BIKE: more No Justice

[Dan Connelly]

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