Dear Mayor Fitzmaurice and Sgt. Bailey,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) grant that the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) is applying for.
The proposal is titled "Comprehensive Community Traffic Safety Education and Enforcement Program" which sounds like something Santa Cruz could benefit from. After reading the proposal it is apparent that this "comprehensiveness" is primarily focussed on affecting bicyclist and pedestrian behavior, rather than motorist behavior. I encourage you to pursue a more balanced program that focusses both on motorist and bicyclist behavior.
For young children, concentrating on their behavior is justified because they are most likely to make serious errors of judgment around traffic and helping them can have a large safety impact. I fully endorse the portion of the proposal aimed at elementary schools and I encourage the SCPD to continue to working with the Community Traffic Safety Coalition on elementary school education projects.
For middle school children, however, giving them the same old "wear a helmet and watch out for cars" message would be seriously cheating them out of the practical information they need to get around safely. The grant proposal contains no description of the educational curriculum that will be brought to these teenagers. While this vagueness may be a grant-writing strategy to give more leeway in the implementation, I'm concerned that the program will be too simplistic to do any good.
This middle school age group is quite capable of understanding the rules of the road and it is the ideal time to teach them how to operate their bicycles in the same manner that all other vehicles on the road operate. These kids are not old enough to drive but are capable of covering a lot of distance on their bicycles. Failing to teach them the rules of the road for all vehicles, that there are no special rules for bicycles, and that bicyclists belong on the roads (not on sidewalks or in gutters) does them a great disservice.
Presently, our school children do not get comprehensive instruction on how to properly use the roads until they take a driver training class. Yet for years before they are old enough to drive we let them bicycle all over the place, and they do it in all kinds of creative ways. If the SCPD would like to make a real difference in reducing bicycle injuries they will address this educational deficiency at the middle school level.
In terms of correcting the worst bicyclist errors (riding on the wrong side of the road, riding on sidewalks, blowing red lights, riding at night without lights) I am in favor of the SCPD sending these violators to a bicycle traffic school for their own benefit. In terms of improving the safety of the general bicycling population, however, the best thing the SCPD could do is improve motorist behavior.
For bicyclists above a certain level of experience and proficiency in vehicular cycling the greatest danger by far is motorist error. Fortunately most motorists, like most bicyclists, behave responsibly. When a motorist makes a mistake, however, the potential harm to others is orders of magnitude greater than if a bicyclist makes a mistake. Ticketing a bicyclist who screws up is primarily beneficial to that particular cyclist. Removing the worst motorists from the road benefits all road users. If the goal is to improve safety for all road users it is clear where the emphasis should be.
If a motorist ever runs into me on my bike it won't be because he didn't have ample opportunity to see me. It will be because: a) he fell asleep ; b) he badly misjudged where the edge of his vehicle was when passing me ; c) he was too drunk or stoned to recognize his own hand in front of his face ; or d) it was an intentional road rage attack. Fortunately these conditions are rare enough that I don't feel in mortal danger every time I ride my bike on our roads. On the other hand, they happen often enough to be concerned about and I believe the SCPD can play a positive role in reducing them.
The first and foremost priority of the SCPD should be to make sure that any motorist guilty of committing one of the above crimes doesn't get away with it. This means accurately reporting those cases that involve a collision with a bicyclist (particularly when dozens of witnesses give damning testimony against the driver) so that the courts can properly do their job. The SCPD should seriously look at how they record bike/car collisions and make sure they are not guilty of a bias against bicyclists. Collisions are rarely "accidents" and whenever possible the fault should be properly assigned.
Following are some specific suggestions that I would like see incorporated into the language of the proposal and certainly in the implementation of the program.
1) Any education effort aimed at changing bicyclist behavior should be based on teaching vehicular cycling practices. A good source of material for this is the "Effective Cycling" curriculae available through the League of American Bicyclists. The best place for this education is in the middle schools, though it should also be a big part of the bicycle-violators traffic school and part of any public education add campaign. For very young children the SCPD's simpler "helmet" message is quite appropriate.
2) Do not initiate any "crackdown" on bicyclist traffic violations until the bicycle violators traffic school is in place. Paying large fines without any education isn't a recipe for encouraging bicycling or good will in Santa Cruz.
3) Encourage the use of lights on bicycles at night. Unlit, unreflectorized bicycles are the largest cause of hit-from-behind collisions and lack of a headlight is a large contributer to intersection collisions at night. These collisions are easily avoided by proper lighting and increasing the use of lights will probably be the most cost-effective measure the SCPD could take to reduce bicyclist injuries. One suggestion was for the police to provide low-cost bicycle lights to bicyclists caught riding without lights at night. If there is a way to make this work without encouraging dangerous behavior in order to get a free light I'd be in favor of it. Perhaps if the free light was part of the bicycle violators traffic school it could work as intended.
4) Crackdown more heavily on dangerous motorist behavior. People speeding on residential streets and through crosswalks not only intimidates pedestrians but makes it downright perilous to cross the street. I strongly endorse Kevin Karplus' plea to enforce the law that requires motorists to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. A good place to start is the crossing of Laurel Street at Washington (just down the block from the new police station).
5) Practice unbiased reporting of traffic collisions involving bicyclists. Do not let motorists who injure or threaten cyclists through careless or intentional acts get off scot free. This only encourages more of this irresponsible behavior.
I will be unable to attend the hearing Monday morning during work hours but trust that you will take these comments into consideration.
Yours sincerely,
David Leach
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dave@cruzio.com _ \<,_
Santa Cruz, CA ' `/ ' `
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