Just saw this in a news article...
When it comes to drivers and bicyclists in Orange County, it's as if there are two warring tribes.
The problem is one tribe brought a flyswatter to what might as well be a gunfight. And many in that tribe act like they're invulnerable if not invisible.
Yes, the tribe seriously outmanned and lacking any defensive armor is the cyclists.
The tribe with one and two-ton speeding steel steeds? The drivers.
I'm on a ride-along with Newport Beach police during an operation that focuses on violations that lead to bike vs. vehicle collisions.
Finding cyclists shooting through red lights is about as difficult as catching Charlie Sheen doing something dumb.
Whoosh. There go two riders wearing orange and black Team Duke jerseys ripping through a red light.
Whoosh. There goes another cyclist, this one wearing a blue jersey. She slows to a near-stop, decides Coast Highway is clear and blows the red light.
But blaming cyclists for the crashes that maim and kill (in Orange County we average a cyclist death a month; over half involve crashes) ignores reality.
Sure, there are errant cyclists. And they need to change their behavior. But most cyclists are good people – Team Duke represents the John Wayne Cancer Foundation – and many crashes are driver error.
The law says that cyclists have a legal right to the road. And as drivers and citizens, we have a responsibility to help ensure everyone's safety.
Even if some cyclists – and drivers – behave like Charlie Sheen.
•••
Sgt. Damon Psaros pilots a Chevy Tahoe painted blue and white with the NBPD plastered all over it.
We're at a red light at Coast Highway and Avocado Avenue. Psaros shakes his head in disbelief as the woman in blue pedals through the red saying, under his breath, "With a police vehicle right next to her."
Psaros is supervising day two of Newport Beach's new Bicycle Safety Enforcement Operation. He wasn't planning on pulling anyone over. But geez.
Psaros gives his siren a short blast – wooo – and maneuvers the Tahoe so it blocks other drivers from hitting the cyclist.
Muscular with a buzz cut, he grabs a black mic hanging near an array of computers and radios. The external loud speaker crackles to life. "Please pull a few feet ahead."
The woman complies and dismounts. The goal of the cyclist vs. driver operation is education, not enforcement and this time Psaros lets the cyclist go with a warning. The ticket would have cost more than $400.
The operation is also about building relations with a skittish cycling community that sometimes believes police don't care about them. That attitude annoys me, a cyclist, but it's understandable when your friends are getting killed.
Psaros gives the cyclist the department's new Bicycle Safety brochure. Among other things it states: "Ride in the bicycle lane or the farthest right of the lane."
If you're a driver, that might sound like common sense. But some cyclists have different advice:
"Take the lane."
•••
I ride the road. Sometimes taking a lane makes safety sense, particularly when there are parked cars or a cyclist is turning left. Sometimes it doesn't. But cyclists need to be clear about signaling their intentions, especially when turning.
There is something else in the police department's brochure sure to drive many cyclists bananas: "Ride in single file."
For many recreational cyclists, especially clubs, them's fightin' words.
But Newport Beach Police Chief Jay Johnson's a cyclist himself. He enlisted cyclists for input. He just wants to people to obey the law and to save lives.
California Vehicle Code 21202-A states: "Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic... shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb."
Of group riders, Psaros says, "They're impeding. They shouldn't be riding five abreast."
Like the chief, Psaros is a cyclist. A mountain biking dad who lives in Rancho Santa Margarita, he says he was riding the other week from a trailhead along Live Oak Canyon Road when a car nearly hit him.
Newport Beach averages nearly 100 cycling accidents a year, and Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach have joined them in the educational crackdown/operation. But all cities deal with cyclist vs. vehicle crashes, and the program should be countywide.
The radio crackles. Someone else has broken the law.
This one's a driver.
•••
Finding drivers who break the law is even easier than spotting scofflaw cyclists. I know. I've sat next to them in traffic school.
Psaros stops on Newport Coast Drive. Officer Shawn Dugan gives the driver of a beige sedan a ticket for going 89 mph in a 60 mph zone.
"People driving at that speed," Dugan explains, "can create a vacuum and pull a cyclist into the roadway."
Four cyclists have been killed in Newport Beach in crashes over the last two years. Drivers turning left are especially dangerous.
In the most recent fatality, Feb. 21, police say the cyclist, Amine Britel, was doing everything correctly.
Britel earned his MBA at Harvard, represented Morocco as a triathlete in the 2004 Olympics, and had his own tour company in Newport Beach.
My heart goes out to Britel's family. And it goes out to the driver and her family. She's 22, a year younger than my daughter. But if she's guilty, her life is changed forever.
I check out Britel's bicycle. It's a broken mess of carbon fiber and titanium. It looks like other bikes I've seen hit by cars.
I know a widow and a widower. Both lost their spouses when sober but distracted drivers drifted into bike lanes.
Obey the laws. Share the road. Save a life.
Hopefully she will never get hurt or butt hurt (ticketed!).