BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

If they don't want to pass a 3-foot law, seems like it wouldn't take much of an argument to pass a 0-foot law. If you pass me with less than zero feet of clearance, you lose your license.

Apparently, 3 feet trumps 0 feet in Wisconsin.....

That's ridiculous. If, as you say, the motorist turned left across the path of the cyclist, that is failure to yield, and there's a perfectly good law against that. Calling this unsafe passing is just bizarre.

We already have a 0 ft law, too. 3303.a.1

Would be nice if they enforced that one, and tacked on a decent penalty. Pretty clear cut case when you get passed with <0 ft.

Heck, it'd be nice if people weren't able to just keep driving on suspended licenses.

@JZ Heck, it'd be nice if people weren't able to just keep driving on suspended licenses.

+1

The number one thing that would keep the streets safer. Make so drivers couldn't afford to get their license suspended.

One way or another, they'll get those damn bikes off the roads.

So lots of businesses that have decent security have fancy keycard access to buildings and even computers - why not revamp cars so that you need a valid license and key to get in, where your license is the keycard? You could even have your car tell you how many points on your license, like in Fifth Element (though synching it with local speed limits and collision sensors might be a bit beyond anybody's budget). Then the car could record who started the car (they can't control who loaned their valid license, but if that person would be responsible if anything happened, it might be an improvement). License must sit in cardholder on dash, removal shuts off the car.

Or is that too big brother?

I still say better education and testing is the only real answer. You make it harder to get a license in the first place.. a 2 hour written test and a real driving test. You have to take another written test every 4 or 5 years or so just to make sure you know about law changes, etc. You have reflex, reaction, coordination, and real eyesight tests.

You also make it more expensive, and penalize more for violations.

If you make a drivers license harder to get and more valuable, then the people who have one will do more to ensure that they protect it.

Also, raise the minimum age. 16 is simply too young. A good side effect of raising the minimum age to something like 20 or 25 would be having young people growing up more accustomed to other modes of transportation, such as biking, walking, and public transit. We're raising entire generations who think that all of these things are options for "other people", and that the default mode of getting around is to always own your own motor vehicle, and to use it for all transportation needs.

Personally im thinking a mix of what I have been hearing.

More Education to get a license,

make it harder to get a license,

Raise the Minimum age,

Make it harder to keep a license, i.e. you can lose it much easier (any conviction of any traffic violation should have a fine accompanied by the loss of the license, thank you for playing now go to the end of the line.)

but hey its easy for me to say this, I dont drive.

ejwme, that's too much for me. It would work, but it's too creepy. In general I like the idea of making licenses harder to get and keep. We can advocate bike riding and that helps, but the only way to make a big shift in how people get around is to change the field. The government needs to disincentivise driving and incentivise biking and transit.

Oh - I'm all for making them harder to get and keep, don't get me wrong! I like all the other things people have said on this thread and site in general. It was just something I thought of and didn't remember reading here. I know at one place I worked, when they put that in place (along with new access to the intERnets, not just intRAnets), even though they told us "you can look up news on the internet during your lunch hour, even peruse other, G-rated sites on your own time" absolutely nobody did - they knew they were being tracked.

But that was also a place where people with ak47s determined if you could park your car and get out or not. So yeah, a different perspective. Maybe it'd work in England.

maybe we just need to take full advantage of the existing system: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/nyregion/08license.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

I'm sure some ex-military folks who miss the drill sergeant routine could be coaxed into DMV employ.

If this was the crash referred to above, the article says both were traveling eastbound, so applying the 3-foot law is not so ridiculous.

Perhaps Sarah confused the citation in that case with this left-cross?

It sounds like no charges have been filed in that (year-old) case, in which a 16-year-old driver admits to underage drinking the night before, but hired an ex-DA as his defense lawyer.

This is completely intolerable.

That is the same incident. The recommendation to issue the traffic citation for failure to provide 3 ft. clearance while passing was made late last week. No other charges have been filed or apparently are going to be filed. Updated article here: http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/100166604.html

Let's not encourage parallels between Mr. Parker's death and this incident. Let's hope our DA reaches a conclusion sooner, in the very least? I can't fathom having a loved one die at the hands of another (however unintentional) and being forced to wait a year for any resolution, let alone this one.

This story out of Wisconsin just keeps getting weirder. And, unfortunately, is does have some parallels to Mr. Parker's case -- or at least some encouragement that the local community here needs to remain vigilant.....

Bike club receives response from Iowa County prosecutor who reviewed fatal crash

By Tom Held of the Journal Sentinel

Aug. 16, 2010 |(45) Comments

In a letter to the Spring City Spinners Bicycle Club, an Iowa County prosecutor stands by a decision to not issue a traffic citation against a driver who allegedly caused the death of a club member, Allen Belonger.

Late last month, the club wrote District Attorney Larry Nelson asking why no citation had been issued against the driver who turned in front of Belonger, 62, on July 11, 2009. An accident reconstruction report prepared by State Trooper Thomas Parrott states the driver, then 16, failed to yield the right of way as Belonger rolled downhill on S. Clayhill Rd., traveling an estimated 30 to 35 mph.

Belonger crashed into the side of the pickup truck and was killed almost instantly.

In his response letter, shared on Monday, Nelson said he supports a decision that no citation be issued LARGELY BECAUSE MORE THAN A YEAR HAS PASSED SINCE THE FATALITY. (emphasis added by me..)

On the morning of the crash, a sheriff’s deputy ticketed the driver for homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. The boy, who now lives in New Berlin, had told authorities he was drinking beer with his father the night before the collision.

That citation was dismissed when the drivers' blood-alcohol test came back negative.

Nelson then reviewed the crash reports and determined in January that the driver’s actions didn’t warrant a criminal charge. He made no recommendation regarding a traffic citation, which would be issued by the sheriff’s department.

His letter provides this explanation: “Could I after declining criminal prosecution and having been made aware a citation had not been issued at the scene recommend to the Sheriff’s Department that they issue a citation? Certainly. I expect the Sheriff’s Department would have done so upon my request. I did not do so.

“However, I did not do so out of an affirmative decision not to issue because it may or may not have been warranted. As I stated before, my focus was to review possible criminal charges.”

Laura Fisher, president of the Spring City Spinners Bicycle Club, finds Nelson’s response lacking.

He does not provide a legal reason to not issue a citation, she said.

“I just feel like the answer is ‘I didn’t want to,’” Fisher said Monday.

The club members, along with Belonger’s widow and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin have sought a citation be issued against the driver as a signal that authorities in Iowa County are willing to enforce traffic laws to protect cyclists.

“I think he’s setting a precedent,” Fisher said. “If you kill a cyclist on the road, you’re not even going to get so much as a ticket.”

Nelson said the criticism was unfair.

"As I indicated in my letter, persons can disagree with its content, however it’s one thing to disagree and quite another to make the statement attributed to Ms. Fisher," the prosecutor said. "If a citation was to be issued, it should have been issued at or near the time of the accident, not 13 months later.”

Kevin Hardman, the executive director of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, found Nelson's response to be lacking. It didn't answer the question: why didn't he recommend that a citation be issued in January, at the time he determined no criminal charges were warranted.

"I think the DAs reponse is unbelievable," Hardman said. "He not only didn’t answer the question, he suggested it was because of the passage of time it was more of a bother for him to look into the case."

Fisher said the club members would meet Tuesday night and determine what steps, if any, they will take from here. One likely action would be to turn their attention to Sheriff Steven Michek and ask for his explanation.

In earlier comments, Michek has said it may have been a lack of communication between his office and the district attorney.

completely unacceptable.

One would hope that in Pittsburgh, our DA can come to prompt conclusions that assist local law enforcement in actions to enforce the law, rather than behaving like the Wisconsin DA in this story.

(Translated for the Wisc DA, who doesn't seem to understand that connotation can be accurately gleaned from one's nonverbal clues no matter how dumb one plays: Hopefully our DA doesn't suck like you do.)