5 Responses to “Bicycle Safety Task Force Holding First Meeting Today”
Comments
November 18th, 2009
I could have been the real-time Cycling Twitter to the Newport Beach Cycling Safety Task Force during their first meeting at 4:00 pm on Monday November 16th. I was bicycle commuting at about 4:30 pm from Newport Center to the IAC Newport North apartments going up Jamboree Road with its three to five lanes each way and no bike lane. The sidewalks past Eastbluff do not have signs allowing bicycles. A UPS truck cautiously accelerated to swerve around my bicycle in the narrow uphill right lane without a bike lane. I might have tweeted the Cycling Safety Task Force with the short message of “Newport Beach bicycle commuter survives right lane with cautious UPS truck.” A Tweet only allows 140 text characters, but GPS and Google Maps would have given the Jamboree location and tracked my ride to Bison Road also without a bike lane and the non-detecting left turn signal at Camelback. Please post in the next meeting agenda if the Cycling Safety Task Force is tweet-able with real-time info about Newport Beach road safety for bicycles.
November 18th, 2009
The Boise Cycling Safety Task Force reported with the Six E’s of bicycle safety including Encouragement whereas the Newport Beach Cycling Safety Task Force confronts a track record of discouragement with police chasing bicycles for vehicle citations. Boise stands tall during 2010 for bicycling safety, but will Newport Beach hide under a stack of CVC 21453 vehicle citations from bicycles futilely trying to trigger traffic signals and cycle through roadways without bike lanes?
November 18th, 2009
The Newport Beach Safe Cycling Task Force differs from the Boise Cycle Safety Task Force as the names indicate. Boise is building bicycle safety while Newport Beach wants safe cycling on roadways and traffic signals that are basically unsafe for bicycles. Newport Beach has the anomaly of fewer traffic signals detecting bicycles than a decade ago and a decreasing percentage of bike lanes. Boise concluded with the six E’s for bicycling safety, but Newport Beach has other E-isms. Newport Beach used economics in buying cheaper signal technology and generating citation revenue. The outcome has been bicycles entrapped by police chases and exploited with vehicle citations to damage driving records and insurance policies.
November 20th, 2009
Bicyclists using hand signals can instigate a police chase in Newport Beach. I have experienced and watched NBPD motorcycle police chase bicyclists with the left arm extended to leave the right curb. When there is no traffic, a bicyclist assumes that the motion sensors will detect them entering a lane and trigger a green light. Newport Beach's replacement of motion sensors with embedded wires do not detect bicycles. A bicyclist with extended left arm is a signal for NBPD officers of a prospect for a moving vehicle citation.
November 21st, 2009
Newport Beach has to stop its resistance to AB-1581 for signal detection and timing of bicycles as voiced by Orange County Traffic Engineer Ron Keith at the last Caltrans meeting. Newport Beach has to share in the responsibility for bicyclists. Newport Beach engineers have replaced motion sensors with inductive wires that do not detect bicycles. And existing bicycle buttons are timed as low as five seconds to cross eight lanes of traffic. Newport Beach’s policy was expressed by NBPD Lieutenant Steve Shulman that a bicyclist is responsible for testing traffic signals. Lt. Shulman explained in a letter that a bicycle should first enter a left lane, then test the signal, and dismount to go across the traffic lanes to the curb for the crosswalk button. Dismounting in a left lane is unsafe. And bicyclists should not be responsible to test signals. Signal technology is available that detects the lighter mass of bicycles. Newport Beach engineers are responsible to buy and monitor technology to accommodate bicycling traffic. In telephone calls, Lt. Shulman and Sgt. Mike James stated that the NBPD will chase bicyclists to contrive CVC 21453 vehicle citations to bicyclists at non-detecting signals. Lt. Shulman also laughed during the telephone call about Newport Beach bicycling. Hopefully, the Task Force will take responsibility for safer cycling.
