Paying Attention to Cyclists in the City of Brotherly Love

Two months ago, Barbara Friedes was riding her bike on Philadelphia’s Spruce Street bike lane. An alleged drunk driver swerved into the lane and hit her from behind.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was left with one fewer doctor than it had before the crash.

To its credit, the local affiliate of CBS News has been following bicycle safety in the City of Brotherly Love. The station’s investigation has not only followed crashes caused by drunk, careless or entitled drivers. It has also pursued such issues as city-issued permits—which the investigators called “questionable”—allowing churches to park in bike lanes on Sundays.

(That reminds me of something that might be touchy in this time of the Israel-Gaza conflict: The ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in my hometown of New York have a history of opposing nearly all bike-favorable policies and infrastructure on the grounds of “religious freedom.”)

Turns out, Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson has also been paying attention. He has introduced a bill nicknamed the “Get Out of the Bike Lane” legislation. If passed, it would increase fines from $75 to $125 for parking or stopping in bike lanes in Center City or University City. Fines for similar infractions in other parts of the city would increase from $50 to $75.

Not Too Famous For Justice, I Hope

 And the big bicycle-related story isn’t about a race or someone who embarked on a world tour to recover from a brush with death or some other life-altering event.

Rather, it’s about a crash. It made headlines mainly because one of its victims is well-known, at least to people—and there are many, including yours truly—who follow the sport he played for a living.

The fact that I not only know about him but also know enough about hockey to appreciate what a great player he was doesn’t make me sadder than if it had happened to someone less famous. Rather, the way he—and his brother—lost their lives while cycling along a rural road in southern New Jersey leaves me even more enraged at the person responsible for  it than I might be if the crash could have been blamed on, say, weather or something else out of his, and the cyclists’ control.

Johnny Gaudreau, a star left wing for the National Hockey League’s Columbus Blue Jackets, and his brother Matthew were pedaling along County Road 551, a two-lane road, in Oldmans Township at around 8:30 last night. An SUV moved toward the center of the road to pass them.

The driver of a Jeep Grand Cherokee wanted to pass the SUV.  He pulled to its right—where the Gaudreau brothers were cycling.

They were pronounced dead at scene. Police took the Jeep’s driver—Sean M. Higgins—into custody. He failed a sobriety test and admitted he’d had “5 to 6” beers before getting behind the wheel of his Jeep. Higgins told police that his alcohol consumption contributed to his impatience and reckless driving.

He is detained in Salem County Correctional Facility  and will have a pre-trial detention hearing on 5 September. He has been charged with two counts of death by auto.

I hope that his punishment is based on his disregard for two human lives and not respecting the rights of two cyclist and not merely on the celebrity of one of his victims. Even more importantly, I hope that a sentence commensurate with his crime sets a precedent for other drivers who kill cyclists. Better yet, I would like to neither nor hear about any more such incidents.

Because We're The "Low Hanging Fruit"

 Five years ago, on Halloween, Sayfullo Saipov drove a rental truck into the bike lane between the Hudson River and the West Side Highway in Manhattan

Even if he hadn't killed eight cyclists, I would've been as terrified:  I have ridden that lane a number of times, for transportation as well as recreation.  For the cyclists who died that day, some of whom were tourists, it was most likely their only ride on that lane.

The fear and grief I have felt since then has turned to rage: Yesterday, during Saipov's trial, US Attorney Jason Richman recalled that the accused was "smiling" when he asked to hang the Islamic State flag in the hospital room where he was confined after the incident.  "He was proud," Richman told the jurors. "He was happy about the terrorist attack...He had done what he came to do."

We don't have the death penalty in New York State.  Federal law still allows for it, however, and since terrorism is a Federal crime, Saipov could be condemned. If he's not, he will be sentenced to life in prison.

Even his defense lawyers concede that Saipov carried out his attack.  They argue, however, that he should be acquitted of a racketeering charge because they dispute the charge that he carried out the attack so that the Islamic State would allow him to join.  They claim that to do something "so awful" (their words), he must already have been an IS member and that he "had an expectation that he would die by police shooting."

In other words, according to the defense, he wasn't carrying out a gang initiation rite.  Instead, he was trying to be a martyr for the cause.  How that absolves him of racketeering is beyond me, which is probably one reason why I'm not a lawyer.

Whatever Saipov's motives, to me he's no different from the motorist who yelled "More of you should be killed" to cyclists who staged a "die-in" where a truck driver ran down Sarah Schick, a 37-year-old mother of two.  She was riding down a bike lane along Brooklyn's Ninth Street that is protected up from Prospect Park West to Third Avenue, but is separated from a major truck route by nothing more than a couple of lines of paint west of Third--at the exact point where a mixed residential and commercial zone turns into an industrial area.  I know it well:  I used to ride that way quite often when I was living in Park Slope--and there wasn't any bike lane at all on Ninth, or almost anywhere else in the neighborhood outside of Prospect Park.  

Photo by Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog

That motorist and Saipov are also no different from a colleague who, during my second year at Hostos, remarked, "When I see bicyclists, I'd love to run them down." When I told her I am a cyclist, she accused me of "overreacting" and complained to HR.  When I told them about her comment, they said there was "nothing we can do" and questioned my motives for taking umbrage.  "Well, that wasn't any different from saying I should die because I'm trans.  She's saying I should die because of who I am." The HR person dismissed my comparison because cyclists aren't a "protected category" but admonished me to "watch what you say" because that faculty member was a member of a "protected minority"--as if I wasn't.

Anyway, I am disgusted by the way people can so casually call for, or even commit, violence against cyclists.  While Saipov may not have been targeting cyclists because they were cyclists, I am guessing that he saw them as the "low-hanging fruit" to carry out his gang initiation or bid for martryrdom. In that sense, he is no different from the motorist or colleague I've mentioned.   

Is A Cyclist's Life Worth $1166 And 12 Hours?

In some recent posts, I have taken heart in the fact that some drivers are being held to account in meaningful ways for injuring or killing cyclists.

Still, there have been many more incidents in which drivers got off with the proverbial "slap on the wrist."

Troy Manz was doing a 72-hour "sea to sea" race from Florida's Gulf to Atlantic coasts in February of last year.  The former Marine turned emergency flight doctor and National Guardsman.  He and his fiancee, Trish Wilkinson were just 20 miles from their destination--St. Augustine Beach (where I've pedaled during every trip to my parents' house) when they and a friend, Barbara Gilmore, were struck from behind by a car going about 70 miles per hour.  

Wilkinson and Gilmore were taken to the hospital and treated for their injuries.  Manz, however, died at the scene.

Last week they testified in a traffic case against the driver, Jonathan Quick.  While his blood alcohol level was determined to be below the legal limit, conditions were clear and, as Wilkinson recalled, "we took every precaution, we did everything safely."  They all wore helmets and had lights on the front and rear of their bikes.  Moreover, they complied with all relevant traffic laws, according to the Florida Highway Patrol report of the incident.

Quick was initially charged with careless driving and failure to yield the right of way. The judge in last week's hearing upheld the latter charge but dropped the one for careless driving.  As a result, Quick was sentenced to 12 hours of driver improvement school and an $1166 fine.

So..was that judge saying that Troy Manz's life was worth only $1166 and 12 hours?

Perhaps not surprisingly, Quick had a history of driving infractions before he ran into Manz, Wilkinson and Gilmore.  "I'm very concerned that this is going to happen to someone else and nothing that happened in the court system will keep the keys out of his hand or  will be any sort of repercussion," Wilkinson lamented.

She astutely identified the problem:  Such lenient sentences do nothing to prevent future incidents and, really, give no incentive for scofflaw drivers to change their behavior.

She Couldn't Run Far Enough

Too often, drivers get away with murder on cyclists.

I mean that literally.  I have heard and read of too many cases in which a driver who was intoxicated, distracted, malicious or just plain careless rand down someone on a bicycle and never faced any sort of consequence.

Too often, cyclists are seen as folks who "just won't grow up and drive".  Or we're poor, which is just as much of a crime as anything else in a capitalist society.

Either way, authorities think we're inconsequential--or that we "had it coming" to us.

Now, there have been exceptions, and I've reported on a few.  In particular, I am thinking of the arrest, prosecution and sentencing of Charles Pickett Jr., who mowed down five cyclists near Kalamazoo, Michigan two and a half years ago.  He was given a 40-to-75-year prison sentence, with no possiblity of early release.  Given that he had already served two years when he was sentenced, he has another 37-1/2 years to go--which means he won't be eligible for parole until he's 90.

Today I learned of another example of diligence by law enforcement officials in pursuit of a motorist who killed a cyclist.  I must say, the officials involved in this case went well beyond those involved in any other incident of which I'm aware.

Augustin Rodriguez Jr.

In January 2017, Augustin Rodriguez was pedaling to work in Whittier, California.  He wouldn't make it:  a white Lexus plowed into him from behind.

After hitting Rodriguez, that driver "slowed down briefly and then sped up," dragging him several hundred feet under the car, according to FBI documents.  Then the driver fled.

Fifteen minutes later, medics declared Rodriguez dead at the scene.

 A week after that, an anonymous caller pointed Whittier police in the direction of that Lexus' driver:  one Andrea Dorothy Chan Reyes.  She, too, was on her way to work--and running late.   Then she kept on running.

Andrea Dorothy Chan Reyes

She was identified as the driver after employees at a local body shop confirmed that they did front-end work and replaced a broken windshield for Chan Reyes, who claimed that she struck a deer.

Police then searched for the Lexus, which was nowhere to be found--until a string of clues led investigators a month later to Idaho, where the vehicle was found in a garage of a business associate of Chan Reyes.  DNA testing confirmed that the car was indeed the one she drove when she mowed down Rodriguez.

But now Chan Reyes was nowhere to be found.  Five days after the crash, she high-tailed it to Hong Kong, where she has family. Over the next year, she hopscotched between Asia and Australia, using as many as 11 different aliases.

Finally, in April of this year, she was tracked down to Adelaide, Australia, where local police honored a provisional request from the US government and arrested Chan Reyes at the home of her new boyfriend.  She has been in an Australian prison ever since.  

Later this month, a court will rule on her bail request. The expectation is that she will be denied and extradited back to the US, where she would face multiple felony charges.

Whittier police spokesperson John Scoggins would not comment on the case except to say that his department was determined to bring an alleged hit-and-run driver to justice, no matter how far or how long she ran.

I commend his dedication.  I must, however, criticize his choice of one particular word.  To be fair, most people in his circumstances would have used it:  justice.  In a case like this, justice is simply not possible, for justice--whatever it is--cannot bring back a life.  Nor can it "balance the scales" for someone's disregard for said life.   There simply is no justice when one person takes the life of another, in whatever fashion.

The only good outcome in this case--or any like it--is that the authorities take it seriously.  That is to say, they treated it as what it is--one person killing another through negligence or disdain.