This Saturday (1/13) will mark the one-year anniversary of when we all first heard about Randy Albright’s lawsuit against TriMet. That lawsuit — which was spurred by Albright being buzzed by a bus on the Hawthorne Bridge — has had a lasting impact on our community in many ways. It led to an “I Share … Read more
In the past I’ve covered what to do if you get hit by a car…but what if you get hit (and seriously injured) by another cyclist? This rare scenario just came in as a Close Call report from a reader named Ben Parsons:
A reader recently sent me a a German news story about police and fixed-gear bicycles. Judging by the photos accompanying the story (below), he suspected (hoped) it was about how some German cops were riding fixed-gear bicycles on their bike patrols. This would be in direct contrast to Portland cops who issue citations to cyclists … Read more
Local lawyer Mark Ginsberg just shared an interesting decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals today on a case involving a ticket given to a cyclist during a Portland Critical Mass ride back in September 2004. Joseph Rowe (who represented himself) was standing on the sidewalk next to his bicycle as the monthly Critical Mass … Read more
BTA Policy Director Scott Bricker has announced their 2007 legislative agenda and the “overarching concern” is safety. They will move three bills and hope to partner with legislators to make them into law. Here are the three bills (with my comments following each one):
A local cyclist, concerned with what she feels is too much “negative police attention on cyclists,” emailed the Mayor’s office after this morning’s enforcement action and has heard a detailed response from one of his staffers: Here is the response as relayed by the Mayor’s “public advocate,” Jeremy Van Keuren:
[Still from interview with Phil and his lawyer. See it at Crank My Chain TV] This morning at the Multnomah County Courthouse nearly 20 cyclists showed up to support Reverend Phil Sano in his trial for an incident that happened on the World Naked Bike Ride last June. The group included BTA Director Evan Manvel, … Read more
Lieutenant Mark Kruger, 2nd in command at the Police Bureau’s Traffic Division had this to say about this morning’s enforcement action at Broadway and Flint: “Today we worked a mission at Broadway and Flint because we have a complaint from the Water Bureau of bicyclists running the stop sign there and creating a hazard. PDOT … Read more
[Reverend Phil Sano] This Wednesday, a colorful and well-known character in Portland’s bike scene, will find himself in court facing 2.5 years in jail. Reverend Phil Sano is on trial for an incident that happened during the World Naked Bike Ride on June 10, 2006. Based on eyewitness statements, and reports published in the Portland … Read more
I just received the bicycle citation numbers from the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division (the Traffic Division writes 80% of all tickets in the Portland metro area). I took the numbers and made a few charts.
[The crux of the problem.] The current Oregon statutes governing the operation of a motor vehicle in a bike lane are confusing and unclear. The Portland Police Bureau found this out the hard way and they want to find a solution and have the laws fixed for good at the upcoming legislative session in Salem.
My Perceptions of enforcement post last week spurred some interesting discussion. Curious about how the perception of my readers differed from the reality of statistics, I asked for people to guess how many tickets were written to bicyclists last month. Of the 74 comments the average guess was around 60. As promised, here are the … Read more