A serious injury collision Tuesday evening has resulted in a citation for the bicycle rider. Police say the rider was under the influence of alcohol when the collision occurred.
It happened around 6:15 pm on North Vancouver and Tillamook. We first saw it reported via Twitter and then got an email from a reader who lives and rides nearby.
“I was getting off the bus when it happened,” the reader shared with us. “The guy was not moving at all although he seemed to be alive… I heard the driver saying she didn’t see him. It’s possible the bus blocked his view of traffic and he tried to dart across Vancouver.”
Tillamook is an east-west neighborhood greenway that is a busy feeder route onto Vancouver — especially during peak commute hours. There is no traffic signal at the intersection. Users of Tillamook have a stop sign and people going south on Vancouver (a one-way street) have the right-of-way. Vancouver also has yellow “Bikes XING” caution signs on both sides of the street at this location.
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We asked the Portland Police Bureau for more information on the collision. They said the bicycle rider was transported to a nearby hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. PPB Public Information Officer Sgt. Christopher Burley says their preliminary investigation shows that the bicycle rider failed to stop at the stop sign and “collided with a van traveling through the intersection.” When officers visited the rider at the hospital they issued him a citation for bicycling under the influence of intoxicants. (For more on bicycling under the influence, read this Bike Law 101 article.)
Sgt. Burley also said a TriMet bus was nearby and investigators are reviewing its on-board video which may have captured the collision.
The reader who reported the crash to us said he lives on Tillamook and has noticed a significant uptick in traffic. “Traffic has been increasing a lot,” he said. “I’ve worried what this would mean for bicyclists.”
UPDATE: A reader happened to be on the bus that was at the intersection when the collision occurred. Here’s how he describes what he saw:
The cyclist was traveling west. The bus was half pulled over partially blocking south bound traffic in the vehicle lane. The van entered what is effectively an unmarked parking lane to pass the bus. At the time of the crash the van was fully in the vehicle lane. The cyclist line of site of vehicle traffic in the lane would have been obstructed by a stopped bus.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Did their investigation determine the speed of the van? I heard a lot of noise from the city about how speed is a factor and Vision Zero or something.
Tillamook used to be my daily commute until this past spring and I noticed a lot more traffic on it especially between N Vancouver and NE 7th in the months before I moved. Haven’t been on it for a long while until this past week, and I found myself sharing it with a heavy stream of cars. It’s officially a cut-through route now, seems.
Best wishes to the rider — that bus stop is in an awkward place.
(Going to be just a bit cynical here…sorry, can’t be helped.)
Well that was quick. Just a single day, and boom — citation. That’s pretty efficient investigation there, PPB.
You may wonder why I bring that aspect up, though, officers. It’s just that there have been a few other recent collisions wherein cyclists who were *not* under the influence have ended up in the hospital, or in the morgue, and I’m either out of the loop (this site generally keeps me in the loop, I think), or else you’re not nearly so quick to issue citations after the fact when the only apparent crime is a ROW violation by someone in a car.
I’m sure that’s just because you don’t have all the evidence yet though. Carry on. I’ll keep watching this site for updates.
I’m sure we’ll hear back on the ‘investigation’ surrounding Tamar Monhait’s death any day now.
Nevermind, I forgot that it took PPB 7 months to cook up a defense for Jolene Friedow (Mark Angeles may have been invisible!).
Perhaps the van was owned by a delivery or parcel service and they airlifted in a team of lawyers to search for mitigating circumstances to get the corporation involved out of any liability. This may be why the quick citation in the cyclists hospital bed. Just speculating here.
In this case, the citation was for cycling under the influence, not for violating traffic laws, and the evidence is apparently clear. That might account for the difference in response times.
Well, to be fair, the only reason to delay in issuing a citation is that the DA is considering possible criminal charges. It seems as though no criminal charges ever result from crashes such as the one that killed Mark Angeles, but the driver in that case did eventually receive a citation for “dangerous left turn”, and perhaps one other.
So in cases where it seems the police are taking a long time to issue a citation, it’s not because they just can’t figure out whether a citation is deserved, it’s because (ostensibly) they are waiting to see whether more serious charges should be leveled. In the case of this bicyclist, there was apparently enough evidence to show he was operating UII, but not enough to suggest a criminal investigation was at all necessary.
The Newberg ‘investigation’ was just bizarre. The driver said she couldn’t see because of the sun and just kept motoring along anyway. The police came back the next day to confirm that she couldn’t see, and this fact was somehow used to prove her innocence rather than her guilt. Driving at highway speeds when you can’t see anything ahead of you in the road is reckless, and resulted in the death of two people. Not even a ticket was issued.
If this is not the definition of Car head, I don’t know what would be.
“It’s officially a cut-through route now…”
Yup. The more we impede traffic on other roads (in particular arterial roads), the more this is going to happen when you have a massive grid in place like in NE Portland.
Sounds a diverter would be effective here.
Diverters are not permitted on Neighborhood Collector Streets.
funny, it sounds like not drinking and riding would be effective here…
Yup. I agree.
And why is it people here are so down on cyclists running stop signs until one of them gets creamed, and then it’s all about ideas to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.
How has traffic been impeded on the east/west arterials near this spot?
I’m certainly unaware of any changes to east-west arterials in the area. Lots more traffic on Broadway as a result of the recent few years of economic recovery, of course, but that adder traffic could be easily be fixed by implementing congestion pricing or by pricing scarce parking.
M,
Vancouver and Williams in this area are Federally classified as minor arterials.
Whatever other factors leading to this crash that might have been at play here are likely to be negated by the person on the bike’s failure to act responsibly and follow the law.
“are likely to be negated by the person on the bike’s failure to act responsibly and follow the law”
meh.
Which, of course, will trump the same action it appears the vehicle may have engaged in if it was indeed passing the bus via a parking lane. We don’t know that’s the case yet, but I see that form of driver impatience on a daily basis, so it wouldn’t exactly be surprising.
What we are calling the “parking lane” is not a marked lane as such, and is often used for passing turning cars and allowing other vehicles to pass where the road is narrow. I would be shocked if that turned out to be illegal.
My reading of ORS 811.165 leads me to the belief that passing a stopped transit vehicle on a one-way street is legal.
they passed in a No Parking area, which according to the Bike Law 101 article on this site is part of the roadway, so it’s legal… though the No Parking sign is not visible from Tillamook…
The section of Vancouver just upstream from this spot has construction going on with the 2 lanes narrowed down to 1 then back to 2 a block or so ahead of where Tillamook crosses. The bus stop is on the west side of Vancouver so the bus would block his view if he was going west to east but not the other way. It would be good to know which way the cyclist was traveling.
An update to the original article specifies that the cyclist was traveling west.
I ride through this intersection every morning and it is awful. Cars turning from Vancouver left (EB) onto Tillamook frequently cut the corner at high speed, crossing that portion of the roadway where cyclists turning left on Vancouver need to stand to get a view of Vancouver traffic.
Tillamook legacy greenway upgrade is planned for next year once the BES pipe work is complete.
Are they waiting for someone to die at 7th and Tillamook first?
Drinking and operating any vehicle while drunk is a bad choice. That detail seems quite minimalized….
Agreed– the headline of the post seems to imply he had no responsibility for the collision, when the addition of “for BUII” would clear it up.
Sorry, JMaus, but your headline uses a broad brush to paint cars as the bad guys here, when that’s not entirely true.
this is funny to read. I actually deleted “for DUII” from the headline because I thought it extraneous.
I appreciate the feedback here… But I don’t see how the headline as-it-is implies the bicycle rider had no responsibility. I just say he was given a citation while in the hospital. How exactly does that absolve him?
As with most things, perception is key– and my perception was that the police were “adding insult to injury” by ticketing him in the hospital, without knowing what he was ticketed for.
So my first impression, on reading the headline, was a knee-jerk reaction: the idea that the cops decided to ticket him for running a stop sign, while he lay injured in a hospital bed.
Knowing that he was ticketed for BUI (or DUII, if you prefer), changes the perception to “yeah, he deserved to get ticketed for that” and away from “kicking him when he’s down”.
This is a great comment. Personally, I still feel there was a bit of kicking going on.
Hi Todd,
How is that detail minimized? I report why he was cited and I link to a post about biking under the influence.
I don’t think it’s necessary or prudent for me to add a sentence about the man’s behavior or decision.
I have a feeling that you and KristenT are reading into what I’ve written based on what you assume I believe (that bicycle riders can do no wrong). This is something that people often do.
Would love to hear more from you.
OK. So I re-read the post and realize that the DUII part is below-the-fold. Is that what is making some of you uncomfortable? I guess I could add something about that earlier in the story. I’ll consider it.
Please believe me when I say that I am not trying to hide the bicycle user’s decision. Not at all. I got no qualms putting this issue front and center as my past story about drinking and biking should make clear.
That is certainly the impression I have too. I feel yoir writing is so biased toward cyclists it has lost any real meaning for me.
While you may not feel this criticism is “fair” you might want to heed the feedback that, despite, your best efforts, that is how you sound. This is your blog so I acknowledge you are welcome to “sound” any way you see fit. But I am bothered when you refer to what you do as reporting, when it sounds much more like advocacy for what you see as priorities. Again, your site and your perogative but you you may want to give up on the reporting and just focus on opinion, since that is clearly what you prefer.
“yoir writing is so biased toward cyclists it has lost any real meaning for me. ”
Let me ask you this: what brings you here?
Why would anyone own a cruiser if drinking is excluded?
welcome to bike portland. where a drunk cyclist can hit a curb and they’ll blame the concrete.
It’s a fact! Oh wait, no it’s not.
Both Vancouver and Williams in this area need some form of traffic calming. Motorists race down Vancouver from Russell trying to beat each other to the light at Broadway in a rush to get on to I5, while the motorist coming up Williams seem to be gunning it to get an car length or so advantage before they get to the slow part of Williams. The speeds on Vancouver are much too high given the sight distance availible with buses and parked cars. Either that or these two intersections need lights.
So remove the parked cars.
parked cars create friction and a narrowed roadway to slow cars.
And serious visibility issues.
not to mention the potential for dooring. And climate change.
Parked cars near corners destroy visibility.
The speed limit is 25mph. What are the odds the driver was going at or below the speed limit?
I’ve got very little sympathy for anyone piloting a vehicle drunk, but would the police have preferred that he be driving a car? At some level, probably.
I don’t see why they would need to cite the guy, since he’s just gotten his punishment and has no chance of any recovery in court.
Why do you say that even without the DUII citation the cyclist has no chance of recovery in court? At this point, from what’s given readers in the article it’s not proven that the cyclist did anything wrong (though apparently the cops have reason to think otherwise, in addition to having evidence that the cyclist was under the influence of an intoxicant despite the lack of results from any toxicilogy tests; if the evidence of cyclist culpability holds up then yes – that will preclude recovery).
Cyclist injured while riding drunk and running a stop sign. Why is this newsworthy?
Any cyclist-vehicle collision resulting in hospital transport is of interest to many in the cycling community.
“Cyclist injured while riding drunk and running a stop sign. Why is this newsworthy?” chris I
Why is this newsworthy? Good question, the answers to which are worthy of review:
Both of those two errors in road use, if not directly having contributed to the occurrence of the collision, certainly worked to create an added risk that a collision like this one, or one worse, could happen. Both errors in road use could increase the risk that some riding either falls down or is knocked down and gets run over…or themselves on their bike, runs over someone on foot, hurting or killing them.
Among more than a few people reading and posting comments to this weblog, it seems to be a popular idea that people riding bikes and rolling stop signs, is a good idea, and should even be legalized road use. And riding through red lights (after having initially stopped.), is regarded also by some people, as being a good idea. Collisions like this one, show that stopping at stop signs and probably staying stopped at red lights, is the better, safer road use.
There are people too, that seem to think it’s fine for people riding bikes in traffic, to be doing so, drunk or otherwise intoxicated. So, tough luck for all the responsible road users just trying to safely get from ‘a to b’ ?
I hope news stories about collisions like this one, help to dissuade people of the idea that running stop signs and riding drunk is acceptable or responsible road use, because it’s not.
If the car driver had received a DUI, the headline of this article would have been very different.
Sounds like according to Oregon law by using public right of way drivers and cyclists automatically subject themselves to a field sobriety check if asked by police. However, cyclists are not subject to chemical tests of blood, breath, urine. Wondering what evidence was used then for the DUI charge? Since the injured cyclist wouldn’t be able to perform a field sobriety test, and wouldn’t be subject to chemical tests… Maybe the rules are different when an injury occurs in a crash…?
I was on the bus. The cyclist was traveling west. The bus was half pulled over partially blocking south bound traffic in the vehicle lane. The van entered what is effectively an unmarked parking lane to pass the bus. At the time of the crash the van was fully in the vehicle lane. The cyclist line of site of vehicle traffic in the lane would have been obstructed by a stopped bus.
Hi J,
thank you for sharing this. Please contact the PPB if you haven’t already and share what you know. here’s an email for Sgt. Burley – christopher.burley@portlandoregon.gov
You just can’t help but to pour gas on this dumpster fire of a comment section can you? The above is complete conjecture yet you’ve incorporated it into your op/ed like it’s factual.
Hi Stew,
I disagree with you about this comment section. It’s not a “dumpster fire” by any stretch.
I presented a reader’s comment as a reader’s comment. People can believe it or not, but I felt it was worth sharing more broadly. And I didn’t present it as factual. And the post above isn’t an op/ed.
Thanks for your comment.
you failed to properly attribute quotes to the “witness” account. Moreover, did you fact check it before you went to print? Rather I contend, as I’m sure most non biased readers would as well, that you highlight this one single unsubstantiated narrative and loosely present it as fact only to further incite the foaming mouths of your echo chamber. I understand you advocate for the cycling community but rhetoric like this piece draws in the far fringes. Perhaps you are one as well?
“A reader happened to be on the bus that was at the intersection when the collision occurred. Here’s how he describes what he saw:”
Nice try. It’s sloppy journalism-an opinion piece at best. Cherry picking a juicy random internet comment that further supports the passive aggressive tone that the individual that broke the law should be vindicated from their alleged fault is sophomoric. Omitting the material fact that it was a DUII case originally until others called him out is laughable. I say this in the context that Maus constantly beats this impartiality drum, yet every single one of his pieces would make Fox and CNN blush with the level of bias presented. As a commuter myself, I’m tired of seeing it. I know, I am in the insignificant minority amongst the ranks of fanatics here.
“I am in the insignificant minority amongst the ranks of fanatics here.”
Please, tell us what you really think.
Thanks for the keen observations in this tragic accident. But please explain what half pulled over means in this case. Was the bus stop blocked by a car or something that kept it from fully pulling over? Was it some kind of temporary bus stop due to the construction taking place on vancouver? I cross this intersection every day and it disturbs me that I now have to watch for cars whipping around obstructions in the parking lane.
Per most recent streetview the road at this stop is Parking Lane > Bike Lane > Travel lane >Parking Lane. Bus stopped here would be using most of the bike lane but obviously still be in the travel lane some… just like the vast majority of bus stops in the city.
Is it legal for cars to pass a bus, using that portion of the road? My reading of what may have happened does not matter, but I can see how the cyclist may have thought the whole lane was blocked by the stopped bus and thought it safe to proceed. I’m not speculating on legal/blame, just interested in what happened.
A person commits the offense of violating the basic speed rule if the person drives a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard to all of the following:
(a) The traffic.
(b) The surface and width of the highway.
(c) The hazard at intersections.
(d) Weather.
(e) Visibility.
(f) Any other conditions then existing.
If you’re going to drive around a temporarily-stopped bus, you’d better be going pretty damn slow. Visibility is severely hampered, and people are known to cross the street in front of and behind stopped buses.
Good point, I certainly would be passing very cautiously for those reasons
I suspect your definition of “reasonable and prudent” differs from most people’s.
‘Most people’ break the law while driving as a matter of habit. What’s your point?
My point is that if the driver were driving in a manner consistent with what the majority think, then they weren’t violating the law.
Oh right, that’s how we determine traffic law, by majority rule. I forget that non-drivers don’t even get to vote.
Yes, with that law, which contains no objective standards. I know it’s your favorite law, but it does not mean what you wish it did.
Here’s an objective measure for you:
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.105
Any speed in excess of a designated speed posted by authority granted under ORS 810.180 (Designation of maximum speeds) is prima facie evidence of violation of the basic speed rule under ORS 811.100 (Violation of basic speed rule).
Yes — it’s objective and doesn’t depend on what the majority thinks. That’s an enforceable law. I wish that it were enforced more often.
Spending time debating the nuances of the above statute seems rather silly, given that the cyclist was drunk and blew a stop sign. This crash could have been easily avoided if the cyclist had made better choices.
If I see a bus stopped blocking traffic for me on a busy street that is difficult to cross I’m gonna roll that stop sign just about every time. An equally contributing factor was the vehicle passing the bus at an intersection that is widely known to have bicycles crossing at it.
Read the eyewitness account posted above. The car had returned to the travel line by the time it reached the intersection. Two thoughts:
1. It seems like the rider would have seen the vehicle
2. The rider was drunk.
The BAC of the cyclist may not have contributed to the crash. If a vehicle is stopped and appears to be waiting for me, I like most would roll the stop sign.
that portion of the road is a No Parking zone so it’s just another part of the roadway that can be used by moving vehicles…
if it was a legal parking area then the cyclist would have a better case…
Agreed. Something doesn’t add up here.
The term “effectively a parking lane” is completely meaningless. There is no legally defined such thing.
I think the original writer of this remark means that the lane is commonly used by vehicles to park in even if isn’t specifically striped off as such.
Looking at the intersection in Google Maps one can see vehicles parked along the east side of Vancouver, somewhat oddly or unexpectedly, in the block immediately north. It does not appear to be striped for parking for what that’s worth.
Clearly the van was passing the stopped bus on the bus’s left; what I don’t get is why the witness would say that the bus’s or the van driver’s so doing would block the cyclist’s view of traffic in the lane in which the van was traveling.
The last few times I was on Williams and turned eastbound on Tillamook I had to stop ahnd wait for nearly 5 minutes for traffic to clear to make the turn from the bike lane. I finally gave up and backed up a block and merged with traffic after the construction and kept moving left then followed 2 cars turning left around the corner. Tillamook was the worst I have ever seen it for traffic. When I got to MLK the cars were backed up for 2 blocks at the light.
hear all the time ppl that drive in sitting at a pub hey bui can happen as they are drinking and jump into an auto. SMH
oh and traffic on Williams n Tillamook agh… riding can feel like frogger
“Tillamook is an east-west neighborhood greenway…”
Technically true, but speaking as a carfree resident of the Eliot neighborhood, this is the only greenway I don’t use. I wouldn’t subject my 8-80 loved ones to its major intersections, nor do I trust the cross traffic on quieter streets. Funny how it gets better when you cross into Irvington.
I find even Knott along the stretch you describe to be too busy for comfort during busy times of the day.
So he was BUI and moved through a stop sign without being able to see oncoming traffic? Um…
Hoping for quick recovery for rider.
I’m curious about the several things:
Do they get the BAC from a blood draw while he’s in the hospital?
Jonathan, when is the last time you reported on a hospitalized cyclist also cited for Class A misdemeanor DUII?
Does the citation actually saying “bicycling under the influence of intoxicants?” I thought laws were the same for drivers and cyclists since they are operating the exact same vehicle according to Oregon law…so wouldn’t the citation also read the same?
In related news, another wrong way drunk driver on Highway 26 last night.
http://www.kgw.com/news/washington-county-deputies-pull-wrong-way-driver-from-burning-car/474368741
There was a wrong-way driver on Williams on my way home last night. It didn’t appear they hit anyone, fortunately.
Wrong way drivers on Hwy 26 near Murray are becoming an epidemic. I’m wondering if we need to have one-way tire spikes installed on the highway offramps to keep bozos from doing this.
Why is there car traffic on Tillamook at all? That traffic needs to be on N/ NE Russell instead.
Why is there no diverter at Tillamook & MLK? Or at Vancouver/Williams?
Portland is a joke for bicyclists these days. A total joke.
Russell is very often congested. It’s common to see cars backed up from MLK to Rodney. The T intersection at MLK/Russell may be part of the reason, not to mention that MLK is often backed up in the area of Tillamook, Russell, and Knott streets. No doubt Waze is sending some people across Tillamook and up NE 7th.
I’m with you on the diverter.
By the tone of all the responses, it’s unanimous. It’s impossible for bike riders to be drunk (never mind that they spend much of their time in brewpubs).
Nuance is not your strong suit.
is it not possible that with a bus obscuring site lines and a car that apparently went around the bus in a parking lane (probably illegal), any impairment was not the main cause of this tragic collision?
“sight”
Spending time debating the nuances of the above statute seems rather silly, given that the cyclist was drunk and blew a stop sign. This crash could have been easily avoided if the cyclist had made better choices.
I’m curious how they determined that the cyclist blew the stop sign so quickly. Forensic evidence? The driver’s account? Other witnesses?
I mean, he traveled past a stop sign and was hit by a car. Doesn’t matter if he stopped or not – he’s still at fault if he came to a full stop, put a foot down, and then rolled into the intersection and got hit by a car.
What if the road looked clear when he started up again after the stop sign, then a car , which was up to that point out of view of the rider, whipped around the bus in a parking lane and ran him down before he had time to clear the intersection?
Good point, in that case I would lay blame on the motorist. I’m pretty cautious about leaving cover, but I don’t think I would have been on the lookout for a fast car in the parking lane.
In your imagined scenario, how fast is the car going?
If the car was speeding or the driver was yapping on a cell-phone, tuning the radio et al then it very much matters.
I mean, he traveled past a stop sign and was hit by a car. Doesn’t matter if he stopped or not – he’s still at fault if he came to a full stop, put a foot down, and then rolled into the intersection and got hit by a car.
If the car was speeding or the driver was yapping on a cell-phone, tuning the radio et al then it very much matters.
haha, spending all that time in brewpubs sounds relaxing, I wish it was true.
If I see a bus stopped blocking traffic for me on a busy street that is difficult to cross I’m gonna roll that stop sign just about every time. An equally contributing factor was the vehicle passing the bus at an intersection that is widely known to have bicycles crossing at it.
was this bus “blocking traffic” for cross bike traffic? or was it just pulled over at the bus stop. i got the impression it was the latter.
unrelated related note…as a driver in pdx i find it more and more confusing trying to figure out when bikes are traffic and when they are to be ceded right of way. intersections like mlk/going…the green stripes that are not at the crosswalk…i get the basic mantra is do no harm (so to speak) but i don’t see how confusion helps anyone. i watch intersection of se12th/salmon most mornings during commute and don’t get how more people don’t get into wrecks
The green crossing “crossbike” markings have no legal authority and are part of no design standard. They should be ignored.
Crossbikes are lame. ‘cross bikes are cool.
in my experience the likelihood that someone driving will stop for someone cycling at a crossbike is far higher than at an unmarked crosswalk. i think they are a huge success and are well on their way to becoming a standard bike infrastructure tool.
I, personally, don’t like them. I regularly ride west on Johnson where it crosses 14th (by REI). I stop at the stop sign there and wait for thru traffic on 14th to clear before crossing the road, but sometimes people just cruise on past me on the right in the crossbike, which makes an already-confusing intersection even worse. If they get hit, does the driver bear any legal responsibility to cover damages?
But that’s just me.
but aren’t u just saying that marked crosswalks garner better attention from drivers than unmarked crosswalks? i haven’t seen a cross bike that wasn’t attached to a marked crosswalk. further…if someone is biking in the cross-bike, aren’t they in the road? doesn’t that make them traffic in the first place? in which case, why does traffic with right of way cede to them? hence my confusion
My understanding is that pedestrians and cyclists waiting to cross at an intersection have hitherto enjoyed different rights: drivers are supposed to yield to a pedestrian stepping into the roadway whereas no such yielding is expected from drivers for cyclists or other drivers seeking to cross their path at an intersection. I *think* that the green cross walk paint stripes are meant to suggest that *here* bikes are akin to pedestrians, but only here.
If I got that wrong I look forward to someone setting me straight.
One of many confusing bits about this for me is that the absence of a marked crosswalk makes no difference to the rights of the pedestrian who wishes to cross… but it clearly does if you are on a bike.
That may be the suggestion, but unless the cyclist is actually in the crosswalk, and enters it at a walking pace, they do not have their suggested rights.
If you act as a vehicle on the rest of the street, it’s kind of bogus to suddenly operate as a ped just because it suits your purposes.
It’s not big deal to wait at an intersection like everyone else.
Bogus?
I’ll tell you what is bogus. The fact that all of us not in cars now have to abide by all these rules that didn’t exist before the automobile. If you look at the delightful video of traffic on Market Street in San Francisco in 1906, everyone’s mixing it up: almost no rules, except paying attention and being quick on your feet.
Personally, I don’t follow any new-fangled rules that weren’t established when my grandparents were children.
9watts, I’m cool with that. However expecting cyclists to pay attention is not an idea that plays well here…
If only it weren’t for all them dang rules interfering with the free flow of traffic (mostly cars), crummy bike lanes and other infrastructure, required safety/emissions/whatever, yada yada yada. And with the road quality and horse роор, cycling must have made heaven back then…
However expecting drivers to pay attention is not an idea that plays well in the USA.
FTFY.
But the point is that Vision Zero should ensure safety, despite the stupidity of humans. Not drivers or cyclists, but humans.
“However expecting cyclists to pay attention is not an idea that plays well here…”
This is not a fair or accurate statement. You should try harder to hear what people here are saying. The near constant flood of official exhortations that people not in cars take all sorts of special precautions, because – pragmatic.
Responses to this asymmetry, that disagree with this lopsided responsibilization of vulnerable road users are often misinterpreted by people such as yourself to be an unwillingness to hold everyone responsible for paying attention.
The statement is both fair and accurate.
Few here advocate looking at what cyclists can do to be safe out there, and suggesting that cyclists ride defensively consistently gets you pounded on this forum. That this article and a huge percentage of the comments seem bent on finding a way to make what should be a straight forward drunk cycling accident caused by the cyclist into a driver mistake is par for the course.
Had the cyclist been the sober one traveling along Vancouver and the van had been driven by a drunk who drove through a stop sign, I guarantee the reporting and the comments would have been very very different.
In any case, figuring out on a bike blog what drivers need to do is a trip to nowhere. There are ways to improve driver behavior, but I’m pretty sure that making racket in a bike blog echo chamber about what they need to do is not among the methods that have a chance of moving things forward.
most of our bike infrastructure has no legal meaning. for example, even on neighborhood greenways it is the legal responsibility of people cycling to ride as far right as is practicable and to let faster-moving motorvehicle traffic pass. (sharrows have zero/zilch/nada legal meaning in OR.)
i am assertive when there are crossbikes and will often edge well into the lane even when there is oncoming faster-moving traffic. in my experience, people stop for me at crossbikes about as often as they stop for me as a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk.
The paint only reminds drivers that cyclists are present and means nothing. I do find that both do affect driver behavior, my operating theory being that it helps guide expectations for interactions.
As far right as practical has very slippery meaning, particularly in Portland where roads are narrow and there are serious visibility, dooring, debris, etc. issues when you ride right. I ride further left than the vast majority of cyclists — often in the traffic lane even when bike lanes are provided. Having said that, I also try to help traffic through and make it clear through signals and positioning that I know where they are and expect them to pass. Neither cops nor motorists bug me about this practice.
The main negative impact I’ve seen from sharrows and crossbikes is that if you choose an unmarked street that runs parallel to a marked street, the play with traffic gets considerably rougher — drivers seem to have the idea that the marked area is for bikes and the unmarked area isn’t.
There are some areas where I think the crossbikes are particularly beneficial, Tillamook and Interstate being an excellent example because the nature of the area is that bikes and cars must cross each others’ paths at multiple angles in a short space.
Fortunately, as far right as is practicable on most Greenways means you can ride in the center of the lane. Cyclist are not required to ride in the door zone to allow somebody to pass. In other words, take the lane.
“Few here advocate looking at what cyclists can do to be safe out there, and suggesting that cyclists ride defensively consistently gets you pounded on this forum.”
I think you are wilfully misreading what people are saying, at least the ones I can recall. What we’re objecting to is singling out what people on bikes can/should/must do to avoid getting killed as the PSA, the focus, the thing that matters, while leaving the ubitquitous source of all the maiming and death out of the finger-wagging conversation.
I can’t think of anyone here who fits your characterization.
neighborhood greenways are not narrow bike lanes so there is plenty of room to ride on the right. thus, according to the *LAW* anyone riding continuously in the center of a greenway is a scofflaw. moreover, under ORS 811.425 every time adam rides slowly up clinton and does not pull over to let faster moving motorvehicles to pass, he is a scofflaw.
PS: what’s not to like about bike scofflaws? after all, they make us all look good!
https://www.tcnf.legal/oregon-slow-moving-law/
Greenways are not narrow lanes, it is true. “As far right as practicable” does not mean in the door zone, nor does it mean close enough to the door zone that an opening door would cause you to startle. That puts you 6-8 feet from the car, which is pretty much in the center of the lane.
“As far right as practicable” also does not mean you need to dart over to the right if there is a gap in parked cars, as swerving in and out of a traffic lane is dangerous.
I ride down the center of Greenways, and I do so legally. You can too.
The problem with laws is that it is impossible to codify common sense — especially when you have people trying to manipulate the law for their advantage at the expense of others.
General principles of movement include the idea that anyone overtaking should yield to those they are passing, but also that people who are blocking flow should try to facilitate the movement of those that pass them.
There’s nothing wrong with grinding at 5mph up Clinton or any other street. Some people have heavy bikes, physical limitations, etc. But those that are particularly slow need to be cognizant of their impact and make some effort to mitigate their effect on others. This is common courtesy and applies no matter what mode of travel you use or where. BTW, dooring is a much lower risk at very low uphill speeds so it’s safe to travel closer to cars than would normally be prudent.
As far as what all this means in real world circumstances, what makes sense depends on the totality of circumstances — most people seem to have an intuitive grasp of what to do. BTW, this is not a matter of who can ride how fast. There are plenty of strong riders in the SW hills that can only muster single digit speeds on shoulderless curvy roads with few passing opportunities. Yet to my knowledge, such riding is not regarded as particularly dangerous or hostile to cyclists. I would speculate that is because people who ride there play well with other road users.
“The green crossing “crossbike” markings have no legal authority and are part of no design standard. …” chris I
Well someone created them, and would that not have been the city? If the city didn’t use the MUTCD, it must have used some kind of design standard, even if it’s one it’s road engineering dept conceived of. How difficult would it be to come up with a definite answer on this, and…what the required procedure for use of this ‘crossbike’ infrastructure for crossing a street on a bike is?
I’ve never personally seen one, so I don’t know the answer to how the designers and officials intend them be used or how they hope they’ll work.
By the way, could cite and provide the links to the relevant Oregon statutes so people could more easily review, but I’ll just say that H kitty and lascurettes are correct in their explaining the obligation of people biking in using standard crosswalks. Entering the crosswalk at a normal walking speed is the key part.
I’ve read people’s words claiming that once a person riding has entered the crosswalk at a normal walking speed, they can pick up speed and finish crossing at any speed they choose. Depending on the circumstances, I’d urge caution in doing that. If there’s no waiting or approaching traffic on the street being crossed, pouring on a lot of speed might be ok. Otherwise, rolling along at a walking speed, prepared to stop if the unexpected occurs, seems safest to me.
Agreed. This is a disaster. So much needless ambiguity. If ambiguity is to be part of the program, then much safer to take a page from Hans Monderman’s book and skip the signs and paint altogether.
Thanks John, for linking to those earlier stories. Looks like I missed them.
“Cyclist hit and killed at the intersection of Suchandsuch Street and Soandso Avenue. Witnesses indicated the cyclist was crossing SoandSo in a ‘crossbike’ at the time of the collision (a band of green stripes painted on the roadway with no legal meaning) and did not have the right of way. Driver is cooperating and no citations are expected. The family has secured a lawyer and is intending to sue the pants off the City of Portland.”
I think PBOT is hoping drivers will go to their website and find out what crossbikes mean. I wouldn’t count on it. Many drivers don’t know what crosswalks mean.
oregon’s crosswalk law is already ambiguous (and dangerous) in that it requires people walking to enter the roadway to gain right of way. imo, non-legal compliance at crossbikes is already far higher than legal compliance at unmarked crosswalks. so much for ambiguity!
imo, the legal rights of vulnerable road users in this state and city are a joke. if we are to achieve stronger protections we need to assert our right to move about freely. crossbikes are a step in that direction so i support them enthusiastically.
Thanks for posting links to those past bikeportland stories on PBOT’s ‘cross-bike’ infrastructure design experiment. I’d forgotten I’d read them and posted two or three comments to them. From the 2011 story interviewing Geller, and from his answer to the first question asked of him:
“… We landed on the idea of providing a prominent marking to further alert motorists to the presence of crossing cyclists.” geller interview/bikeportland
That the green cross-bike intersection pavement treatment will hopefully further alert people driving, to the presence of people biking at intersections given this treatment, seems to be the extent of thought relative to road use, behind this idea by PBOT staff. In neither of those stories is there any particular instruction to road users as to how to respond to them.
At the site of this collision, would an installation of the cross-bike pavement treatment possibly have reduced the likelihood of occurring… the type road use and collision that this was? This collision had:
A guy on a bike, drunk, electing not to stop at a stop sign.
A bus waiting at the intersection.
Someone driving a van, initially in position behind the bus, and then electing to apparently pass the bus on its right side, out of the view of guy riding coming from the left on the cross street.
In the comments to the 2011 story, Maus responds to a readers reservations about the cross-bike concept:
“…And again, you are an experienced rider. This type of thing is not for you… it’s for the 8 year old kid and the 80 year old grandma. Thanks for your comment.” maus/bikeportland
https://bikeportland.org/2011/01/19/cross-bikes-crosswalks-for-bikes-coming-soon-to-portland-46310#comment-1709025
Was the intoxicated guy that ran the stop sign, an inexperienced rider? Definitely wasn’t an 8 year old, or and 80 year old grandparent.
“…Why and how could the van possibly pass the bus on the right side? Not only is it highly illegal, it’s likely physically impossible because the bus’s front end was already pulled over for the stop (on the right side). There would not have been enough room for the van driver to pass on the right.” lascurettes
Going by the following readers account of what he says he saw while riding the bus… :
“I was on the bus. The cyclist was traveling west. The bus was half pulled over partially blocking south bound traffic in the vehicle lane. The van entered what is effectively an unmarked parking lane to pass the bus. At the time of the crash the van was fully in the vehicle lane. The cyclist line of site of vehicle traffic in the lane would have been obstructed by a stopped bus.” J
https://bikeportland.org/2017/09/13/bicycle-rider-issued-citation-from-hospital-bed-following-collision-in-north-portland-242773#comment-6826867
…it appears the person driving the van, used the parking lane to pass on the bus’s right side. Apparently, the bus didn’t pull completely out of the travel lane and next to the curb. For what reason, I couldn’t say for sure. I would hope the person’s investigating the collision, would ask this question. Could have been a number of reasons.
As I wrote in an earlier comment, passing the bus on the right side, does sound to me like a risky move…for people getting on and off the bus, for the person driving the van (imagine the bus beginning to turn right, after the van is abreast of it.). In not pulling next to the curb, or somewhat into empty parking lane, the driver of the bus left an opening big enough that someone driving a smaller vehicle could squeeze through.
The person driving the van, generally did have the right of way over cross traffic. They had a legitimate reason to expect people would stop at the stop signs on the cross street before proceeding through the intersection. Which the person riding should have done for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to avoid the possible occurrence of a collision from someone doing what the driver of the van did in exercising their right of way through the intersection..
None of this matters if we don’t know the nature of the collision. The cyclist may have crashed into the side of the van, not watching where he was going at all. Or he may have been in the middle of the intersection when he was hit. Makes a big difference. The driver said that she didn’t see the cyclist, and if we actually believe her, it seems more likely that it was closer to the first scenario.
I’m curious whether cars were parked up to the corners on either road…
“If I see a bus stopped blocking traffic for me on a busy street that is difficult to cross I’m gonna roll that stop sign just about every time. …” bradwagon
Some of the reasons this collision occurred, is why you should not do what you described. Had the person riding not have been drunk, would he have been more likely not to have collided with the said to be hidden by the bus, van, even though he did roll the stop sign?
Hard to say for sure, but in not stopping at the stop sign, he deprived himself of the safety measure that the stop sign is designed to provide road users with.
That’s how DUII cases work. The investigation and subsequent citation (if necessary) happen very quickly. Would you prefer they wait until the individual metabolized whatever potential intoxicant was in their system?
Not sure who you are responding to, but I agree with the immediate BUI citation. I have questions about how they concluded that the cyclist ‘blew the stop sign’, and the timing/positioning of the crash itself. Did the cyclist hit the side of the van as it was going by?
I wonder too, but it almost doesn’t matter. As someone else pointed out, it doesn’t really matter if they stopped or not; they had a duty not to proceed until the way was clear.
That said, alcohol aside, the label “accident” may be very appropriate for this incident. Sometimes bad luck happens.
“almost doesn’t matter”
Almost. The other thing I wonder about is how the wording would have gone if the vehicles were reversed. If we took the *UII out of the equation, I can’t help but think we would be hearing about how the driver stopped at the stop sign (by her own account), and then just as she started across, the bicyclist “came out of nowhere”, trying to get around the bus, how the bicyclist left the bike lane, was traveling at “a high rate of speed”, etc. At 6:15 pm, headed west, we might find out the sun was in the driver’s eyes, and we might further hear about how cooperative the driver was and how the bicyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet. Would the question of whether the driver really came to a full and complete stop have even come up or been asked?
And if we didn’t remove the UII from the equation, what would people be saying then in your role reversal? Drunk driver hits cyclist! From a stop sign! Had a duty to make sure the intersection was clear before proceeding! Didn’t even look!
I don’t think people would dispute that drivers are actually held accountable for collisions when they are drunk.
I agree. Do you dispute that cyclists should be accountable for collisions when they are drunk?
I suppose it depends on the collision. If a cyclist is riding straight in a bike lane and gets mowed down from behind, how much of that accountability belongs to them?
Probably less than if they got mowed down after blowing a stop sign.
Sorry, I was specifically wondering about the “failed to stop at the stop sign” conclusion of the “preliminary investigation”. Whose account were we going by, there? Or was it an assumption based on the fact that the bicyclist proceeded when it wasn’t safe? The end result—being hit by a car—is the same, whether failing to stop altogether, or stopping, but not waiting for a safe gap. However, the way in which the conclusion of “failed to stop” was reached, and whether that same conclusion would have been reached in the same way—and reported with the same words—if the vehicles were reversed, *UII or no *UII, is what I wonder about.
In this forum, anyway (which is the only one where I’ve heard any reporting of the incident), the analysis would have been much more unanimous had the roles been reversed. When the cyclist was clearly in the wrong, a substantial proportion of commenters are looking for any possible way to blame the driver, but many don’t. With the roles reversed, and were the driver clearly in the wrong, I think you’d have near total agreement that the driver was at fault.
I’d rather the discussion be less about who to blame, and more about what could be done to prevent this from happening again. One idea, for example, would be to move the bus stop “downstream” from the intersection so a stopping bus wouldn’t block visibility of other vehicles.
It’s been my experience, since I started closely following car-bike/ped collisions, that the police do a good job of looking for every possible way to exonerate the driver. The Mark Angeles case is a good example of this. It makes me wary of police reports.
Here’s a fascinating story of a driver in Newberg who killed two cyclists last year and had no charges filed against her.
http://www.pamplinmediagroup.com/nbg/142-news/311190-189609-investigation-complete-into-fatal-bike-crash-
The woman claimed that the sun had been in her eyes for some time, and that she had lowered her visor and held up her hand in front of her face to block the sun so she could keep driving, and then she ran them over. This is a rural highway, so I presume she was driving 50-60mph while being unable to see objects on the road directly in front of her. She saw neither of the cyclists (who were apparently riding side by side) and only stopped when her car hit something.
The police went out the next day to confirm that the sun was in her eyes. And then had nothing to say about her driving behavior as a result of those conditions, and used the SUN as the reason to absolve her of any charges.
“I couldn’t see where I was going!”
“We have confirmed that you couldn’t see where you were going, therefore their deaths were not preventable. Oh well.”
“the police do a good job of looking for every possible way to exonerate the driver.”
They do. What bearing does that have on this case?
Let’s say that your job is to serve and protect [the status quo]. An ordinary average driver is doing a fairly typically 35mph in a 25 and swerves around a stopped bus, only to hit a cyclist they didn’t see in the road immediately afterwards. This could be a tricky case where you need to put together evidence to charge the driver with reckless driving, speeding, failing to follow the basic speed law, and other ‘gray’ stuff that is hard to convict with (since most DAs, judges, & jury members identify as drivers). But instead of going through all that trouble, you can presume that the cyclist blew through the stop sign and was probably invisible (aren’t most cyclists invisible? amirite?), and hey look! The cyclist had been drinking. It’s okay people, the status quo has been saved, you can go back to driving as usual.
I’m not saying that’s how it went down. But I am saying that I’ve seen enough of these things that it’s at least possible.
Here’s another story where a deputy was speeding in the dark and ran somebody over.
http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2017/05/deputy_who_ran_over_man_gave_d.html
The police reported:
a) the victim was walking in the road
b) the victim leaped in front of the car
c) the victim wasn’t seen because the deputy was looking elsewhere
e) the victim WAS seen, but he looked like a pile of clothes
f) the man was laying down in the road
g) all of the above
The correct answer is ‘g’. No charges filed, of course.
It’s quite the hypothetical you’ve constructed. I’ll wait for some actual facts. In the meantime, what bearing does a different incident in a different city have on what happened here?
Like you, I’m waiting to hear more about the nature of the collision before determining what portion of blame belongs to each party. What I’ve heard so far is pretty vague. To be clear on my view, I think BUI is bad and he deserves his penalty for that. I think blowing stop signs is bad, and he deserves his penalty for that, if in fact that’s what happened. Since there were two people involved in this collision, I’m waiting to hear what the other person was up to.
As I’ve said before, worrying about blame is a distraction from finding ways to prevent this from happening again. That should be our real goal.
The cause seems to be that the bus blocked the cyclist’s view of the driver. Exactly what the driver was doing seems less important. Two possibilities for prevention spring to mind — move the bus stop to the other side of the intersection, or add a curb extension to prevent drivers from passing the stopped bus.
But sure. Maybe we need to know for sure if the driver was going faster than 25 or was texting to understand the problem. If either of those turns out to be true, what different solutions would that suggest to you?
Enforcement.
The fact that we allow drivers to continue driving at the posted speed when the sun is in their eyes and they can’t see where they are going, and they can just run people over without consequence is unacceptable. It’s also one of the reasons I stop bike commuting in the late fall. When the sun is low, it’s open season.
Tuesday I was on the highway next to a Portland motorcycle cop and a driver changed lanes twice right in front of us without signaling. The cop did nothing. Failure to signal is responsible for 2 million crashes per year in the US (around 20% of crashes). Why are we doing practically nothing to fix that?
I’m down with more enforcement. Maybe if the PPD was doing a bicycle stop sign enforcement, they could have kept this cyclist from getting hit.
Could be. Is that where you would direct our limited police resources?
Answer to John Lascurette:
“I don’t understand how the cyclist had an obstructed view at all. He was going westbound. The bus was on the far side of southbound Vancouver from him. …” lasucurettes at September 15, 2017 at 10:42 pm
“…The van entered what is effectively an unmarked parking lane to pass the bus…” bikeportland reader, riding the bus, describing what he saw associated with the collision.
Forgot to mention: I’m presuming the reader/bus rider was saying the “…unmarked parking lane…”, was on the west side of the street, and therefore, to the right of the bus.
“…The cause seems to be that the bus blocked the cyclist’s view of the driver. …” Hello, Kitty at September 15, 2017 at 2:29 pm
If the parking lane is on the west side of Vancouver, and to the right of the bus, putting the van that was using the parking lane to pass the bus…that could have, for the length of the bus (how long is the bus? Maybe 40′?), put the van out the view of the person riding westward on Tillamook.
The van may not have been out of the riders view, before the van reached the back of the bus before turning into the parking strip in order to pass the bus.
There is said to have been no stop sign or stop light for the person driving the van on Vancouver at that intersection. The person riding on Tillamook, did have a stop sign. The driver of the van had right of way over traffic on Tillamook.
Might the person driving in passing the bus on the right, have violated some traffic law? That might depend. Could be ‘unsafe passing on the right’, or, ‘careless driving’. Links:
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.415
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.135
Passing a bus on the right in the circumstances of this collision site, sounds as though it had the potential to endanger people getting on and off the bus. As has been brought up in the discussion a number of times already, the person riding and that didn’t have the right of way at this intersection, had the responsibility to be sure the way was clear before proceeding. Did he have any opportunity to see the van either waiting behind the bus, or approaching the rear of the bus? If not, why not? If he saw the van behind the bus, and then saw it moving past the bus’s right side, what was his thinking about that? ( one possibility, is perhaps he thought the van was going for a parking spot on the parking strip alongside the bus.).
Rider of the bike didn’t stop at the stop sign. Possibly meaning that if the person driving the van waiting behind the bus before deciding to pass on its right, they might not have seen anyone waiting at the stop sign on Tillamook. Maybe they saw the person riding the bike, approaching the stop sign and expecting they would stop at the sign, giving what the person driving thought may have been enough seconds to safely pass the bus and clear the intersection.
“As I’ve said before, worrying about blame is a distraction from finding ways to prevent this from happening again. That should be our real goal.”
Apologies for introducing rather a red herring here, but I have an additional goal. I also am interested in how to prevent injuries to VRU. But I am further interested in having fair and impartial investigations done in the event that some collision/injury does occur. When I see police reports, or statements from police about “preliminary investigations” that conclude bicyclist error (and nothing else) was the cause of some incident, I want to be sure that the “final investigation” results are also known, and I want to be sure that any injured VRU would have been given the same treatment had they been driving a car instead of walking or riding a bicycle. Oftentimes, the wording of police reports and statements gives away the attitude being taken by the investigators (try hard to exonerate the driver and blame the VRU). In this particular case, it seems that the bicycle rider is guilty of at least two violations: riding while intoxicated, and failure to obey a traffic control device. Maybe we should be glad he was issued a citation so quickly, since the main reason to hold off is so the D.A. can decide whether to file criminal charges. At any rate, I would hope that the conclusion of “failed to stop” was reached by comparing witness statements, and not an assumption reached by way of “bicyclists never stop at STOP signs; therefore, this bicyclist must have not stopped—especially since he was drunk.”
I share your goals. One thing that might help understand what being treated equally means is to look at some police reports where two cars collide. Do those get a higher standard of scrutiny, or do we see poor investigation in bike-car crashes because those are the only cases we (in this forum) look at?
there are far more deaths attributable to walking under the influence than cycling under the influence. the fact that biking under the influence is legally equivalent to driving under the influence is disgusting and immoral.
i should also add that i believe our DUII laws are no where near strict enough. i think sweden’s laws are a good model:
http://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-for-foreign-affairs/diplomatic-portal/diplomatic-guide/9.-respect-for-the-local-laws-and-regulations/9.1-drunk-driving/
Lowering limits, increasing penalties, etc can get you only so far.
For people who have a lot to lose, these things can make a huge difference. But for some of the most dangerous drivers out there like Joel Schrantz, other means are necessary.
Personally, I’d require people to take medication that makes them feel sick if they drank after being convicted with occasional random tests to make sure they complied. But there’s no way that sort of approach would ever be acceptable.
Just be glad it’s not like it was a few decades ago when drunk driving was seen as comical. Some classic films contain scenes like that…
You propose legalization?
we already have laws that can apply to people who are drunk in public.
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/166.023
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/430.399
Are you proposing the law be changed to permit biking while drunk laws, except where it rises to the level of disorderly conduct?
i personally think we should emulate the UK:
https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/media-centre/blog/2015/03/is-it-illegal-to-ride-a-bicycle-when-drunk/
According to https://bikeportland.org/2011/04/27/bike-law-101-biking-under-the-influence-52045, DUII is a class A misdemeanor, which carries a fine of $1000 if convicted.
That seems light for DUII, but is in line with your goals for punishment for riding drunk.
in the UK it’s a *violation* with a fine of up to 1000 pounds and no other consequences.
in OR first time biking under the influence is a misdemeanor crime with a mandatory one year drivers license suspension*, a fine of up to $10000, up to a year in jail, and up to 3 years of probation.
http://www.portlandcriminalattorneyor.com/dui/bicycling-under-the-influence/
*hilarious
DUII laws vary by state — it’s very harsh in some. UK laws sound appropriate for cycling in OR but ridiculously light for driving.
Just for the heck of it, I looked up OR drunk driving laws myself. Penalties are light for first time offenders, though it appears there’s typically a 90 day administrative suspension whether or not you’re convicted and a 1 year suspension if you are. 2nd conviction in 5 years gets you a 3 year suspension and a 3rd conviction gets a permanent suspension. 2nd and further offenses can result in considerable jail time.
Your $10K number is not supported by your link.
Granted this technically possible but is anyone aware of a cyclist who was thrown lost their driver’s license for a year, was required to install an interlock device on their bike, or subject to punishments clearly designed for drivers and equally clearly inappropriate for cyclists?
Keep in mind, the page you pointed to sells legal services. That “a good DUI attorney from Portland” is necessary to keep a judge from ordering an interlock device on a bicycle is absurd.
Donny is an AWESOME lawyer and helped me avoid getting an interlock device on my bike. Highly recommended! Would totally hire again!! Worth every penny!!!!! A++++++++++++++!!!!!1!
it is supported because my link gave a “or more” range. the $10K maximum is in the statute:
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/813.010
The legal limit is 0.035 in the UK except for in scotland where it is 0.022.
UK drink-driving penalties:
* 6 months’ imprisonment
* an unlimited fine
* a driving ban for at least 1 year (3 years if convicted twice in 10 years)
https://www.gov.uk/drink-driving-penalties
I’m guessing there’s not many here would argue that American drunk driving standards are too strict.
Do we know what happened to this guy? Somehow I doubt his driver’s license (presuming he has one) will be in any kind of jeopardy, nor will there be any restrictions placed on his cycling once he’s well enough to do so.
Even if the law is equivalent, nobody thinks of it that way. There are constant PSAs against drunk/buzzed driving. Can’t say I’ve ever heard one suggesting it’s a bad idea for cyclists. I’ve passed through checkpoints to detect drunk drivers, have never heard of this applied to cyclists. Also have never heard of a cyclist needing to serve jail time simply for riding drunk, nor is there the moral outrage.
As far as there being a lot more deaths attributable to walking under the influence, I’ll go out on a limb and guess that the number of drunk peds exceeds the number of drunk cyclists by a couple orders of magnitude, particularly when not in a bike friendly city.
How many of you who have an issue with the cyclist being charged would maintain your position if he collided with a pedestrian or cyclist instead of a bus, particularly if serious injury or death resulted? And since we’re all vehicles, I take it you wouldn’t favor charging a drunk driver who seriously injured themselves and no one else?
Is there any cyclist behavior sufficiently idiоtic and irresponsible that people here won’t line up to justify it? Pretending a drunk who caused an accident that could have easily hurt someone else is ridiculous even for here — and that’s saying a lot.
From scanning the comments, it seems that a large majority here agree with you that the cyclist was justly charged.
Running into things = being run into.
He shouldn’t have been using the roadway while drunk, and he broke the law. I know you have to see me say that or you’ll say I’m defending him.
Also, please tell me how easy it is for a drunk cyclist to cause injury or death to innocent people, and do that with data rather than conjecture.
Because if it’s easy, then there will be numbers available; when many people are hurt by a thing we tend to start running numbers on the thing. But if it’s not easy then perhaps there will be few enough that the numbers for that will be either low or uncounted.
Yes, it’s *possible* for him to hurt people by riding drunkenly into an intersection. But you said it’s *easy* and that’s not the same thing at all.
It’s very easy. All you have to do is run into them. My dad was severely injured by a cyclist who ran into him and he is hardly the only one this has happened to. Btw, senior citizens and kids are way less able to mitigate the situations and the healing periods can be long.
Some months back on this blog, a man asked for assistance identifying a hot and run cyclist who seriously injured his wife.
That cars do more damage is not in dispute, but it is easy to get hurt in a bike wreck.
For those who have trouble believing that running into peds or t-boning cyclists at normal speeds isn’t a great way to get hurt, I’m sure we can construct an experiment where you run into each other on foot and on bike. Who’s on board?
That
I see anecdotes and conjecture.
I do not see data.
Are you looking for data about the frequency and severity of bicycle-on-pedestrian or bicycle-on-bicycle collisions? I would be surprised if that data existed (there’s a lot of interesting data that isn’t collected).
But, as they say, absence of proof is not proof of absence.
“when many people are hurt by a thing we tend to start running numbers on the thing”
I see. So you view the lack of statistics as proof these collisions are either very rare or usually harmless. Kind of the way we can conclude that food poisoning is either rare or harmless because we don’t have good data on the number of people who get sick from bad food each year.
http://time.com/3768003/351000-people-die-of-food-poisoning-globally-every-year/
It’s probably far more. Most food poisoning (in the US, at least, and presumably elsewhere) goes unreported for a variety of reasons. Do you report to health authorities every time you become suddenly violently ill? Even in the US we don’t really know the magnitude of the problem.
think part of the problem with relying on data is that it tends to come from police reports…and in researching SF area bike accidents/crashes there is a common refrain that accidents are under-reported b/c many people refuse medical treatment at the scene of the accident, so no police report is filed.
this is a report focused on 1 hospital in SF which shows that 55% of bike injuries there (most unrelated to car accidents) had no police report associated…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23032807
no data does not mean bike/pedestrian bike/bike doesn’t happen
Nobody is saying that ‘drunk cyclist on pedestrian’ crimes don’t happen. But the fact that we never hear about them suggests they are either pretty rare, or not significant enough to be reported/tracked. Please, somebody dispute that with actual evidence.
Your logic is flawed. “I don’t hear about it so it must not happen”. When was the last time you heard about “Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis”? Kills 50K per year, almost totally unreported. And we collect statistics on it!
Is this just an argument to support the idea that BUII is a victimless crime?
Your equivalence is flawed.
We also have no statistics about people biking to the store. Because it doesn’t happen.
Which is why I proposed the experiment to generate the data. You can help put this issue to rest 🙂
Anyone who has a problem believing that bikes running into other bikes or peds isn’t a great way to get hurt, please identify yourself so we can do a controlled explicable experiment.
I suggest each test “pedestrian” and “cyclist” wear blinders so they can’t see the test “drunk cyclist” who will hit them at a variety of speeds from behind or the side. We can then record injuries, do the normal mathematical tests for significance, and publish our results in a peer reviewed paper.
Everyone seems upset about the clotheslining incidents. Paul, why aren’t you calling ВS on the article since there were no links to studies proving clotheslining is a problem, let alone ones proving association with injury? 😉
“We also have no statistics about people biking to the store. Because it doesn’t happen.”
You seem to be having trouble finding a good example. We know people bike to the store because lots of people here do it. And we see people doing it all the time. And there are bike racks at the store for this purpose.
I don’t know anyone who has been hit by a drunk cyclist while walking. I have never seen it or heard about it. My guess is that most drunk cyclists are moving pretty slowly on crappy bikes and are more a danger to themselves than anyone else. Since we don’t seem to have any data on this epidemic of drunk cyclists running people over, do we at least have some anecdotes? Was Kyle’s dad hit by a drunk cyclist, or just a reckless one?
I guess you’re right. You haven’t heard of it ergo it doesn’t happen. Now that we’ve got that settled, how does it help?
He was hit by a reckless one. If you ask me, drunk = reckless.
The reality is that the density of both cyclists (especially drunk ones) and peds is very low. This means that no matter how irresponsibly you ride, your chances of hitting another cyclist or ped is low. You are still a menace to yourself and others.
Why do you pretend riding drunk is not dangerous? Crashing into people hurts them. Period. Ignoring obvious realities contributes to marginalization of cyclists and cycling.
“Ignoring obvious realities contributes to marginalization of cyclists and cycling.”
What does that actually mean?
I know this is something you have mentioned here before but I confess I don’t understand the mechanics of what you are suggesting.
My point is the same as I’ve made before: we have limited traffic enforcement resources, and should be putting those forces to work where they will be most effective. Start by going after the most common causes! There is data out there that suggests the most common causes of crashes are driving under the influence, failing to signal, failing to yield, drivers who have no business being on the road (unlicensed/uninsured), distracted driving, and of course, speeding (which doesn’t even include the oft-ignored basic speed law, which is probably a factor in the majority of crashes).
What it means is that those who take ridiculous positions help contribute to a public image of cyclists being a group of reality deprived kooks.
This type of advocacy does for cycling what some of Trumр’s most dedicated supporters do for the Republican brand and conservatism in general. Everyone winds up being presumed to be an idiоt, so good ideas and observations get dismissed before they are heard.
This should be a nonstory. Guy rides drunk, causes a crash, is ticketed, and life moves on. Drunk cycling isn’t and shouldn’t be an enforcement priority. But as soon as you crash and get the cops involved, this is what one should expect.
But when people presenting themselves as advocates pretend he’s some kind of victim or that he’s not a threat to other vulnerable road users, the rest of us get to look stuрid by association.
“the rest of us get to look stuрid by association.”
Is that how you think?
I’m sure some people make these lazy generalizations, but I wonder to what extent we should let this kind of thinking dictate how we make sense of the world?
The Geneva Convention looks down on collective punishment.
It doesn’t matter how I think, it matters how lots of people think.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Just mentioning the President’s name in this forum is meant as a slur on someone’s mentality or intelligence. When people on this blog who don’t care for the substance of what I say refer to me as “Trumрiаn” rather than provide substantive feedback, I’m guessing it’s because they’re trying to associate me with number 45 supporters who act like caricatures rather than out of admiration of my executive talent.
We have our own equivalent of those supporters right here on BP, and if you don’t think they doesn’t hurt the images of cyclists, you might try asking in wider circles.
“We have limited traffic enforcement resources, and should be putting those forces to work where they will be most effective.”
Has anyone argued otherwise?
“Maybe if the PPD was doing a bicycle stop sign enforcement, they could have kept this cyclist from getting hit.”
Dan, you seem to be unaware of common methods for presenting arguments.
Rather than give a long explanation as this is a valid subject for an entire course, very few people mean everything they say literally. I hope you don’t take the hyperbole that constantly appears in this forum literally. It would make it seem even more insаnе than it already is.
HK advocated nothing of the sort and was having a bit of sport with you.
Yes… I think you missed the point.
I thought it was funny. Oh well.
kyle bannerjee:
DNFTT
Soren, good point. Still, trоll’s gotta eat 😉
Why do you need numbers to establish that when someone riding a bike, collides with someone on foot, the person walking can easily be hurt, if not by the impact from the bike and rider alone, but by a subsequent fall to the ground as well?
The preliminary investigation by the police, showed that the person riding did not stop at the stop sign. One of the purposes stop signs serve, is to slow vehicle road users down to a stop to give them time to check to be certain the way across the intersections (with crosswalks, bike lanes if the street has them, and main lanes.) of any given intersection is clear.
If he truly didn’t stop at the stop sign, that means he deprived himself of those seconds he might otherwise have used to be certain there wasn’t anyone he could possibly have collided with, that was crossing his direction of travel.
I don’t live in Portland but around here (Seattle) bus stops are mostly placed on the far side of the intersection.. If the bus was a contributing factor than maybe the stop needs to be moved to the other side of the intersection, if anything is to be learned by this incident.
The Versailles treaty on the other hand….
We could keep going back… Magna Carta?
If there is a conflict I’d take the more recent one.
Why all the debate over a cyclist who was drunk and screwed up? I ride drunk every flipping day. I never make stupid mistakes that put me in danger. This story is a waste of time. Ride yet flipping bike. Cover yet ass. Quit whining. Quit pretending bikes are a moral compass. They are not.