Bald Paul

A suspended license means nothing nowadays, it seems. People continue to drive, and if caught, they get a ticket and fine. It's not like they are going to lose their license (and it wouldn't matter to them if they did, they would drive anyway.)
Ideally, if caught driving on a suspended license, the car that person was operating is impounded and crushed, unless reported as stolen, at which point the driver is now charged with felony auto theft. This would prevent family members or friends from letting them borrow their vehicle, and would certainly discourage anyone from driving while suspended. Hit them where it hurts - the wallet.

JoeyBike

I posted a similar linked article to this one here in A&S about a month ago. Since it mentioned George Floyd as a reason the cops don't do their job enforcing traffic laws anymore (as does this linked article) my post got moved to P&R. I didn't protest but moving my post, or this one, away from A&S is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Stats show the roads are getting more dangerous for EVERYBODY due to many causes. This is the point. Not the partly political how and why, which is totally irrelevant to any crushed cyclist who didn't get the memo that the roads are becoming increasingly dangerous.

JoeyBike

I (we) as individuals have very little control over all of the other nincompoops occupying our public roadways. But we DO have 100% control over what WE do to avoid those nincompoops. As the conditions worsened I took actions to protect myself so I don't die waiting for the government to take some (inadequate) action. I ride more circuitous, lonely back streets whenever possible and do my recreational riding on trails, not roads. Others will have a different approach.

My hope is that auto insurance companies all pull out of states that do not legislate and enforce public safety on roadways. Just like flood insurance companies deserted communities that are always flooding. This is our only hope for meaningful change IMO.

Leisesturm

For cops to enforce traffic laws to any effect you'd need a lot more cops. a LOT more cops. Like a million more in NYC. A good 100K more in my city, Portland, OR. We have less than 300. For the whole city. No, the enforcement has to be done at the judicial level. If there were more cops they WOULD just spend all their time over policing ethnic neighborhoods and the only drivers they would interact with are those they profile and not those actually breaking road rules. But when there has been a crash, and maybe loss of life, that's when the courts could do something substantive. Word would get around. People would fear jail more than a suspended license. They wouldn't do things that could get them imprisoned.

Paul Barnard

A few members of this forum scold me when I try to drill down into the why.

Paul Barnard

You don't have to answer this, but I'll ask in hopes of getting you to think about policing from a strategic standpoint. If you were in charge of deploying police forces, where would you deploy them and why? Most police managers deploy forces where there is the most serious crime and the most calls for service.

Most of the time police officers make stops, they don't know the race or gender of the driver. Darkness, window tint, glare and the distance at which the infraction is detected most often preclude it.

Paul Barnard

I'd like to see unmarked distracted driving enforcement units established. In my limited commute, it's rare that I don't see multiple examples of violations of the law coupled with a cell phone distraction. As an example, I'll see someone drift out of their lane, then when I am in a position to see them, there's a cell phone in their face. Same with left lane lurkers on the interstate. With that and insurance companies treating it as seriously as DUI, it might make a difference. I'd also like to see some kind of implied consent law. When someone is involved in a crash, their cell phone data becomes available to investigators. If the phone shows hands on activity, it's a violation of the law.

JW Fas

I wish the states were like the UK in the sense that you could submit video footage online, and then the registered owner gets a notice of intended prosecution.

livedarklions

That article was awful, based on the unsupported bloviating of a couple of cops and pretty much contradicted by everyone else the reporter talked to.

Roughstuff

Remember the 1960's ad slogan: "Watch out for the other guy!"

flangehead

How can we encourage that? For all practical purposes insurance purchase is state-mandated and premiums are adjusted to location. Floods are big single event hazards whereas road carnage is a steady trend. It is not in the lizard’s interest for crashes to eliminated.

Police could focus on public safety instead of just tickets.. not where but how.

I was JRA when suddenly the voice of God boomed “That was an unsafe lane change.” Ends up we have a stealth Camaro patrol unit with a loudspeaker and I suspect a motorist cut him off. 5 second interaction versus at least 15 minutes for a ticket.

Why aren’t egregious speeders sentenced to community service in emergency medical units until they’ve helped at 5 fatalities?

I’m sure you can think of some better ideas for the Cars Police Courts Complex.

There is a big opportunity for changing enforcement to be effective at reducing injury and death on the roads.

But we have to want to change.

livedarklions

I don't know about you, but if I'm in bad enough shape to require EMT rescue, I don't want anyone doing their community service on that call.

GhostRider62

I have known a couple of state troopers who developed PTSD from helping at road fatalities. Being forced to witness road fatality and potentially develop a life altering trauma injury yourself is probably the single worst idea I have read on this forum. Making someone do that 5 times is beyond idiotic.

greatbasin

Road fatalities are not up in my county.

2016 - 4 fatal crashes
2017 - 8 fatal crashes
2018 - 3 fatal crashes
2019 - 9 fatal crashes
2020 - 6 fatal crashes

Distracted driving hardly factors anywhere near as much as alcohol and impairment, which were involved in at least 9 of the 30 fatal crashes here between 2016 and 2022. Distracted driving is reported in the data, but for none of the 30 fatalities.
I don't have complete data for more recent years, but I found 1 fatal crash in 2021 and 2 in 2022.
None involved bicycles and 3 involved pedestrians. One pedestrian was lying across the highway, one exited the vehicle on the highway and walked in the middle of the lane in the dark, and another was a hit and run on a side road in the dark.
Since 2016, the only bicycle-involved fatality in the 3 surrounding counties was a single incident where a bicyclist improperly crossed the road.

I am not a cell phone user. I do not own one. The main takeaway for me is that cell phone users are not nearly so dangerous as drunks, stoners, and tweekers. Bicycling is relatively safe compared to driving motor vehicles at far higher speeds and on dangerous roads. Many of the fatalities we've had are on high-speed roads with no center divider, and a tragic one last year involved a drunk (previously convicted of multiple DUI's) speeding the wrong way on the highway colliding head-on and killing a young woman.

Paul Barnard

I have a hunch that we don't capture nearly all of the distracted driver data. Are cell phone forensics pulled for every crash? There are many distractions other than cell phones. What we do have for data tells us that about 3,000 deaths per year result from cell phone distractions. Drunk driving deaths total about 11,000 per year. Drug driving deaths? I just did a really quick look for that data and couldn't find much. I suspect it's pretty high.

I am curious as to how you concluded that bicycling is relatively safe compared to motor vehicle operation.

How is safe defined in the context in which you used it?
What is the source of the exposure data for each group?
Is exposure tabulated on a per mile basis or a per hour basis?

livedarklions

Motor vehicles definitely create more external danger.

Here's a fun semantics/statistical issue--if a bicyclist is struck and killed by a SUV, is that a bicycling fatality or a motor vehicle fatality?

rumrunn6

I ride roads & bike commute less & ride more paved & unpaved trails + mountain bike. road riding on quiet Sundays can be nice

greatbasin

There is no practical way to do what you're asking. The risk exposure cannot be correlated. That is why I used the conditional term "relatively" and did not claim that bicycling is safe compared to motor vehicle operation. It's understood that such a claim would be unsubstantiated.

Jughed

It's gotten to the point where I don't even want to drive my vehicle on the roads anymore - and its a full sized 2500 pick em up truck, let alone my bike.

Not just alcohol, intitled idiots or cell phones - but the smell of weed coming out of many many vehicles is amazing.

On my early Sunday morning rides, about the only time I will go out and ride on the farm country roads around me, wide open farm country... I have names for the roads. Fireball road, Tito's Court, Lite Beer lane - because empty bottles of these things are strewn everywhere along the side of the road. Fireball road is 8 miles, wide shoulders - awesome road. I counted 57 empty bottles of Fireball on that road in one ride. Small 2oz bottles, and empty pint bottles. Along with empty vodka bottles and beer cans all over the place.

Korina

From the article:
If you make streets (not roads) complex enough to make bike riders and pedestrians comfortable, they will be complex enough that drivers will drive slower and pay more attention. The hard part will be to rein in the vehicular arms race, as auto manufacturers are raking in the money on the gigantic single-occupancy vehicles.

Wasted Tuition

Woah

rumrunn6

repeat offender who faces no consequences is might probably do it again, maybe even brag about it, to his expletive buddies, then they might try it, maybe w/ a bad outcome for a cyclist. report it, maybe get get a camera, next time see if it's the same truck & get the plate, stop the bike, text the plate # to yourself & make the call to report it right there & then. if the cops say they can't do anything about it, just say you are calling to report it & explain what happened again & repeat the description & plate #. the call is recorded. if it happens again w/ the same driver there will be a record. if this keeps going unreported, it doesn't help cyclists

happened to me right in my town, by a Prius driver. both hands on the wheels & his eyes made contact with mine in his rear view mirror. no question it was intentional. he got stopped in traffic shortly after, in front of out police/fire station. I pulled up to his open driver's window & gave him a tongue lashing. he started to say he didn't see me, I called BS & told him I saw him looking right at me while he was doing it. he didn't make contact but it was assault, no battery. I didn't call the cops but maybe I should have

cellery

My brother in christ I've been having these problems with drivers for over 20 years. In 2010 and 2011 each I was hit and nearly killed while cycling by drivers staring down at their phones who each decided to turn their moving vehicles into me while looking downward at their laps into a phone screen. (like, I could see them, because it was night both times and the glare of a phone screen a few inches from a face is unmistakable). Did either driver get cited for this? Of course not. No evidence except a tired cold shivering bicyclist with a broken collarbone sitting in torn hi-viz spandex by the side of the road, next to a pouty cute college student who repeatedly says "sorry officers I couldn't see him" (lit up like a Christmas tree... my emphasis).

Meanwhile we sit here debating the difference between a hybrid and a gravel bike. Never mind that the trend of going back towards 90s mtbs began around 2013 as a way to get the hell away from these licensed to kill distracted psychos without going full bro-brap.

JoeyBike

ME! It's true. Those psychos will have to traverse a lot of vegetation to get a good shot at me these days.

jolly_codger

My sincere apology for the error.
John