Fairfax County cyclist struck by police officer in crosswalk, ticketed like a motor vehicle

Last week a cyclist crossed an intersection against the light, was struck by a police officer and then ticketed. The incident was caught on camera and so got wide reporting. Among other things, it's an example of why vision zero is necessary and difficult. While the cyclist was the only one penalized, he wasn't the only person at fault.

The first mistakes were made in the design of the intersection. The cyclist was riding on a shared-use path on the west side of Route 1. The only way for a path user to cross is to activate the beg button, which then doesn't give much time to cross. And the design of the intersection, with it's rounded corners encourages drivers to speed through the turn. Though not relevant to this incident, once across the intersection, the path has an unnecessary gap just past the curb ramp. So this intersection was designed to move cars quickly and vulnerable users were meant to navigate it with as little impact on drivers (and a rose bush) as they could design. It was a crash waiting to happen.

Next up is the driver. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a police officer to drive safer than the general population. It's not connected to reality, but I think we should expect it. And this police officer didn't. In both videos, the driver starts out well across the Advanced Stop Line. Is that where he stopped when he approached the light? Because if so, he broke the law by stopping too far forward. My sense is that it was, but I'd love more footage to confirm that. I'd also like audio from the dashboard cam, so we could know what the driver was doing at the time. Was he talking on the phone? Did he have his turn signal on? Finally we get the turn itself. Under Virginia law

A. The driver of any vehicle on a highway shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian crossing such highway: 

1. At any clearly marked crosswalk, whether at mid-block or at the end of any block; 

In this case, the cyclist was legally a pedestrian and the driver should have yielded to him.  A driver should not move forward without looking forward. People do it all the time, but they shouldn't. 

The cyclist broke the law, and made a mistake, by crossing against the light. Also, while riding against traffic isn't against the law on the side path, it does require more caution than this cyclist demonstrated as it is more dangerous. 

The ticketing officer, reportedly a supervisor to the officer in the crash, then made two bad decisions. First they chose to ticket the cyclist. The cyclist got hit by a car and went to the hospital. One would think that he's already been punished. Maybe a written warning would suffice? But no, he got a ticket. And then the ticket they gave him was for failure to "pay full time and attention". But here's what the county code says about that:

No person shall operate a motor vehicle upon the highways of this County without giving his full time and attention to the operation of the vehicle

But a bicycle is not a motor vehicle, nor was it being operated on the roadway, since he came off the path. I don't want to nitpick, but this was an odd ticket to write when they could have ticketed him for ignoring the traffic control device.  If the police officer had been on the bike, I wonder if the ticketing would have been the same.

Next, the police chief made a whole list of mistakes in his statement.

Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said “The officer is waiting and checking to make sure the crosswalk is cleared. All of a sudden, the bicyclist makes no attempt to stop and goes right into the crosswalk . . . He’s going the wrong way. He’s going against traffic. He’s going against the red pedestrian signal. Once that bicycle enters the roadway, they’re subject to all the vehicular laws.”

Almost all of that is wrong. If the officer was checking to make sure the crosswalk is cleared, then he did a pretty terrible job of it. The cyclist didn't "suddenly" enter the crosswalk, but approached it at the same speed he crossed it - it's just the driver didn't notice because his full attention was on traffic to his left because he wanted to make a right turn on red.  The cyclist was not going the "wrong way" as a shared-use path is bidirectional. And a bicycle is not subject to vehicular laws when it enters a crosswalk. Again, from Virginia law (emphasis mine)

A person riding a bicycle... on a sidewalk or shared-use path or across a roadway on a crosswalk shall have all the rights and duties of a pedestrian under the same circumstances.

As GGW notes, this is a reason to make Richmond Highway safer, for which a plan exists, and to eliminate right-turn on red. 

Comments

[Contrarian]

I went and looked up the Virginia code section covering right on red, (https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/section46.2-835/ ) because usually when doing a right on red you have to yield to other vehicles. Here’s what I found:

“Such turning traffic shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk and to other traffic using the intersection.”

I was kind of surprised to see that word “lawfully” in there. Generally, the rule in traffic law is that you only worry about yourself. If you have to yield to another driver, it doesn’t matter to you how they got to where they are. So the second part – “other traffic using the intersection” – is what I would have expected. If you’re going right on red, and an opposing driver is making an illegal left turn, you still have to yield to him, you can’t just plow into him. However, drivers only have to yield to pedestrians when they are “lawfully” using the crosswalk!

In Virginia, a cyclist using a sidewalk or crosswalk has the rights and duties of a pedestrian. So if in fact the cyclist was using the crosswalk, and not lawfully, the driver had no obligation to yield.

Makes me wonder how they expect drivers to assess the lawfulness of pedestrians as they decide whether or not to stop for them…

[washycle]

that phrase "lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk" is from the Uniform code and thus shows up in a lot of state's laws. I could find no case on law on how it's been interpreted, but I don't have access to westlaw or anything.

Here's what the federal DOT had to say about it in the 1970's

[contrarian]

Which leads to the question, what's the difference between yielding and avoiding a collision?

[washycle]

I wondered the same thing.

[John]

It's a matter of how you don't hit them. When you "yield", you pause and let them go on their way before you. When you "avoid a collision", you honk, intimidate and swerve in the expectation that the startled pedestrian, acquiescing in your primacy, leaps jumps back out of your way.