Update: sorry, the version I wrote last night did not get saved it seems.
Maillot Jaune: Cyclists only prevail in 41% of their civil cases. Motorcyclists, for example, won 65% of the time 20 years ago (when cyclists only won 45%).
Podium: According to Streetsblog, one way the GOP wants to stabilize the highway trust fund is by cutting the funding for bike-ped projects. One way they don't - raise the gas tax.
Podium: San Francisco is getting five green bike boxes. And Kansas City has worked hard to shed it's reputation as the worst bicycling city in America, by adding 42 miles of bike lanes, the city's first sharrows and two new crossings of the Missouri River.
Maillot Vert: Car makers return to their roots by making bicycles. "According to BMW, the idea behind the bikes is “creating outstanding-looking bikes that are associated with BMW cars by their dynamic lines and exceptional performance”. In other words, they want you to feel as if you've bought a BMW motor."
Maillot a Pois Rouge: Because repaving a bike path would damage tree roots, Garden City, ID made that 1.5 mile section a dismount zone and created a 2.5 mile on-road detour. Bike advocates have sued to open the path to biking.
Maillot Blanc: Mapquest, which uses OpenStreetMap for it's data, now includes bike routes.
Lanterne Rouge: Interesting quote about the TSA searches "In relative terms it is the driving experience which has deteriorated, largely because of traffic congestion. Imagine what flying would be like if they were not allowed to charge you a proper price for the experience." Imagine what driving would be like if we could charge a proper price. Speaking of congestion, it's getting worse in China as they turn in their bicycles for cars (via GGW).
Also, a bike thief tried to put a stolen Ghost Bike on to a bus in Portland (where bike commuting is up again). The driver confronted him about it and convinced him to leave it with the bus driver, who then saw that it was returned. "I said one more time, you know what this is? It's a ghost bike a memorial for someone who died. I tried to tell him what it was," said Ferro.
Photo by sfbike
I'm not sure that a 41% success rate reflects jury bias--it may reflect optimism by cyclist plaintiff's (or their lawyers).
Cases where the outcome is obvious should settle, so we would normally expect that if the lawyers are all good forecasters, then 50% of cyclists and 50% of motorcyclists should win.
The lawyers quoted seemed to expect a bias against motorcycles which was not borne out, which tells me that defense lawyers are failing to settle motorcyclist cases when they are more likely to lose than win, while bicycle plaintiffs are failing to settle when they are more likely lose than win.
But this is only about 10% of the cases in either event. If we knew that the cyclists had a great case in 100% of the cases, then 41% would reflect a serious anti-cyclist bias. But we don't know that at all More typically there is great ambiguity with both parties exhibiting less than perfect driving and a jury forces to consider whose error was the more serious, or whether the motorist or cyclist is more likely to remember whether the cyclist ran a red light.
Nevertheless, there is probably some anti-cyclist bias out there. It takes many forms and we can only hope that voire dire excludes the more serious forms from juries, about which we can do nothing anyway. I should think that any competent lawyer would ask: "Are cyclists more likely to run red lights than motor vehicle drivers" and strike jurors who said yes in a case where that is an issue, unless persuaded that in spite of that tendency the juror would be open minded in this case.
Posted by: Jim | November 22, 2010 at 07:37 AM