DC police shoot fish in barrel. Film at 11.

As reported (and widely commented upon) at DCist, as well as the ever-knowledgable WashCycle, the Metropolitan Police Department had an officer at New Hampshire Avenue north of 16th Street specifically to ticket bicyclists going the wrong way on the wide one-way section of that street this morning.  As a cyclist who got a ticket along with dozens of others, I admit that I was breaking the letter of the law.  The street is one way, yes.  Does it matter that it's wide enough for three cars to drive along side by side?  In the eyes of the law, no.  As far as safety goes, yes -- especially when the nearby streets are clogged with traffic taking up the entire lane and construction workers are blocking off sidewalks, which was the case here.

The real argument here is whether or not this is an effective tool in traffic safety.  All users of the roadways break the law.  Pedestrians sometimes jaywalk, bikes sometimes don't fully stop at stop signs, and drivers speed/don't give the right of way to pedestrians and cyclists/run yellow lights/don't pass bikes with enough clearance/park in bike lanes.  (I might be a little biased.)  If a pedestrian or cyclist breaks the law in such a manner and gets hit, it's their fault, and they'll be the ones injured.  However, if a driver breaks the law in their two-ton steel-and-glass high-velocity contraption, the pedestrian or bicyclist or other vehicle whose right of way was violated is injured, usually pretty badly.

So where should our priorities be placed when operating a traffic sting?

MPD, if you really want cyclists to be safer, start issuing tickets to the people whose behavior makes us less safe.  Start working with cycling communities to educate cyclists on why you think they shouldn't be riding down that wide one-way street.  And, if you see dozens of cyclists breaking a law, figure out what circumstances exist that cause that many people to feel it is safe to break a law.  Perhaps it's because the nearby streets are so dangerous that breaking this law on this section of this street is safer than the alternative. 

And if that's so, then fix it.

Melissa Esposito is the Car-Sharing and Bike-Sharing Program Coordinator for Arlington County and a Metro/bike commuter.

Comments

[Joseph Friday]

Melissa,

When you are already in a hole stop digging.

True a bicycle going 25 MPH will not do as much damage as an SUV going the same speed; however, it will seriously injure any un-helmeted pedestrians it strikes as well as cyclist.

About the construction on V Street, is this a temporary thing? Was V Street the normal route for all these unfortunate scofflaws or did they normally take the short cut until they got caught? I really think the construction/safety "excuse" is pretty lame. If safety was a primary reason, why would these cyclists choose to ride against traffic which is clearly unsafe? I believe that you are using safety to rationalize the use of an illegal shortcut. Just like we all use safety as a rationalization for rolling through stop lights.

Unless this was the first day of the construction and all these bikers found no other way to proceed than go down this one way street you could have planned another legal route.

Now that you and others have been reminded that road is not the proper way to proceed with a massive waste of time (probably more time than was cumulatively saved by taking this shortcut) and a citation, I’m sure more than one cyclist has “found religion” and is paying greater attention to the one-way signs.

[we_live_in_a_police_state]

At least the police didn't assault you and then arrest you for "assaulting " them. See http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/07/29/dcl.cop.decks.cyclist.cnn

[Melissa Esposito]

"I'm surprised that a person who works for county government would try to imply that police should focus on the drivers of cars who break the law and give a pass to the cyclists, simply because cars are bigger."

I don't think we ought to get a pass to do whatever we want as cyclists, nor did I advocate for getting one. Everyone -- drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists -- has a responsibility to act predictably and in the interest of safety.

However, as I state in my post, in the interest of my own safety, I traveled on the empty stretch of road rather than V Street to avoid being crushed in the tangle of cars that converge from V and New Hampshire Avenue. I stopped by again this morning to take some pictures of the melee that intersection causes, especially with the construction that is still taking place, and I can't imagine biking through there safely. Of the twenty or so cyclists who went by in the ten minutes I observed, not one attempted to mix with that traffic. Drivers were honking at each other, not signaling before jerking their wheels to the next lane, and aggressively nudging their way into the mess. It's obviously a problem, and has been for a while or that one block one-way section would not be so popular with cyclists just trying to survive their commute.

I've been cycling on a regular basis in DC for three years now, and I've witnessed all sorts of reprehensible behavior from all sorts of road and sidewalk users. I don't claim that bikers or pedestrians won't cause damage to other people. However, a pedestrian being knocked over by a cyclist does not cause the same sort of trauma that a cyclist or pedestrian being hit by a vehicle does. For example, the 2005 Tour de France had the fastest average speed of all Tours at 25.48 miles per hour. A lightweight bicycle moving at 25 miles per hour doesn't have the same impact when running into something that a 4,000+ pound steel vehicle will at that same speed. And while DC cyclists can gain some speed going down hills, they're hardly chugging along faster than cyclists in the Tour de France. Meanwhile, cars are regularly going faster than 25 miles per hour. I'm simply stating that one issue seems to cause much more damage -- much more often -- than the other.

I also routinely encounter pedestrians who do not follow rules. They cross against the light, they walk in roadways instead of on sidewalks, and they have iPods in that keep them from hearing and paying attention to traffic around them. However, I can recognize that just because a few people do something, it doesn't mean all people in that category are guilty of that offense. Since there are many bikers who wait at lights, who do not ride on crowded sidewalks at high speeds, and other things that you have claimed "never" happen, I challenge you to rethink your own perspective as well. We are all predisposed to only noticing things outside the norm (such as red-light running bike messengers), so we are less likely to notice things that are not taboo (such as cyclists stopping for pedestrians). I hope you don't judge all other groups of people as a whole based on the actions of a few of its members.

[BeyondDC]

Jake, I think the important bit of Melissa’s post was at the very end, where she said:

>if you see dozens of cyclists breaking a law, figure out (why). Perhaps it's because the nearby streets are so dangerous that breaking this law on this section of this street is safer than the alternative. And if that's so, then fix it.

Of course I can’t speak for Melissa, but I don’t think she is advocating that it’s OK to break the law so much as she is advocating for changes to the law that make cycling (and driving around cyclists) safer.

Of course we should follow the law, but the problem here is that law in this case is counterproductive because it makes life more dangerous rather than more safe. Melissa is saying, I think, that it would be in the city’s better interest to expend its energy identifying problems and then writing laws that solve those problems, rather than blindly writing tickets to people who are legitimately trying to do the safest thing possible.

In other words, though it is the citizen’s responsibility to follow the law, it is the government’s responsibility to have the right laws. In this case, the District is not living up to its responsibility.

[JakeinDC]

Wow, I vehemently disagree. Of course, I'm biased too, as a pedestrian who has twice now been slammed into by cyclists -- both times while I was crossing with the light and encountered a cyclist who couldn't be bothered to obey the law.

In fact, your claim that cyclists "sometimes" don't stop at stop signs is contrary to my experience. I've never, in 22 years of living in DC, seen a cyclist stop at a stop sign or red light. Not once. Ever. I've learned, and I now I tell people visiting DC to specifically look for cyclists before crossing streets on a WALK signal.

I even hate walking along GW Parkway Trail with the cyclists flying past so fast. Several signs along the trail tell cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes under a bridge or through a tight stretch in the road. Do they? No.

I'm surprised that a person who works for county government would try to imply that police should focus on the drivers of cars who break the law and give a pass to the cyclists, simply because cars are bigger. No. Do you think a cyclist slamming into a pedestrian isn't going to cause real damage? Honestly? Do you not think that a cyclist disobeying the traffic laws doesn't cause all kinds of traffic problems for cars, pedestrians and other cyclists -- very possibly creating the type of accident you blame solely on car drivers?

You really need to realize -- particularly in your role as cycling advocate for the county -- that cyclists MUST obey the law just like all the rest of us. The laws are in place for everyone's safety and thus apply equally to all who might break them. Issues of how much damage one type of vehicle can do over another are irrelevant.

Please reconsider your perspective in this matter. The police were performing what I feel is a valuable service. I hope they will continue to do so.