community service -- no fine, no jail, not even a ticket for 
running the red light.  Screw that, the next time this happens I'm 
taking to the streets.  Motorists' convenience is not worth more than 
our lives.

-MBJ-


On Thursday, November 6, 2003, at 11:43  PM, Dan Connelly wrote:

> For years, I have referenced Michael's excellent "no justice" report
> on his web site:
> http://www.bicycleaustin.info/justice/
>
> Recently, similar data have been available for other regions:
> San Jose CA, and New York, NY.  In San Jose, it was determined
> 3/4 drivers determined to be "at fault" for pedestrian
> fatalities were uncited.   A summary, with a PowerPoint
> presentation, are available at:
> http://www.svbcbikes.org/news/drivers-at-fault.php
>
> In New York, an excellent analysis of police reports,
> obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, is available from:
> http://www.rightofway.org/research/kba.html
>
> The tables on page 28-30 (formatted to fixed-width font,
> like Courier):
>
> Driver Culpability in 223 Pedestrian Fatalities (1997)
> Driver Culpability   No. %/All %/Known*
> Largely or Strictly  134    60%    75%
> Partly                30    13%    17%
> Yes (above combined) 164    74%    92%
> No                    15     7%     8%
> Unknown               44    20%     NA
>
> Driver Culpability in 19 Cyclist Fatalities (1997)
> Driver Culpability   No. %/All %/Known*
> Largely or Strictly   6    32%      60%
> Partly                1     5%      10%
> Yes (above combined)  7    37%      70%
> No                    3    16%      30%
> Unknown               9    47%       NA
>
> *Denominator excludes cases with unknown culpability. Percents are
> relative to cases with known cause.
>
> Drivers Cited in Pedestrian and Cyclist Fatalities, 1994-97
> Category            No. %
> Moving Violation   154  16%
> Other Violation     88   9%
> No Violation       705  74%
>
> In other words, the driver is almost always found culpable,
> even with the lawless bike-messenger culture in NY. This is
> especially true of pedestrian deaths. But 3/4 cases,
> there is no citation.  This is remarkably consistent
> with the San Jose and the Austin (I count 3/10, scanning
> Michael's table) data.
>
> From page 38, in only 6 of the 50 SIDEWALK fatalities
> (1994-1997) was a moving violation issued. In one case, the
> driver suffered cardiac arrest. One pedestrian (not of the 50)
> was killed by a bicyclist, which is reported to
> have elicited editorial outrage by the
> newspapers. No comment on the 49 cases where a motor vehicle
> with a healthy driver mowed down a pedestrian.
>
> So if there was any question of issues with bias in Michael's
> data, they are clearly consistent with other recent studies.
>
> Dan
>
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