An Opinion piece from the Washington Post.
The police showed little interest in finding him. One officer chose to berate me, saying a bicycle is not a vehicle and therefore did not have a right to cross Connecticut at Leland.
Back at the Capital Crescent Trail, the police who had just given me the exact opposite bike-vehicle interpretation did show one consistency with their counterpart at Connecticut Avenue: blame the bicyclist....
And this month, with almost no help from the county police, a county prosecutor won a ruling against the motorist who assaulted me. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail, suspended pending successful completion of probation and eight hours of community service.
During the trial, the driver’s lawyer repeatedly and falsely suggested that a bicyclist had no legal right to cross Connecticut at Leland because no crosswalk was present. The county prosecutor didn’t challenge the contention, apparently because assault would not have been justified either way.
I am sincerely empathic with the author, especially regarding his renal failure, and commend him riding and for pursuing his case against the driver who battered him.
However, I think the economic argument about being nice to cyclists is naive and irrelevant to the behavior of individual motorists. Yes, people want to get to work on time and spend less time in their cars and this desire should be the basis of laws and policies promoting cycling. Drivers, however, want, above all, to drive smoothly, mindlessly, and unhindered by slow traffic. Five decades of abuse suggests to me that many motorists find cyclists on the road simply aversive and irritated motorists are not thinking in terms of maximizing utility. In fact, they often flirt with devastating economic consequences for the evanescent pleasures of vehicular bullying.
We would never make this kind of economic argument against, say, domestic abuse. I think we'd all be better off with stronger law enforcement.
Posted by: Smedley Burkhart | March 29, 2017 at 09:06 AM
I think it would be useful to the cycling community who may be dealing with similar situations if the author provided some details on how he won this ruling. It seems the motorist was found guilty of Assault in 2nd degree but not guilty of Disturbing the Peace/Hindering Passage. I would have thought based on the incident, speeding up to prevent the cyclist from crossing, the opposite rulings would have resulted.
http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/inquiryDetail.jis?caseId=5D00353554&loc=23&detailLoc=DSCR
Of course, my extensive judicial knowledge is based in episodes of LA Law so it's possible I misread that whole document.
Posted by: Big HW | March 29, 2017 at 07:18 PM