CYCLES

League Membership: To Renew or Not to Renew

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 25 May 2011 02:25:50 GMT

Some members of the League of American Bicyclists are frustrated and disillusioned with the League due to its recent policies and actions, and are considering allowing their membership to expire. Ian Cooper and Mark Sauerwald are two such members. Each of them expressed their feeling in a letter to the League's Director of Membership, Scott Williams. I am publishing these letters below, with the authors' permission. (I have made a few minor corrections.)

Hello Scott,

Just a note to say thank you for sending me a reminder to renew my membership. However, I will not be renewing. I hope the League is interested to know why.

When I joined a year ago, I was perhaps naive in thinking that a cycling advocacy organization would be interested - fanatical even - about defending the rights of responsible cyclists. As the year progressed, I found that in many cases the League has a very limited view of who and what they're willing to support, and that the organization is more concerned with industry lobbying, supporting off-road bicycle infrastructure and getting new cyclists onto bikes, than it is with defending the rights of established cyclists to operate on the bicycle infrastructure that we've had for over a century (by which I mean the road). As I see it, the League seems only interested in defending cyclists who support the League's preferred mode of cycling - a mode that does not include those of us who are used to cycling lawfully and safely on the road.

A big turning point in my willingness to support the League came when I found that the organization had decided not to support Reed Bates in his appeal of convictions stemming from what was in my view a judge's misunderstanding of the law. Mr. Bates was, as far as I can tell, riding legally and safely on the road. He went to jail for committing the crime of being in the way of an inattentive driver (a crime which exists only in the judge's mind), and the LAB did nothing to help.

I believe that supporting a cyclist's right to ride a bicycle on the road should be the first priority of any cyclist advocacy group. I don't care that the League felt the Reed Bates case was a fight that could not be won. Some fights have to be fought, whether they are lost causes or not, and this was a big one.

The final straw was the actions that the League took to deny John Brooking, Eli Damon and Khalil Spencer from running for a place on the LAB board. I do not want to be a member of an organization which is not responsive to its membership. This showed me that the LAB is no longer a democracy. As such, even though I want to work to bring LAB back to its mission, there is no longer any way to do that within the LAB.

As things stand, the LAB seems to feel that people who cycle on the road - those of us who commute to work, we who run errands on the bike, and those of us who do long-distance touring, are disposable. I guarantee you we are not! We may not buy as much bicycle gear as the League's favored 'weekend cyclists', and we may ride bicycles that are decades old and that we maintain ourselves without visiting a bike shop, but I assure you we are many - a silent majority, and we see quite clearly what the LAB is doing. The League ignores us at its peril.

I will continue to monitor the LAB, to see if it is able to turn around and become the advocacy group it was always meant to be. If it continues to be more of a bicycle industry lobbying group, and if it continues to support off-road infrastructure that marginalizes cycling, it will undoubtedly fall by the wayside and be replaced by another group that IS willing to fight for a cyclist's right to the road and that IS willing to fight for the truly safe cycling that can ONLY take place if bicyclists operate on the road like any other vehicle.

I hope that LAB is able to take a good hard look at its recent decisions, because I feel the future health of the organization is at stake. It would be a sad day indeed if the LAB's long history were to be cut short by a few years of ill-considered policy decisions.

--
Ian Cooper
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Scott
I have decided not to renew my membership in the LAB.   The reasons for this include:
1) The failure of LAB to do anything to help support Reed Bates in his issues (I have read the note from Andy giving reasons, but I feel strongly that LAB should be defending my right to ride my bicycle on the roads before they do anything else).   If the LAB stands by silently as Reed is convicted of impeding traffic because he was asserting his right to ride a bicycle on the roadway, then they are in essence, condoning that judgement. I cannot be a member of a group that would stand by without comment when my rights are being so abused.

2) The refusal of LAB to allow Eli Damon, Khalil Spencer and John Brooking run for a seat on the LAB board.   Having been deprived of the opportunity to vote for someone who represents my views on the LAB board, I do not feel that I belong to the LAB as a member.

I sincerely hope that the LAB will evolve into an organization that advocates for the type of bicycle riding that is a part of my life, and if it does, I will be happy to join.   Unfortunately I do not feel represented by the league as it now stands.
Thank you
Mark Sauerwald

For more information on the election, see A Candidate's Experience. For more information on the Reed Bates case, see Persecution, Abandonment, and Betrayal: Comments on the Reed Bates Saga. I urge other League members to express their thoughts and feelings on the League's recent policies and actions to its directors and/or staff. I you are willing, I would be happy to publish your correspondence.

Letter to Big Y Regarding Bike Parking and Bikes in Stores

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:24:00 GMT

I submitted this letter to Big Y through the "Contact Us" form on their website. It concerns their bicycle parking facilities and their policy of prohibiting bicycles in their stores.

Dear Big Y:

I recently became aware of a couple of problems faced by customers who arrive at your stores by bicycle, such as myself.

The first problem is that of inadequate parking structures for bicycles, at least at your Amherst/Hadley store. The store does have a bike rack, and I believe that its capacity is sufficient for the time being. However, it's location is not obvious and is not the most convenient for some customers. I discovered this during a recent trip to the Amherst/Hadley store. I pulled up to the door near the customer service desk and express lane, where there had previous been a rack, and found no rack and no indication where bicycles could be securely parked. Also, the rack at this store is of a type that is far from the most secure or convenient. This type of bike rack is also known to sometimes bend the wheels of bikes, and is incompatible with fenders and with many non-standard frames. A much better type of rack that is free of all of these issues is the inverted U type.

The second problem is your policy of prohibiting bicycles in the stores. Even with adequate parking, it is sometimes more convenient to bring the bike into the store and use it as others would use a shopping cart. This eliminates the inconvenience of locking up, removing bags and accessories, carrying them around in the store, reattaching them, and unlocking the bike. Since a bike is smaller than a shopping cart, this should pose no problem to staff or other customers. I am told that the official reasoning behind this policy is that the presence of bicycles in the store poses a danger to other customers, who might trip over them. However, this does not ring true for me. While it might very well be the case that a customer has tripped on a bicycle in the past, I am highly skeptical of the claim that the bicycle creates a greater risk of injury than would otherwise exist. After all, a customer could just as easily trip on something else. I am confident that an objective analysis of injury data would bear this out.

I urge you to reconsider your policies regarding both bicycle parking and bicycles in the stores. Feel free to call or email me to discuss these issues further.

A Candidate's Experience

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:48:00 GMT

Since the start of my campaign with the Coalition to Reform LAB (LAB Reform) to become a director of the League of American Bicyclists, I have found the League to be more desperately in need of reform than I had previously suspected. I knew that the League's directors and officers were consistently unresponsive and uncommunicative, which had frustrated me earlier. I knew that the League often put out messages that seemed to undermine its mission. But, during my campaign, I discovered, beyond these problems, that the League's governance, which is nominally democratic, was quite dysfunctionally undemocratic in reality. The problems came in several forms:

unreasonable bylaws
other unreasonable policies, written and unwritten, generally involving the withholding of information;
deviations from bylaws and other written policies;
nonsensical interpretations of bylaws and written policies by directors and officers;
directors failing to perform their duties.

In this article, I document my experience of the League's governance during the campaign.

A Note on the Writing Process
Bylaws, Policies, and Deviations Thereof
My Correspondence with Directors and Officers
What Now?
Messages to Tim Young

A Note on the Writing Process

My primary purpose in writing this article is that of documentation, not persuasion. I have not attempted to rigorously demonstrate any conclusions. However, in considering my experience along with with that of my colleagues, I cannot help but reach some conclusions. As a lifetime League member, as someone who is passionate about cycling, and as someone who reveres the democratic process, I have very strong feelings about what I witnessed these past few months.

These feeling inspired me, in an earlier draft of this article, to write much more forcefully than what you are reading here. After sending out my earlier draft to a few people and considering their feedback, I came to realize, after a full week of consideration that my rhetoric was obscuring the facts. It was humbling to resist expressing the full strength of my feelings, but I rewrote the article, attempting to take a cooler tone. How successful I was in this attempt could be debated, but, even so, I felt the need the include this note as a stub of what I removed from my earlier draft.

Bylaws, Policies, and Deviations Thereof

Bylaws

Over the past fifteen years, the League's bylaws have been amended several times so as give the board of directors more power and the members less, particularly over the selection of future directors and officers, imposing increasingly higher barriers to director candidates who lack the extant board's approval. I am told that these amendments were made without input from the members, without even making much of an effort to inform the members.

Before 1998, all directors were elected by the members (with a few idiosyncratic exceptions). The bylaws were changed in 1998 to allow 4 of the 12 directorships to be filled by appointment by the extant board of directors. This number was increased to 5 out of 12 in 2003, and to 7 out of 15 in 2010.

Beginning next year, each region of the country will no longer be granted a representative on the board of directors, elected by members from that region. All directorships will be at-large positions.

Candidates for elected directorships, in order to have their names put on the ballot, must be nominated by the extant board of directors, or by petition of the members. In 2003, the number of member endorsements needed for a successful nomination petition was increased from 50 members to 5% of the members (10% for a referendum petition). The League currently has about 15,000 members, 5% of which is about 750 members. For the upcoming election, the board nominated 8 of the 23 applicants, 4 of them incumbents, for 5 open directorships. That is less than 2 nominees per open position.

The League has not published vote counts for its elections since 2002, and was not consistent about doing so for many years before that, but it is almost certain that the approximately 400 members who endorsed the petition to nominate me, John Brooking, and Khalil Spencer, is more than the total number of ballots cast in any League election for many years.

The current bylaws also give the chair of the board of directors (currently Hans van Naerssen) excessive power beyond his or her power as a director, such as the authority to remove any member of a committee from that committee without the approval of other directors.

Policies

In addition to the amendments to the bylaws, the board of directors has enacted policies, written and unwritten to complement them. Many of these policies involve the withholding of information from the members. For example, I already mentioned that vote counts for elections are not published. Also not published are applications for appointment or nomination and the reasoning used in selecting applicants for appointing or nominating. Strangely, some candidates who were not nominated received as many or more votes in the governance committee than some candidates who were nominated.

The League does little reporting on its projects, on the work of the board directors or its committees, or on the work of individual directors.

The League's specification of the petition process is vague and is not integrated with the rest of the process for selecting directors. This vagueness played a big role in the contention between LAB Reform and the League's leaders during the campaign.

The League's written policy on the use of its membership database imposes an excessively high barrier to members who wish to communicate important information about the League to other members. In particular, the policy requires any message to be approved by the board of directors in advance in order for it to be distributed to the members. This requirement is imposed under the guise of preventing libel. However, the risk of harm from libelous statements sent between members seems trivial compared to the actual harm of stifling communication between members. Moreover, this reasoning appears disingenuous in light of unsupported accusations of libel, an example of which I mention below, as well as a lack of any real problem of libel.

Deviations

But, as I found out, bylaws and other policies do not tell the whole story. Some of the League's directors and officers violated the bylaws and policies when it suited their purposes.

The board of directors violated the bylaws regarding the ratio of appointed directorships to elected directorships in making 2 of the 3 new directorships appointed and only 1 elected, rather than the other way around.

The board also voted on the governance committee's appointment and nomination recommendations without allowing the discussion period required by the bylaws.

Tim Young, the chair of the governance committee, did not announce the board's appointments and nominations until 09/08/2010, seven days after the scheduled date of 09/01/2010. His announcement did not acknowledge being late. This would have cut into our 45-day petition period if the board did not adjust the rest of the election schedule to compensate.

My Correspondence with Directors and Officers

The Petition Process

As I mentioned above, the League's bylaws and other written policies regarding the petition are quite vague. Tim Young's email message of 09/08/2010 about the board's appointments and nominations contained no information about the process. After receiving his message, I immediately called him and asked about it.

He claimed not to know anything about the petition process. This might seem reasonable until you take into account that he is the chair of the governance committee. If his claim is true, then he would seem to be derelict in his duty, since the chair of the governance committee, more than anyone else, should know about the petition process. Indeed, it is the the governance committee that is responsible for specifying this process. If his claim is false, then it would seem that he lied and thus deliberately interfered with the election.

He also made a comment that seemed to be intended to discourage me from pursuing a petition. He said that there were other ways I could serve the League besides serving as a director. I admit that an argument could be made for this comment being an innocent one, but that was not my impression. He did not refer to any of the reasons I gave in my application or earlier in the conversation for pursuing a directorship. My impression was reinforced when he repeated the comment later on.

Tim did not get back to me about the petition process until five days later, on 09/13/2010. When he did, he sent an email message that merely referred me to the League's bylaws and its written policy on the "Use of League’s Membership List by Members", which were vague, somewhat cryptic, and had been available to me earlier. If Tim had believed the bylaws adequately specified the petition process, he should have referred me to them earlier. He repeated the same comment that seemed to be intended to discourage me from pursuing a petition.

After receiving Tim's response and determining it to be inadequate, I immediately called him again to ask for more information. He said that he was busy and would have to call me back later. He never called me back, so I never got the opportunity to ask my question, let alone get answers. He did not even refuse to answer my questions, but allowed me to wait indefinitely for a callback. He was also uncooperative with John Brooking when John attempted to get information from him about the petition process. Eventually, we (the petition candidates) had to guess at the answers to our questions and act on those guesses.

When I finally called Tim again, on 10/04/2010, after John Brooking emailed him about sending a message to the members, on 10/02/2010, he refused to discuss the matter with me because I was not the one who had sent the initial message, despite clearly being a party to that message. I complained to him that he had not given me the opportunity to ask him about sending a message to the members when I asked about it, and other things, several weeks earlier. He answered that he thought the bylaws were adequate to answer my questions, and that referring me to them fulfilled his responsibility, despite my telling him earlier that the bylaws were not adequate to answer my questions.

"Written" Correspondence

Both Tim Young and Andy Clarke, the League's president, insisted on particular correspondence being sent on paper rather than by email, despite the overwhelming majority of the League's business, including the election itself, being conducted online. This included the submission of our petition and our request to send a message to the members. It included the full list of members, which we considered requesting for the purpose of distributing a message to the members about our petition. The list would have been accessed and formatted on a computer at the League office and printed onto a thick stack of paper that would have then been sent to one of us and re-entered into a computer. We would have had to pay a substantial fee for this “service”, which could have been performed by email with no work and no expense. The correspondence that Tim and Andy insisted on being sent on paper also included the distribution of our message to the members. This would have cost us several thousand dollars, which was prohibitive, and would have taken about a week to deliver, time that we did not have because much of the nominal 45-day petition period was wasted waiting for Tim's callback. John Brooking compiled a timeline of our activities to give a clearer picture of this.

Tim and Andy's excuse for insisting on this correspondence being sent on paper rested on the phrase “written statement” in the League's policies. They insisted that the phrase meant a statement printed on paper rather then sent in electronic form. However, this interpretation is not consistent with either of the two definitions of “written” that I am aware of. One is “hand-written” as opposed to “printed by a machine”. Of course, no one would take them seriously if they insisted on hand-written correspondence. The other is “recorded in text form” as opposed to “spoken”. This is the only reasonable definition in this context. There is simply no meaning of the common English word “written” that would include a statement printed on paper by a computer printer and physically transported to its recipient and exclude a statement sent by email.

A Message to the Members

When John Brooking contacted BrightKey, Inc., the League's fulfillment house, about having them send a message about our petition to the League's members, Andy Clarke scolded him for it, as if it was a breach of ethics. The League's written policy on the use of the membership database offers three options: (1) accessing it in-person at the League office, (2) purchasing a print-out from the League, and (3) “engaging the services of the fulfillment house which is under contract with the League...” Andy told John that John had no business contacting BrightKey, and that all communication with BrightKey should be made through him (Andy). This contradicts the stated purpose of the fulfillment house. John had every right to contact a company whose services he was considering engaging.

In the same message, Andy asserted that content on the LAB Reform website was exemplary of what would not be allowed in a message to the members because it is either libelous or it makes the League vulnerable to libel lawsuits. He did not specify which statements of fact on the LAB Reform website he believed to be deliberately false and malicious.

In the end, we were unable to send our message to the bulk of the members. Having acquired 400 endorsements from the members we were able to contact, it seems overwhelmingly likely that we would have acquired endorsements from 5% of the members (about 750 endorsements) had we succeeded in contacting the bulk of the members.

Petition Signing Eligibility

Finally, as we were preparing to submit the petition, Andy informed us that anyone who had not been a member since 09/13/2010 would not be considered a qualified signer of the petition. All signatures from members who had joined the League since then would be ignored. The effect of this was not large; only about 20 signatures were excluded on this basis. However, This rule does not follow from the bylaws or any written policy that I have seen, such as the information about the election published on the League's website. It was also not expressed earlier by either of the directors I spoke to about the petition, Bill Hoffman and Tim Young. Remember that Tim Young is the chair of the governance committee and that I asked Tim about the petition process and that three times he pointed me to the bylaws and would not say anything more.

I mentioned Andy's rule to one of our supporters, who I had recently recruited to the League. Frustrated, she wrote him to retract her membership. In his response to her, Andy blamed me for making “untested assumptions”. (Remember that we made our assumptions only after failing to get detailed information about the petition process.)

He also stated that

[i]n every election we have run for the board as long as I have been on the staff, the board has determined a set date at which the eligibility of members to vote is set – it is always at the start of the election cycle, and in the case of the petition process it has to be at the start of the process so we can determine how many names are needed to qualify.

His statement defies the following facts.

As I said before, the deadline was apparently never published.
He mentions only a deadline for eligibility to vote, not to sign a petition. I suspect that we were the first petition candidates in many years.
Petitioners need not inform Andy or the board in advance of their intent to petition, so there is nothing to trigger a count of the members in advance.
The task of determining, on any given date, the number of members as of any given preceding date is trivial. There is no reason not to set the deadline at the date the petition is submitted. This is the most natural choice.
Despite me and John Brooking sharing our intention to petition with Tim Young and our asking him for details of the petition process, we were not given a definitive count of the members as of any particular date until after we had submitted the petition, read Andy's analysis of it, and then specifically asked him for the count.
The ability to recruit new members is an asset for a director. Director candidates should be rewarded for recruiting new members.

What Now?

We have secured much support in this campaign. As I said before, we secured endorsements from more members than have probably voted in any League election in many years. Moreover, these endorsements, on the whole, came from the League's most active and valuable members. Many of those who signed our petition were League Cycling Instructors. Some are from lifetime members, former directors, and even former League presidents and current director nominees. I hope that, even though we failed to fulfill the League's formal signature requirement, this support will help to inspire reform in the League of American Bicyclists.

Messages to Tim Young

After publishing this article, I pointed the board of directors and some officers to it, hoping that they would comment. My goal was to initiate an open discussion about the League's governance. I received very little response. However, I did receive a very brief comment from Tim Young. This comment led me to respond with some points that I thought were worth sharing.

Dear Tim.

Needless to say, there has been some contention between us during the past few months. My attempts to communicate with you have been quite frustrating, and I see no reason why that should be.

I wrote an article documenting my experience of the campaign. You can read it at <http://cycles.eli-damon.info/2010/11/02/a-candidates-experience.aspx>, if you have not seen it already. I must warn you that it is critical of you. But I wrote the article to start a discussion, not end one. My first impulse was to issue a harsh condemnation, but my cooler-headed colleagues convinced me that doing so would close communication, not open it, that it would be better to calm down, withhold judgement, and simply report on my experience.

I hope that you will read it and give a thoughtful response. It could lead to a productive discussion, not just between us, but throughout the League community. I believe that such a discussion is desperately needed. There has been a terrible lack of communication in the League community, and that needs to change. Activism cannot be effective without communication.

Please feel free to contact me by phone, email, or through comments on my blog.

Eli

Honestly Eli, I don't know how to respond to this. Please consider the reality that other people were more qualified than you to serve on the League Board and move on.

Tim.

I made a number of points. You have not addressed any of them. None of them relate to my qualifications, so I don't know why you are bringing up that topic now.

But since you did bring it up, I have seen no evidence of or arguments for your claim that other candidates were more qualified. I did ask you about that, but I did not get much of an answer, and very little information has been made available to me.

You seem to be suggesting that becoming a director was my end goal. I chose to run for a directorship because I saw some problems that needed to be fixed. I would rather they have been fixed without my effort, but I did not expect that to happen. Now I see that the problems are worse than I thought. This is not about me. It is about the League's governance. My ego is certainly not bruised by my failure to become a director. I am upset about what the attempt to become one revealed about the League.

I implore you to take responsibility for the kind of operation you run. Your behavior over the past few months was really out of line with your duty. I urge you to join the conversation that has been going on all around you this whole time, since long before I became involved. In your position of leadership, you should not just be participating in the discussion, you should be leading it. Be a leader, Tim.

Eli

I was hoping that Tim would reply, but so far he has not.

Charges Dismissed

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:17:00 GMT

Good News

On 09/14/2010, I received an email from my lawyer regarding the hearing that had been held on 09/08/2010. It included this page from Judge John Payne, indicating that he was allowing my motion to dismiss the criminal charges. (It is totally illegible but trust me; that is what it says.) The charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful wiretapping have been dismissed. The judge did not dismiss the traffic ticket. However, the traffic ticket was dismissed at a hearing on 10/05/2010 before a magistrate.

Yay!

Bad News

There are several caveats to this good news. The district attorney's office is holding on to the possibility of appealing. It has thirty days from when the decision was issued in which to file for an appeal. That means that the appeal period will expire on 10/14/2010. The district attorney's office will not give me my camera back until the appeal period expires. Most important, this is not the end of the story. There is nothing to stop Mitchell Kuc from stopping, arresting, or charging me again. I managed to climb out of the pit but he can easily just throw me back in. So I am free-er but not entirely free. I still need to do something to secure my rights and impose consequences to those who violated those rights.

Evidence

The prosecutor's evidence consisted of Mitchell Kuc's reports, my camera, including the footage it contained, and video footage that Mitchell Kuc recorded on his cell phone (00:25 - 2.6MB).

I have transcribed the very sloppily photocopied reports of 09/12/2009 and 03/20/2010 for easier reading and searching. I have about an hour of footage. I apologize for the atrocious camera work. I did not have the camera for very long and was still developing my technique. I selected the last twenty minutes to share and I cut that into four segments for efficient downloading.

03:00 (18.3MB) - Prelude to the stop, in which I sing "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and in which I deftly steer clear of a drive-out collision hazard by means of an assertive lane position.
01:15 (7.3MB) - Initial dialogue, in which me and Mitchell Kuc exchange information.
12:29 (74.8MB) - Interlude, in which I wait and in which Sergeant Mason arrives, talks with Mitchell Kuc, and leaves.
03:11 (19.5MB) - Follow-up dialogue, in which Mitchell Kuc accuses me wiretapping and seizes my camera.
19:59 (120.4MB) - All four segments together.

The dialogue continued after Mitchell Kuc seized my camera. Sergeant Mason returned and participated in this dialogue. I describe this final dialogue in my blog entry The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse. Here are my comments on the evidence.

The police officers who I referred to as Officer II and Officer III in The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse are apparently both the same police officer named Sergeant Mason.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc claims that he recorded a twenty-five second video clip from his car. However, the prosecutor initially told my lawyer that no such video clip existed and that Hadley patrol cars were not equipped with cameras. Later, while my lawyer was preparing a motion for the court to order the prosecutor to present this footage, the prosecutor admitted that Mitchell Kuc had recorded a video clip using his cell phone and he presented the footage to my lawyer.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc claims that traffic was heavy. My footage clearly shows that traffic was exceptionally light, not that this is relevant to the charges against me.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc claims that other drivers were overtaking me on my right side. My footage shows no such incidents, not that this is relevant to the charges against me.
In his reports of 03/20/2010 and 09/12/2009, Mitchell Kuc admits that he knew it was legal for me to position myself in the middle of a lane.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc claims that I attacked Eric Perkins on 03/30/2007. In fact, Eric Perkins attacked me; I never touched him. Adam Bartlett arrived in response to my call for help. Eric Perkins did report to the Amherst police that I had grabbed his shirt, but this claim is absolutely false, not to mention irrelevant to this case and inflammatory. I describe this incident in my blog entry My Encounter with Eric Perkins and Adam Bartlett.
In his report of 09/12/2009, Mitchell Kuc claims that vehicles were traveling slowly behind me. This claim is false. In fact, there was plenty of space to my left in which drivers could safely overtake me, and drivers who approached me did overtake me in this space.
In his report of 08/22/2009, Mitchell Kuc claims that I was cycling in the middle of the road. This claim is false. I was cycling in the outer westbound lane.
Neither my footage nor Mitchell Kuc's reports or footage indicate any hazardous conditions, except for Mitchell Kuc's bare assertion in his reports that a hazardous condition was present. The footage shows a calm, orderly road. It also shows me driving in n completely orderly and predictable manner, in accordance with all traffic laws and well established principles of safe cycling.
My footage shows Mitchell Kuc notice the camera on my helmet. The footage also shows me freely admit that the device is a video camera and that it is recording his voice.
My footage shows me asking Mitchell Kuc for a receipt for my camera and Mitchell Kuc refusing to give me a receipt.
The footage shows that when referring to the wiretapping statute, Mitchell Kuc uses the key word "secretly". From this I infer that he IS familiar with the statute, so his bogus accusation of wiretapping comes not from willful ignorance and imagination, but from a deliberate contortion of the meaning of the word "secretly" in the statute.
The footage shows Mitchell Kuc criticizing me for not moving to the right when other drivers approach me from behind. In fact, no driver of a vehicle is expected to move to the right when another driver approaches them from behind, except under special circumstances. Drivers are expected to watch the road ahead of them and yield to drivers ahead of them, and should not put much effort into looking behind them, except when preparing to turn or move laterally.
A good teaching moment occurs shortly before the stop. A motorist pulls out of a gas station in front of me without yielding. The motorist does not pull out so close in front of me as to constitute a great danger, but I did have to apply my brakes (and stop singing). This type of situation is one of many reasons why it important for cyclists to stay away from the edge of the road. Because of my position, I was able to notice the car in front of me early and respond to it quickly, and I had room to maneuver in case there had been a great danger. If I had been near the edge of the road, my lines of sight and maneuvering room would have been extremely poor. I would also have been on less clean asphalt so my braking power and braking control would have been poor as well. I would also have been much less noticeable to the motorist, who might have pulled out right in front of me or right into me, rather than just a little closer than comfortable. This type of collision is one of the most common types of cyclist-motorist collision, called a "drive-out" collision.

Arguments

After some discussion and research, my lawyer told me that he would make the following arguments.

The traffic ticket is invalid and Mitchell Kuc had no legitimate reason for stopping me. The evidence was collected by means of an illegal stop so it should be suppressed. Without this evidence there is no basis for the criminal charges so they should be dismissed.
Mitchell Kuc's report is inconsistent internally and externally. It does not constitute reliable evidence so it should be suppressed. Without this evidence there is no basis for the criminal charges so they should be dismissed. (This argument could not be made in writing since it relied on a cross-examination of Mitchell Kuc. I was very much looking forward to this cross-examination. It would have been my first opportunity to get some answers out of Mitchell Kuc.)
Neither the footage nor Mitchell Kuc's reports shows any evidence of a hazardous condition. There is no basis for the disorderly conduct charge so it should be dismissed.
My driving behavior did serve the purpose of safe and efficient travel on a public road, which is a legitimate purpose. There is no basis for the disorderly conduct charge so it should be dismissed.
My driving behavior was an exercise of a legal right, which is automatically considered to be a legitimate purpose. There is no basis for the disorderly conduct charge so it should be dismissed.
My recording was clearly not performed secretly. There is no basis for the unlawful wiretapping charge so it should be dismissed. (My lawyer told me that this argument could not be made at the upcoming hearing. It could only be made at a subsequent hearing if the wiretapping charge was not dismissed after this one. However, this assertion turned out to be false. When my lawyer did not mention the wiretapping charge, the judge specifically asked him about it.)

My lawyer filed the following documents with the court on 08/25/2010.

His arguments are contained in the two memos. I was happy to see these written arguments and hopeful about the hearing. They look very good to me. They are well-researched and well-written. I also appreciated his willingness to communicate with me: to answer my questions and consider my thoughts. Few of the lawyers I have met have been satisfactorily communicative. In case you are interested, following are the cases cited in his memos.

The following cases are also relevant.

Hearings

The motion hearing was a train wreck. My lawyer acted totally confused. He did not raise most of the points that he needed to. When cross-examining Mitchell Kuc, he hinted at some points as if he was leading up to them but he never actually arrived at them. He had no response to the prosecutor's objections. The judge asked him several times where his questions were leading and what his point was. He kept repeating himself. Mitchell Kuc and the prosecutor walked all over him and both me and my lawyer ended up look pathetic. The audience had pained looks throughout. The bailiff was laughing under his breath. It was humiliating, not to mention extremely disheartening.

The traffic ticket hearing was attended by Officer Mark Shlosser, representing the town of Hadley. Mitchell Kuc did not attend.The magistrate dismissed the ticket when Mark Shlosser said that he did not have my case file with him. I am fairly confident that this was not an accident.

Afterwards

After the motion hearing, I confronted my lawyer over the phone about his performance. He had the gall to assert that it had not been so bad. It was like he had been at an entirely different hearing than me.

I was certain that the judge would deny my motions. The next week was very painful. I felt quite hopeless. I was shocked when I found out that the judge had granted the motions. It took days for my intuition to catch up with my intellect in realizing that the charges had really been dismissed.

The dismissal was an enormous relief. But as I said before, I still must decide what to do next regarding this issue, as well as my life in general. These decisions are difficult. Information and ideas seem to be scarce and no option appears promising at this point. I am working on it.

Help Me Become a Director of the League of American Bicyclists. Sign the Petition!

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 03:40:00 GMT

I hereby officially announce my candidacy for a director position at the League of American Bicyclists. I am running in partnership with fellow candidates Bill Hoffman, John Brooking, and Khalil Spencer on behalf of the Coalition to Reform LAB (LAB Reform). Also see this statement from John and this statement from Khalil.

Please sign the online petition to nominate me, John, and Khalil.

The board of directors did not appoint or nominate us, so we are petitioning the members for nomination. Fellow reform candidate and current director Bill Hoffman was nominated by the board and we (me, John, and Khalil) hope to meet him on the ballot. If you prefer, you can print this signature form and either submit it by mail, or scan it and submit it by email. If you are not currently a member, you must join the League before you can sign. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card, or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order. As soon as you join online, you will see a confirmation page. Your membership number (an eight-digit number beginning with "5") will be shown following the word "Password". We greatly appreciate your support of our work to reform the League of American Bicyclists. Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or questions about the campaign. Read on.

About Me
Application for Nomination
My Goals for the League
How You Can Help

About Me

My name is Eli Damon. I am thirty-three years old and live in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am principally a math teacher and have been teaching for eighteen years, beginning with private tutoring at the age of fifteen. I have a B.E. in computer engineering from SUNY Stony Brook and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Umass Amherst .

I am an active member of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike), where my focus is on educating people about good cycling technique and advocating for cyclists' right to the road. I have been a League Cycling Instructor since 2008. I served on the Amherst Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee for six years.

I first learned to ride a bike, in the common sense, at the age of six or seven, but I learned to drive a bike in 2005. Due to a visual disability I cannot acquire a driver's license. I once thought of this limitation as a severe one. I made some trips by foot, bike, and bus, and relied on friends and family members with cars to give me rides for some other trips. For the most part, however, the difficulty I had in traveling prevented me from living what most people would consider a full life. In the summer of 2005, my situation changed and I needed another way to get to my choir practice. I dug out a copy of John Forester's Effective Cycling, which I had never read and knew nothing about. From this book, I learned that I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without the excessive thinking, planning, and worrying that I had formerly associated with bicycle travel. It was the most revelatory experience of my life.

I travel almost exclusively by bicycle. I have found that good cycling habits provide me with more freedom and flexibility than I could ever achieve through driving a motor vehicle. I have cycled in nine states and the District of Columbia, on a wide variety of roads under a wide variety of conditions. I have made trips of up to 200 miles. One of my 200-mile trips was to Fryeburg, Maine, for my instructor certification. My typical annual cycling distance over the past several years has been about 2,500 miles.

Over the past year, my life has been made very difficult by police officers in two nearby towns who disapprove of my controlling a narrow lane and even of my cycling on major roads at all. I have been stopped and threatened numerous times, arrested once, had my property seized twice, and charged with disorderly conduct twice and unlawful wiretapping once (because of the camera I had on my helmet the last time I was stopped). This experience has made my right-to-the-road mission extremely personal. These police officers left me in such a vulnerable state while traveling that I was virtually imprisoned in my home. It became impractical for me travel except within Amherst and for particularly important trips. My options for these important trips were either cycling with the risk of another disastrous police encounter, finding someone to drive me in a car, or in rare cases, taking a bus.

My case is far from unique. Over the past fifteen years, the League's efforts to overturn the widespread myths and biases regarding cycling (which partially motivated the abusive treatment I received from police officers) and defend cyclists' right to the road have grown increasingly lethargic. I must apologize to readers for these critical statements. I know that they might turn some of you off. But I believe that we must show loyalty to our fellow cyclists and support each other in times of crisis. It is unacceptable for our organizations to abandon us to political convenience. The League completely ignored my pleas for help and did not even communicate the problem to other League members to aid me in gathering support. In another case that is similar to mine, some of the League's leaders went so far as to spread misinformation about cyclist Reed Bates in what appeared to be an attempt to publicly discredit him and his supporters. Many other cyclists have been left to fend for themselves when their rights were threatened. I want to see the League return to its historic mission of educating the public about cycling and defending the right to travel. I want to see a League that is open, responsive, and loyal to its members. This is why I am running for a director position.

If you need a short description of me for a print publication, you can use this 250-word version.

Application for Nomination

A candidate for a director position at the League of American Bicyclists can become a director either through appointment by the current board of directors or election by the members. To be elected the candidate must first be nominated so that their name will appear on the ballot. (There are no write-in votes.) The candidate can be nominated either by the current board of directors or, failing that, by petitioning the members and securing the signatures of at least 5%. To be appointed or nominated by the board of directors, the candidate must submit an application for nomination and a resume. Here is the application and resume that I submitted to the board of directors.

Dear League of American Bicyclists Board Members:

I am writing to request a nomination for a position on the Board of Directors for the 2011 election. I am aware that the official deadline for nomination applications has passed but I was confused by a deadline of September 18th that had been posted at the bottom of the League's home page. My resume is attached.

I am striving to become a board member because I am passionate about promoting cycling as a form of transportation. I have many ideas for inspiring people with the power and freedom that cycling can provide, and I would like the opportunity to implement those ideas on a large scale. My vision for the League is an organization that speaks loudly and proudly of this power and freedom, and takes decisive action against attempts to undermine this freedom. I envision a League of members who communicate, mobilize, and, act with mutual loyalty.

I will now address the qualifications:

1. Commitment to cycling, Knowledge of Bicyclists' Concerns
As someone for whom cycling is the primary mode of transportation, my commitment to cycling is deep, personal, and irrevocable. Ever since I discovered the true power of cycling, it has been a large and inextricable part of me. But I did not always understand the truth about cycling. Indeed, I had many misunderstandings that led to great fear and several serious injuries. Having overcome the misunderstanding and the fear myself, I have some familiarity with the concerns of other cyclists and would-be cyclists whose notion of cycling has been shaped by the same society as had shaped my notions before my revelation. In response to this revelation, I have taken on a new sense of the possibilities for my life and the lives of others, and have committed myself to revealing those possibilities to others.

2. Prior Involvement in Bicycling, Complementary Activities
See my resume.
3. Participation in League Activities and Programs
I am a League Certified Instructor and Safe Routes to School certified instructor. I provided crash space for an attendee of the 2009 National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, while I was working in Alexandria, Virginia.
4. History of Volunteer Service, Familiarity with the Role of the Board
In addition to my work as cycling instructor and advocate, I also served for six years on the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts. I also served as a union steward for my department when I was in graduate school.
5. Professional Level Skills
Through my 16 years of teaching experience, I have developed very strong skill in teaching and a strong understanding of education in general.
6. Of "Good Moral Character"
I certainly believe that I am of good moral character, and so do most people who know me. Since this is not really a concrete subject, I cannot offer a concrete description.
7. An Ability and Willingness to Bring Substantial Resources
I will give whatever social resources I have and whatever financial resources I can afford.

My Goals for the League

I want a League that is open, responsible, and loyal to its members. The League has grown timid and lethargic in its mission to defend cyclists' rights and create confident and competent cyclists through education. It has grown secretive and insular in its internal operations. I aim to reverse these trends along with my fellow reform candidates.

Strengthen cycling education and right-to-the-road advocacy.

The League's training program (currently called Smart Cycling) has a solid foundation, but when it comes promoting its core principles, its voice has grown fainter and more timid. The training program must forcefully emphasize the following.
1. Cycling is an extremely safe, efficient, easy, carefree, reliable, and flexible form of transportation when conducted assertively and according the standard rules of the road for drivers of vehicles.
2. The required skills and habits can be acquired with little difficulty by nearly anyone, and will enable those people to cycle anywhere, at any time, under any conditions, for any purpose.
3. Cyclists can avoid all of the problems that they face or fear that they will face in traffic by acquiring these skills and habits.
4. Cycling in this manner does not endanger or inconvenience others and, in fact, improves traffic conditions for others.
The training program should put a greater emphasis on traffic-handling skills, particularly the all-important topic of choosing a lane position. Care should be taken to ensure that all instructors (even those who are not actively teaching) fully understand the importance of taking an assertive lane position and are comfortable with asserting themselves in traffic so that they can transfer this understanding and confidence to their students. Topics that are less relevant to or more easily understood by beginning cyclists should receive less emphasis. Some topics that are now taught in introductory classes should be relegated to more advanced classes. This is the philosophy behind Keri Caffrey and Mighk Wilson's Cycling Savvy program, which they run in Orlando, Florida. I am very impressed with this program. I believe that it could form the basis of an overwhelmingly successful revision of the League's training program. Instructors should be encouraged to be flexible with their class format in order to best serve the needs of their students. I find that skill and understanding must be absorbed slowly over time, so a traditional monolithic one-or-two-session course might be less than ideal. Zealous promotion of this training program is needed to attract students and instructors.
In addition to its training program, the League should establish a program of public education to propagate the core principles of effective cycling. Directors and officers should thoroughly understand and support effective cycling and promote it when speaking publicly. The League should not promote or accommodate the agendas of those who believe that cyclists are inferior to motorists and are best served by showing deference to motorists on the road.
The League should establish a program specifically to educate police officers and transportation officials about effective cycling and its application to their official duties.
The League should show loyalty to cyclists by defending those whose right to the road is threatened. Having experienced such threats myself without receiving the support I needed, I want to ensure that others will not be left to suffer through such experiences alone in the future.
The League should rejuvenate its campaign to aid state and local cycling advocates in opposing proposed discriminatory laws and repealing existing discriminatory laws, particularly those that restrict cyclists' movement on the road and access to various roads, and replacing them with laws that strongly affirm the right of all people to travel freely on the public roads by as simple a mode as they wish.
The League should rewrite the criteria for its Bicycle Friendly Communities awards. Awards should be granted to communities that truly support cycling as a legitimate and practical form of transportation. They should go to communities that send a clear message to residents and visitors that cyclists are drivers of vehicles and are expected to act like it for the safety and convenience of all. They should be given to communities that treat cyclists as an integral part of traffic with full access to all roads and parking facilities. They should not be given to communities that pass discriminatory laws or use discriminatory law enforcement practices. They should not be given to communities that build thoughtlessly designed roads with "features" that endanger cyclists or promote dangerous behavior among cyclists.

Facilitate communication among members and between leaders and members.

Currently, League members cannot access the membership list for the purpose of informing other members and soliciting feedback from other members about issues and candidates. Members must be guaranteed access to the membership list so that they can communicate with each other about the League's operations and candidates for League offices.
The League has a number of channels for communicating en masse with its members (e.g. magazine, newsletter, blog, Facebook page). Currently, these channels are mostly used to send irrelevant, insipid, "feel good" messages. These channels should be used to report on genuine advocacy issues and League operations, relay important messages from members, solicit feedback from members, and mobilize members to take action.
It is important for League directors and officers to be accessible and responsive. As a director I will conscientiously attend to all such communications. Members and others with concerns regarding cycling should feel free to contact me before, during, and after my term of directorship.
Directors should make themselves prominent figures of cycling advocacy, creating public awareness of who they are, what they stand for, what the League is up to, and what work they are doing both as part of the League and as individual cycling advocates. This brings public awareness to the League's work and to cycling advocacy in general. It brings more ideas to the League from members and other cyclists about what the League can do to further its goals, and brings more ideas from members and other cyclists about what these members and cyclists can do to further their goals. I have often been frustrated by a desire to work toward a goal, such as defending the right to travel, without knowledge of how to best work toward that goal. This is why I have started reporting on the work I do via my blog. By documenting and publicizing my work, I can help others who share my goals to find ideas for advancing those goals. I can facilitate communication between us so that we can effectively work together in service of those goals.

Re-democratize the process for selecting directors.

Currently, almost half of directors are appointed by the board of directors with no input from other members. All directors should be elected by the members.
Currently, candidates for elected directorships can only be put on the ballot by a nomination from the board of directors or, failing that, by petitioning the members and securing the signatures of at least 5%, an outrageously high percentage. (10% is needed for a referendum petition.) This percentage should be greatly reduced. Before 2004, only fifty signatures were required.
Currently, the board does not publish applications for nomination, their criteria for selecting candidates for nomination, or their reasoning for nominating the candidates that they choose to nominate. The board's nomination process should be entirely open. The board should be required to publish all three of these items.
Beginning next year, each region of the country will NOT be granted a local representative on the board of directors. Each region of the country should have a local representative on the board of directors who is elected by members in that region.
Currently, the League's specification of the petition process is vague and is not integrated with the rest of the process for selecting directors. The requirements for a petition should be specified precisely and the process should be made an integral part of the election process.
Currently, directors are permitted to deviate from the bylaws to suit their purposes. Directors whose actions deviate from the bylaws should be disciplined. Recently, the board deviated from its election schedule twice: once to accelerate its nomination phase, possibly to prevent discussion of its choices, and again to delay announcement of the nominations, possibly to hinder efforts at a petition. When director Tim Young first contacted me on 09/08/2010 to inform me of the board's decision on appointments and nominations, he made no mention of the fact that the announcement was a week late, nor did he mention the petition process. I immediately called him to ask about the petition process. The due date for election petitions is listed as 10/15/2010 and nominations were scheduled to be announced on 09/01/2010, giving us 45 five days to gather signatures. He claimed that he did not know anything about the petition process. If this is true, then he is grossly derelict in his duty as a member of the governance committee. If it is false, well... I did not hear from him again until 09/13/2010, when he sent me an email message that merely pointed me to League's bylaws. I called him again to ask for more details but he did not respond. Other candidates received similar treatment. Tim Young also made discouraging comments to me about the possibility of petitioning.

How You Can Help

Sign the online petition. The board of directors did not appoint or nominate us, so we are petitioning the members for nomination. Fellow reform candidate and current director Bill Hoffman was nominated by the board and we (me, John, and Khalil) hope to meet him on the ballot. If you prefer, you can print this signature form and either submit it by mail or scan it and submit it by email. If you are not currently a member you must join the League before you can sign. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order. As soon as you join online, you will see a confirmation page. Your membership number (an eight-digit number beginning with "5") will be shown following the word "Password".
Spread the word. Contact League members, cycling instructors, cycling advocates, cyclists, friends, and family members. Tell them about the reform movement and our campaign. Ask them to sign our petition and vote for us in December (assuming that we are successfully nominated). Here is a sample letter you can use.
Learn more. Stay informed. Keep in touch. Read more about the Coalition to Reform LAB, our election campaign, and my fellow reform candidates. Subscribe to the LAB Reform blog. Join the LAB Reform Yahoo group. Contact me or any of the other candidates and share your thoughts. Feel free to contact me by mail, phone, email, or by submitting a comment on this blog entry. (No carrier pigeons, semaphores, smoke signals, or yodel calls, please.)
Vote for us in December. If our petition is successful, then you can vote for us (Bill Hoffman, Eli Damon, John Brooking, and Khalil Spencer) in the election, which is scheduled to be held from 12/01/2010 until 01/15/2011. Ballots can be cast online at the League's website. When casting your ballot you will be asked to select up to ten candidates and rank them according to your preference. (How the results are determined is explained on the League's election page.) We hope that you will indicate the four of us as your first, second, third, and fourth choice candidates. If you are not currently a member, you must join the League before you can vote. Family memberships count for two votes. You can use the online form to pay by credit card or print the form and mail it to the League office with a check or money order.

Letter to Frederick, Maryland State Senator Alex Mooney and Delegate Charles Jenkins

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:26:00 GMT

Inspired by a visit with my cousins in Frederick, Maryland, I wrote a letter to their state delegate (i.e. congressman), Charles Jenkins, and senator, Alex Mooney, regarding the state's laws relating to cycling, and sent it, along with a cover letter from my cousin, David.

Dear [Delagate Jenkins / Senator Mooney]:

I would like to relay a message to you, as your constituent, from my cousin, Eli Damon from Massachusetts, who recently visited me and my family at our home in Frederick. Eli hopes to raise your awareness of an issue of Maryland law that is of intense concern to him. Please read his enclosed letter, and please give solemn consideration to his message. Thank you.

Sincerely,

David ----

Dear [Delagate Jenkins / Senator Mooney]:

I recently traveled from my home in Massachusetts to visit my cousins, David, Cherish, Bradley, Joshua, and Elihana, who live in Frederick and have for many years, two of them for their entire lives. I very much enjoyed spending time with them. However, I was upset to learn about some of Maryland's statutes, which left me in a quite vulnerable, constrained, and dependent condition while I was in your state. I want to share with you this problem I encountered in the hope that you will consider working to correct it using your authority as a legislator.

You see, I drive a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation. It is a common belief that practical transportation can only be provided by a motor vehicle. However, with the proper techniques, based on well-established safe cycling principles, and in the absence of legal restrictions, cycling is an extremely safe, reliable, flexible and efficient form of transportation that imposes very little demand on road capacity and contributes negligibly to wear of road surface, especially when compared to motor vehicles. In fact, in addition to using these effective cycling techniques myself, I also teach them as an instructor, certified by the League of American Bicyclists. I intended to teach effective cycling to some of my cousins but was compelled to give up that intention when I realized that the techniques I teach could be in conflict with the law. Beyond being unable to teach cycling while visiting my cousins, I found myself somewhat trapped in their house, unable to leave without an escort from one of them.

I have many reasons for adopting cycling as my primary mode of transportation, but one reason I should mention, since it helps to explain why restrictions on cycling impose an especially heavy burden on me, is that I am unable to drive a motor vehicle due to a disability. As I said, I have many other reasons as well. Many of these reasons I share with other transportation cyclists and would potentially share with many others if they were to embrace effective cycling techniques.

There are several ways in which Maryland law prevents cycling as a practical mode of transportation and even creates unnecessary collision hazards. I will spare you for now the gritty details of Maryland cycling laws and effective cycling principles and techniques, except to pitch you my new teaching slogan, inspired by my most recent student: Pay attention, follow the rules, be assertive, and STAY IN CONTROL. (By "the rules", I mean the standard rules of the road for drivers of vehicles.) I would be only too eager to discuss these subjects, as well as the myths and biases about cycling, in detail if you are interested. In outline form, the impact of Maryland cycling laws are as follows.

On many roads, and the most important ones in particular, cycling is outright prohibited.

On other roads, some combination of the following problems are always present.

Cycling is nominally permitted but only in a manner that is excessively difficult and dangerous. Most cyclists do not understand the source of the danger and consequently expose themselves as well as other drivers to collision hazards.

The legality of effective cycling techniques is unclear and legally subject to interpretation by police officers, prosecutors, judges, and jurors, who are often prone to misunderstanding the impact of their decisions. Many people do not understand safe cycling principles and misjudge the consequences of various cycling laws and techniques. Many people do not appreciate the public nature of the roads, arguably the most public of all public places. Many people do not appreciate how essential it is in our society that a person be able to travel freely and independently or the crippling effect of being prevented from traveling freely and independently. There are many ubiquitous myths and biases regarding cycling and police officers, prosecutors, judges, and jurors are no more immune to them than anyone else.

Effective cycling techniques are legally permitted but the statutes are worded in a manner that is not sufficiently clear and authoritative to counter the myths and biases regarding cycling. In many cases, statutes are worded in a manner that is outright misleading, even though a careful and open-minded analysis would reveal the legality of effective cycling techniques. The process of eliciting such an analysis when a specific case arises is usually difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for both the citizens involved and the state as a whole.

Consequently, a trip made by bicycle might be impossible even to begin legally and once begun might be difficult, dangerous, or impossible to complete legally. A transportation cyclist could easily face a dilemma such as whether to seek, buy, or retain a house, seek, rent, or retain an apartment, seek, accept, or retain a job, patronize or open a business, or visit a friend or relative in a place where cycling is severely restricted. Having begun a trip, a cyclist might reach a point along the route where he or she finds him- or herself facing the following options.

Continue cycling in a safe and efficient manner along the route, risking legal penalties, possibly including arrest and/or criminal charges.

Continue cycling along the route, but in a difficult and dangerous manner, risking death, injury, failure to complete the intended task, failure to return home at night, and possibly legal penalties as well.

Return home immediately, which could be very difficult when far from home.

Remain stranded until another option is identified.

This is not a dilemma that can be taken lightly, especially when it must be faced regularly as a part of daily life.

I hope that you can appreciate not only the injustice to individual citizens of Maryland's legal restrictions on cycling but also the indirect but severe harm they do to the state as a whole. I beg you to use your authority as a legislator to work to repeal these laws and replace them with laws that strongly affirm the right of all people to travel freely on the public roads by as simple a mode as they wish. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Eli Damon

Bill Kelly, chairman of the College Park Area Bicycle Coalition (CPABC) forwarded me the following notice from Jack Cochrane, chair of the Montgomery Bicycle Advocates. (I have reformatted it and made some minor corrections.)

The Maryland General Assembly passed a very important bill this year that repealed the law requiring bicyclists to ride on the shoulder and not in the travel lanes if a shoulder was present. It also gave bicyclists the right to use crosswalks without dismounting and permission to pass cars on the right using the shoulder. We owe our gratitude to Maryland Delegate Al
Carr (Kensington-District 18) and Senator Brian Frosh (Bethesda-District 16) for championing the bill. Delegate Carr took on this bill because he is a cyclist! The bill number is SB624, published at http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/chapters_noln/Ch_518_sb0624T.pdf.

The bill accomplishes three important things:

The bill lifts the requirement that bicyclists must ride in the shoulder when present. Previously, cyclists were not allowed to ride in the travel lanes if a shoulder was present, except in limited circumstances. Now cyclists have the option to take the lane (subject to existing stay right rules) when they deem it safest. The remaining restriction for shoulders is that you must still use the shoulder on roads with speed limit above 50 mph (i.e. 55 mph or higher).

The bill still permits s bicyclists to ride in the shoulder if they choose to. Cars are still explictly restricted from driving on shoulders although that law is rarely if ever enforced.

The bill allows bicyclists to ride in a crosswalk without dismounting (except where riding on sidewalks is prohibited). The law was at best ambiguous before. For example, right-turning drivers (even turning right on red) were prevously required to yield to pedestrians but not bicyclists in the crosswalk. This is not just a theoretical concern, since recently a bicyclist in Rockville was considered at fault in a bike-car collision where the driver was turning right across the crosswalk the rider was in. The previous law could even be interpreted to require bicyclists on the Capital Crescent Trail to dismount to cross side streets. The bill also expands the crosswalk definition to include unmarked locations where a bike path or bike lane crosses a street, to strengthen the changes. Previously, only sidewalks had this attribute.

These measures go a long way toward making Maryland roads safer and more effective for cyclists, and move Maryland toward being one of the better states for biking.

One other revision to the code provides that cycles with a 2 wheel front/1 wheel rear configuration are now street legal. Prior law actually defined these as 'play vehicles' and riding them on roadways was technically prohibited.

Still on the agenda is removing the restriction that bicyclists ride in marked bike lanes, which was not achievable this year but will continue to be a goal of bike organizations. Other suggestions for legislative measures to help improve cycling in Maryland are welcomed. Please send any such comments or suggestions to .

Jack Cochrane
Chair, Montgomery Bicycle Advocates

I sent this response to Jack Cochrane.

Hi Jack. A few days ago I forwarded you a letter I wrote to Frederick's state senator and delegate. Bill Kelly from the College Park Area Bicycle Coalition forwarded the attached notice from you. At the end of the notice, you said "Other suggestions for legislative measures to help improve cycling in Maryland are welcomed." Even though I don't live in Maryland, I would like to make some suggestions. Besides repealing compulsory shoulder and bike lane use laws, I would also like the far-to-the-right law repealed, as well as the laws that prohibit cycling on various classes of roads, like the one for roads with a speed limit that is greater than 50mph and the one for bridges and tunnels. Eli

I have included contact information for Delegate Charles Jenkins, Senator Alex Mooney, and Washington, DC area and Maryland cycling advocacy organizations.

Charles Jenkins - Delegate - District 3B (Republican)
- Capitol
  - http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa14701.html
  - House Office Building, Room 324, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, MD 21401
  - 800-492-7122 x3240, 410-841-3240, 301-858-3240
  - charles.jenkins@house.state.md.us
- Campaign
  - http://www.charles2010.com/
  - Friends of Charles Jenkins, P.O. Box 3503, Frederick, MD 21705-3503
  - 301-514-7811
  - cajenkins@verizon.net
Alex Mooney - Senator - District 3 (Republican)
- Capitol
- Campaign
  - http://alexmooney.com/
  - (headquarters) - 1705 N Market St, Frederick, MD 21701
  - (mail) - P. O. Box 669, Frederick, MD 21705-0669
  - (phone) - 301-620-0200
  - (fax) - 301-620-1973
  - matt@alexmooney.com
Washington, DC area cycling advocacy organizations
- Washington Area Bicyclist Association
  - (website) - http://waba.org/
  - (blog) - http://washingtonareabicyclistassociation.blogspot.com/
  - (facebook page) - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/Washington-Area-Bicyclist-Associaton-WABA/140715077973
  - (myspace page) - http://www.myspace.com/wabadc
  - 2599 Ontario Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20009
  - (phone) - 202.518.0524
  - (fax) - 202.518.0936
  - waba@waba.org
- WashCycle
  - (blog) - http://www.thewashcycle.com/
Maryland cycling advocacy organizations
- One Less Car
  - (website) - http://onelesscar.org/
  - (RSS feed) - http://onelesscar.org/rss.php
  - 1209 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
  - (Executive Director Carol Silldorff) - 410-960-6493
  - (Executive Director Carol Silldorff) - carol at onelesscar dot org
- College Park Area Bicycle Coalition (CPABC)
  - http://cpabc.org/
  - 10027 Fox Den Court, Ellicott City, MD 21042-2242
  - (Chairman Bill Kelly) - 410-480-1909
  - (Chairman Bill Kelly - BKelly@cpabc.org
- Frederick Bicycle Coalition
  - (website) - http://www.frederickbicyclecoalition.com/
  - (RSS feed) - http://frederickbicyclecoalition.com/wordpress/feed/
  - 1700 Kingfisher Dr, Suite 18, Frederick, Maryland 21701
  - 240-347-0003
  - (Communications Director Joe Whitehair) - communication@frederickbicyclecoalition.com
  - (Founder's Chair Roger Rinker) - foundingchair@frederickbicyclecoalition.com
- Montgomery Bicycle Advocates (MoBike)
  - (website) - http://www.mobike.org/
  - (Yahoo group) - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/montgomerybike/
  - 7121 Thomas Branch Dr., Bethesda, MD. 20817
  - 301-767-5998
  - info@mobike.org,
- Montgomery County Bicycle Action Group (MCBAG)
  - http://www2.montgomerycountymd.gov/DOT-DTE/BikeWays/BWMcBag.aspx
  - 100 Edison Park Drive 4th Floor, Gaithersburg MD 20878
  - 3rd Thursday of the month 6:30PM-8:30PM

District Attorney Race: URGENT (for residents of Franklin and Hampshire Counties and Athol, Massachusetts)

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:02:00 GMT

I ask you, as my friends, for a favor: to read this article. I acknowledge that you might not find the topic so engaging, but the article is short, and the topic is important to me. It might not be obvious, but this does concern my saga that began over a year ago, when I was stopped by Hadley police officer Mitchell Kuc. This is only relevant to residents of Franklin and Hampshire Counties and Athol, Massachusetts.

I admit it: I am a bad citizen. I regularly fail to inform myself sufficiently about most of my elected officials and candidates for elected offices. In fact, I became aware of the district attorney election only this weekend. However, now that I am aware of it, I realize that this is an important election, and I ask that you to please take it seriously, read what I have to say, and make sure to vote next Tuesday, September 14th. My information about the candidates has come from recordings of four debates, which were held on 08/05/2010, 08/17/2010, 08/24/2010, and 09/01/2010. Follow the preceeding links for video recordings of these debates.

The current district attorney, Elizabeth Scheibel, has held the office for sixteen years. There are two candidates in this election: Dave Sullivan and Michael Cahillane. Both are running as Democrats, so the Democratic primary election is the only one that matters. I have no loyalty with the Democratic Party, and I normally eschew primary elections because I oppose them on principle. However, I must make an exception in this case because the Democratic primary election, which will occur next Tuesday, September 14th, is the only election that matters in this case. For the same reason, I ask that you vote in the Democratic primary election as well.

Why do I think this election is so important? Because the two candidates are very different. (Note that I have written this article completely independently of Dave Sullivan and his campaign.)

Dave Sullivan recognizes the longstanding problems in the district attorney's office's operations. Some of these problems led to their prosecuting the erroneous charges against me, Jason Vassell, and many others. He addressed the issues of rogue police officers and prosecution of erroneous charges in the debate of 08/24/2010, and he addressed the Jason Vassell case specifically in the debate of 09/01/2010. Dave Sullivan has shown a noble vision for the district attorney's and a good-sized chunk of a plan for pursuing that vision. He has expressed intentions to:

speak out about what is right and wrong without hesitation,
establish a policy of openness and accessibility to the press and the general public,
establish a policy under which each case is prosecuted by a single prosecutor instead of the current policy of passing a case from one prosecutor to another depending on who happens to be in court that day.
assign a community prosecutor to each community,
establish an "active bystander training program" to teach citizens how to respond effectively to possible abuse or bullying,
support strict regulations on casinos (since they will soon be legalized) to limit harm that they cause,
establish a "casino mitigation fund", which would be paid into from casino revenue, to fund the prosecution of crime induced by casinos,
make the defense of civil rights a high priority,
establish a civil rights advisory board,
prosecute rogue police officers,
ensure that prosecutors scrutinize each case early on and continue prosecuting it only if has merit,
oppose the death penalty (The death penalty did come very close to being re-established in Massachusetts several years ago.),
reduce sentences for people convicted of low-impact crimes (sentencing reform), and
reduce the time after which people convicted of low-impact crimes can have records of their conviction sealed (CORI reform).

Michael Cahillane, who currently works as a prosecutor for Elizabeth Scheibel, rather than acknowledging the longstanding problems in the district attorney's office's operations, has merely made lame and misleading attempts to justify them. He has shown no vision. He appears to have no campaign platform. From the debates, it seems to me that his entire campaign is a cop out. The number of statements of any substance that he made during the four debates can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.

So I urge you to vote for Dave Sullivan for district attorney in the Democratic primary election next Tuesday, September 14th.

Letter to Editors of "Living on Earth" Regarding its Piece "It's No Copenhagen"

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:59:00 GMT

I sent this letter to the editors of the radio show Living on Earth, from Public Radio International, about their piece "It's No Copenhagen", about cycling advocacy in Los Angeles, which aired on 09/03/2010.

Hello. As a cycling advocate and instructor, I am always interested in hearing news about cycling advocacy, such as your piece "It's No Copenhagen". However, I believe that you missed an important perspective on this issue. I live in Massachusetts, far from Los Angeles. However, I know other instructors who live that area and I am familiar with the issues.

There is a movement among cycling advocates to push for special road features, such as bike lanes and trails, to separate bicycle traffic from motor vehicle traffic. However, these features impose excessive danger and inconvenience to cyclists. Unfortunately, many cyclists and would-be cyclists do not realize this because of their intense fear of motor vehicle traffic.

You must understand that cycling among motor vehicle traffic is not especially dangerous, even in places with dense and aggressive motor vehicle traffic. Cyclists who are assertive and who obey the basic rules of the road are very safe among motor vehicle traffic. The problem is that very few people understand proper cycling technique or recognize its importance. One person that you interviewed in your piece raised this issue when he mentioned his being threatened by motorists who misunderstood the traffic laws. I often say that the hardest part of being a cycling instructor is convincing people that there is something valuable to learn. They assume that if they can balance and steer then they have nothing more to learn. Nevertheless, these techniques are very easy to learn and are accessible to people of nearly all ages and abilities. With these easily learned techniques, a person can cycle safely and effectively on any road under any conditions.

People who do not understand effective cycling techniques are often very afraid of motor vehicles. They are too afraid to take control of their space on the road. Their fear leads them to either limit their cycling activity or cycle in a timid manner that actually puts them in great danger. Some simply accept the danger as inevitable, which leads them to behave in a dangerously aggressive manner.

Since they believe that motor vehicles impose an overwhelming danger, they also believe that separating themselves from motor vehicles will make them safe. They push for bike lanes and trails and such. However, these features actually put them in greater danger due to more complex traffic patterns, more turning conflicts, and thoughtless design and construction. In fact, many bike lanes are extremely dangerous. They make the road less reliable and predictable for cyclists and so make cycling confusing and inconvenient as well

In fact, I take issue with the title of the piece. Copenhagen does have a lot of bicycle traffic due to its tradition, its topography, and its compact, pre-motor vehicle layout. However, its special road features should not be applauded. They are, in fact, some of the dangerous features that I mentioned. A recent traffic study has even demonstrated that they have led to many unnecessary collisions. Danish cyclists also suffer from more severely discriminatory laws than Californian cyclists, that prohibit them from cycling in a safe and convenient manner. California laws, while not free from discriminatory language, are far from the worst.

I would be happy to discuss these issues with you. Alternatively, you might want to talk to a Los Angeles area cycling safety expert. Dan Gutierrez is a cycling instructor and traffic engineer in Long Beach. ... Thank you.

Eli Damon

I have removed Dan Gutierrez's contact information to protect him from spam.

Persecution, Abandonment, and Betrayal: Comments on the Reed Bates Saga

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:07:00 GMT

The Situation

Reed Bates's troubles began only a week and half after mine did and followed a very similar pattern. For almost a year, Reed (also known as ChipSeal; formerly of Ennis (Ellis County), Texas; currently of Dallas, Texas) has been terrorized by the Ennis Police Department and the department of Ellis County Sheriff Johnny Brown because they disapprove of his assertive cycling technique. His technique accords with both Texas law and well-established principles of cycling safety and furthermore constitutes the safest and most efficient possible cycling behavior. Not only have they repeatedly harassed him by stopping and detaining him without cause while he was traveling, and not only have they they issued him citations for violating non-existent regulations, they have gone so far as to arrest him and hold him in jail on three occasions for a total of three weeks and to charge him with the crime of reckless driving, a charge that is extremely rare even in cases where a collision occurs.

In March, he was convicted of violating the prohibition on "driv[ing] so slowly as to impede the normal and reasonable movement traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law (Texas Transportation Code §545.363)," despite the facts that no traffic was substantially impeded and that he could not reasonably have traveled any faster, in a highly flawed jury trial (recounted here by Steve Averill) that was later invalidated. The charges are still pending, and he expects to be retried. In August, he was convicted of reckless driving in a bench trial (recounted here by Steve Averill) that can only be characterized as a kangaroo court. Acccording to PM Summer, Judge A. Gene Calvert, Jr., in announcing his verdict, said: "You may be right that it is safer to ride in the middle of the lane instead of the shoulder, but it is reckless of you to do so." ("What?!" Yeah, you heard me.) So, in defiance of logic, Reed's behavior, despite being safe and legal, was nevertheless reckless and criminal. Like me, he is in a state of virtual house arrest because the danger of interference from police officers renders travel impractically dangerous for him.

Like me, Reed and his friends and supporters appealed to state and national cycling advocacy organizations for help. Neither the Texas Bicycle Coalition (BikeTexas) nor the League of American Bicyclists was willing to provide any support. In fact, it seems that many "cycling advocates", including leaders of these organizations, worked to conceal and obscure the issue: to spread false information about it so as to cast suspicion on Reed's cycling behavior, legal decisions, credibility, and even sanity and to downplay the merits of his case and the severity of the consequences of it to him and to cycling in general. Having no connection to Texas myself, I do not closely monitor BikeTexas's activities. However, I do know that the League did not even publicize his ordeal (or mine for that matter) to aid him in gathering support from other cycling advocates. This would have been the least it could have done for him, but it should have done much more. It should have treated Reed's experience as a crisis of the greatest magnitude, a potential catastrophe for cyclists throughout the country. It should have helped him collect money for legal fees. It should have supplied him with an expert witness on cycling safety as he specifically asked for. It should have called on everyone who had any influence: law enforcers, politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, cycling advocates, civil rights advocates, League members, cyclists. It should have made a strong and clear statement of righteous indignation at Reed's treatment. It should have constructed and executed a plan to mobilize and coordinate support. But it did none of this.

After Reed's conviction of reckless driving, the frustration of his friends and supporters expressed to the League and particularly to its president, Andy Clarke, grew to such a level that the League's leaders felt compelled to comment publicly on the issue. Andy Clarke posted a letter on the League's blog. I recommend that you read this letter as well the comments made by PM Summer (Clearly Unhelpful) and Keri Caffrey (Who Will Speak Up When They Come For You?) on their respective blogs. PM and Keri express many of my thoughts quite well. However, I have many thoughts and feelings about this situation that others have not yet expressed to my satisfaction. I attempt to express there here.

I hoped that this article would be more timely, but it took a while to collect and organize my thoughts and to choose my words so as to express my thoughts clearly, precisely, and thoroughly. I found the heap of issues, facts, and opinions and the wall of hateful and anti-rational rhetoric so overwhelming that I eventually gave up on the "thorough" part. I settled on making a few points about Andy's letter. In the process, I did compile an extensive index of articles that I have included at the end.

My Thoughts

As PM explains, Andy makes the following false claims in his letter.

For his first trial, Reed freely decided to be tried by a jury in defiance of others' better judgement. (In fact, he was pressured into it by a judge. He did not have an attorney to advise him and advocate for him in court at the time, being unable to afford one.)
The League has been in close contact with Reed and has been monitoring the case.
The road on which Reed was cited had a "perfectly rideable shoulder". (In fact, the shoulder was in relatively poor condition. Its surface was covered with sand, gravel, cracks, patches, and a rumple strip, and its width varied erratically, in some places being very narrow.)
Reed insisted on arguing at trial, in regard to his position on the road, that "that’s where he and everyone else should be riding," rather than restrict his arguments to the position that his behavior was entirely legal.
The League offered to help Reed with his case under the condition that he restrict his arguments in court to those concerning the law, but Reed refused to abide by the condition.

Andy also implies that Reed's failure to appear in court when summoned was due entirely to Reed's negligence and not to any factors beyond his control (like, for example, his attorney not being notified and his mail not being forwarded as he expected. He makes the following insidious implications as well, and other "cycling advocates" have even explicitly stated them).

Reed's position on the road was unreasonable.
Reed's concern about the hazards and impediments of riding on the shoulder were unreasonable.
Reed's position on proper cycling technique is unreasonable.
Reed was rudely and severely inconveniencing other drivers.
Reed was deliberately provoking the police
The merits of Reed's case are weak.
The consequences of the case to Reed are not very serious.
The consequences of the case to all cyclists in Texas are not very serious.
The consequences of the case to all cyclists in this country are not very serious.
The consequences to all cyclists in this country of the refusal of the League and other "cycling advocates" and advocacy organizations to support Reed are not very serious.

ALL OF THESE CLAIMS AND IMPLICATIONS ARE WRONG. Reed's behavior was entirely safe and legal. In a court of law, one in which decisions are actually based on law and reason rather than prejudice and ignorance, Reed's case is rock solid. He did nothing to inconvenience or provoke anyone. His only crime was refusing to show sufficient deference, to prostrate himself before the motorists on that road. At the risk of being insensitive to another group of people who have suffered discrimination, I think that Reed's crime can best be characterized as "being uppity".

Regardless of the condition of the specific shoulder in question (which, contrary to Andy's claim, was extremely poor), I strongly object to any characterization of a "perfectly rideable shoulder". Riding on a shoulder ALWAYS imposes hazards and impediments beyond those of riding on the road proper (unless the road proper contains a specific exceptional hazard or impediment). Sometimes those hazards and impediments are unreasonably high. Sometimes they are low enough that riding on the shoulder could be considered okay. I myself sometimes ride on the shoulder, albeit very rarely, on some occasions when I deem the risk and inconvenience to be low. However, it I find it extremely offensive and threatening that a police officer or Andy Clarke or anyone else would deign to decide what is an acceptable risk or inconvenience for me or Reed or anyone else to accept, and that is exactly what is done by characterizing a shoulder as "perfectly rideable". The condition of a shoulder can be bad or not so bad but can almost never be such that there is no advantage to avoiding it.

From what I have read, I believe that I would insist on taking the same, middle-of-the-lane, position as Reed did on that road and would strongly advise others to do so as well, assuming that my current impression of the road is verified by direct observation. I would eagerly defend my reasons in a civil and rational manner with anyone who would engage me in a discussion in the same manner. I would willingly consider contrary opinions as well, if presented in a civil and rational manner. I strive to convince, not to confuse or coerce. I would never attempt to prevent another cyclist from exercising his or her own judgement. To do so would be manipulative and controlling and would likely lead the cyclist to make worse decisions, since I would be pressuring him or her not to think for him- or herself. I would never be satisfied to passively allow another cyclist to suffer arbitrary punishment for exercising his or her judgement, even if I disagreed with that judgement. To do otherwise would be weak and dishonorable. To undermine the freedom of a cyclist to exercise his or her own judgement, whether actively or passively, would undermine the cause of cycling advocacy and the pursuit of a free and just society.

No one should be permitted to scrutinize and micromanage a cyclist's lane position. Very few police officers have the expertise to properly evaluate the merits of taking different lane positions on a given road. Neither can someone who has never traveled on a particular road competently evaluate the merits of different lane positions on that road. It would be a detriment to all cyclists to set a precedent of allowing politicians, police officers, judges, or jurors to scrutinize and micromanage a cyclist's position on the road. No one is subject to such intense scrutiny and control when driving a vehicle of any other type. How can anyone accept the idea of being always vulnerable to imprisonment for not being in the exact position that someone else thinks is appropriate? It is unacceptable that cyclists currently receive inferior treatment under the law, and it is unacceptable that those who claim to advocate for cyclists accept and even defend this treatment.

Even for those cyclists who would have preferred riding on this particular shoulder, a bad outcome to this case could leave Texas law in
a limbo where a cyclist would have no way to know whether an attempt to avoid a hazard or impediment (even one that would be widely recognized) could deliver him or her into legal hell. (Limbo? Hell? Get it?) He or she could only cycle with the constant fear of a police officer stopping him or her and ordering him or her to change positions or change routes or even just go back home and stay there (as I was ordered by Joseph Reed shortly after he had arrested me).

And YOU MUST DISTINGUISH between the danger of being stopped and possibly cited for violating traffic regulations and the danger of being arrested and/or charged with committing crimes. If Reed had not been arrested and had not been charged with reckless driving, we would not be having this conversation. As someone who is currently in the aforementioned hell myself, I admonish everyone reading this not to take the possibility lightly. Do not underestimate the impact on a person's life, and do not assume that it cannot happen to you! I have never been a risk-taker. I had never had trouble with the law before this. I did not at all anticipate what happened to me. Trouble can find you just as easily as it found me (in the state whose Declaration of Rights precedes the founding of this country).

And who will support you if and when it does happen to you? After all, that is what we expect cycling advocates and advocacy organizations to do. An organization that would readily abandon any one of its charges in a time of need would readily abandon any other as well, and that includes YOU. That is why, for example, free speech advocates must vigorously defend even offensive speech: because you never know when your speech, which you consider innocent or even righteous, will be tagged as offensive by those with the authority do so. This case has the potential to set a dangerous legal precedent of allowing police officers to arbitrarily order someone off of the road and to use the courts to arbitrarily punish them for refusing. But the attitudes and actions of cycling advocates and advocacy organizations has the potential to set another precedent, not a legal one but a political and social one: that cyclists cannot rely on each other for help when they desperately need it. There seems to have been a recent surge in cases of illegal persecution of cyclists by police officers and judges. There also seems to have been a recent surge in anti-cycling legislation throughout the country that goes beyond the long standing anti-cycling laws that also exist in some form throughout the country. I believe that the outcome of Reed's case will be influential in encouraging or discouraging this discrimination. The League of American Bicyclists has been silent and passive in the face of even the most aggregious discrimination.

Personally, I would very much like to see vehicular cycling principles put on public record. Those principles should be viewed as critical to
all of us, and they are just as much on trial in this case as Reed himself. That is the crux of the reckless driving charge. Reed was taking the safest possible position. The prosecution is claiming that he was taking an unnecessarily dangerous position. Regardless of whether some arbitrary person believes that the additional risk of riding on the shoulder is acceptably low, it is important to acknowledge that Reed's position was entirely safe, that it was safer than the shoulder, and that, regardless of how small the difference might be, the law and its agents should not be permitted to force anyone to accept that additional risk. The advantage or disadvantage to Reed's case of arguing about cycling safety principles should be evaluated by a skilled attorney who is familiar with the particular court and who understands and appreciates Reed's position. It is one thing for such an attorney to criticize Reed's proposed strategy and another thing for someone else to do so without the proper skill, experience, and understanding.

Andy and others have also failed to acknowledge the fact that someone, like Reed (and me), who cycles as a primary mode of transportation cannot afford to make decisions and movements as frequently as a recreation or sport cyclist might expect. Recreation and sport cyclists can afford to take long and indirect routes. They can afford to travel only in good weather and good spirits. Recreation cyclists can afford to travel very slowly. Sport cyclists can accept maintaining a hyper-alert state while cycling because challenge and thrills are a welcome part of sports. An ordinary traveler, who must travel in all conditions, internal and external, who just needs to get somewhere with a minimal expenditure of time and energy cannot afford the burdens of delay, effort, stress, danger, unreliability, and inflexibility that many others are willing to accept. A transportation cyclist must establish reliable habits and policies so that he or she can avoid unnecessary decisions and movements. This is taken for granted with regard to travel by vehicles of other types, such as cars and motorcycles. Anyone who would travel in a timid manner, as many expect Reed to have done, day after day, rain or shine, light or dark, hot or cold, on familiar or unfamiliar roads, while tired, while upset, while stressed out, while preoccupied, needing to preserve the energy, physical AND mental, to perform some task at his or her destination that might be difficult or unpleasant or stressful and still have the time and energy to get back home and eat dinner and get to bed so that he or she could get up in the morning and have a day, then he or she would quickly find his or her life to be hopelessly difficult or severely limited. There are only so many decisions a person can make in a day. There is only so much of the day a person can maintain an athletic level of alertness. Many people adapt to the expectation of timidity (what John Forester has dubbed the "cyclist inferiority complex") by either giving up cycling as a practical form of transportation or imposing severe constraints on their lives to make timid cycling practical. If motorists had to follow these expectations, you would quickly see either an surge of collisions beyond imagination or you would see about as many motorists on the road as you see cyclists now.

Me and Reed were not the first cyclists to be bullied off of the road by police officers. There have been many others. In some cases, cyclists have even been physically attacked by police officers. I hear those more experienced than me that there was time when cycling advocates were thoughtful, passionate, and loyal defenders of the right to travel freely, who would rally together to defend against these attacks. I have hope that this thoughtfulness, passion, and loyalty can be rejuvenated and that the right to travel freely can be reaffirmed.

Resources

Structured Websites

Let Him Ride - Protect cyclist's rights in the City of Ennis, Texas and Ellis County, Texas.
LAB Reform - Coalition to Reform LAB Return Control to Members and Restore Traditional Cycling Values
John Forester - Fight for Your Right to Cycle Properly!
North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving - Bicyclists are drivers of vehicles. Every street is a bicycle facility.
Cycling Savvy - A Cycling Education Program of the Florida Bicycling Association
Cyclist View - The following PowerPoint presentations have been converted to online slides with flash video:
Reforming Bicycle Traffic Laws - Yes, you can fight city hall** and your state legislature.
Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

Blogs

Articles

When I first tried to write this article, I became overwhelmed by the tangled rat's nest of issues involved and the ocean of text that those issue were hidden in. (Please forgive the mixed metaphor.) I began compiling this list of articles, with the intention that it be a comprehensive archive of information on Reed Bates's saga, so that I could sort sort out the overwhelming heap of facts and opinions in preparation for my article. However, I could not decide on a standard for an article to be considered related this saga. I decided to err on the side inclusion. That is why the list is so long. That is also why I needed to classify the articles by topic as well. Please let me know if you know of any articles or other resources are not currently included in this list but that seem to belong on it. If you are the creator of this resource, please don't be modest.

DATE	TOPICS	SOURCE	TITLE AND LINK
	Discrimination	Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info	Cyclist Inferiority
	Traffic Safety	Bicycling Matters	High Speed Bicycling
	Traffic Safety	LAB Reform	Why Cyclists Should Stay Out of the Gutter
	Cycling Education	Cyclist View	Integrated Traffic Cycling^TM Introduction
	Status Update	Reforming Bicycle Traffic Laws	The Trials of Reed (Chipseal) Bates
09/26/2001	Traffic Safety, Traffic Law, Discrimination, Education	North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving	The Science and Politics of Bicycle Driving
04/20/2006	Traffic Law, Discrimination	VeloNews	Legally Speaking – with Bob Mionske: To impede or not to impede, that is the question
07/25/2007	Police Encounter	Eyeteeth: A journal of incisive ideas	Cyclist tasered for riding bike at MSP airport
11/11/2007	Traffic Safety, Traffic Law	Bicycling is Better	How Wide is a "Share-able" Lane?
12/31/2007	Letter, Cycling Advocacy, Traffic Safety	Bicycling Traffic Engineer	Bicyclists and the basic speed law
01/29/2008	Police Encounter	ChicoER	Bicyclist tased when he runs for minor infraction
06/11/2008	Police Encounter	BikePortland	Man on a bike is tackled, then tasered by Portland Police
10/04/2008	Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	Take the Red Pill
02/04/2009	Police Encounter	CommuteOrlando	Impeding Traffic
02/17/2009	Police Encounter	CommuteOrlando	Impeding Traffic: The Audio
04/22/2009	Police Encounter, Legal Analysis, Status Update	Road Rights	When the Cop Says Stop
04/23/2009	Repost, Police Encounter, Legal Analysis, Status Update	Windermere Roadies	Road Rights: The Right to Disobey Cops
04/27/2009	Cycling Advocacy, Cycling Education, Discrimination, Traffic Safety	CommuteOrlando	Police Have it Wrong: Traffic Flow vs. Safety
04/29/2009	Commentary	Road Rights	A “Cop” Responds
05/06/2009	Traffic Law	Bicycling is Better	Impeding Traffic Is…
05/13/2009	Commentary	BicycleLaw	"And the hell with the law"
05/19/2009	Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	New Frames for New Ages
08/03/2009	Traffic Law	North Texas Vehicular Cyclist	Impediment
08/04/2009	Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	The Culture of Speed vs the Culture of Trust
08/10/2009	Traffic Law	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	BIKE LAW 101 – An Overview of Bike Law
08/25/2009	Traffic Safety, Discrimination	Bicycling is Better	Give and Take; Control and Release
09/24/2009	Status Update	Ironton Tribune	Tasered biker sues in civil rights case
09/25/2009	Status Update	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	Ironton Tribune reports on Tasered Cyclist case
10/01/2009	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	Nice Meeting You, Officer Watson
10/01/2009	Cycling Advocacy	Bicycling is Better	Which Cycling Politics: Doom or Possibility?
10/10/2009	Police Encounter	NEWS5	Teen’s Death Prompts Taser Ban
11/19/2008	Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	Adventures in Traffic: College Park to OIA
08/25/2009	Discrimination, Cycling Education	Bicycling is Better	Give and Take; Control and Release
10/04/2009	Police Encounter, Legal Analysis	ChipSeal	It Is More Important To Me Than to Them
10/06/2009	Discrimination	DFW Point-to-Point	Steve Does Principles
10/20/2009	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	God Bless Potholes
11/15/2009	Traffic Safety	ChipSeal	The Steps of the Dance
11/16/2009	Traffic Safety	CommuteOrlando	A very fine essay…
11/30/2009	Traffic Law	ChipSeal	Slow Vehicles and Lawful Lane Position
12/09/2009	Status Update, Discrimination	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	TASERED Cyclists – An Update
12/15/2009	Traffic Safety	ChipSeal	MOTORISTS NEVER THINK
12/18/2009	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	It Is Hard To Plan For Traffic Stops
12/18/2009	Repost, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Motorists never think
12/23/2009	Legal Analysis	ChipSeal	Oops!
12/24/2009	Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	Book Review: CycleCraft, by John Franklin
01/01/2010	Discrimination, Cycling Education	Bicycling is Better	The Conch Republic Battles the Tyranny of Speed
01/06/2010	Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Why Shoulders Make Bad Bike Lanes
01/09/2010	Cycling Education	DFW Point-to-Point	For Family and For Law
01/19/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	While Minding My Own Business...
01/22/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	Perilous Journey
01/23/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	You Are Under Arrest!
01/24/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	Nice Meeting You Again, Officer Watson!
01/25/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	A Tale of Two Jails
01/26/2010	Commentary	ChipSeal	Repercussions
01/26/2010	Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	The Enforcement of Imaginary Laws
01/27/2010	Discrimination	dailybreeze	LA council studies ways of protecting bicyclists
01/28/2010	Traffic Law	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	OHIO’S BIKE LAWS
01/28/2010	Discrimination	DFW Point-to-Point	It Starts With the Law
02/02/2010	Comment Feedback	ChipSeal	Back-talk
02/03/2010	Court Appearance	ChipSeal	A letter came in the mail.
02/04/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	Court Date
02/05/2010	Traffic Safety	CommuteOrlando	Mythbusters on Highway 535
02/06/2010	Repost, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	For Ennis the Menace
02/10/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	Correction
02/12/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	Ellis County Demands a Public Showdown
02/13/2010	Inspiration	DFW Point-to-Point	Inspiration and Fear
02/14/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	New Case
02/14/2010	Commentary	DFW Point-to-Point	What Have We Come To?
02/15/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	Scarlet Pimpernel
02/16/2010	Status Update, Police Encounter, Traffic Safety, Commentary	ChipSeal	Sometimes Motorists Do the Darndest Things
02/16/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	High Noon
02/16/2010	Status Update	cycleSMARTdallas	ChipSeal
02/17/2010	Court Appearance, Commentary, Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	Looking Back Looking Forward
02/19/2010	Comment Feedback, Traffic Safety	ChipSeal	My Formal Reply To Larry
02/19/2010	Traffic Safety, Legal Analysis	DFW Point-to-Point	Fine Lines and Smart Riding
02/20/2010	Traffic Law	DFW Point-to-Point	Daily Violation
02/22/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	Things to Think About From a Different Direction
02/23/2010	Status Update, Legal Analysis	cycleSMARTdallas	In a nutshell
02/24/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	This is Going Somewhere
02/25/2010	Police Encounter, Court Appearance, Legal Analysis, Commentary	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	TROTWOOD v. SELZ – A GREAT VICTORY FOR CYCLISTS
02/28/2010	Police Encounter	cycleSMARTdallas	ECSI: Ennis Crime Scene Investigator
03/01/2010	Legal Analysis, Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	30 MPH. Think about it.
03/01/2010	Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	The Dance on Video
03/02/2010	Discrimination, Inspiration	cycleSMARTdallas	First they ticketed...
03/02/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Should these police officers ticket themselves for impeding traffic?
03/02/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Crime Watch.
03/02/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	What does "share" mean to you?
03/05/2010	Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	The American Association of State Highway and Traffic Officials comes to ChipSeal's defense.
03/06/2010	Cycling Advocacy	Bicycling is Better	A New Myth for Cycling
03/07/2010	Fundraising	cycleSMARTdallas	Special New Higher Prices in the Cycle*Dallas Gift Shop!
03/08/2010	Cycling Advocacy	Bicycling is Better	Blue Collar Jedi Cyclist
03/08/2010	Fundraising, Commentary	CommuteOrlando	Let Him Ride
03/08/2010	Commentary, Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	Some Battles Choose Us
03/09/2010	Fundraising	cycleSMARTdallas	Save the baby ChipSeals! Look to the right... and donate
03/09/2010	Police Encounter	CYCLES	The Hadley Encounters
03/09/2010	Police Encounter	CYCLES	The West Springfield Encounters
03/09/2010	Legal Analysis	CYCLES	The Police Report
03/09/2010	Legal Analysis	CYCLES	Laws that are Relevant to My Situation
03/09/2010	Court Appearance	CYCLES	The Court Appearance
03/09/2010	Status Update	CYCLES	The Attorney General
03/09/2010	Status Update,Discrimination	CYCLES	Bill Newman
03/09/2010	Status Update	CYCLES	Letters to the Chiefs of Police
03/09/2010	Traffic Safety, Comment Feedback	CYCLES	Questions and Answers on Vecular Cycling / Bicycle Driving
03/09/2010	Traffic Law, Traffic Safety	CYCLES	The Need for Cyclists to Use Assertive Lane Position
03/09/2010	Cycling Education, Discrimination	CYCLES	Advice for Cyclists when Stopped by the Police
03/09/2010	Comment Feedback	CYCLES	Other Comments from the Facebook Note "my legal troubles".
03/09/2010	Discrimination	CYCLES	The Right to Travel
03/09/2010	Fundraising	DFW Point-to-Point	Bare Bones Night
03/10/2010	Cycling Education	CYCLES	Frequently Asked Questions about Bicycle Driving
03/10/2010	Status Update, Traffic Law, Commentary	cycleSMARTdallas	BULLETIN!!!
03/10/2010	Repost, Fundraising, Commentary	BikeForums	ChipSeal needs our support
03/10/2010	Letter	cycleSMARTdallas	Contacts
03/11/2010	Contacts	cycleSMARTdallas	Pen Pals
03/12/2010	Comment Feedback	cycleSMARTdallas	What they are saying...
03/13/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	First, Stop Digging
03/13/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	ChipSeal/Reed Bates Update
03/13/2010	Legal Analysis	DFW Point-to-Point	A Way Out for Ennis
03/15/2010	Cycling Education	DFW Point-to-Point	Birth of a Yeti
03/17/2010	Fundraising	cycleSMARTdallas	Attention shoppers! Save ChipSeal, not money (bump).
03/17/2010	Inspiration	cycleSMARTdallas	Oooo! I like that quote.
03/17/2010	Legal Analysis, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Why doesn't he operate on the shoulder?
03/19/2010	Inspiration	cycleSMARTdallas	Franz Kafka goes to Ennis looking for a Kolache...
03/19/2010	Link, Status Update	HOW WE DRIVE	Kafka in Texas
03/21/2010	Police Encounter	CYCLES	The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse
03/22/2010	Police Encounter	ChipSeal	Impede Traffic, Pull Over a Cyclists!
03/22/2010	Court Appearance	DFW Point-to-Point	People Versus Bates
03/23/2010	Link, Court Appearance	cycleSMARTdallas	The People vs. Bates
03/23/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Why do cyclists eat their own?
03/24/2010	Traffic Law, Traffic Safety, Cycling Education, Comment Feedback	CYCLES	Response to Maureen's Comment
03/24/2010	Traffic Law, Traffic Safety, Cycling Education, Letter	CYCLES	Letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood
03/24/2010	Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	Another traffic/delay reality check
03/25/2010	Inspiration	cycleSMARTdallas	Welcome back.
03/26/2010	Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Why lane position is important, and how it works.
03/26/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Impeding traffic?
03/27/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	Looks Like a Sideswipe Weekend — Sigh
03/27/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	Go Steady Yeti
03/27/2010	Legal Analysis, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Absolutely, positively, not representative of the normal and reasonable (but variable) shoulder conditions of Highway 287 between Ennis and Waxahachie
03/29/2010	Status Update	cycleSMARTdallas	Ellis County has decided the charge (not to be confused with the City of Ennis)
03/29/2010	Discrimination, Fundraising	cycleSMARTdallas	Back to Basics regarding why Reed Bates matters to you.
03/30/2010	Commentary, Legal Analysis	Bicycling is Better	Thoughts About Reed Bates
03/30/2010	Link, Commentary, Legal Analysis	cycleSMARTdallas	Mighk makes right (sense)
03/31/2010	Inspiration, Discrimination	ChipSeal	What Codger Said
04/01/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Separate but equal.
04/02/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	Cyclist Choice
04/02/2010	Status Update, Legal Analysis	CYCLES	Charged with Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful Wiretapping
04/06/2010	Link, Cycling Advocacy	Tulsa Alternative Transportation Examiner	The League of American Bicyclists misses the point
04/06/2010	Cycling Advocacy	cycleSMARTdallas	Red Dirt truth.
04/07/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	A reminder.
04/07/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	Local Road Work
04/07/2010	Discrimination, Cycling Education, Comment Feedback	CYCLES	Response to Racerx's Comment
04/08/2010	Link, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Why the gutter is a bad place to hang out.
04/15/2010	Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Is this legal?
04/19/2010	Traffic Safety	ChipSeal	Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
04/20/2010	Cycling Advocacy	cycleSMARTdallas	Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio!
04/23/2010	Traffic Law	ChipSeal	Part of Chapter 13 of the Texas Driver Handbook
04/25/2010	Traffic Law, Traffic Safety	ChipSeal	Bicycle Rules For Motorists TDH
04/07/2010	Court Appearance	CYCLES	The Arraignment
04/27/2010	Traffic Safety	STREETSBLOG	Tom Vanderbilt Talks “Traffic”
04/27/2010	Cycling Education	DFW Point-to-Point	Follow Up Report on Yetiness
04/29/2010		CommuteOrlando	A good discussion of traffic culture & justice
05/04/2010	Traffic Safety, Discrimination	DFW Point-to-Point	Shoulders Make a WORLD of Difference
05/23/2010	Commentary	DFW Point-to-Point	Discretion and Valor
05/27/2010	Traffic Safety	DFW Point-to-Point	The Dark Side of the Land Rover Rule
06/12/2010	Discrimination, Status Update	CYCLES	Undue Process of Law
06/24/2010	Inspiration	CommuteOrlando	Accept No Limitations
06/25/2010	Cycling Education	cycleSMARTdallas	Readers write rightly.
06/25/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	Beyond the Pale
06/26/2010	Discrimination, Status Update	cycleSMARTdallas	Cow Creek Country Classic Justice
06/26/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	First Order of Business
06/26/2010	Police Encounter	DFW Point-to-Point	Historic Waxahachie
06/28/2010	Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	CyclingSavvy Website Launched
06/30/2010	Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	Promote a healthy community, or pander to the sentiments which destroy community?
07/14/2010	Status Update	cycleSMARTdallas	An open letter from Reed Bates.
07/14/2010	Status Update, Traffic Safety Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Take your lane, or risk this.
07/15/2010	Traffic Safety, Cycling Education	CommuteOrlando	Stop the madness! We can do so much better.
07/17/2010	Status Update	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	TASERED CYCLIST SETTLES CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT
07/20/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	Trial Date Changed From July 29
07/22/2010	Cycling Education, Traffic Safety, Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	Trust and the "Substandard" Lane
07/23/2010	Cycling Education	Orlando Sentinel	Bicyclists, motorists: Can't we all get along on the roads?
07/23/2010	Link, Cycling Education	cycleSMARTdallas	Integration vs. segregation.
07/23/2010	Inspiration	cycleSMARTdallas	Don't be a "traffic cockroach".
07/24/2010	Cycling Advocacy, Traffic Safety, Cycling Education	cycleSMARTdallas	Why doesn't he ride on the shoulder?
07/28/2010	Status Update	ChipSeal	New Trial Date Set
07/29/2010	Status Update, Inspiration, Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Ellis Country has set a NEW court date for Reed Bates.
07/30/2010	Traffic Law	cycleSMARTdallas	This is interesting...
08/04/2010	Link, Cycling Education	cycleSMARTdallas	Orlando-area bike advocate wants to share roads with cars
08/11/2010	Cycling Education, Traffic Safety	cycleSMARTdallas	Would you like to be the new marshal of Dodge?
08/11/2010	Status Update	CYCLES	Case Update: A Distant End in Sight, or at Least a Middle
08/13/2010	Link, Cycling Education	cycleSMARTdallas	Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something true.
08/17/2010	Status Update	DFW Point-to-Point	Conduct Lawful and Admirable
08/18/2010	Status Update, Legal Analysis, Fundraising	cycleSMARTdallas	Reed Bates foun d Guilty of 'Reckless Driving'
08/18/2010	Court Appearance	DFW Point-to-Point	People Versus Bates
08/19/2010	Repost, Status Update, Legal Analysis, Fundraising	Baltimore Spokes	Reed Bates found Guilty of 'Reckless Driving'
08/19/2010	Status Update	STREETSBLOG NETWORK	Texas Judge Deems Cyclist Guilty for Riding on the Road
08/19/2010	Link, Court Appearance	BikeForums	Jailed for riding in accordance with the law
08/19/2010	Cycling Advocacy, Status Update	LEAGUE OF AMERICAN BICYCLISTS	Picking Your Battles: The League & The Reed Bates Case
08/20/2010	Repost, Cycling Advocacy, Status Update	BikeForums	LAB vrs Strict VC... the Reed Bates issue.
08/20/2010	Cycling Advocacy, Discrimination	cycleSMARTdallas	Clearly unhelpful.
08/20/2010	Cycling Advocacy, Discrimination	CommuteOrlando	Who will speak up when they come for you?
08/22/2010	Status Update	WashCycle	Cyclist Found Guilty for Riding in the Road
08/29/2010	Police Encounter	CYCLES	My Encounter with Eric Perkins and Adam Bartlett
08/312010	Status Update, Discrimination, Cycling Advocacy	CYCLES	Persecution, Abandonment, and Betrayal: Comments on the Reed Bates Saga
09/01/2010	Police Encounter, Commentary, Court Appearance, Legal Analysis	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	The SELZ Case – Revisited
09/10/2010	Commentary	Road Rights	Listen, Obey—and then Act
09/26/2010	Traffic Law, Discrimination, Cycling Advocacy	STEVE MAGAS BIKE LAWYER	“SHARE THE ROAD” Stinks…
10/01/2010	Discrimination, Traffic Safety, Cycling Advocacy	CommuteOrlando	The Cost of Being Different

My Encounter with Eric Perkins and Adam Bartlett

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:23:00 GMT

In a comment on my recent article "Case Update: A Distant End in Sight, or at Least a Middle", Mike asked, "What is all this about Eric Perkins? I have been following your saga, but do not recall reference to an alleged altercation with someone. Is he a motorist?" Here is the story.

On 03/30/2007, I was riding East on Route 9 in Hadley approaching the Amherst border. A pickup truck driver, who turned out to be Eric Perkins, the owner of Amherst Motel, began tailgating me and laying on the horn. When I got near Dominos, he moved into the passing lane, passed me, and turned into the Dominos driveway. I naively thought that I might confront him and calmly discuss the conflict, so I followed into the driveway. He got out of the truck and began yelling at me, not giving me a chance to respond. Then he walked back toward his truck.

I was extremely frustrated at not being given the opportunity to respond, so I followed him to his truck, wheeling my bike along with me. As he entered the driver-side door, I stepped between him and the door to try to force him to continue the conversation. He grabbed me by the throat and threw me on the ground, on top of my bike. (He was much bigger than me.) Then he drove away.

I called the Hadley police, and a police officer, who I later identified as Adam Bartlett, arrived. I told him what had happened. Meanwhile, Eric Perkins returned in his truck. Adam Bartlett spoke to Eric Perkins out of my hearing range. He then told me that the attack was partially my fault and that he did not want to file a report. During this interchange, an Amherst police officer arrived, presumable in response to a complaint from Eric Perkins. Adam Bartlett told the Amherst police officer that he, Adam Bartlett, had the situation under control. The Amherst police officer left. Eric Perkins begged me to allow him to give me a ride, which I refused. Adam Bartlett left. I left on foot because my body had knocked my headset out of adjustment when I had fallen on it.

From that experience, I learned that it was a bad idea to try to talk to agitated motorists, and I resolved not to do it any more. However, I do not feel that I did anything to justify Eric Perkins attacking me.

I later had another encounter with Adam Bartlett. He acted very inappropriately when I attempted to report being threatened by a school bus driver.

After my arraignment on 04/27/2010, my lawyer sent me the reports that Mitchell Kuc had submitted when he filed the charges. They included not only his reports from the three times he stopped me, but also reports from Adam Bartlett and the Amherst Police Department on my encounter with Eric Perkins. (I am told that this is not a regular practice.) Apparently, Eric Perkins visited the Amherst Police Department after our encounter and reported his version of the story, in which I grabbed his shirt and he did not grab my throat. (Note that my hands were occupied with holding my bike upright next to me at the time.)

In his report of the encounter on 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc stated that Adam Bartlett told him I had attacked Eric Perkins. I do not know whether Adam Bartlett actually claimed that I had attacked Eric Perkins, but Mitchell Kuc reported that he did, without any qualification that would make clear that Adam Bartlett had not witnessed the alleged attack, and that his alleged claim was controversial and unverified. Of course, this encounter is also irrelevant to the present charges. It is an attempt to prejudice the court against me by implying that I am prone to violence.

Case Update: A Distant End in Sight, or at Least a Middle

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:13:00 GMT

Since the arraignment, I have had three hearings, Pretty much nothing happened at any of them. Now it seems that something might finally happen at the next hearing, on 09/08/2010.

About a week after the arraignment, on 04/27/2010, I received the police report in the mail from my lawyer. (I have transcribed the very sloppily photocopied reports of 09/12/2009 and 03/20/2010.) I did not publish it right away because I wanted to wait until I had acquired the video evidence so that I could make a thorough commentary. However, the Hadley Police Department repeatedly denied my lawyer's requests for this evidence. At the first hearing, on 06/01/2010, my lawyer told the judge that he was still waiting for this evidence, and another hearing was scheduled for 07/07/2010. He did not mention the Hadley Police Department's obstructionism.

My lawyer was unable to acquired the video evidence before the second hearing. Additionally, about a week before the second hearing, my lawyer notified me that he was leaving his practice to work as in-house counsel at an insurance company. He would not available to represent me at the hearing. The court would appoint a new lawyer for me. On the day of the hearing, my old lawyer, David Rock, submitted a "motion to disappear" to the court, and Peter Dejnak was assigned to serve as my new lawyer. At the hearing, Peter Dejnak told the judge that I still did not have the video evidence. The prosecutor told him to contact a particular district attorney's office staff member about it, and another hearing was scheduled for 08/11/2010.

Peter Dejnak acquired the footage from the district attorney's office, and turned it over to me about two weeks after that. However, he warned me not to publish it yet. So I cannot yet publish my full commentary on the evidence. However, I will mention a few points.

The video evidence is entirely consistent with my report and quite inconsistent Mitchell Kuc's report. More details later.
In his reports of 09/12/2009 and 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc admits that he knew it was legal for me to position myself in the middle a lane.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc asserts that I attacked Eric Perkins on 03/30/2007. In fact, Eric Perkins attacked me; I never touched him. Hadley police officer Adam Bartlett had arrived in response to MY call for help after the attack. Eric Perkins did report to the Amherst Police Department that I had grabbed his shirt, but this was a blatant lie, and no investigation was conducted. Additionally, it is irrelevant to the present case.
In his report of 03/20/2010, Mitchell Kuc writes that he "recorded a 25 second clip of the offender" before stopping me. The prosecutor told my lawyer that no such clip was available and that the Hadley Police Department does not equip its patrol cars with video cameras.

At the third hearing, my lawyer notified the court that he would submit motions to suppress evidence and dismiss the charges. A motion hearing was scheduled for 09/08/2010, and a trial was conditionally scheduled for 11/04/2010. The judge, John Payne, commented on the issue of Mitchell Kuc's reported video clip. He said that he thought Hadley patrol cars were not equipped with video cameras. A prosecutor confirmed that they were not so equipped. (Edit 08/19/2010: I found out that Mitchell Kuc had indeed recorded a video clip with a cell phone. I have acquired Mitchell Kuc's footage but cannot yet publish it. It shows nothing of consequence anyway.)

My lawyer has given me some good news and some bad news about the upcoming motion hearing. The bad news is that, due to custom and policy, he cannot make all possible arguments for dismissing the charges at this hearing. In particular, he cannot argue to dismiss the wiretapping charged based on the fact that my recording was clearly not performed secretly. (Edit 09/22/2010: My lawyer was wrong about this. When he did not mention the wiretapping charge, the judge specifically asked him about it.) However, he will argue to dismiss the wiretapping charge based on the fact that the evidence was obtained illegally. If this argument fails, he will have to make other arguments at a subsequent hearing. The good news is that Mitchell Kuc will need to testify at the upcoming hearing, and my lawyer will be able to question him about his words and actions. This will be the first time that Mitchell Kuc need answer for his behavior and the first time that the light of rigorous public scrutiny is cast on any aspect of this case.

I would appreciate anyone who would support me by standing by me at this hearing (well, sitting actually) on Wednesday, September 8th, if it would not be greatly inconvenient for you to attend. It should be interesting, although it will certainly not have drama of an actual trial. I cannot know what time the hearing will occur at, only that it will occur sometime between 9:00AM and 4:30PM, although my previous hearings at this courthouse have all occurred before 12:00PM. Directions to the courthouse are available at http://www.mass.gov/courts/jury/056.htm. Thank you.F

Undue Process of Law

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:45:00 GMT

Through my recent experiences with the police and the criminal justice system I have reached some disturbing realizations about the institutional dynamics of the criminal justice system. Rather than mete out justice, it seems to often serve as a mechanism of retaliation for corrupt police officers against those they dislike. Rather than assign punishment to the guilty, it serves as a form of punishment in itself to many people who end up caught in it. (I use the word "corruption" in a general sense of readiness to abuse one's power.)

A Sacred Trust
Accusation Equals Punishmen
What is Disorderly Conduct?
Checks and Balances
The Right to a Fair Trial, Et Cetera

A Sacred Trust

We grant public officials an enormous trust. As individuals, we often view public officials as a force external to us, but the power of public officials is power that we collectively grant to them for our benefit. We must ensure that that power is used only for that purpose. They take on the solemn charge of protecting us, and to aid them in carrying out this charge we grant them special legal powers, and we relinquish some of our own individual powers to them. If this trust is upheld, then we are better off over all, since by pooling our power and investing it properly we can better protect ourselves.

Those of us who pay attention to such things know that violations of this trust are frequent and widespread. We often neglect to hold public officials who violate our collective trust responsible for their violations, often outright refusing to rescind this trust from those who have violated it. Indeed, a great many terrible crimes and acts of greed and cruelty are perpetrated by those charged with our protection without consequence to them. Examples of corruption among public officials exist at all levels of government.

I do not mean to make the generalization that all or most public officials are corrupt. I do not know how pervasive this corruption is. I do not mean to make this generalization specifically about police officers when I discuss the topic of corruption among police officers below. I have had positive encounters with police officers as well as negative ones, and I have heard of noble and conscientious police officers who have upheld the law even at the expense of their careers, reputations, and physical safety. But the fact that corruption is not at the level of complete saturation (which is unrealistic) does not mean that the problem is not dire. For everyone who commits an explicitly corrupt act, there are many more who are aware of the corruption and, in violation of their solemn charge to protect us, fail to make any substantial effort to combat or expose it. Even those public officials who are unaware of any corruption, even those who have no reason to suspect any corruption, have still violated our trust if they fail to deliberately and conscientiously pursue their charge to protect us from corruption.

Many of us have experienced such corruption directly, personally, and viscerally in our encounters with police officers. As public officials, police officers are granted an enormous trust by their respective communities, which often consist of relatively few people. These police officers take on the solemn charge to protect members of and visitors to their respective communities from crime, and to pursue justice for these members and visitors if they become victims of crime. We grant them special legal powers, such as the authority to seize our persons and property, and we give up some of our own individual powers to them, such as direct access to some parts of the court. This last point is especially relevant here, and I return to it below.

As an example, I watched a hearing on the following case while I was at the Springfield courthouse. The defendant's attorney summarized the arresting officer's report like this: Police officers were watching some people whom they suspected of drug crimes. They observed a meeting between these suspects which they thought was a sale of cocaine. (I think it was cocaine.) After the meeting ended, they stopped the suspected buyer and searched him and his car. They found no drugs, but arrested him anyway. They later claimed that when they took him out of the patrol car they found some bags of cocaine on the seat where he had been sitting that "must have fallen out of his pockets during the trip." The judge granted the defendant's motion and dismissed the charges. However, the judge issued no orders regarding the police officers and even made a joking, caught-with-your-hand-in-the-cookie-jar type of comment about it, seeming to imply that he considered the police officers' transgressions as more like an out-of-bounds violation in a basketball game than as a miscarriage of justice.

Reports of police officers committing corrupt and criminal acts are so common that it is difficult for me to imagine someone who is unaware of the phenomenon. These reports tell of unwarranted stops, inappropriate questions and demands, threats, unprovoked physical attacks, unwarranted arrests, and filing of civil citations and criminal charges without probable cause. We charge the police themselves, as well as prosecutors and government executives, with preventing these abuses, in part by punishing those who commit them. However, they often fail to uphold this charge, and we as communities fail to replace them.

Accusation Equals Punishment

Incidents of police officers filing spurious criminal charges are the most insidious of the abuses I listed because they depend on cooperation from prosecutors and judges. Their effects are less direct, but more powerful in their potential to inspire further abuses of all kinds. I have become aware through my own recent experience that these incidents not only harm us collectively over time but can also inflict immediate, individual harm on the person who is charged. This harm is inflicted, in part, prior to and independent of the issuing of a verdict and can be as bad as or worse than any potential official penalty in the event that the defendant is convicted (and false convictions are certainly not unprecedented). If convicted, he or she suffers even more unofficial punishment along with his or her official punishment. I should point out that the unofficial, pre-verdict punishment includes the expense of mounting a defense, which is not recovered upon acquittal. It is sometimes greater than the amount of the fines that might be levied against the defendant if convicted. The expense might even be so great that the defendant cannot mount an effective defense and so cannot receive a fair trial. So, does the presumption of innocence actually mean anything in practice? What does it matter that you are nominally presumed innocent until proven guilty if you can be punished without being proven guilty? Despite the nominal presumption of innocence, there is often, in effect, a presumption of guilt instead.

I describe below how this condition appears to be upheld by custom and policy. However, it is also reinforced by some elements of law. I have become aware of several such elements in Massachusetts so far.

When a police officer or prosecutor brings a charge before a magistrate to be approved for filing, the defendant is not notified beforehand and is not permitted to submit his or her own account of events for consideration by the magistrate along with the evidence submitted by the police. In fact, it seems that the only opportunity the defendant might get to give his or her account of events is at a trial, if one occurs, and if the defendant is not compelled to forgo testifying because doing so would be strategically disadvantageous. So the defendant's account of events is often not considered by the court at all, and is only considered very late in the process. In contrast, the police officer's account of events is treated as fact from the beginning. Under most circumstances, it cannot be called into question until a trial occurs. The claims made by a police officer in his or her report are even explicitly referred to in court documents as "the facts" throughout the process, until a trial occurs.
In addition to any other conditions that a judge might impose on a defendant for reasons that are specific to the defendant and the charges against him or her, there is a condition that applies to all defendants: if any police officer anywhere in the country arrests the defendant for any reason before the charges are resolved, the judge is entitled to order the defendant held in jail for up to ninety days. If the charge is spurious and if the defendant faces a risk of additional spurious arrests and charges in the future, this law has the effect of making him or her even more vulnerable to these future spurious arrests and charges. As I explain below, the effect of this law has been crippling to me, and I am unaware of any check against it.
In some cases the law provides for a show cause hearing, which is a hearing at which the prosecution must present evidence to a judge and demonstrate, based on this evidence, that the charges are reasonable. A show cause hearing, if held, occurs before the accused is arraigned, and if the judge does not find cause to charge the accused the case cannot continue. However, the accused is only entitled to a show cause hearing if the charges did not stem from an arrest and if he or she is not charged with a felony. So, in this respect, the court is less cautious when the charges are more serious and the possible consequences to the defendant and to the court are greater. The consequences to court take the form of expenditures of money and time and a loss of public confidence.
Once the accused is arraigned, the charges are added permanently to his or her criminal record. If the charges are spurious, this addition serves to further bias the police and the court against him or her.
A defendant who is not facing jail time is not entitled to a court-appointed attorney, regardless of his or her financial condition. If he or she cannot afford to hire an attorney, then he or she will very likely be pressured into pleading guilty, even if innocent. The alternative is to mount a pro se defense, which is impracticable for most defendants and unlikely to result in a fair trial. So a police officer filing a spurious charge against someone who appears to be poor can do so with a good deal of confidence of a conviction.
Prosecutors have legal immunity from liabiliity for most abuses of their position. There seems to be no mechanism for holding a prosecutor responsible for supporting a police officer's false charges or other illegal actions.
While police officers do not have the legal immunity of prosecutors, it is rarely practical to seek justice by suing them for their abuses. It is extremely expensive. The expense comes not only from attorney fees (or opportunity cost to an attorney who accepts a case on contingency), which are not necessarily recoverable upon achieving a successful outcome, but also from fees paid to the court, most notably fees associated with depositions, which can be several thousand dollars. The likelihood and magnitude of a possible payout is rarely sufficient to make it worth an attorney's while to accept a case on contingency.

Recently, I found myself caught in the criminal justice system as a result of spurious charges filed by Officer Mitchell Kuc, in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Officer Joseph Reed, in West Springfield, Massachusetts. In both cases, the police disapproved of my driving a bicycle, and, in particular, controlling a lane that was too narrow to safely share under the circumstances. As a cycling instructor, I knew my behavior to be entirely legal, extremely safe, and minimally inconvenient to others. In fact, my purpose in controlling the lane was to ensure my safety. I have been stopped several times by police officers in West Springfield under similar circumstances but by different police officers each time. In the most recent stop, Joseph Reed arrested me and charged me with disorderly conduct. The charge was prosecuted in Springfield District Court for four months. The charges were dropped a week before the scheduled trial, but only under the condition that I pay "court costs". I have been stopped several times by Mitchell Kuc in Hadley. In the most recent stop, I was recording my trip with a video camera attached to my helmet. Mitchell Kuc decided to interpret my use of the camera as unlawful wiretapping and seized the camera. Later, I was notified by mail that he had charged me with disorderly conduct, for my driving behavior, and unlawful wiretapping, for recording the encounter. The charges were prosecuted in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Massachusetts for six months before being dismissed by Judge John Payne in response to a motion filed by my attorney.

In addition to my own cases, a prominent example is that of Jason Vassell, a black student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Jason was in his first floor dorm room when one of his guests noticed two white men (Jonathan Bosse and John Bowes of Milton, Massachusetts who, it turns out, had a rich history of racially motivated violence and no connection with the University) approached his window from the outside. They shouted threats and insults at him, including the word "nigger", and one of them broke the window with his fist. The two white men then went around the building to the door and entered the hallway (i.e. they invaded his home) looking for him. Witnesses saw, and security camera footage shows, the two men attacking Jason, and Jason attempting to defend himself until he escapes into another dorm room. Recordings of radio communications and interrogations by Lieutenant Robert Thrasher of the UMass Amherst Police Department show extremely unprofessional behavior and bias against Jason. The UMass police arrested Jason and charged him with armed assault with intent to murder (he used a pocket knife as a weapon) while letting his attackers go free. One of his attackers was later charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and a civil rights violation. He was convicted of the first charge and sentenced to a year of probation and was acquitted of the second charge. A grand jury indicted Jason on a reduced charge of aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. After two years and four months of prosecution, the prosecutors agreed to drop the charge, although Jason remained on probation for two more months. You can hear an interview with Jason's attorneys, David Hoose and Luke Ryan, in episodes of The Bill Dwight Show (podcast) that aired on 06/14/2010 (comment page) and 06/15/2010 (comment page). The University has taken no official action and made no official statement regarding the case. The case has entirely derailed Jason's education and life in general and has bankrupted his parents. I do not know him personally, and I cannot imagine how he has been able to cope with the experience, considering the difficulty I have had in coping with my own related experience. (Note that this occurred not only in a country with a long standing commitment to civil rights, but also in a state within that country, in a district within that state, and in a town within that district that are reputed throughout the country for their extremely left-wing political orientations. The Massachusetts Constitution, including its Declaration of Rights, pre-dates the founding of the country.)

My own cases, while not as severe as Jason's in some senses, has several additional tangles.

During my encounters with police officers, they accused me of violating laws that did not exist.
None of the facts are in dispute, and the crimes I have been charged with are inapplicable to those facts. This can be easily demonstrated with a quick review of the evidence and relevant laws, and reinforced with a review of well-established principles of bicycle safety.
The primary allegedly criminal act on my part is one that I must commit as part of my daily life, namely traveling on public roads in a safe and efficient manner. Indeed, traveling on public roads is almost universally considered to be essential for full participation in society. The effect of this is to place me on a kind of virtual house arrest, since any attempt I make to travel unescorted carries the risk of interference by police officers. This risk can be reduced only if the difficulty is increased through a change of route or mode of travel. Although the risk is especially great in Hadley and West Springfield, the towns in which I have already suffered abuse by police officers, the risk is present everywhere. Many police officers, like society at large, are hostile toward cyclists and ignorant of bicycle law and safety principles. The court's reluctance to declare the charges invalid, as well as simply having the pending charges on the record, can easily encourage an ignorant, hostile police officer to become an abusive, corrupt police officer. Even though I was eventually acquitted (which was overwhelmingly likely), simply having a history of encounters with the police and the court can provoke a police officer, once having stopped me without cause, to take the next step and arrest me or file charges against me or both, and can further bias the court as well. Moreover, the charges when still pending made the possible consequences of such an encounter even worse due to the bail condition that I describe above. This does not mean that I cannot travel at all, but it does mean that the difficulty and danger of traveling make it impossible for me to live anything like my normal life. If I had been convicted of disorderly conduct, the official penalty would had been at most a fine of two hundred dollars. (The law provides for a jail sentence but that provision is not often used.) The penalty for the unlawful wiretapping charge could have been up to two years in jail, but would almost certainly have been a fine as well. So the unofficial punishment in my case is much worse than the likely official punishment I would have received if I had been convicted.

What is Disorderly Conduct?

I regularly hear reports of protests at which many police officers are present. In these reports, the police officers often engage in mass arrests of protesters and bystanders, mass violence against protesters and bystanders, or both. In the case of arrests, the charge is generally disorderly conduct. I had never thought much about the meaning of the term until I was charged with it myself. What the hell does "disorderly conduct" mean? The name suggests nothing. The statute suggests less than nothing. Chapter 272: Section 53 of the Massachusetts General Laws says

Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure may be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

The statute provides the penalty for being an "idle and disorderly person," but no definition. Note the hodgepodge of vague, euphemistic terms. They look more like archaic insults than legal specifications. I also find it very strange that the statute is phrased in terms of types of people rather than types of behavior. The six month jail sentence seems extreme, especially juxtaposed with $200 fine.

In practice, the charge is apparently used by police officers almost exclusively to arrest someone of whose behavior they disapprove but that does not constitute an actual crime. I would be interested to see the results of a large-scale survey of disorderly conduct cases. I am confident that such a survey would show that very few of these cases have any merit. In 1967, the attorney of defendant Donald Chartrand appealed such a charge to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (Joseph Alegata v. Commonwealth (and four companion cases), 353 Mass. 287, 302, 231 N.E.2d 201 (1967)) on precisely these grounds. The appeal was denied, but the court did provide a fairly clear definition of the term.

A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he: (a) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or (b) makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present; or (c) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor. 'Public' means affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.

The last sentence of this definition shows the spuriousness of the charge against Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. that made national news when, on 07/16/2009, he was arrested at his home.

A tangential comment: In my first encounter with Mitchell Kuc, he accused me of disturbing the peace, which I have not yet been able to find defined. In his testimony of 09/08/2010, he denied that he had used the term "disturbing the peace". He claimed that he had said "disorderly conduct," and that "disturbing the peace" was not a legitimate charge.

The Court's full decision in the Chartrand case is quite interesting. Note the additional crimes specified in the older version of the statute. Also note the court's admission that "[t]his contention [that "disorderly" is no more than a catchall expression] is supported to a certain extent by both the statutory pattern and case law."

On its face, the definition of "disorderly conduct" provided by the court looks reasonable. However, I believe that this definition does little to prevent the use of the disorderly conduct statute as a tool for facilitating and legitimizing police misconduct. Whereas the definition is considered in court, it is not generally considered by police officers, most of whom probably don't know it (or its equivalent in other states) and might not have even seen it. The defendant might or might not be acquitted in court, but that does not matter to a corrupt police officer. The filing of charges brings punishment enough, even without a conviction.

In order for a police officer to apply the definition of "disorderly conduct" to a particular act by a particular actor, he or she must determine the actor's purpose in committing the act and must judge whether that purpose is legitimate, independent of the act itself. But police officers cannot be trusted to make these determinations. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled a number of purposes to be legitimate in this context including the exercise of any First Amendment right (Commonwealth v. A Juvenile, 368 Mass. 580, 334 N.E.2d 617 (1975)), and political protest in particular (Commonwealth v. Joel Feigenbaum, 404 Mass. 471, 536 N.E.2d 325 (1989)). Nevertheless, disorderly conduct charges continue to be filed for these kinds of acts. In my two cases, my purpose was to travel, which amounts to the exercise of the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. Note that the United States Supreme Court has never ruled on a case quite like this, but has explicitly recognized the right to travel. Ohio attorney Steve Magas lists some relevant case law in his blog article ""SHARE THE ROAD" Stinks…", and I added some more in the comments. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has also recogized freedom to travel a Constitutional right. "We do, however, reach the following conclusion: the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights guarantees a fundamental right to move freely within the Commonwealth." (Commonwealth v. Weston W., a juvenile (and a companion case(1)) (2009))

In order for a police officer to apply the definition of "disorderly conduct" to a particular act, he or she must also determine whether the act creates a hazardous condition. Depending on the situation, the police officer's judgment of what constitutes a hazardous condition might be suspect. For example, in both of my cases, the police officer was clearly ignorant of the principles of traffic safety as they apply to cyclists. In both cases, the police officer also refused to acknowledge his ignorance, and refused to consult any source on the subject despite the ready availability of such sources. The "hazardous condition" excuse is also commonly used in breaking up peaceful protests.

In an interview I heard regarding the recently enacted immigration enforcement law in Arizona (sorry, no reference), the interviewee pointed out that in determining the constitutionality of a law the court must consider not only the law as written but also the practical consequences of the law. That is, even if the law does not permit civil rights violations in theory, it is still unconstitutional if it leads to (or will lead to) civil rights violations in practice. In view of this principle, I believe that the statute I quoted above regarding disorderly conduct and other crimes, should be considered unconstitutional and should be repealed or invalidated by the court.

Checks and Balances

In principle, the system is supposed to work like this. The police officer checks the case for himself or herself before taking any action. The higher-ups check it before filing charges. A magistrate checks it before allowing the charges to be filed. The prosecutor checks it before choosing to prosecute it. It might also go before other judges who check it before it goes to trial. At the trial, a judge ensures that the trial is conducted properly and a jury (or the judge) makes the final check that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before a guilty verdict is issued. The purpose of the trial is not to determine whether the defendant is guilty or not. The prior stages have already determined that the defendant is extremely likely to be guilty. The trial is only to determine whether there is any reasonable doubt remaining as to the defendant's guilt. The charges might be checked again through appeals. Each of these checks involve a review of the law and the evidence. Most of the checks involve consulting witnesses, experts, and other concerned parties. If, through any of these checks, it is found that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant proceeding further, then the process is halted. If the suspect has suffered any inconvenience then he or she receives a sincere apology and possibly some compensation. If the actions of anyone at any stage in the process appear to be inappropriate, then his or her actions are investigated and, if abuse or negligence is identified, then he or she is punished appropriately.

But we know that it doesn't work like that. How do these things happen? Remember those "checks and balances" they told us about in school? What happened to them? When Joseph Reed stopped me, he seemed to be acting out of hostiliy. However, my experience with the police and the court tell me that the system as a whole is not driven by hostility. I speculate that it is driven more by institutionalized callousness, complacency, and blind loyalty. In other words, the people who make up the system just do what they do and they don't think about it too much because that is what they see others do and that is what they have always done and they haven't run into any problems yet that have been big enough to inspire them to consider doing something else. That is not to say that everyone is treated equally, only that everyone is treated superficially, without much thought.

Jason Vassell's prosecutors insist that his race did not influence their decision to prosecute him. Jason's race obviously influenced the police's decision to charge him, but determining racial bias from the prosecutors is trickier. It does appear that racial bias was present, but I believe that the prosecutors were motivated by another factor as well. I suspect that a major influence on the decision to prosecute Jason was the decision of the police to charge him. I suspect that the prosecutors reached out to catch what the police threw at them without much concern about exactly what it was.

When Joseph Reed arrested me, he was extremely angry and nasty and out-of-control. He yelled at me, he insulted me, he manhandled me, he threatened me. But the other police officer at the scene, and everyone else I encountered at the police station, were very calm and polite. But they said nothing, despite clearly witnessing Joseph Reed's behavior. They did not question his state of mind or his decision to arrest me. They made no apparent effort to understand the situation or to correct the problem.

Both Mitchell Kuc (the first time he stopped me at least) and Joseph Reed were clearly ignorant of traffic law (although Mitchell Kuc was apparently familiar with the wiretapping law when he seized my camera) and felt free to invent laws that did not exist in order to bully me. They refused to acknowledge their ignorance of the law and of the principles of traffic safety, and made no effort to correct it even after it was pointed out to them. They continued to insist that my education and experience had no value and that their uninformed intuition was correct no matter what. They and their chiefs refused to discuss the issues of the case rationally with me or the others who requested to meet with them about it.

In both cases, a magistrate approved the filing of the charges without any apparent consideration of the law or the evidence. I never saw the complaint in the West Springfield case, but the complaint in the Hadley case did not contain any description of my encounter with Mitchell Kuc or any explanation of how the law applied to it. It merely named the charges and provided short excerpts of statutory or case law as definitions. The police report (see these, more legible, transcriptions of reports of the 09/12/2009 and 03/20/2010 encounters) and video evidence were not added to the case file until much later. The police report was not made available to me until a week after the arraignment and the video evidence was not made available to be until several months after Judge Lauren McLeod granted a motion to preserve evidence. In his report, Mitchell Kuc actually stated that he knew my behavior to be legal.

Also in both of my cases, attorneys warned me that speaking to the press could incite retaliation from the district attorney. This undermines another important check against corruption, that provided by the press in its power to communicate and mobilize.

In both cases, a prosecutor took up the case without bothering to familiarize himself with its history. In the West Springfield case, it became apparent to me from the way the prosecutor spoke about the case that he remained ignorant about it even after several hearings, which occurred over the course of several months, using phrases like "The officer must have meant…" During this time he made two reduced-penalty offers, which I rejected, as attempts to coerce me into pleading guilty. According to another lawyer acquaintance of mine, a case is not assigned to a prosecutor, but instead is handled by whatever prosecutor happens to be in court on the day of a hearing. There is no pretense of expectation that he or she be familiar with the case. There is no incentive for him or her to resolve the case quickly or justly, since it will soon cease to be his or her responsibility. Eventually the prosecutor of my case was forced to conclude that he could not win the case and he attempted to drop it, but his boss forbade that. One of his reduced-penalty offers was made subsequent to this attempt.

It was also apparent in both of my cases, and in the other cases I observed while in court, that a judge rarely studies the history of a case before opening a hearing on that case. The judge does have the case file in front of him or her during the hearing and does refer to it for superficial details, but he or she rarely begins a hearing with his or her mind primed with the details of the case. Cases are dealt with in rapid succession, with no opportunity to review them. I am not clear on whether the police report was available to the arraignment judge in either of my cases.

I don't like the way this looks when I write it. I am afraid of the impression that I will make by writing it. But this was a major realization for me and I would feel extremely frustrated if I could not share it. As I mention above, it seems that we have given police officers (together with prosecutors) exclusive and unconditional access to the criminal court. They can set the court in motion at will. They can file criminal charges, and the merit of those charges is generally not verified, except possibly at the trial stage. But by then, it is too late. Much of the unofficial punishment has already been dispensed. Moreover, unless and until there is a trial, they need do nothing to keep the process going or to defend or take responsibility for their act of initiating that process. Neither Mitchell Kuc nor Joseph Reed were at the respective arraignment to formally accuse me. They were not expected to be there. They probably could not even have participated in the proceeding if they had wanted to. Nor was I given the opportunity to protest their treatment of me or the absurdity of the charges. No one at the arraignment, except for me, was even aware of the nature of the circumstances. They might not even have had the opportunity to learn of them if they had wanted to. The court acts like a wind-up toy. A police officer can wind it up and let it go and it continues to run without any effort by him or her to maintain it. In contrast, no one else has even conditional access to the criminal court. When someone (possibly a police officer) commits a crime against me, I cannot expect to file charges against him or her directly. (There are exceptions to this in some states.) I would need to convince a police officer or a prosecutor to file charges on my behalf, and he or she is not obligated to consider them. So not only do police officers (together with prosecutors) have unconditional access to the criminal court, they also act as the gatekeepers for the court, and they can exclude others from it.

Beyond all of the checks that might or might not be made in any individual case, our elected officials serve as a check against systemic corruption of the criminal justice system. However, it seems that this check has failed as well. I have contacted many elected officials for help, but I have not found help to be forthcoming. Many local officials (elected and otherwise) would not talk to me, or could not talk to me because of their professional relationship to my case. The State and Federal legislators that I contacted all expressed sympathy, and some expressed indignation, but claimed to be helpless in the matter. I do not resent them for this. I am not accusing them of lying to me, and I appreciate and support their work as legislators. However, I have trouble accepting the notion that they are truly helpless. At the very least, they could have spoken to others about my story to aid me in finding more support..

More upsetting was my correspondence with State Attorney General Martha Coakley's Office. The Attorney General's Office is specifically charged with investigating claims of civil rights violations, and prosecuting violations once the claims are verified. It even includes a Civil Rights Division, which provides a form for reporting violations. The form mentions violations by police officers specifically, although it does not mention violations by other public officials. I filed complaints of my treatment by Mitchell Kuc and Joseph Reed, which were answered by Assistant Attorney General Alan Jay Rom. Alan Jay Rom showed no sympathy or understanding at all. I attempted to speak with another assistant attorney general, but my message elicited no response. The response from the Attorney General's Office did not surprise me very much. I am somewhat aware of Martha Coakley's record as Attorney General. But my lack of surprise makes the situation no less troubling.

The Right to a Fair Trial, Et Cetera

A defendant has the right to a fair trial. But what about the proceedings leading up to a possible trial? Shouldn't those proceedings be conducted fairly as well? Can't we just rely on a trial to sort everything out and ensure that justice is done? It should be clear from what I write above that the answer to this last question is no. (1) If a spurious charge goes to trial then justice has already been denied and the defendant has already been punished. (2) What happens at a trial depends greatly on the pre-trial proceedings, so unfair pre-trial proceedings can easily give rise to an unfair trial. (3) The longer a spurious charge is allowed to persist, the greater the cost (financial and otherwise) to the defendant and to the entire justice system, and the less effective that justice system becomes for everyone.

The first time I ever attended a criminal court was for my arraignment in the Springfield District Court the day after Joseph Reed arrested me in West Springfield. It was a terrifying experience. I was told to be there at 8:15AM and, after a long day, a sleepless night, and a moderately long trip, I was very uncomfortable. I had very little idea of what to expect, so I was hyper-alert, afraid of missing something important and desperately hoping to find some reason to hope that I would come out okay. I maintained a hope that I would be given the opportunity to face Joseph Reed in court, that he would formally accuse me and that I would have the opportunity protest the accusation and his treatment of me. This hope was extremely naive.

It seemed that the early arrival time was unnecessary. No one seemed to be expecting me at that time. The courtroom was not even opened until 9:00AM. I entered the courtroom and sat on one of the benches that were arranged in rows at the back of the room with the other defendants and their friends and family members. The "business section" of the court was walled off from the rows of benches. Lawyers milled about in another walled-off section of the courtroom. (I estimate that they were collectively accruing several tens of thousands of dollars per hour. In fact, an attorney later told me that most of the time that lawyers are paid for is time spent waiting in court.) This lasted for about a half hour. The session was opened, and defendants were called up one by one. Each defendant in turn stood in a small depression in the wall separating the business section from the rows of benches, so that the defendant had walls to the front and to both sides. Most defendants were in the box for about a minute, or maybe two minutes, before being dismissed and the next defendant being called. It was difficult to follow the proceedings because the judge was so far away, maybe twenty feet from the defendant box. The lawyers however could move freely about the courtroom, including approaching to within a conversational range of the judge. After about a half hour of court proceedings the court was recessed. It resumed again after about a half hour of recess. Very few of the defendants had occasion to speak. Most of the proceedings consisted of the judge asking the defendant whether he or she planned to hire a lawyer or represent him- or herself. I remember the judge expressing this in an ironic way, kind of like a sales pitch: "… or you could even represent yourself." After several hours, my name was called, and I received the same spiel from the judge as the others. I was not given the opportunity to speak except to answer the one question about representation. I was not entitled to a court-appointed attorney because I was not facing a jail sentence. (This was only explained to me later.) I was handed a slip of paper indicating that I should appear in court again on a given date about a month later at 8:45AM.

Almost all of my subsequent court appearances were similar (except faster in the Belchertown courthouse). They consisted of hours of waiting, ending with a minute or two of standing silently in the box and leaving with my slip of paper indicating that I should return to court in about a month. Even the motion-to-dismiss hearing in the West Springfield case lasted only a few minutes and the judge was clearly impatient about it. My lawyer was forced to rush through his arguments to avoid being cut off, and was unable to raise all relevant points. The judge did not ask any questions during the hearing. I eventually realized that the arrival times I was being given were meaningless and I observed them less diligently. No information was gathered and no decisions were made while I was in the box. The judge's rejection of my lawyer's motion to dismiss was issued days later with no explanation and no opportunity for me or my lawyer to question it. The prosecutor did not look at me throughout the entire four-month prosecution, which consisted of five hearings. (Tim DeChristopher noted a similar lack of eye contact when he addressed the court after being sentenced for "disrupting" a 2008 Bureau of Land Management auction. He also noted a lack of logic and reason, which was also a characteristic of my experience.)

One exception to this pattern was my arraignment in the Hadley case, at which I attempted to speak to the judge. I had prepared some motions that I attempted to present. She did not allow me to present them at that time, and she did not reassure me that I would have the opportunity to present them later. I was able to present them only by a chance confluence of many factors.

I was entitled to a court-appointed attorney because I was charged with unlawful wiretapping, which carries a jail sentence, and because I was "indigent".
I had been in touch, through a mutual friend, with a lawyer who was nice enough to help me prepare the motions.
This lawyer happened to be at the Belchertown courthouse on the day of my arraignment, and was nice enough to introduce me to the court-appointed attorney on duty.
The court-appointed attorney on duty allowed me to share some details of the case with him, even though he had not yet been assigned to the case.
He was alert enough to break in and speak for me when the judge would not allow me to speak.

Without all of these factors, I would not have been able to present my motions. One of the motions was for a show cause hearing. As I explain above, the law did not entitle me to a show cause hearing because I was charged with a felony, but I was entitled to ask for one. The judge granted my other motions but denied this one without allowing me or my lawyer to give any explanation.

In the West Springfield case, when I finally received a trial date I thought, "At least something will happen this time." I had every reason to expect to be acquitted at trial on the scheduled date. However, my lawyer told me that it did not work that way. Most likely I would show up for the trial and wait around all day until eventually being told to come back another day. This might happen several times, my lawyer told me, before I would actually be granted a trial. Even if a trial was held on the scheduled date there could be no telling what time it would be held at. I was disheartened by the news that I would be waiting indefinitely for a conclusion to the case. Additionally, I was anxious because my defense relied on testimony from an expert witness. He was not prepared, and could not be expected, to spend indefinitely many days in court waiting for the opportunity to give his testimony. He was generous enough to offer his testimony for free (except for travel expenses) because the issue of the case was important to him, but he could not give up thousands of dollars worth of his time to hang around in court for nothing. He could afford to leave for the courthouse on short notice, which a defendant cannot generally depend on, but the trip would take him three hours. So, if he waited for a commitment from the court to hold a trial on a given day, he would probably not have enough time to travel to the courthouse in time to testify. I would have had a similar problem if my defense had relied on testimony from a witness who lived nearby but had a job with a rigid schedule. If my defense had relied on multiple witnesses, even if they could travel to the courthouse on short notice or spend arbitrarily many days waiting idly at the courthouse, the chance of successfully rounding them all up for the second, third, or fourth time would be small. How could I possibly receive a fair trial if I could not reliably gather witnesses? And throughout, I could be paying a lawyer to wait idly at the courthouse. If I had had a job with a rigid schedule I would have risked being fired by repeatedly taking days off from work to spend waiting at the courthouse. Moreover, I would be under the great stress of waiting indefinitely to be dealt my fate and never knowing what to expect. I would be subject to the bail condition during this time as well.

The effect of the physical layout of the courtroom might seem trivial, but I believe it is extremely important. The way that people view each other and treat each other is strongly influenced by their relationship in physical space, even though the effect is subconscious and difficult to identify outside of a controlled experiment.

When physical boundaries separate people, like the low walls in the courtroom that separate defendants from lawyers from court staff, they are less inclined to view and treat each other as equals, especially if the spaces that those boundaries distinguish differ in apparent quality. Confining the defendant to a small, rectangular area, with walls on three sides is another example of this. It has the effect of isolating the defendant socially from the rest of the court, and presenting the defendant as inferior and freakish.

The greater the physical distance between people (or, more properly, the communication distance), the more strained their interactions, and the more difficult it is for them to interact with each other as complete people. As the separation distance between people is increased, it eventually reaches a point when each person is out of conversational range of the others. With the judge separated from the defendant by about twenty feet, (not to mention raised above the defendant) the two are out of conversational range. It is nearly impossible for the defendant, through facial expression and body language, to appeal, as a person, to the judge, or to gauge the judge's impression so as to craft a targeted response. If you are not convinced of the effect then just imagine taking it further. Imagine that, as a defendant, you, and only you, are kept out of the courtroom entirely and are participating in the court proceedings through a video conferencing system. You can take this experiment even further by using an even slower or narrower communication channel. There is a reason why businessmen, scholars, and enthusiasts of various subjects attend in-person shows and conferences despite the proliferation of fast and wide electronic telecommunication channels. There is also a reason why, when an adult wishes to speak to a child on an important matter, he or she generally kneels and speaks to the child face-to-face. It is because anything but face-to-face communication is hopelessly limited, even if it is sufficient for some purposes.

CONCLUSION

I was taught in school that every exposition should end with a conclusion. I was never able to figure out what to conclude in any of my papers and this one is no exception. What can I conclude from all this? It seems trivial to say that our criminal justice is grossly flawed. The problem is not that the system is made up of flawed people; it is that there is a systemic flaw in the way those people are organized. What other wisdom can we glean from my experience?

Letter to John Hook at radio station KTAR in Phoenix Arizona

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Fri, 07 May 2010 03:33:00 GMT

I was given a link to a recording from a radio show on KTAR in Phoenix Arizona in which the host, John Hook, expressed some typical misconceptions and offensive attitudes about cycling. The recording was posted by the Southwest Bicycles Cycling Club (SWBCC) along with a letter that the Club had sent to KTAR at <valleyvoices@ktar.com> in response to this segment. I combined parts from my letter to Maureen , who commented on my entry The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse, with parts from my letter to Umbra Fisk to create the letter below, which I sent to John Hook at <valleyvoices@ktar.com> and copied to the Southwest Bicycles Cycling Club at <Info@SWBCC.org>.

This is a message for John Hook, regarding his on-air segment from Monday, April 26, 2010 at 10:00AM in which he discussed bicycle law and safety.

Dear John:

I was recently pointed to a recording of your on-air segment from Monday, April 26, 2010 at 10:00AM in which you discuss bicycle law and safety. I happen to be a cycling instructor and I hope that I can correct some misconceptions that you have demonstrated on these topics.

The proposition that the roads are for cars or were made for cars is false. The roads are for people to travel by whatever mode they choose. Roads have existed for thousands of years and were first paved at the request of cyclists before cars had been invented. They are the most public of all public spaces and everyone has a moral and legal right to use them.

Despite the pervasive myths, cycling among motor vehicle traffic is not especially dangerous. There are some basic rules of the road that have been refined over the past century or so to become as compatible as possible with human perception and cognition and vehicle operating characteristics. Cyclists who are assertive and who obey these same rules are very safe among motor vehicle traffic. I happen to have made a pamphlet that outlines these rules that you can view at <http://cycles.eli-damon.info/files/7/8/5/7/3/247248-237587/neutral_version.pdf>. Some of it is specific to Massachusetts but the basic rules of the road are them same everywhere so my description of these rules is relevant to you and all of your listeners.

It is legal for a cyclist to control a lane. In fact, lane control is an essential technique of safe and effective cycling that is taught in every reputable traffic cycling training program, including the Smart Cycling program (<http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/education/>) sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists (<http://www.bikeleague.org/>), which I am certified to teach. You might not have noticed many instances of a cyclist controlling a lane because (1) many cyclists are not properly trained and (2) on most roads under most circumstances there is no advantage to controlling a lane. However, lane control is important on some roads and under some conditions. A cyclist's choice of lane position depends on many factors (See the Bicycle Driving FAQ at <http://groups.google.com/group/bicycledriving/web/faq>) so there is no precise rule for determining a proper lane position but the universal guideline is that the more adverse factors are present, the more assertive the cyclist should be. Some great demonstrations of lane control can seen in the videos The Dance on Video (5:26) by Keri Caffrey (<http:/commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2010/03/01/the-dance-on-video>) and The Rights and Duties of Cyclists (5:15) by Brian DeSousa, Dan Gutierrez, and Chris Quint (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU4nKKq02BU>). The technique of choosing a proper lane position and its importance are explained superbly by John Franklin in his book Cyclecraft (<http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/>,which is the foundation for the national cycling training program for the United Kingdom. A North American edition has been published recent and I have included the section of this edition on lane position at <http://eli-damon.info/Cyclecraft on lane position.pdf>. The North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving also has some great articles on the subject at <http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/>.

There are three major books on bicycle safety. The shortest and most accessible is Bicycling Street Smarts by John S. Allen. It is endorsed by the transportation departments of Arizona (your home state), Florida, Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as the official bicycle driver's manual of their respective states. A free, online version is available at <http://bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/index.htm>. My personal favorite book on the subject of bicycle safety is Cyclecraft (North American edition) by John Franklin (<http://www.cyclecraft.org/>), which I mentioned earlier. It is endorsed by the Smart Cycling, CAN-BIKE, and Bikeability cycling training programs, the national cycling training programs of the United States of American, Canada, and the United Kingdom respectively. The book that served as the foundation of all cycling training in the United States is Effective Cycling by John Forester (<http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-6th-John-Forester/dp/0262560704>).

Classes on cycling in traffic are offered by League Cycling Instructors through the League of American Bicyclists. You can search for instructors and classes by city at <http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/resources/findit/index.php>. For example, Richard Moeur (<http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/programs/education/instructor_detail/279>) is a League Cycling Instructor who lives in the Phoenix area, which is where I believe you live as well. He also happens to a transportation engineer and so can probably tell you what purposes the roads are suited for. You might want to have a talk with him. You can, of course, ask any questions of me as well. I hope this storm of information does not overwhelm you.

Sincerely,

Eli Damon

Editorial Policy

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:52:00 GMT

I have been accused of suppressing comments that express opinions that are contrary to mine. These accusations are false. To clarify my policy, I approve all comments except for spam and personal attacks, regardless of the opinions they express. I suppress comments that include spam or personal attacks, regardless of whether I sympathize with the attacker. I do insist that discussions remain civil and rational and I suppress all and only those comments that fail to be civil and rational.

Some people do not understand or appreciate the difference between a civil, rational argument and verbal abuse. This is unfortunate because the distinction is crucial to a healthy and peaceful society. The best rule of thumb I can offer to these people is this. Imagine that we are college students engaged in a classroom discussion and imagine that what you type you are saying out loud in this discussion. Ask yourself if what you intend to say would be appropriate in this imagined scenerio.

Letter to Umbra Fisk, host of Ask Umbra on GristTV

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 02 May 2010 16:38:00 GMT

Umbra Fisk writes the advice column Ask Umbra for Grist magazine and hosts the associated video podcast Ask Umbra for GristTV. The magazine, based in Seattle, is focused on environmental news and, through her column and podcast, Umbra Fisk gives tips for people on reducing their environmental impact.

Dear Umbra:

I am a cycling instructor in Massachusetts and fanof your show. I recently read your article "Bike curious: Ask Umbra’spearls of wisdom on biking" at <http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-30-ask-umbras-pearls-of-wisdom-on-biking>.This article included a link labeled "follow the rules of the road",which led me to your video "Pedal Power to the People!: Umbra Fisk oncommuting by bike" at <http://www.grist.org/article/pedal-power-to-the-people>.

Iam sorry to say that many of the recommendations you make in this videoare contrary to well-established principles of bicycle safety and serveto encourage people to cycle in a manner that is both unsafe andextremely inconvenient. Your confusion is understandable. There are a numberof pervasive myths and misconception about cycling. I would like tooffer you some information on the subject. I hope you will study it andshare it with your viewers. I can assure you that the reward for doingso can be much greater than material for a good, informative video.It can reveal, as it did for me five years ago, how powerful bicyclescan really be if they are used correctly. With the proper technique youcan travel much faster and farther with less effort and with greatreliability and flexibility. You can travel without fear on any roadunder any conditions.

The first resource I would like to point you to is the Bicycle Driving FAQ, which is available at <http://groups.google.com/group/bicycledriving/web/faq>. I have written a pamphlet on the rules of the road that has not yet been published. Someof it is specific to Massachusetts but the basic rules of the road arethem same everywhere so my description of these rules is relevant toyou and all of your viewers. It is available at <http://cycles.eli-damon.info/files/7/8/5/7/3/247248-237587/neutral_version.pdf>. The North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving also has some great articles on the subject at <http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/>.

Thereare three major books on bicycle safety. The shortest and mostaccessible is Bicycling Street Smarts by John S. Allen. It is endorsedby the transportation departments of Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, andPennsylvania as the official bicycle driver's manual of theirrespective states. A free, online version is available at
<http://bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/index.htm>. My personal favorite book on the subject of bicycle safety is Cyclecraft (North American edition) by John Franklin (<http://www.cyclecraft.org/>).It is endorsed by the Smart Cycling, CAN-BIKE, and Bikeability cyclingtraining programs, the national cycling training programs of the UnitedStates of American, Canada, and the United Kingdom respectively. I havescanned the section of this book on lane position and posted it at <http://eli-damon.info/Cyclecraft%20on%20lane%20position.pdf>since I consider it the most important lesson of the whole subject. Inparticular, the last few pages address a very serious error that youmade concerning bike lanes. The book that served as the foundation ofall cycling training in the United States is Effective Cycling by JohnForester (<http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-6th-John-Forester/dp/0262560704>).

Classes on cycling in traffic are offered by League Cycling Instructors through the League of American Bicyclists (<http://www.bikeleague.org/>). You can search for instructors and classes by city at <http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/resources/findit/index.php>. For example, David Smith (<http://www.bikeleague.org/cogs/programs/education/instructor_detail/574>)is a League Cycling Instructor who lives in the Seattle Area, which iswhere I believe you live as well, and who is recommended by anothercolleague of mine. You might want to have a talk with him, although youare fortunate to have many cycling instructors in the Seattle area. Youcan, of course, ask any questions of me as well. I hope this storm ofinformation does not overwhelm you.

Sincerely,
Eli Damon

The Arraignment

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:12:00 GMT

On the morning of 04/27/2010 I went to the Belchertown courthouse, as summoned, to be arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful wiretapping. Naturally, I was extremely nervous and it was much more "educational" than I would have liked but the outcome was quite good, due in large part to the help I received from a number of people. (Note: no cycling-related content here.)

Don Frank suggested that I rewrite his motion to dismiss from the West Springfield case and submit it at the arraignment. However, I realized that this idea would not work since I would not have access to the police report until after the arraignment so submitting a motion to dismiss at the arraignment would ruin my opportunity to submit the motion later when I would have access to the police and be represented by an attorney. However, it did give me the idea that I could submit motions at the arraignment, which I had not been aware of before. When I mentioned the problem with submitted a motion to dismiss at the arraignment to Don Frank, he said that I could submit a motion for a show cause hearing, at which the prosecutor would have to demonstrate that my guilt was reasonably likely in light the evidence available or else the charges would be dismissed. A show cause hearing is similar to a motion-to-dismiss hearing except that burden of proof is on the prosecution in a show cause hearing and on the defense in a motion-to-dismiss hearing. More on this below.

From the idea that I could submit motions at the arraignment, it occurred to me that I should submit two other motions as well. I wanted to ensure access to the footage from my camera since I had some suspicion, with the camera being held by the Hadley police, that the footage might disappear before I could access and copy it, especially if the wiretapping charge was dismissed before trial. Also, my dad suggested that it might be possible to combine the traffic citation with the criminal charges into a single docket. This would make the traffic citation available as evidence against the criminal charges as well as require fewer court appearances. However, I did not know how to write or submit these motions. I seemed to have received all of the free help that I could from Don Frank. I tried to ask Bill Newman about this and some other things since he was supposedly representing me in some manner but he would not answer any of my questions.

I had been talking to Ruthy Woodring, co-founder of Pedal People and currently member of the MassBike Pioneer Valley chapter board of directors, about my problem (the general problem of being harassed by the police, not the specific problem of how to compose and submit the motions). At some point, she ran into an attorney friend of hers named Luke Ryan and she mentioned my case. Luke Ryan offered to meet with me. Caleb Gallus, a mechanic at Hampshire Bicycle Exchange and a participant in Western Massachusetts Copwatch, had also mentioned Luke Ryan to me when I told him about my problem since Luke Ryan also works with Western Massachusetts Copwatch, which has apparently faced abuses of the State wiretapping statute before. I met Caleb through our mutual friend Jesse Sevoian, who is a mechanic at Laughing Dog Bicycles and also has his own shop, Sevoian Cycles, at which he does welding, frame building, and powder coating. (Jesse built and painted my Xtracycle. Caleb might teach, or help teach, a class on basic bicycle repair that I am organizing in Amherst for Pioneer Valley Bike Commute Week / Bay State Bike Week.)

At our meeting, Luke Ryan told me some of the standard terms for the concepts I was describing and offered to send me some motion templates With this information and a little more that I found on the web I was able to write a motion to remand, a motion to preserve evidence, and a "motion to combine" (my term). He also gave me some hints about how to present the motions. He said that it had to be done before the arraignment started, which meant that as soon as I called to come forward I would have to interrupt the judge and ask to speak to him or her (her as it turns out). Otherwise, it would have to wait for the first pre-trial hearing, which could be a month or more later, and the motion to remand could not be submitted at all once I was arraigned. I was terrified by the idea but I wrote a script for myself and practiced reading it in my head. More on this below.

He also explained some of the rules about show cause hearings, which seem illogical to me and which I have trouble imagining how someone might attempt to justify them. If the accused is charged with no felonies and if the charges did not originate with an arrest then they are entitled to a show cause hearing. However, if the accused is charged with a felony or the charges did originate with an arrest then they are not entitled to a show cause hearing, although the arraignment judge does have the discretion to order one. So it seems that charges that carry a greater consequence to the defendant and a greater expense to the court system are approached with less caution. Hence, I was not entitled to a show cause hearing in this cause because I was charged with a felony and I was not entitled to a show cause hearing in the West Springfield case because I was arrested.

At the courthouse, I checked in with the probation department where I filled out some forms with information about my identity and financial position. Because of my financial position and because I was facing a jail sentence, I was entitled to a court-appointed attorney so the wiretapping charge was something of an advantage to me there. There was some question about the money in my checking my account but that did not amount to anything. There was confusion all around about my name since I had been charged under my original name of Eli Cooper rather than my current name of Eli Damon. I had to explain it to several people over the course of my time at the courthouse, including to the prosecutor when I spoke to him.

Since Luke Ryan was planning to be at the Belchertown courthouse on the day of my arraignment anyway, he offered to help me there too. He checked over my motions. He told me that the show cause hearing was long shot but that there was no reason not to try for it. He photocopied the motions and told me to give the copies to the prosecutor. Luke Ryan found the prosecutor and got his attention for me and I gave the prosecutor my motions. This was not the prosecutor who would be assigned to my case. He was just on duty for arraignments. When he saw the motions he told me that I was not entitled to a show cause hearing. I told him that I knew this and reminded him that I was entitled to ask for one anyway.

Luke Ryan also introduced me to David Rock, the court-appointed attorney on duty that day. Although he had technically not been assigned to my case yet, David Rock looked over my case. He seemed to understand the situation and that along with Luke Ryan's praise gave me confidence.

My name (Eli Cooper) was called and, all psyched up, I looked at the judge, Lauren Macleod, and charged forward, ready to give my speech. I guess I charged to the wrong place though because, before I could start, the bailiff started acting all twitchy and told me to move somewhere else. Eventually I found the place where he wanted me to stand. The judge started talking. She must have asked me whether I wanted an attorney. I was assuming that I would not have an attorney until after the arraignment and that I needed to submit my motions before the arraignment so when she paused for my answer I asked if I could talk to her for a minute. She said that she did not recommend it. I told her that I wanted to present some motions. With an annoyed tone, she asked me again whether I wanted an attorney. It got the feeling that I would not get the chance to present my motions. I answered yes. She asked me if I had a job. I answered no. She annoucned that she was appointing David Rock to represent. It was very fortunate that David Rock already knew about the motions because he immediately stepped forward and told the judge about them, which I apparently was not permitted to do because of the rigid elitism in court culture. The judge summarily denied the motion to remand, that is, she rejected the notion of a show cause hearing without waiting for even a sentence of reasoning. However she did grant the motion to preserve evidence and the motion to combine. As in my arraignment in the West Springfield case the judge informed me that I could be held in jail if I committed another crime in any jurisdiction before this case was resolved, which had the effect of, being once violated, making me more vulnerable to being violated again. The first pre-trial hearing was scheduled for 06/01/2010.

I should be consulting with my attorney soon. I should also be getting a copy of the police report soon. I will tell you all when I find out more.

Delays in Comments being Posted

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:14:00 GMT

I just discovered that, while many comments on my blog were posted automatically, some were flagged by the server and not posted. I have gone through all of the flagged comments and approved those that were not spam or personal attacks. I apologize to those of you whose comments were delayed in being posted. I will be sure to check for flagged comments regularly from now on.

Response to Racerx's Comment

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:25:00 GMT

This is a response to the following comment made by Racerx on my post The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse,

A Hadley cop is messing with me now, a charge of something likeCorruption, and he is flat out fabricating words that he attributes tome. Is there a website or a group anywhere that is a watchdog on thiscorruption of Democracy?

Dear Racerx:

I am sorry to hear about the trouble you have gotten from the Hadley police. If you're like me, you must feel angry, frightened, and humiliated. So far, I have been unable to find someone who is willing and able to help me. I can offer you some advice and point you to some information but it is unlikely to be entirely satisfying.

The first thing you should do is document your experiences as clearly and precisely as possible. Getting help will be vastly more difficult without a good record of your problem. I would be interested to hear what happened to you and I can publish it on this blog if you want. Once you have documented your experiences you can show it to people who might help. Even if they refuse to help, you will at least have raised their awareness of the problem and they might act on it once their awareness is driven to a critical level by hearing from enough people who have had similar experiences.

I probably do not need to tell you that, if the police have charged you with a crime, you need a good lawyer. Depending on your financial situation this might be a problem for you. It has been a problem for me. Fortunately, I was able to get help from a good lawyer, Don Frank, in the West Springfield case. There is not much else I can think of to say about this.

You should also prepare for future confrontations with police officers so that you can handle yourself properly. I have written an article on the subject specifically for cyclists based on my experiences and Keri Caffrey has written another that combines and summarizes advice from several cyclists that have been harassed by the police recently. An organization called Flex Your Rights has some good advice on their website and has published two videos on the subject (Busted (45:22) and 10 Rules for Dealing with the Police (Part 1 of 4 (9:33), Part 2 of 4 (9:34), Part 3 of 4 (9:35), Part 4 of 4 (9:24)), which are available on Youtube at the links I have given. This video is also interesting.

Some organizations you might want to contact are:

The Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General's Office - See my earlier post The Attorney General. They accept complaints of civil rights violations by police officers and departments. They have been useless to me so far but it is important to raise awareness whenever possible.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts - I have a meeting with ACLU attorney Bill Newman. He might help with the wiretapping issue but probably not with the other issues. However, ...raise awareness... See their page about submitting complaints of civil rights violations. Their Northampton office is at 39 Main Street, Northampton, MA 01060. The phone number for the Northampton office is 413-586-9115. You might also consider becoming a member.
Western Massachusetts Copwatch - I have never contacted them. I think that their mission is only to document abuse by police officers and that they cannot offer any direct help but I thought I would mention them anyway.

Are the police targeting you as a cyclist or for some other reason? The Hadley police have a bad reputation statewide for abusing members of many minority groups, principally blacks and hispanics. Any advocacy organization you can find for your minority group is worth contacting. If they are targeting you as cyclist, you should contact MassBike. You might also consider becoming a member. There is a Pioneer Valley chapter, which communicates via a Yahoo group that you can join without being a member. I suggest sending your story to the Pioneer Valley chapter president, James Lowenthal (I will send you his email address privately), or you can relay it to him through me if you prefer.

Anything you can do to collect up more people who have been abused by the Hadley police would also be helpful. The more stories we can tell and the more support we can collect, the more likely we will be able to get someone to pay attention. I am considering making an address to the Hadley selectboard about the issue, although I am not committed to it yet. More people and more stories would certainly carry more force. With enough people there is also the possibility of a class action lawsuit.

Good luck. Keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Eli Damon

Charged with Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful Wiretapping

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:53:00 GMT

Stemming from the encounter on Saturday, 03/20/2010, with three Hadley police officers, during which I was given a traffic ticket, my camera was seized, and the threat of arrest was renewed, I found a notice in my mailbox on Thursday, 04/01/2010, summoning me to the courthouse in Belchertown on Tuesday, 04/27/2010, to be arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct (M.G.L., c. 272 §53) and unlawful wiretapping (M.G.L., c. 272 §99). A few observations on the summons:

As on the traffic ticket, my name on the summons was given as my original name, Eli Cooper, rather than my current name, Eli Damon.
The name Judge John Payne appears on the summons. John Payne is the judge who denied my attorney's motion to dismiss the disorderly conduct charge in the West Springfield case. However, Andrew Fischer has assured me that this is an irrelevant coincidence.
The unlawful wiretapping charge is associated with State law, not Federal law, as Officer Kuc originally claimed.

Analysis of Charges

Traffic Ticket

The traffic ticket cites M.G.L., c. 89 §11B, which does not exist, and describes my violation as "failure to keep right while being overtaken", which does not constitute a violation of any traffic regulation in the sense in which Officer Kuc interpreted the phrase.

On 04/15/2010, I received a notice in the mail of the hearing I had requested regarding the ticket. The notice indicated a different charge, "KEEP RIGHT NO VIEW", citing M.G.L., c. 89 §4, which requires that "[w]henever ... there is not an unobstructed view of the road for at least four hundred feet, the driver of every vehicle shall keep his vehicle on the right of the middle of the traveled part of the way ..." This requirement is totally irrelevant to the situation since I was "on the right of the middle of the traveled part of the way" and my view was unobstructed. When I called the Registry of Motor Vehicles (which handles all traffic tickets) the next day and asked about the discrepancy, I was told that someone at the Registry had changed the charge because the original charge was incorrect and I got the impression that this was a usual practice. I find it very odd that someone at the Registry would claim to know the correct charge since they did not witness the incident.

In Mitchell Kuc's report on the encounter, (see these, more legible, transcriptions of reports of the 09/12/2009 and 03/20/2010 encounters) he cites M.G.L., c. 85 §11B. which, far from describing a traffic violation that I was committing when he stopped me, is precisely the section that affirms the lawfulness of my behavior.

In his testimony on 09/08/2010, Mitchell Kuc asserted my violation was a failure to facilitate overtaking (Chapter 89: Section 2 of the Massachusetts General Laws).

When I go to court I will have to make sure to get a clear indication from the judge which charge I must defend myself against.

Disorderly Conduct

The disorderly conduct charge is bogus as I describe in regard to the West Springfield charge and as my attorney in the West Springfield case described in his motion to dismiss the charge. The disorderly conduct charge relies on two conditions : (1) that I was creating a hazardous condition, and (2) that my actions served no legitimate purpose of me (the actor). In fact, neither of these conditions hold. (1)

As any reputable source on bicycle safety will point out, controlling a lane, far from creating a hazardous condition, is often essential to avoid creating a hazardous condition. Examples of such sources are: Cyclecraft by John Franklin, which is endorsed by the Smart Cycling, CAN-BIKE, and Bikeability cycling training programs, the national cycling training programs of the United States of American, Canada, and the United Kingdom respectively (section on lane position), and Bicycling Street Smarts by John Allen, which is endorsed by the transportation departments of Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as the official bicycle driver's manual of their respective states (section on lane position). Lane control is even taught in literature endorsed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS), namely that of the Same Roads Same Rules program. In particular, see the pages Bicycles Are Vehicles Too, Give Yourself Some Space, Bicyclist Myths, and Motorist Myths.

My behavior clearly did not create a hazardous condition and Mitchell Kuc reported no signs of one. Moreover, my behavior did serve a legitimate purpose, namely to avoid creating a hazardous condition, which I explained to him on several occasions, and which Andrew Fischer pointed out in his letter to Hadley Chief of Police Dennis Hukowicz. Mitchell Kuc's behavior is frustratingly illogical. He states in his report that my purpose, safety, was not a legitimate one. "COOPER travelling down the middle of the travel lane serves no legitimate purpose to him other than for him to exercise his opinion of the law, which he states that the law allows him to do and that it is safer than travelling to the far right." It is hard to imagine that anyone could consider safety not to be a legitimate purpose. In fact, he clearly considers safety to be a legitimate purpose since he cites it as his purpose for repeatedly stopping me, seizing my person and property, threatening me, and charging me with disorderly conduct.

Moreover, the exercise of any explicitly affirmed legal right is automatically considered to be a legitimate purpose. Andrew Fischer explains this legal right very well in his letter to Dennis Hukowicz , and the literature endorsed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security provide further reinforcement. Mitchell Kuc even admitted to me verbally on 09/12/2009 that my behavior might have been lawful "but I don't care about the law." He admitted this again in his report on the encounter of 03/20/2010. "In speaking to COOPER, I advised him that I was aware that bicyclists are not restricted to travel only on the right of the road or to a bike path and that I was further aware that bicyclists are entitled all the same rights to a vehicle." His behavior is so illogical and contradictory that he reminds me of the pet store owner in Monty Python's dead parrot sketch.

Unlawful Wiretapping

In the past few years it has apparently become common practice for police officers in Massachusetts (and other states) to abuse the State wiretapping statute in order to retaliate against people who attempt to document other crimes the officers commit while on duty and to consequently suppress and discourage these acts of documentation. There are several flaws with the unlawful wiretapping charge. One flaw, which is not helpful to me but should be mentioned anyway, is the statute itself. The statute does not mention the issue of whether it should be applied when those being recorded do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy nor whether it should be applied to recording on-duty public officials or in public places, in which case there is not a reasonable expectation of privacy. Applying the statute in such cases strikes me as a violation of the right to freedom of the press (and possibly other constitutional rights as well). Unfortunately, the State supreme court upheld the application of the statute to such cases in Commonwealth versus Michael Hyde. However, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall attached a poignant dissenting opinion to the decision.

More relevant to my case is that the statute does not require the person recording to notify those being recorded of the recording, only that the recording not be secretive. See the definition of "interception" in Paragraph B: Subparagraph 4 and the definition of the offense in Paragraph C: Subparagraph 1 of the statute. In other words, I am only responsible for my own behavior, not for others' ignorance. With the camera strapped to the side of my helmet and hanging two inches from my face it should be totally obvious that I was not being secretive in my recording. (See photographs of my model of camera here and here.) Additionally, I began recording about a half an hour before Officer Kuc entered the scene and I can hardly be blamed for him stepping into the middle of my production. The Michael Hyde decisions says that "[t]he problem here could have been avoided if, at the outset of the traffic stop, the defendant had simply informed the police of his intention to tape record the encounter, or even held the tape recorder in plain sight." Other defendants have been acquitted of unlawful wiretapping charges because they had held their cameras in plain sight. The principal example is Simon Glick, who was charged with unlawful wiretapping by Boston police officers in on 10/01/2007, when he used a cell phone to record them using excessive force in making an arrest. His charges were eventually dismissed and he has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officers and the city of Boston.

Follow-up

I sent a civil rights complaint to the Attorney General's office. Alan Jay Rom, who I had spoken to earlier regarding my previous civil rights complaints, responded by phone and gave me the impression that he would help me. He made a phone call to Hadley Police Chief Dennis Hukowicz (as well as one to West Springfield Police Chief Thomas Burke regarding my encounters in West Springfield) but then called me back and denied that I had suffered any civil rights violations and told me that he would not help.

I met with Hadley Town Administrator David Nixon on 04/15/2010. He was very respectful and pragmatic. He did not quite understand the issues but he freely acknowledged this. He showed much interest in learning more about cycling issues but he denied the civil rights issues. I gave him a booklet of information on the relevant points of traffic law and traffic safety, which he accepted gratefully. So the meeting had great teaching value but not much advocacy value. He told me that he could not legally intercede for me and, as I said, he did not seem to appreciate the primary issue anyway.

I met with Bill Newman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. As a result of that conversation the ACLU of Massachusetts has agreed to help me, through Bill Newman, to fight the wiretapping charge but not the disorderly conduct charge. He will work with whatever attorney represents me directly.

Letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:26:00 GMT

After reading the recent article in Wired magazine , I was inspired to send this letter to Ray LaHood, the United States secretary of transportation .

Dear Secretary LaHood:

I recently read an article from Wired magazine that talked about how you recently made a declaration that you had committed your department to ensuring that travel on foot and by bicycle be treated as legitimate and valuable and that pedestrians and cyclists be given equal access to the roads. As someone who cycles as a primary mode of transportation I, as well as a cycling educator and advocate, I share these goals and values. However, my enthusiasm at reading about your declaration was constrained by my concern that you misunderstood the barriers to cycling and that your misunderstanding will lead to policies and actions that undermine the goal enabling people to do more their traveling by bicycle.

It is a ubiquitous myth that it is dangerous for cyclists to ride among motor vehicles and that cyclists require special road features that nominally separate them from motor vehicles in order travel safely. In fact, a great many such features actually reduce the safety of cyclists and curtail their access to the roads, although many do not understand this because they accept the myth. Contrary to this myth, the greatest barriers to cycling are (1) lack of education for and mis-education of cyclists and police officers and (2) discriminatory laws that restrict cyclists' access to the roads and require or encourage unsafe cycling.

In contrast to the myth, properly trained cyclists can travel safely on any road. Furthermore, the techniques taught in such training are accessible to everyone and are not difficult to learn, which is another common myth. The most difficult aspect to teaching cycling is convincing people that there is, in fact, something valuable to learn. The next most difficult part is helping people overcome their fear of motor vehicles, which usually leads them into greater danger from both motor vehicles and stationary hazards.

Moreover, many states and localities have laws that either prohibit cycling on important routes, prohibit cycling in a safe and proper manner, or leave cyclists vulnerable to scrutiny and harassment by police officers who either do not understand the principles of safe cycling or who disapprove of cyclists having full access to the roads. Among those who are used to cycling in a safe and proper manner, such harassment is quite common.

I urge you to focus your effort on educating the country on the techniques of safe cycling, as taught by many League Certified Instructors of the League of American Bicyclists, of which I am one, so that they can all become empowered cyclists who feel confident cycling wherever and whenever they want. I also urge you to focus your efforts eliminating laws that discriminate against cyclists or enable people to discriminate against cyclists and on establishing laws that clearly affirm a full and equal right to the road for cyclists.

I would be grateful for the opportunity to discuss these issues further with you. Please feel free contact me.

Sincerely,

Eli Damon

In response I received this letter from Gabe Rousseau, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager of the Federal Highway Administration .

U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washinqton, D.C. 20590

April 28, 2010

In Reply Refer To: HEPN

Mr. Eli Damon
P.O. Box 232
Amherst, MA 01004-0232

Dear Mr. Damon:

Thank you for your March 21 letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood regarding the importance of bicycle and pedestrian transportation. I have been asked to reply.

We agree about the importance of bicycling and walking, as well as the need to improve safety. I do not know if you have read Secretary LaHood's policy statement on the subject, but if not, you can find it at www.dot.gov/affairs/201OIbicycle-ped.html.

The potential conflict between bicycles and motor vehicles has been one of the main factors limiting greater use of bicycles for transportation. Even within the bicycle advocacy community opinions differ about the best ways for bicycles to mix safely with other vehicles. We are supportive of educational opportunities for all road users and law enforcement officers as part of a "5E" approach to improving roadways for bicycling: engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation. The 5E approach offers a balanced set of options that has had some success over the years.

The National Bicycling and Walking Study, which we completed in 1994, set the ambitious goal of reducing by 10 percent the number of injuries and fatalities occurring to bicyclists and pedestrians in transportation crashes while doubling the percentage of trips made by walking and bicycling. In 1993, motor vehicle crashes took the lives of 40,115 people, including 5,638 pedestrians and 814 bicyclists. In 2008, the most recent year data are available, 37,261 people died in·m~r:.vehicle crashes. This total included 4,378 pedestrians and 716 bicyclists. Walking and bicycling trips were 7.9 percent when the Study came out and were almost 12 percent of all trips in the most recent National Household Travel Survey.

States can use Federal-aid funds to promote bicycling and pedestrian safety, including workshops. For example, by statute, Federal-aid transportation enhancement (TE) funds can be used for 12 types of activities, including "Provision of pedestrian and bicycle safety and education activities." The State transportation departments decide which of the eligible activities will be funded. (See www.fhwa.dot.gov/environmentlte/index.htm for information on TE funding.)

We are helping to fund the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program in Columbia, Missouri; Marin County, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. For information on the pilot program, see www.fhwa.dot.gov/environmentibikeped/ntpp.htm. The site includes our November 2007 interim report to Congress on the pilot program. The pilot communities are providing bicycling education to residents. For example, Columbia is offering courses taught by League Certified Instructors (http://www.pednet.org/programs/educational-programs.asp). We are hopeful that other communities will learn from the experiences in the four pilot communities - what works and what does not. We will be submitting a final report to Congress next year describing our findings from the project.

You might be interested in viewing videos the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has developed for law enforcement to use during roll calls to educate them about bicycling laws. You can find the videos at www.nhtsa.gov/multimedia/bicycles/bicycle safety LE.wmv under law enforcement www.nhtsa.govlBicycles. You also may want to check Secretary LaHood's "Fast Lane" blog, which occasionally addresses bicycling, livability, and related topics. You can find the blog at fastlane.dot.gov/.
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The decline in fatalities from motor vehicle crashes to the lowest levels since the 1950s should convince everyone involved in highway safety that through a combination of activities, we can continue to improve the safety of all road users. I can assure you that we will continue to work with our partners at the State and local levels, as well as the private sector, to continue to make bicycling safer and more convenient.

I appreciate your interest and hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely yours,

Gabe Rousseau
Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager

Response to Maureen's Comment

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:29:00 GMT

Dear Maureen:

I thank you for participating in this discussion with me. This opportunity to engage in a civil and rational argument is extremely refreshing. Brandon already expressed some of my thoughts (Thank you, Brandon.) but I put a lot of effort into writing this response so I will leave it complete, even if redundant. Including the links, there is a lot of material here and I hope you have the patience to look at it all. However, I urge you to watch the two short videos at the links below. For the benefit of other readers I am including your most recent comment on my post The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse, which this letter is in response to.

Can you show me in the law where is says that a "bicyclist can occupy an entire travel lane"? If you are taking bits and pieces from one law and saying that it is the "spirit" of the law to intend for that, I don't think you are going to come out on top.
You are putting yourself and other drivers in a "hazardous"situation for "no legitimate purpose", like in your posting of the disorderly law. And if you read further into the disorderly law you are going to need to overcome if a reasonable person would think your activity is hazardous and if it serves a purpose. Good luck with that.
I have never seen a cyclist, including professional long distance cyclists occupying an entire travel lane like what you are describing. I think that you have some obscured perspective of the laws and really need to use common sense and not some mish-mash of opinions and theory's you subscribe too.
Wait, let me guess, every other cyclist is wrong and you are right? If you think that, there are some issues.

It just so happens that I am a criminal defense lawyer and it is because of mentalities like yours that a disorderly law has to be in place,but luckily there is one on file for low speed vehicles.

Ch. 90 sec 1F, although it states low-speed motor vehicles, a bicyclist must abide by the same laws as motor vehicle operators,

"Section 1F. Every person lawfully operating a low-speed motor vehicle shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth except limited access or express state highways or any public way with a speed limit of more than 30 miles per hour, and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth and the provisions of this section"

Can you show me where in the law it says that a driver of any particular type of vehicle can or cannot occupy an entire travel lane? I don't think so. However, it is universally understood that (1) roads are divided into lanes in order to separate drivers traveling in one direction form drivers traveling in the opposite directions and to separate drivers who are overtaking from drivers being overtaken, (2) in general, the more space a driver has around them, the safer they are, and (3) a driver is entitled to occupy as much space as necessary to maximize his or her safety. These principles and others apply to all drivers regardless of the type of their vehicle. Chapter85: Section 11B of the Massachusetts General Laws explicitly affirms that cyclists are entitled to the use of its roads and that the regulations on their movement are the same as those for other drivers: "Every person operating a bicycle upon a way ... shall have the right to use all public ways in the commonwealth ... and shall be subject to the traffic laws and regulations of the commonwealth ...”. This is further clarified by the provision in Chapter 525 of the Acts of 2008, An Act Providing For Bicycle Safety that amends Chapter 89: Section 2 of the Massachusetts General Laws to read "If it is not possible to overtake a bicycle or other vehicle at a safe distance in the same lane, the overtaking vehicle shall use all or part of an adjacent lane if it is safe to do so or wait for a safe opportunity to overtake." Chapter 90: Section 1F applies only to drivers of motor vehicles. Cyclists are subject regulations that apply to drivers of vehicles in general but not those regulations that apply specifically to motor vehicles.

Controlling a lane is an essential technique that is taught in every reputable traffic cycling training program, including the Smart Cycling program sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, which I am certified to teach. You might not having noticed many instances of a cyclist controlling a lane because (1) as I mention before, many cyclists are not properly trained and (2) on most roads under most circumstances there is no advantage to controlling a lane. However, lane control is important on some roads and under some conditions. A cyclist's choice of lane position depends on many factors (See the Bicycle Driving FAQ.) so there is no precise rule for determining aproper lane position but the universal guideline is that the more adverse factors are present, the more assertive the cyclist should be. Some great demonstrations of lane control can seen in the videos The Dance on Video (5:26) by Keri Caffrey and The Rights and Duties of Cyclists (5:15) by Brian DeSousa, Dan Gutierrez, and Chris Quint. The technique of choosing a proper lane position and its importance are explained superbly by John Franklin in his book, Cyclecraft,which is the foundation for the national cycling training program for the United Kingdom. I have included the section on lane position here. (Please excuse the overzealous optical character recognition and keep in mind the opposite left/right orientation for roads in the United Kingdom. I ordered the new North American edition but I was accidentally sent the United Kingdom version instead and I have not received my replacement yet.)

Sincerely,

Eli Damon

Comments on AASHTO Draft

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:19:00 GMT

I have set up this page for the purpose of collecting comments on the draft of the AASHTO Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operation of Bicycle Facilities since Google Groups is not letting me set up a page on the bicycledriving group.

Instructions

Read the draft and attach your comments as "comments" on this post. As comments accumulate I will combine, reorganize, and rewrite them for presentation. You can also use this page to discuss previously attached comments.
Please make every effort to comment on positive points as well as negative ones and to make constructive suggestions whenever possible.
To make it easier for me to maintain this page, please begin each comment with the date on which you are making the comment, your name, and the page and line numbers of the text on which you are commenting. Use the format "date – name - citation:" where date looks like MM/DD and citation looks like [PPP:LL] or [PPP:LL-LL] or [PPP:LL-PPP:LL]. See my example.
I am still waiting for information on when, how, and to whom these comments should be submitted.

Chapter 1: Introduction [001-006]

needed

both bicycle and motor vehicle travel.

Chapter 2: Bicycle Planning [007-040]

The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:44:00 GMT

On Saturday, 03/20/2010, at about 10:45AM, I was traveling West on Route 9 in Hadley, just East of Bay Road, when I heard a siren behind me. I had been recording video of my trip with a camera attached to the side of my helmet. I looked back, saw a police patrol car, and pulled over. Mitchell Kuc, whose name I found out is pronounced like "cook", emerged from the patrol car. Due to imperfect memory some events might be out of order in my account.

He asked me if I had any ID. I asked what kind of ID he had in mind. He said he meant a driver's license or State issued ID. I truthfully said I did not have one with me. He asked for my name and mailing address, which I gave. He said that he was writing me a ticket for failing to keep right and went back to his car.

After some time, another patrol car approached from the East and stopped behind Officer Kuc's patrol car. An officer from the second patrol car (I'll call him Officer II) talked with officer Kuc for some time. Officer Kuc approached again with a ticket. Another patrol car approached from the West, made a U-turn and stopped near us. I think that Officer II had left by that time. Officer Kuc handed me my ticket. An officer from the third patrol car (I'll call him Officer III) approached.

Officer Kuc noticed my camera and asked me if it was a camera and I answered yes. He told me that by recording his voice without explicitly warning him of it that I was violating Federal wiretapping law. Him and Officer III said that Federal law prohibited secretly recording someone's voice. (I believe this is State law and that Federal law only prohibits secretly recording someone's voice if you are not part of the conversation.) I said that I was not being secretive since the camera was in plain view, right next to my face. Officer Kuc said that I was being secretive because I did not explicitly warn him that I was recording and because he had no reason to suspect that it was a camera. He demanded that I turn off the camera and hand it to him so he could hold it as evidence. I asked him for a receipt several times but he refused to give me one. I handed him the camera.

Officer Kuc and Officer III informed me that they were aware of my having hired a lawyer (who had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the chief about a month earlier) and made disparaging comments about it. Officer Kuc said that he had spoken to the district attorney, who supported his position. Officer Kuc and Officer III continued to talk to me about how serious a crime I had committed with the camera and how I was begging for death by riding in the middle of the lane. Both officers threatened to arrest me for disorderly conduct the next time either of them saw me in the middle of a lane again. Officer III said that he would have arrested me right off if he had been the one to pull me over. Officer Kuc showed a book that said something about a particular section of the Massachusetts General Laws (I don't remember which one) that required drivers to "keep right" when being overtaken. (Chapter 89: Section 2 says to "give way to the right in favor of the overtaking vehicle", but I don't think that this was the section that he mentioned.) I said that "keep right" does not mean stay at the far right of the lane. Neither Officer Kuc nor Officer III acknowledge the distinction. (I could also have said that it does not mean staying to the right in anticipation of being overtaken, only when it is necessary, sufficient, and reasonable to facilitate a particular overtaking, but I did not.) Officer Kuc told me that the same rules apply to everyone and that he enforced them the same for everyone; He was not specifically targeting me as a cyclist (which is pretty outrageous considering the circumstances). I said that I would be happy to discuss this further under different circumstances. Officer III said that he had no interest in discussing it further under any circumstances.

Officer III asked where I was coming from (I said Amherst), where I was going (I said Northampton), and why? When he got to the third question I said that I did not think it would be appropriate to discuss that. Officer III asked if it was because I thought it was a violation of my privacy and I said yes. I asked if I was free to leave. Officer Kuc said not yet. He consulted with Officer III out of earshot. Eventually both officers returned and Officer Kuc told me that I could leave. I went into the adjacent parking lot. Both officers left.

I arrived at the bike lab at about 11:30AM, so the encounter must have lasted about thirty minutes. (On the up side, I got to teach some cycling skills to a kid at the bike lab.) Anyway, I am still not safe in Hadley and I am especially worried about the wiretapping accusation.

At some point, Officer Kuc accused me of having lied about my name, saying that he had identified me as Eli Damon Cooper rather than Eli Damon. I do not know how he identified me as Eli Damon Cooper or how he justified to himself the accusation that I was lying. I told him that Eli Damon was my true, full, current, official name but that I had formerly held the name Eli Damon Cooper. Despite this, he wrote the ticket to "Eli Cooper".

On 04/01 I found a notice in my mailbox summoning me to court on 04/27/2010 to be arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful wiretapping. The charges were brought against "Eli Cooper".

Frequently Asked Questions about Bicycle Driving

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:09:00 GMT

I wrote this in collaboration with other members of the the bicycle driving email discussion group.

Questions

What is bicycle driving? Why do you call it "bicycle driving"?
Why would you want to drive a bicycle rather than ride a bicycle in some other manner?
Isn't it dangerous to ride a bicycle in traffic? Won't I get hit by a car?
Isn't it safer to stay out of the way of cars as much as possible?
Bicycledriving might be okay where you live but it would never work around here. The other drivers are crazy and drive too fast.
Bicycle driving might be okay for a skilled athlete like you but I could never do it.
Your arguments in favor of bicycle driving make sense in principle but the notion terrifies me nonetheless.
Is bicycle driving legal?
Is bicycle driving the same thing as obeying the law?
Are you opposed to all bicycling that is not bicycle driving?
Are you saying that I should ride my bike just like I would drive a car?
Are you saying that bicycle drivers should always drive in the middle of the lane? What is an appropriate position for a bicycle driver to takeon the road?
Is road positioning for bicycle drivers as important as it is for motorcycle drivers?
Does riding on a shoulder count as bicycle driving?
Does riding in a bike lane count as bicycle driving?
Are you opposed to bike lanes?
Shouldn't we support bike lanes because they help promote bicycling?
Are you opposed to bike paths/trails?
How can I promote bicycling in a manner that is consistent with bicycle driving?
Where can I learn more about bicycle driving?

Questions and Answers

1. What is bicycle driving? Why do you call it "bicycle driving"?

The term "bicycle driving" denotes operating a bicycle on a road according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. In other words it denotes operating a bicycle in the manner that is expected of drivers of vehicles in general and drivers of motor vehicles in particular. Currently, four-wheeled motor vehicles (such as cars, vans, SUVs, buses, and trucks) are the dominant type of vehicles on the roads and there is a pervasive tendency for people to treat other types of vehicles as less than genuine and legitimate vehicles that can and should be operated on roads according to the same rules. Since operating a four-wheeled motor vehicle is referred to as driving, the term "bicycle driving" is used in contrast with the common term "bicycle riding", which denotes operating a bicycle in general, to emphasize that the bicycle is being operated in the same manner as is expected of drivers of vehicles in general, and drivers of four-wheeled motor vehicles in particular. Bicycle driving does not include operating a bicycle according the rules of the road for pedestrians or according to some combination of or compromise between the rules of the road for pedestrians and the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Neither does bicycle driving include operating a bicycle somewhere other than on a road, such as a sidewalk, multi-use trail (i.e. rail trail, bike trail, bike path), hiking trail, park, open field, stunt course, or race track.

2. Why would you want to drive a bicycle rather than ride a bicycle in some other manner?

On the road, bicycle driving avoids all of the common hazards to bicyclists. While collisions are rare for bicyclists, they are substantially more rare for bicycle drivers. But this is not the only, or even the most important, reason to drive a bicycle. Bicycles provide an excellent mode of transportation but such transportation cannot be truly practical without bicycle driving. Bicycle driving allows for safe, reliable, fast, efficient, and flexible transportation. Bicycle driving enables bicyclists to travel faster and farther with less effort and less planning to any destination, along any route, and under any conditions. In contrast, bicyclists who operate in another manner face severe limitations.

3. Isn't it dangerous to ride a bicycle in traffic? Won't I get hit by a car?

No. It is not especially dangerous to ride a bicycle in traffic if you obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Fear is quite understandable. Cars and trucks are big, fast, and powerful. However, cars are driven by people and those people follow the rules of the road. These rules were refined more than one hundred years ago (before cars had been invented) to facilitate safe and efficient vehicular travel and are still effective today. For several decades the warning has been proliferated forcefully that other vehicles should be kept away from cars and trucks because the cars and trucks put operators of other vehicles in danger. However, the arguments associated with this warning are blatantly unsound. They appeal to fear rather than reason. When people act out of fear instead of reason, their attempts to avoid danger often put them in greater danger. The truth is that rear-end collisions, which incite the greatest fear in bicyclists, are extremely rare and, in fact, are one of the rarest types of collisions. Even though intuition might suggest that bicycle driving is dangerous, it is actually very safe and substantially safer than other manners of bicycling.

4. Isn't it safer to stay out of the way of cars as much as possible?

No. Car drivers drive where they do for a reason and the same reasons apply to bicyclists. Contrary to the fears of many bicyclists, rear-end collisions are extremely rare and, in fact, are one of the rarest types of collisions. In contrast, the most common type of bicycle collision is the single-vehicle collision. By making it a priority to stay out of the way of cars, bicyclists expose themselves to greater danger, not less. This unnecessary danger is partly caused by:

stationary obstacles such as sand, potholes, and parked cars (which cause single-vehicle bicycle collisions),
reduced lines of sight at driveways and intersections (where most two-vehicle collisions occur),
loss of control due to other vehicles passing too closely,
conflicts with the normal flow of traffic, and
reduced conspicuity to drivers approaching from behind.

It might seem as if being out of the way is better than being conspicuous but this is not the case. Unexpected obstacles can force bicyclists leftward, out of their normal position and inattentive drivers can drift rightward, out of their normal position. On the other hand, bicyclists who take a position farther to the left have the option of moving rightward to avoid an obstacle and conspicuous bicyclists are overwhelmingly likely to be noticed, even by inattentive drivers.

Grabbing the attention of a completely inattentive driver is, of course, literally impossible. However, a driver who is completely inattentive cannot drive. That is, a driver cannot be so inattentive that it is impossible to grab his or her attention. It is possible for a driver to be inattentive for no more than a few seconds because he or she must pay attention for at least a fraction of a second every few seconds to check and correct his or her course if nothing else. Otherwise he or she will travel off course and crash. So bicyclists should ride in a manner that grabs the attention of drivers during their inevitable, periodic course checks. This is an important part of bicycle driving. By driving in a conspicuous lane position, a bicyclist is much more likely to grab the attention of other drivers, even inattentive drivers, while there is still plenty of time and space for them to take safe, reasonable, and appropriate action.

5. Bicycle driving might be okay where you live but it would never workaround here. The other drivers are crazy and drive too fast.

This is the fear talking. It is not just where you live. There are bad drivers everywhere. However, these drivers do not impose a greater danger on bicyclists than they impose on anyone else on the road. Everyone must travel on the road by one mode or another. Even those who travel on a sidewalk or a multi-use trail must nevertheless cross the road. The majority of collisions between two vehicles result from the vehicles crossing paths. So avoiding bicycling does not serve to avoid these risks. Furthermore, bad drivers constitute precisely one of those hazards that bicycle driving serves to avoid. By making their presence and their intentions clear, bicycle drivers cause other drivers to behave more cautiously and predictably around them.

6. Bicycle driving might be okay for a skilled athlete like you but I could never do it.

Bicycle driving does require some skill but this skill is within easy reach of almost everyone. If you can drive a car, you can certainly drive a bicycle. Driving a bicycle requires no special abilities and the skills needed can be acquired with a little education and a little practice just like those needed to drive a car. There are instructors who teach bicycle driving. There are also several good books on the subject. For more information, see the answer to "Where can I learn more about bicycle driving?

7. Your arguments in favor of bicycle driving make sense in principle but the notion terrifies me nonetheless.

This is understandable. You can overcome your fear by practicing your bicycle driving skills in a non-threatening environment and gradually moving up to scarier environments as you get more comfortable. Your first practice environment should be an open space with no traffic, such as an empty parking lot. You might want to seek out an instructor who teaches bicycle driving. There are also several good books on the subject. For more information, see the answer to "Where can I learn more about bicycle driving?".

8. Is bicycle driving legal?

Mostly. Every state in the United States grants bicyclists the same legal rights and responsibilities as drivers of other vehicles in general. However, every state also makes some exceptions to this general rule that either prohibit bicycle driving under some circumstances or render the legal status of bicycle driving unclear under some circumstances. The exceptions are different in every state. Advocates of bicycle driving attempt to overturn these discriminatory laws.

9. Is bicycle driving the same thing as obeying the law?

Not exactly. For the most part, bicycle driving is compatible with obeying the law. However, the law does not, and cannot, dictate what you should do, only what you must and must not do. There is more to driving than the law, regardless of whether the vehicle being driven is a motor vehicle, a bicycle, or something else. Bicycle driving is about being a good driver, which means following the best practices for safe and efficient bicycling in traffic. For example, the law might dictate that you ride on the right half of the road but it might not tell you where exactly on the right half of the road to ride. This judgement cannot reasonably be made through legislation. Bicycle drivers must learn to make good judgements on the road based on many dynamic factors. Furthermore, as stated in the answer to "Is bicycle driving legal?", sometimes discriminatory laws prohibit bicycle driving or render the legal status of bicycle driving unclear. Bicycle driving means obeying the established rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Some laws are contrary to these established rules and consequently are contrary to bicycle driving. Advocates of bicycle driving attempt to overturn these discriminatory laws.

10. Are you opposed to bicycling that is not bicycle driving?

No. We are opposed to bicycling on the road that is not bicycle driving. However, the concept of bicycle driving does not apply to other environments, such as sidewalks, multi-use trails (i.e. rail trails, bike trails, bike paths), hiking trails, parks, open fields, stunt courses, and race tracks. These environments are governed by different rules and we do not object to bicycling in these other environments according the applicable rules for these environments. We do encourage bicyclists who are bicycling for the purpose of transportation to travel on the road (according to the principles of bicycle driving of course) because it is often safer and almost always more efficient but we do not insist that they do so.

11. Are you saying that I should ride my bike just like I would drive a car?

Not exactly. Motorists are constrained not only by the rules of road for drivers of vehicles but also by the size and weight of their vehicles. Bicycles, being smaller and lighter, provide a flexibility that cars cannot and there is no reason to give up that flexibility. For example, bicyclists can squeeze through narrow spaces, travel on narrow paths, lift their bicycles over obstacles, and dismount them to become pedestrians.

However, bicyclists who are not comfortable with bicycle driving sometimes underestimate the risks and overestimate the advantages of some maneuvers. Just like many motorists, many bicyclists habitually perform aggressive maneuvers for a supposed gain in speed that turns out to be trivial or nonexistent. Many other bicyclists perform erratic maneuvers in order to stay "out of the way" of motorists as much as possible. They do not realize that their timidity causes them not only danger but also inconvenience and stress.

12. Are you saying that bicycle drivers should always drive in the middle of the lane? What is an appropriate position for a bicycle driver to take on the road?

No. We are saying that bicycle drivers should sometimes drive in the middle of the lane. Bicycle driving experts like John Franklin recommend that bicyclists drive where other drivers primarily direct their attention, which is often near the center of their lane. However, because bicyclists are usually traveling slower than motor vehicles, facilitating overtaking by other drivers is also a consideration. The appropriate position for a bicycle driver depends on many factors. These factors include:

precipitation,
ambient light,
the condition of the road surface,
physical obstacles,
visual obstacles and visual clutter near driveways and intersections,
the presence of a bike lane, paved shoulder, curb, or parking lane at the side of the road,
the frequency of driveways and intersections,
the width of the lane,
the bicycle driver's absolute speed,
the speed of other traffic,
the volume and behavior of other drivers, and
the destination of the bicyclist at an intersection (left, right or straight through).

Do not feel overwhelmed. Bicycle drivers need not weigh all of these factors consciously. Part of learning to drive a bicycle is developing a good intuition regarding your position on the road and the habit of taking an assertive position by default that you can back off from if you determine it to be appropriate. In general, the more adverse factors are present, the more assertive a bicycle driver should be.

13. Is road positioning for bicycle drivers as important as it is for motorcycle drivers?

Yes. Roadway positioning is at least as important for bicycle drivers as it is for motorcycle drivers. It is arguably more important for bicycle drivers because in determining the most appropriate position, bicycle drivers often must account for a significant difference in speed relative to other traffic, which is rarely the case for motorcycle drivers.

14. Does riding on a shoulder count as bicycle driving?

No. The shoulder of a road is not designed, constructed, regulated, or maintained for vehicular travel. However, it might be appropriate to ride a bicycle on a shoulder in some circumstances. Such a shoulder should be wide, smooth, clean, unobstructed, and rarely interrupted by driveways and intersections. Bicyclists who are riding on a shoulder should cross driveways and intersections cautiously and should generally merge into the road before crossing an intersection.

15. Does riding in a bike lane count as bicycle driving?

Sometimes. Riding in a bike lane can be considered bicycle driving if the bike lane is properly designed and includes the appropriate position for the bicyclist as determined by all other conditions. Even a well-designed bike lane might not include the appropriate position for a given bicyclist at a given time. It is also unfortunate that the majority of bike lanes are not properly designed and can guide bicyclists along a poor path. It is especially unfortunate when the law requires bicyclists to use bike lanes regardless their quality or appropriateness to conditions.

16. Are you opposed to bike lanes?

Not universally. However, we do have many concerns about them and would prefer that they be installed more conservatively. Our concerns are as follows.

Bike lanes are often improperly designed. This can be caused by simple thoughtlessness of the designer. It can also be caused by an attempt to save money or to save space on the road for motor vehicles by squeezing a bike lane into an existing, mostly unused space that cannot properly accommodate it. Some of the common problems with bike lanes are as follows.

* A bike lane can be too narrow, causing motorists to pass too closely.

* A bike lane can be adjacent to a parking lane (with no buffer area), which creates a hazard of a car door opening into the path of a bicyclist.

* A bike lane can be too close to the edge of road. This leaves poor lines of sight at driveways and intersections and also causes bicyclists to blend in with visual clutter at the side of the road.

* A bike lane can pass to the right of a lane from which other drivers can turn right, creating a conflict at intersections. (In the state of Oregon, this is the case for all bike lanes at all intersections since motor vehicles drivers are required by law to turn right without merging into the bike lane as the rules of the road demand.) Even when this is not the case, many motor vehicle drivers find it counter intuitive to merge into a bike lane before turning right, as the rules of the road demand.
The presence of bike lanes can compel bicycle drivers, psychologically and sometimes legally, to use them regardless of their quality or appropriateness to conditions.
Bike lanes can complicate traffic patterns at intersections, which can confuse drivers of bicycles and other vehicles and so increase the frequency of collisions.
Bicyclists often get the false impression that they are safer in a bike lane than in general travel lanes. This impression can lead bicyclists to use bike lanes when it not appropriate or to feel that they do need to learn or use proper bicycle driving technique if they use bike lanes. While safety from motor vehicles is often the primary reason given for installing bike lanes, the truth is that bike lanes do not protect bicyclists from motor vehicles. Bike lanes are part of the same road and are governed by the same rules. Bicyclists must use the same bicycle driving techniques regardless of whether they are in a bike lane or a general travel lane.
Motorists often get the false impression that the presence of bike lanes removes any legitimate reason for bicyclists to use a general travel lane. This impression can lead to hostility and encourage motorists to harass bicycle drivers when they use general travel lanes. Police officers often have the same false impression and exhibit the same hostility with even worse consequences.
Bike lanes can collect sand and debris that is swept out of the general travel lane by motor vehicles.
Bike lanes can incur an unnecessary expense without providing any real benefit.

17. Shouldn't we support bike lanes because they help promote bicycling?

We don't think so. Many people believe that bike lanes are needed to persuade people to ride bicycles. Whether the presence of bike lanes actually persuades many more people to ride bicycles for transportation has never been demonstrated. Other factors clearly affect the amount of bicycle transportation. Two major factors are whether the city grew up with walking transportation, for which bicycling is a good addition, and the extent to which a community refuses to accommodate motor vehicle transportation beyond a degree that is commensurate with its true cost. These two factors are often found together (in many European cities for example) and the resulting large proportion of bicycle transportation produces political demand for bike lanes.

18. Are you opposed to bike paths/trails?

Not universally. (It should be noted that the term "bike path/trail" is deceptive since these paths/trails are used by pedestrians and operators of many other types of vehicles in addition to bicycles. The rules of the road on these paths are similar to those for sidewalks. We prefer the term "multi-use path/trail".) Many bike paths/trails are very pleasant and functional routes to travel on. However, we are opposed to bike paths/trails that are adjacent to ordinary roads. (We refer to them as sidepaths.) We object to them because they create a number problems, most of which are similar to those created by many bike lanes. (See the answer to "Are you opposed to bike lanes?".) In particular,

sidepaths create conflicts at intersections,
sidepaths lead timid bicyclists to use them without understanding the real safety issues,
sidepaths encourage hostility toward bicyclists who use the adjacent road by motorists and police officers, and
in some states bicyclists are legally forbidden from using a road with an adjacent sidepath.

However, we are not opposed to bike paths in general.

19. How can I promote bicycling in a manner that is consistent with bicycle driving?

Lobby for the removal of laws that discriminate against the rights of bicyclists to act as drivers of vehicles (especially bicyclist-specific laws that require bicyclists to use bike lanes or sidepaths or to keep right).
Educate law enforcement officers, government officials, school administrators, children, and the general public about bicycle driving.
Deliver educational messages about bicycle driving and bicycle safety through public service announcements, posters, billboards, articles, and classes, including physical education classes in schools.
Encourage biking and walking to school by children, and discourage parent chauffering.
Encourage the use of narrow outside lanes when constructing and remodeling roads, perhaps marked with "sharrows" or bikes-may-use-full-lane signs to clearly indicate that bicyclists are allowed to control an entire lane.
Encourage the use of wide (shareable) outside lanes, without bike lane markings, when constructing and remodeling roads.
Encourage the use of traffic controls at intersections that usually allow for continuous travel without stopping, such as yield signs, traffic circles, and roundabouts, rather than traffic signals and stop signs.
Promote traffic signal technology that recognizes bicyclists (including markings showing where to stop to trigger the signal) and is appropriately timed for slow moving vehicles.
Provide bicycle parking facilities at work locations, parks, shopping centers, public buildings, etc.
Provide shower facilities where climate, typical commute distances, or terrain make it desirable.
Set an example. Drive a bicycle as often as possible and be seen doing it. Every time anyone (motorist, cyclist, whatever) sees a bicyclist driving properly and assertively on the road there is an incremental rise in the public consciousness of the notion that such behavior is proper and that bicyclists belong there on the road.

20. Where can I learn more about bicycle driving?

A League Certified Instructor (bicycle driving instructor who is certified by the League of American Bicyclists)
The bicycle driving email discussion group
Books:
* Bicycling Street Smarts (free online edition) by John Allen
* Cyclecraft (North American Edition) by John Franklin
* Effective Cycling by John Forester
Websites:
* Cycling Savvy
* John Allen
* John Forester
* LAB Reform
* League of American Bicyclists
* North Carolina Coalition for Bicycle Driving

Cyclists and Motorist: Same Roads, Same Rules, Same Responsibilities

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:37:00 GMT

The Amherst Police Department published a pamphlet titled Cyclists and Motorist: Same Roads, Same Rules, Same Responsibilities.

I wrote a letter to Captain Jennifer Gundersen concerning this pamphlet.

Dear Captain Gundersen:

I had hoped to talk to you in person but I supposed you have enough to deal with already so I will just send you what I have. I would like to address the pamphlet “Cyclists and Motorists: Same Roads, Same Rules, Same Responsibilities”, which came to my attention a few weeks ago. As I mentioned during our short phone conversation, I am a cycling instructor, certified by the League of American Bicyclists. The mantra of the League's cycling education program is: “Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.” I attempt to teach cyclists that they can travel with astounding safety, reliability, efficiency, flexibility, and freedom by assertively following the Rules of the Road. I believe that the idea of this pamphlet has great potential for educating both cyclists and motorists about the Rules of the Road and I congratulate you on having initiated it.

I would like to share some ideas with you that I believe can bring the pamphlet much closer achieving its full potential. I have attached my comments on the current version of the pamphlet and a sample revision of the pamphlet that implements many of my suggestions. I hope that you will consider my suggestions. I also hope that you will continue to consult me on this project. I believe that I can be helpful not only in refining the design but also in distributing the pamphlet once it
reaches a sufficient level of refinement.

I would also like to take this opportunity to praise the Amherst Police Department for its progressive attitude toward and active pursuit of bicycle issues. This is manifest in efforts such the investigation and prosecution of those who injure or kill cyclists (e.g. Misty Bassi's killer), the mountain bike patrol unit, educational projects like this one and the bike safety event of a few years ago, participation in the bike commute week breakfast (Marcus Huber), and communication with
MassBike Pioneer Valley (Bill Laramie).

Sincerely,
Eli Damon

Structure

Education can best be accomplished by putting information into the right structure and context. The main point of the pamphlet that you indicated on the phone and that is indicated by its title is the Rules of the Road, which apply to all drivers of vehicles. By conveying this crucial point, we hope to (1) convince cyclists that they belong on the road and must act like it by obeying the Rules of the Road and (2) convince motorists that cyclists belong on the road and must be respected as drivers of vehicles. Most people have at most a vague understanding of the Rules of the Road and have no understanding of how these rules can be applied to cyclists or in the presence of cyclists.

In the current version of the pamphlet, information is organized in a manner that is fairly natural and logical in the context of law enforcement but not in the context of learning to apply the Rules of the Road. It undermines its main point by distinguishing rules for cyclists from rules for motorists and making no mention of rules that apply to all drivers of vehicles. I recommend structuring the pamphlet mainly according to the Rules of the Road. For each rule, hints can be given on how they can be applied specifically by cyclists and specifically by motorists.

Mixing rules of the road with rules of the sidewalk, as is done in the current version, is likely to be confusing. I recommend isolating the rules of the sidewalk in a separate section. I also recommend including some of the key safety principles for cycling in pedestrian environments.

In the current version, the overwhelming emphasis is on the responsibilities of cyclists rather than motorists. I recommend working to equalize the balance. The suggestions I made above wouldtake care of this automatically.

The current version has an inconsistent level of detail, emphasizing less critical and more obvious material over more critical and less obvious material. For example, abbreviating the material regarding bicycle equipment requirements and the age-specific requirements would make for a more appropriate pattern of emphasis.

Language

There are some pervasive myths and prejudices regarding cycling. They are as pervasive among cyclists as they are among those who do not cycle. Great care must be taken to avoid reinforcing them. In fact, one goal for the pamphlet should be to help to dispel some of them. Of course, the scope of the pamphlet is limited but every opportunity should taken within that scope. Some of the most strident of these misconceptions are:

Cycling is a frivolous activity, in contrast to the serious business of driving motor vehicles. Cyclists are not legitimate travelers on the road and do not deserve to have full access to the road.

Cyclists do not have the same legal right to travel on the road as motorists do.

Cycling among motor vehicle traffic is inherently difficult and dangerous. Cycling among motor vehicle traffic requires Navy-SEAL-like fitness, skill, and reflexes that are beyond all but the most elite of cyclists. Cyclists on the road are safest when they are as close to the edge of the road and as “out of the way” as possible.

Cyclists on the road delay motor vehicle traffic.

I cannot go into much detail on these misconceptions here but I would like to relate them to some of the points made in the current version of the pamphlet. These are:

"Don't block a public road or sidewalk when cycling...we're sharing the road."

"Cyclists cannot impede the flow of vehicles traveling on any Amherst roadway."

"Cyclists need to ride on the right side of the road with the flow of traffic."

The first two of these points are highly prejudicial. They play on all four of the misconceptions that I mentioned and serve to reinforce dangerous behavior and hostility from both cyclists and motorists. The third of these points is not so insidious but it could easily be misinterpreted to imply that cyclists must stay at the far edge of the road. Care should taken to make clear that cyclists need not ride at the far edge of the road, need not use a bike lane if one is present, and may control a lane if necessary.

The current version takes a somewhat angry tone, especially toward cyclists. I recommend using gentler language when it does not conflict with other priorities.

Many of the directives given in the current version are given in a negative form. They say what not to do rather than what to do. When a forbidden act is committed negligently rather than deliberately it is important to instruct people in how to avoid committing the act rather than simply telling them not to do it. For example, the warning to motorists not to right-hook cyclists should be supplemented by an instruction to merge to the right-hand portion of the road before making a right turn.

Legal Issues

"Don't block a public road or sidewalk when cycling...we're sharing the road.": This does not reflect any law or safety principle. It is similar to the requirement of MGL C. 89 §2(<http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/89-2.htm>) that "if the way is of sufficient width for ... two vehicles to pass the driver of the leading one shall not unnecessarily obstruct the other." The difference between this and the point I quoted above is subtle but absolutely critical in terms of both safety and legal rights due both to the qualifying phrases and thevehicle neutrality. (It applies equally to all drivers of vehicles.) As mentioned earlier, the point plays into the misconceptions I mentioned and serves to reinforce dangerous behavior and hostility from both cyclists and motorists. I recommend that the pamphlet ignore the issue of obstructing traffic entirely. It is almost unheard for a cyclists to have the confidence to assert himself/herself on the road without knowing what he/she is doing.

"Cyclists cannot impede the flow of vehicles traveling on any Amherst roadway.": This seems to refer to Article II: Section 3 of the Amherst Bylaws, which reads: "No person shall obstruct or impede pedestrian traffic upon any sidewalk or public pedestrian easement, or obstruct or impede vehicular traffic upon any street in the town..." The point strongly implies that cyclists have a special duty to keep out of the way of motorists, beyond the ordinary duty of all drivers not to unnecessarily obstruct traffic, which is required by this bylaw. It also suffers from some of the same issues as the other point about blocking traffic. I recommend removing the point entirely.

The fine for dooring a cyclist is $100, not $50.

Other

While the law allows a cyclist to use a rear reflector instead of a taillight at night, using a taillight should be strongly encouraged.

The diagram of hand signals should include the right-hand right turnsignal.

Some warning should be given to make sure helmets are in proper condition, fit properly, and are properly adjusted, although details can be given by reference. A pretty good guide to bicycle helmets is given at <http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/bike/EasyStepsWeb/>.

Some more engaging illustrations and cover text could be very helpful in catching the attention and interest of potential readers.

Including a list of sources for more information could also be very helpful.

There are duplicate warnings to motorists about overtaking cyclists too closely. One should be removed.

"cost you a $20 fine": This is poor grammar.

I got a very positive response from Captain Gundersen.

Mr. Damon,

You've done your homework. I thank you for that. I have read your recommendations, and then forwarded it one of our command officers, Sgt. Daly, to review it for content. After that, I will take your draft, or our draft at that point, and return it to you. Once we've got something that appears to work, I will send it to the Amherst Bicycle Committee, who has been working with us on this project.

We share in your concern for the safety of cyclists, and I personally believe that the real education must be with the motorists. Recognizing the difficulty in doing that (educating the motorists), we attempted to create a document that would promote "defensive driving" on the part of the cyclists. We're happy to update the document if it can improve the safety of cyclists. With that said, Rome wasn’t build it a day, so please be patient with us.

I followed up with a thank-you.

Thank you for considering my ideas. I hope that I can be of service throughout the process. Eli Damon

I created another version, in which I removed all Amherst-specific content and made some minor corrections and format changes, and submitted it Shane Jordan, the education director at MassBike. I hope that MassBike will publish a version of the pamphlet in addition to the Amherst Police Department. It would be especially nice if it was published in time to be distributed at Bay State Bike Week. I also included some suggestions for minor changes to MassBike's Go by Bike! pamphlet. Shane also pointed me to MassBike's "Same Roads. Same Rules." website, which contains some good material.

On 04/15/2010 I emailed Captain Gundersen, inquiring about the status of the pamphlet. I response, I got a phone call from Seargeant Brian Daly, who told me that the grant money that had been used to fund the pamphlet was almost all gone so there were no plans to print a new version.

Bicycle Top Tube Mounting Bracket

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:15:00 GMT

Problem: Wavering headlight beam.

As you ride a bicycle, you must constantly turn the handlebar back and forth to maintain balance. If you mount a headlight on the handlebar (the typical place to mount it) then the beam of the headlight will waver. The unsteady beam makes objects you approach less noticeable and makes you less conspicuous to drivers approaching from the front and sides. If you mount a video camera on the handlebar the camera image will waver as well.

Solution: Mount the headlight (or video camera) on a bracket that is rigidly attached to the bicycle's top tube.

head tube mounting bracket - top

head tube mounting bracket - bottom

head tube mounting bracket - rivets

head tube mounting bracket on Miyata touring bike with headlight mounting brackets

head tube mounting bracket on Miyata touring bike with Busch & Müller IXON IQ headlights - view from rear

head tube mounting bracket on Miyata touring bike with Busch & Müller IXON IQ headlights - view from front

tools: bench vise, hack saw, flat file, hot glue gun, electric drill, 1/8" drill bit, rivet gun, PVC pipe cutter, utility knife, vicegrips

materials: 10" of 3/4" aluminum C-channel, 1 hot glue stick, 4 1/8" aluminum sheet metal rivets, 10" of 1/2" PVC pipe, dead bicycle inner tube, 5 zipties

Procedure:

1. Cut a 4" and a 6" length of C-channel. (Call these pieces C4 and C6 respectively.)

Measure out 4" and 6" along the C-channel and mark the cut points with a marker. Insert a small piece of wood into the C-channel and clamp the wood and C-channel into a bench vise. Cut the C-channel at the marked points using a hack saw. File the ends of the two cut pieces using a flat file.

2. Glue the two pieces together.

Make a mark on the back of C6 3/4" from the end. This mark bounds a 3/4" square at the end of C6. Make two marks on the back of C4 3/4" apart and equidistant from the midpoint. These marks bound a 3/4" square at the center of C4. Apply hot glue to one of these 3/4" squares and press it against the other 3/4" square. Wait for the glue to dry. This should hold the pieces together securely enough to allow you to drill holes through them both at the same time, which ensures that the holes in the two pieces line up with each other.

3. Secure the joint with rivets.

Place the assembly on a block of scrap wood with C6 facing down. Draw four dots with a marker in a square pattern behind the joint. Press the assembly firmly against the block of wood to stabilize it and drill a hole at each of four dots using an electric drill. Fasten a rivet through each of the four holes using a rivet gun.

If the rivets are loose then you need to hammer on them to make them tight. Unfortunately the ends of the rivets are inside of the C-channel so you cannot hammer on them directly. Put a small piece of wood under the assembly so that the rivets rest on it. Find an allen wrench that is about the same size as head of the rivet. Press the tip of the allen wrench down on the rivet and hammer on the allen wrench. The tip of the allen wrench will mash the rivet down and make it tighter.

4. Cover a 10" length of pipe with a length of inner tube.

Cut a 10" length PVC pipe using a PVC pipe cutter. Cut a 10" length of inner tube using a utility knife. Pull the length of inner tube around the length of pipe so that their ends match up.

5. Attach the PVC pipe to the C-channel assembly with zipties.

Place the pipe assembly into C4 so that the midpoints of the pipe and C4 match up. Wrap a ziptie around C4 and the pipe together on each side of C6. Tighten each ziptie by clamping its tail into a pair of vicegrips and pulling on the vicegrips which holding the head of the ziptie in place. Cut the tails of the zipties off using a utility knife. The bracket is complete. It only remains to be mounted on the top tube of a bicycle.

6. Mount the bracket on a bicycle with 3 zipties.

Cut some more inner tube. Cut it along its length so that it is a flat strip of rubber. Wrap it around the frontmost 6" of the top tube of a bicycle. Place the bracket on top of this rubber wrapping so that the top tube is inside C6 and the pipe lies horizontal above it. Wrap 3 zipties around C6 and the top tube together, placing the first ziptie just behind C4, the second near the end of C6, and the third halfway between the other two. Tighten and trim the zipties as in Step 5.

7. Clamp handlebar mounting brackets for your devices onto the ends of the pipe.

Any device that can be mounted on a handlebar can now be mounted in the same manner on the pipe. For example, bicycle headlights always come with a handlebar mounting bracket that the headlights snap onto and off of.

Notes

I must share some of the credit for inventing this bracket with Jesse Sevoian. Jesse does bicycle frame building and powercoating at his shop in Hadley Massachusetts and works as a mechanic at Laughing Dog Bicycles in Amherst Massachusetts.
Pay no attention to the wires in the photographs.
PVC pipe is sized according to its inner diameter.
Obviously, there are many ways to stabilize and cut the materials. I have told you how I did it but you can certainly do it another way. Likewise, any pipe or dowel with an outer diameter of approximately 3/4" can be used in place of the PVC pipe. Smaller rivets would probably work just as well but larger rivets would require holes that are too large. Either way, the drill bit and the rivets must be the same size.
Brazing instead of riveting would make the bracket much sexier.
You can use a shorter length of pipe for a more compact bracket. The pipe should be at least 2" longer than C4 so that it has room for your devices' handlebar mounting brackets.

Eli's Rules of (Email) Order

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:09:00 GMT

Recipients

When replying to a message that has many recipients, be careful to send your reply only to the sender of the original message and other appropriate individuals unless your message is relevant to the group as a whole. Be especially careful when responding to a message sent to a discussion group/list (i.e. a single email address all of whose received messages are forwarded to a list of subscribed email addresses).
Discussion groups/lists should be configured so that replies are by default directed only to the sender of the original message.

Subject Lines

The subject line should be as specific, clear, and concise as possible.
Never leave the subject line blank. This is very rude.
Do not include your name in the subject line unless you are sending the message from an email address that you do not normally use.
Do not discuss multiple, disparate subjects in a single message unless the message is very informal (between friends) and has very few recipients (no more than three).
If the subject of a long discussion has drifted so that the original subject line is no longer appropriate, change the subject line in your response. Do this regardless of whether it is your message that changes the subject or if the subject line ceased to be appropriate earlier in the discussion. Use a format like "new subject [was: old subject]"

Special Formatting

Encode your message using plain text only. Do not use HTML. Do not use Microsoft Word.

Temporal References

When referring to days and times using relative terms, always refer to them in absolute terms as well. The absolute term should be enclosed in parentheses immediately following the relative term (e.g. "tomorrow (Friday)", "now (3:45PM)").

Quoting

When replying to another message do not include the entire message in your response unless the original message is very short or it is part of a very formal discussion. Otherwise include only the part of the message that is necessary to establish a context for your response.
You can often concisely establish a context for your response without quoting. Do so if possible.
If your response is highly dependent on the context established by a short quote or if you are responding to several quotes sequentially, put each quote immediately above your response to that quote. Otherwise put the quote at the bottom of your message.
Delete advertising and signature text from the quoted message.
Use ellipses (i.e. "...") to shorten your quotes.

Attachments

Unless you have some special reason to do otherwise, attached documents should be in open formats, for example, ASCII text, HTML, PDF, JPEG, GIF, MPEG. Do not attach a Microsoft Word document unless you are certain that all of your recipients prefer Microsoft Word documents or you include a duplicate RTF, HTML, or PDF document.

Proofreading

Always reread your message before sending it.
Consider whether your message is worth sending at all.
Make sure that your list of recipients is appropriate.
Correct errors in spelling and grammar.

The Right to be Naked

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:00:00 GMT

This note was inspired by the piece The Right to be Naked (08/08/2009) (alternate link) on the radio show The State We're In (podcast) produced by Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

This is an aspect of the broader issue of whether it is acceptable to restrict people's liberties because certain acts make a large number of people uncomfortable or offended. My answer is emphatically "No." Here are my thoughts:

I feel uncomfortable around people when either I am or they are naked (unless I am or I anticipate having sex with them). I consider this a weakness in my character. If I encountered naked people more often, I would probably overcome my discomfort.

People do have the right to be naked. It is an aspect of the right to freedom of dress, which is an aspect to the right to freedom of expression. Furthermore, there is no fundamental right to freedom from social discomfort and offense.

The only exception is when clothing serves a necessary, specific, concrete function. For an ordinary citizen in an ordinary situation, preventing others' social discomfort is not such a function. In general, making people uncomfortable or offended is not an excuse for restricting people's liberties. Almost any act will make someone uncomfortable or even offended. Many acts make me uncomfortable or offended but I do not get much popular support for banning them, nor do I want them banned. We recognize this excuse as invalid with regard to many liberties. For example, it has been used to oppose racial integration of public schools as well as public, homosexual displays of affection.

In regard to nudity in art, people do have the right to decide democratically whether a piece of art should be displayed in a public place. However, people who do not want a piece of art displayed in a public place because it depicts nudity have no right to cite morality to give their position greater authority. They must simply argue that it makes people uncomfortable.

Requirements for a Religion to be Legitimate

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:56:00 GMT

It must tolerate any question or challenge to its legitimacy and must not dictate suppressing such questions and challenges.
It must encourage everyone to learn its entire nature and must not dictate that any of its nature be kept secret or revealed only at the discretion of a ministerial authority.
It must only declare metaphysical entities that are both self-consistent and consistent with all observed facts.
It must allow for the possibility of being practiced by everyone for a time period of arbitrary duration.
It must not dictate the extinction of its followers.
It must be independent of any particular residential region, religious community, or ministerial leader.
It must not grant any special rights or obligations to its ministers.
It must grant all people the same opportunity to practice and minister.
It must accept those who practice other religions and those who do not practice any religion and grant them the same status and the same rights and obligations as it grants its own followers.
It must make it a major goal of its teachings to maximize peace and minimize suffering throughout the world.
It must praise compassion, generosity, and honesty and condemn hatred, greed, and dishonesty in some manner.
It must allow its followers to be concerned with their own health and happiness.
It must only dictate ritual practices that are sufficiently flexible that they can be adapted so as to be appropriate and meaningful under the circumstances of its followers.
It must only dictate moral obligations that are in accord with the subtlety and complexity of human nature and social interactions and must allow conflicts between different moral principles to be resolved in a balanced manner that takes into account the details specific to each situation.

The Right to Travel

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:13:00 GMT

I sent some letters to Radio Netherlands Worldwide concerning the right to travel as a possible topic for their show The State We're In (podcast), and received responses from editor Greg Kelly and content coordinator Michele Ernsting. Unfortunately, they have not followed up on the issue despite the interest they expressed. The two episodes of the show mentioned are "The Right to Freedom of Movement" (01/10/2009) (alternate link) and "The Right to Bike" (08/01/2009) (alternate link). The second of these episodes has a discussion page. I have inserted some content, highlighted in blue. I have made minor correction and added formatting and hyperlinks without comment.

Eli

Hello.

A human right that concerns me deeply is the right to travel freely. I believe that you have already discussed this in some aspects. For example, I remember you discussing the severe travel restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinians. While I feel complete sympathy for the Palestinians and complete indignation at their treatment, I think that you should also consider how the right to travel is restricted in the United States.

The majority of my exposure to these restrictions is as a cyclist, that is, I use bicycles for most of my transportation. The use of bicycles for transportation is restricted in many ways including:

explicit state and municipal statutes - Many state and municipal statutes place arbitrary restrictions on the use of bicycles including banning them from certain roads (usually the highest quality roads and sometimes roads that are part of the only reasonable route between some pair of locations. On many occasions I have been forced to travel by inferior routes because the superior alternative had a ban in place. I have also been forced to risk legal consequences by traveling on roads where bicycles were banned because it was the only reasonable route to my destination. There are also traffic regulations that permit motorists to engage in dangerous behavior or impose only trivial consequences for such behavior. There are also discriminatory insurance regulations and building codes.

indifference on the part of police and prosecutors to harassment, negligence, recklessness, and assault from motorists where the victims are cyclists - I have been harassed many times by motorists and was once physically assaulted by a motorist. In all cases, the police refused to acknowledge the behavior as criminal, and, in the case of the physical assault, went so far as to blame me for being assaulted. (Edit 12/29/2010: I later found out that the police officer who responded to my call for help reported that I was the perpetrator of the assault.) In cases where the consequences of the motorist's behavior are too severe to ignore and charges must be filed (e.g. the cyclist dies), the charges that are filed are often minimal, incurring only small fines as penalties. This treatment is extremely common and many examples are described on Bob Mionske's blog at <http://www.bicyclelaw.com/articles/>.

police harassment of cyclists and sometimes even assault on cyclists - Several times, I have been detained by police for committing nonexistent violations. In one case, I was issued a bogus citation that I was unfortunately not in a position to contest. In several other cases, I was threatened with arrest although fortunately the threats were not carried through. (Edit 12/29/2010: Since writing this letter, I was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct on one occasion and charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful wiretapping on another occasion. I was eventually cleared of the charges but the saga continues.) For an example of police officers actually attacking a cyclist, see the the victim's case blog at <http://greencycles.blogspot.com/>. (Edit 12/29/2010: The victim has taken his blog off-line pending the completion of a lawsuit. You can find another example on defense attorney Steve Magas's blog.) There have been several incidents of legal public protests where many of the protesters were on bicycles and police responded by arresting everyone in sight who was on a bicycle.

discriminatory taxation and public expenditures - A great deal of tax money is used to subsidize the use of motor vehicles. In particular, this tax money is used to build and maintain expensive roads for the primary benefit of motor vehicle traffic. Often these roads are motor-vehicles-only roads. In many cases, other roads have been destroyed in the building of new roads, leaving a generally poorly connected road network where people have to go far out of their way to travel short distances. Many new roads are designed in a manner that encourages dangerous behavior from motorists. (Edit 12/29/2010: In addition to discrimination in the construction of roads, there is also discrimination in the construction of parking facilities. Everyone subsidizes the cost of parking lots for cars, which are very expensive, something like $15,000-$20,000 per space. At the same time, secure bicycle parking facilities are often inadequate or non-existent.) Car versus bicycle discrimination is an infringement on the right to travel because, even though many people take cars for granted, they are only available to those with enough money to pay the expenses, the physical ability to drive, the lack of concern for privacy necessary to accept a driver's license, and the lack of concern for other people necessary to accept the danger and waste inherent in using cars. Those who would use bicycles, horses, feet, roller skates, etc. are left out. Much of what I have described affects many other types of travelers besides cyclists, including pedestrians and equestrians, to the point that most people don't even consider them viable anymore.

(Edit 12/29/2010: road features that endanger cyclists - Many roads are built with special features for cyclists without applying the well-established engineering principles that are used in designing the overwhelming majority of roads and road features. These features include most bike lanes, sidepaths, bike boxes (advanced stop lines), and sharrows (shared lane markings). These features often encourage dangerous behavior from the poorly trained majority of cyclists. They make safe behavior more difficult for well-trained cyclists, including encourage hostility from motorists toward cyclists who do not use the features. In combination with state and locals laws, they sometimes make safe behavior illegal. Usually they complicate the entire streetscape, creating increased stress and risk for everyone on the road.)

Travel by public, motorized transportation is also restricted. Bus and train networks are extremely limited in the United States and primarily used to keep the working poor working. In the past several decades people who want to travel by airplane have been forced to give up increasingly more of their privacy, dignity, and freedom from search and seizure. I recently found out that people traveling by train are now subject to some of the same treatment including ID checks and luggage searches. ID checks pose a triple privacy problem. (1) A person must first obtain an ID, which involves the creation of a corresponding file where their actions are recorded and monitored. (2) A person must carry the ID with them, which makes them vulnerable to any law enforcement official who demands to see it. (3) A person must present the ID, which causes their action to be recorded in the file and, if they are on a watch list, could cause them to be refused service or detained by law enforcement. I have personally been in a number of humiliating ID-related situations. Additionally, public transportation companies impose many arbitrary restrictions regarding bicycles that render most multi-modal trips impossible.

No United States law that I know of explicitly mentions the right to travel except for the not-so-clear right to travel between states. Nevertheless, I consider it to be a corollary of the constitutional (First Amendment) right to peaceably assemble since the entire purpose of traveling is to assemble and assembling is usually impossible without traveling. (Edit 12/29/2010: Actually, I found out that there is quite a bit of case law involving the right to travel. Attorney Steve Magas lists some of it in his article ""SHARE THE ROAD" Stinks…", and I added some more in the comments.)

There is more information on harassment of cyclists in Chapter 5 of Bicycling and the Law by Bob Mionske. I very much appreciate your show, which I listen to by podcast. I hope that you consider the issues I have mentioned. Thank you.

Greg

Thanks, Eli. I'll check it out.

Eli

I heard the recent episode of The State We're In on the right to bike. This is an issue that is of very deep and personal concern to me and I feel that my right to travel (by bike) has been violated on many occasions by police harassment, legal restrictions, and judicial indifference. I enjoy and appreciate your show very much, but I am very disappointed by the way you covered this issue. I feel that you approached it more as a subject of general curiosity than as a right that is under attack and I just wanted to express this to you. Thank you.

Michele

Hi Eli, Thanks for writing. We'd like to follow this segment up with more bike rights experiences - so I'm very curious to hear about yours. If you want to, could you get in touch with me and tell me more?

Eli

Hi Michele. I greatly appreciate your response and your interest in my experience of this issue, which, I have said, is of deep and personal concern to me. I have pasted a letter below (above) that I wrote to the producers of The State We're In a few months ago on the right to travel. It includes several references to other stories of cyclists being persecuted. I urge you to look at them as well. I will also tell you about some of my personal experiences. Feel free to email or call me for more information.

For the past four years, cycling has served as my primary mode of transportation. During this period I have cycled a cumulative distance of well over ten thousand miles. I have also been an active member of the Pioneer Valley chapter of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike, <http://massbike.org/>) and served for six years on the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Last year I became certified as a cycling instructor by the League of American Bicyclists and have since been teaching cycling skills, particularly the skills required to cycle safely and confidently in traffic.

Before I continue, I need to point out that there is an intense and pervasive bias in the United States that motor vehicles provide the only practical mode of transportation. What I will say is highly vulnerable to dismissal by those who are too deeply entrenched in this "car bias". Even cyclists and cycling advocates are not immune from this car bias. I ask that you please try to keep an open mind and to give me an opportunity to address any problems you have with what I tell you.

I was born with a rare, hereditary eye disorder called "retinoschesis". My vision disqualifies me from acquiring a driver's license. For most of my life I found this extremely crippling. For transportation, I relied on a combination of:

busses and trains, which were inflexible and unreliable;

rides from friends and family members, which was humiliating and unreliable; and

cycling, which, because I had not yet learned the right way to do it, was scary and dangerous.

Four years ago, I separated from the woman who was then my wife. I was trying to figure out how to get to my choir practice, since I had previously made the trip with my wife, in her car. I remembered a book, Effective Cycling by John Forester, that I had not gotten around to reading. Ironically, my wife had bought the book for me two and a half years earlier, based only the title. Reading this book was a massively revelatory experience for me. I often half joke that it is my bible and John Forester is the messiah (although I don't agree with him on everything). The main point of the book is that bicycles are vehicles and cyclists should behave like drivers of other vehicles. To most people this sounds insane but I can tell you from experience that it is absolutely true. In my travels I have cycled on many different types of roads, included Interstate 95 in Washington, DC and have experienced none of the difficulty and danger that had previously been part of cycling for me. I felt an incredible sense of freedom. I could go wherever and whenever I wanted without a lot of worry and without a lot of planning.

By teaching cycling, I hope to spread this freedom to others. Most people think that cars give them freedom, but it is clear to me that they do the exact opposite. I once envied people who were allowed to drive motor vehicles, but I don't anymore. If my vision or the regulations changed so that I was allowed to drive a motor vehicle, I would not get one.

As I wrote in the letter below (above), cyclists are a greatly persecuted class. As a cyclist I am subject to many arbitrary legal restrictions, including being banned from the highest quality roads, many of which are part of the only reasonable route between a given pair of locations. I am regularly threatened by negligent and hostile motorists and police and prosecutors are completely indifferent to these threats. Fortunately, I have never been hurt in one of these incidents but others have, as I pointed out in the letter below (above). I am often harassed by police officers who are ignorant of the laws that affirm my right to the road. I will recount three of these.

I was on Route 9 in Hadley, Massachusetts in heavy traffic. A motorist approached me from behind and did not have enough room to pass me right away. So he laid on his horn for a while. Finally he found a gap in traffic and passed me. I saw him turn into a driveway. I followed him into the driveway, naively thinking I could discuss the issue with him and maybe change his mind. But he just yelled at me and then grabbed me by the throat and threw me on the ground. I called the police, but the officer insisted that the whole thing was my fault and refused to pursue the issue. I should point out that, while it might not seem like a big deal to many motorists, it is very startling and threatening to be honked at or yelled at by a motorist while cycling. It is similar to someone with a gun yelling at you or firing warning shots around you. It amounts to being assaulted with a deadly weapon and almost everyone who has experienced it would agree that it is threatening. I reported another case of harassment to the police and the same police officer refused to acknowledge that this behavior constituted a threat. He also repeatedly misrepeated my story, and, when I corrected him, he accused me of changing my story and being inconsistent.

I was on Route 10 in New Hampshire when I got to a point when Route 10 merged into Interstate 89. There were no other roads around, so, even though it was technically illegal, the only thing I could do was merge onto Interstate 89. I was pulled over by a New Hampshire state police officer. I explained the situation but he was indifferent. Apparently he thought it was reasonable for me to simply remain stranded at the on ramp or turn back. He ordered me to take the next exit. I did this but the only road there was a dead end. Apparently it had been Route 10 before Interstate 89 was built but when Interstate 89 was built, it cut right through the old Route 10, leaving a dead end. Again, I had no choice but to get back on Interstate 89. Fortunately, I did not encounter the officer again and was able to take the next exit.

This story has a somewhat triumphant ending. (Edit 12/29/2010: In light of my succeeding encounters with West Springfield police officers, what I recount here does really constitute an ending.) I was on Route 5 in West Springfield, Massachusetts when I was stopped by a police officer. The two North/South routes in the area are Route 5 and Interstate 91. There really is no other practical route. Cyclists are banned on Interstate 91. There are parts of Route 5 on which the legal status of cyclists is unclear. I have ridden on those parts, but at the time that I was pulled over I was clearly legal. I calmly and politely asserted my right to the road. The officer was also calm and polite but refused to accept my legal right to the road. This continued for a while before another officer arrived. We argued some more and yet another office arrived—this one a captain! Here is the triumphant part. I finally convinced them to call the station and have someone actually look up the statute. They finally admitted that I was legal. However, they couldn't give up that easily. They wrote me a ticket for failing to having pedal reflectors. I had been detained for an hour at this point. The ticket was bogus since (1) I did in fact have reflectors, (2) it was not dark at the time that I was pulled over, and (3) I was extremely well lit and adorned with many reflectors. The statute requiring pedal reflectors is pretty ridiculous as well, since pedal reflectors make only a minute contribution to a cyclist's conspicuity. However, I was not able to contest the ticket because I would be moving away in a few days. After writing the ticket, they could not allow me to ride away on my bike since they contended that, because of the pedal reflector issue, it would be illegal. The captain realized that he would be exposing the police department to liability if he were to leave me stranded so he had one of the other officers load my bike in the trunk of her patrol car and drive me fifteen miles to my destination. (Edit 12/29/2010: I encountered her again, when I was arrested. She denied that there had ever been a determination that it was legal to cycle on Route 5 in West Springfield. She insisted that it was illegal and that she had warned me to stay off of that road.)

Thank you again for your interest in my experience. It is so rare that I get to tell these stories to a sympathetic and attentive audience. I am very excited to hear how the story comes out.

Eli

Hi Michele. It just occurred to me that I wrote my last message under the assumption you were familiar with things in the United States. I don't know if this is true, and I hope none of it was confusing. I apologize for this and for the bad subject line. Eli

Michele

Thanks very much for this retelling Eli, I'm going to discuss your situation with Greg Kelly, the editor of The State We're In. One of us will get back to you soon.

Greg

Hi Eli, Can you send me your original email to the show about the bike special? Please send to greg.kelly@rnw.nl and I'll respond more fully then and see about getting a story or two of your own to put to air.

Eli

Hi Greg. Thank you again for considering my story. I am not sure which letter you are referring to so I have included three of them. The first I sent in response to the show's general request for stories. The second I sent in response to the "Right to Bike" show. Michele Ernsting responded to this second message asking for more information. The third I sent to Michele in response to this request.

Eli

Hi Greg. I thought you might be interested to hear that I have suffered several more incidents of cycling-related police harassment in the past several weeks, including one in which I was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Greg

Hi Eli, I'm racing to deadline, but please tell me what happened.

Eli

Hi Greg. I understand that you have other things to worry about so I don't expect you to respond immediately. I have two stories to supplement what I have already told you.

[similar to the text from The Hadley Enounters, The West Springfield Encounters, and the Arraignment section of The Court Appearances]

Again, thank you for your willingness to listen to my story. I do hope that you will tell my story on the show but even if you decide not to, I appreciate your willingness to listen. I listen to The State We're In every week via podcast, and I think it is a great show. Thank you.

Bound with Options

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:08:00 GMT

"Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker." - character Jules from the movie Pulp Fiction

Often it seems that we humans are compelled by our own minds to make deliberate and informed bad choices. Of course we sometimes make bad choices because we don't have all the relevant information available to us. Furthermore, we are all familiar with the temptation of immediate gratification. But yielding to temptation does not constitute a deliberate choice, just raw desire. However, we often make bad choices when there is no tempting treat before us and no terrifying threat behind us and we do it with all relevant information available to us.

The preceding quote struck me as incredibly profound and has provoked much reflection and discussion for me. That might sound ridiculous and I would be surprised if the line meant as much to Quentin Tarantino. From a quick search of the web, I find that it is one of the big memorable lines of the movie, appearing on about two thousand web pages.

The quote is part of the following dialogue.

Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
...
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker.

Personally, I have no misgivings about eating pork but I will treat the argument on a purely logical basis. My analysis is an enormous stretch but it shows the kind of thoughts that I was led to.

Jules argues that eating pork is a bad choice because it comes from a filthy animal. Taken at face value, this is a strong argument. Vincent counters by arguing that eating pork is a good choice because it tastes good. Vincent's response is irrational because it does not address Jules's argument. Vincent does not say that even though he knows that pork comes from a filthy animal he can't help eating it because it tastes good. The decision-making process he implies is that even though he knows that eating pork is a bad choice because it comes from a filthy animal, which is not rationally overcome by its tasting good, he chooses to eat it anyway because it tastes good. He has made a choice that he implicitly admits is a bad choice. Jules points this out with his "sewer rat" line. He also implies that he is immune from this bad decision because he does not know what pork tastes like. So he is able to make a good choice because the option of making a bad choice, or information that would lead him to make a bad choice, is unavailable to him.

This made me think of big box stores. Many people are aware of their terrible economic, ecological, and human rights effects and have the option of buying their food, hardware, etc. from local sources with little additional effort. But many of the same people buy most of these goods from big box stores. I find this both frustrating and confounding. These people condemn big box stores and get upset when their local stores go out of business but they shop at the big box stores anyway. So the availability of the option of shopping at big box stores somehow compels people to select this option even if they freely admit that it is a bad decision. Of course, if this option was unavailable, that is, if the only options for places to shop were local stores, people would shop at them without any problem.

I was fascinated to hear about the Home Depot that opened in Brattleboro Vermont and soon shut down because they not able to acquire very many customers. Most people continued to buy their hardware from the local hardware store. What makes Brattleboro Vermont different from Amherst Massachusetts. Both have a high level of consciousness concerning social issues. In fact, Amherst itself has no big box stores. But before a Home Depot opened in nearby Hadley, many people in Amherst traveled twenty miles to shop at the Home Depot in Chicopee rather than shop at any of the three local hardware stores in Amherst and Hadley. Why did the option bind people's choices in Amherst and why didn't it in Brattleboro?

I was reminded of Jules and Vincent again recently when realized that would probably be fired from my job soon and found myself looking forward to it. But if I hate my job so much that I look forward to being fired, why wouldn't I quit? Somehow, the availability of the option of remaining at my job is compelling me select that option even though leaving the job might be a better option. Subconsciously, I was thinking that being fired would liberate me from the binding option of staying at my job.

I have a vague memory of having heard a reporter interview a man whose house had burned down. In my memory, the man said that he had been very dissatisfied with the state of his life and that losing his house had liberated him from that state. After his house had burned down, he became free to pursue a more fulfilling life and he was much happier. In other words, he was bound by the availability of the option of staying in his house. Once the house was gone, the option became unavailable and the bonds were broken.

Maybe this is why people subconsciously sabotage their own efforts. They suspect that they are on the wrong path but cannot consciously bring themselves to turn around. So they use a subconscious mechanism to destroy the path in front of them so that they can select the option of turning around. Maybe this mechanism is an essential tool in our survival toolkit and we would be crippled without it. In "How the Mind Works", Steven Pinker argues that eliminating options is essential to our ability to negotiate with each other for mutual benefit. I don't like his primary example of cold-war nuclear proliferation but he makes an interesting point. For example, we use contracts to eliminate the option of violating an agreement because otherwise we would be unable to conduct business with people we didn't trust. Maybe it is just as essential for us to be able to eliminate options in conducting intra-personal business as it is in conducting inter-personal business.

Regardless, we clearly need to find a way to control our decision-making so that we are not bound by the availability of bad options. Maybe we can learn to think differently. Or maybe we need to acknowledge this aspect of our nature and support each other in identifying and eliminating harmful, binding options.

Other Comments from the Facebook Note "my legal troubles".

cycles@eli-damon.info (Eli) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:26:00 GMT

I originally posted my saga in a note on my Facebook profile titled "my legal troubles". I included many of the comments that were made on the note in Questions and Answers on Vecular Cycling / Bicycle Driving. I thought that some of the other comments were valuable enough to be worth preserving so I have included those comments here.

Glen Harrison

Is it the case that short sections of US 5 actually run concurrent with I-91? Wouldn't those sections be limited access? Are there any sections of 5 that are limited access?

Eli Damon

In Massachusetts, bicycles are prohibited only on limited access highways where signs indicate that they are prohibited. There is a section of Route 5 that is limited access but I was not on this section when I was stopped. There are signs at some, but not all, entrances to this section and the signs are totally inconspicuous. You would never notice them unless you were looking for them. So it seems that the status of this stretch of road is in limbo, although MassHighway probably intended to prohibit bicycles on it. I really resent this and consider it very unreasonable since, except for Interstate 91 where bicycles are also prohibited, there is no comparable alternative. Route 5 is supposed to be the alternative to Interstate 91.

John S. Allen

Did the West Springfield officers cite you for riding without pedal or ankle reflectors during hours of darkness? The statute does not require you to have them (or any other lights or reflectors) during daytime.

Baggage would have to be hanging very low to hide a pedal or ankle reflector continuously through the pedal stroke. I see no requirement in the law that the reflector be visible continuously. A shoe also can hide pedal reflectors at the top of the stroke when the heel is down. Motion and flashing are both widely regarded as drawing attention. Pedal reflectors already have motion; if they flash alternately because they are hidden behind panniers for part of the pedal stroke, what is the problem?

I do see a problem with the statute though in that the pedal reflectors or ankle bands may not be visible at all on some bicycles -- recumbents, in particular. If you want an attention-getter facing the rear, you can still use a flashing taillight.

Why were you asked about Chapter 85 section 11D? It established a requirement for cusinesses renting bicycles to make helmets and informaiton aobut them available. It doesn't describe anything pertinent to your situation.

Eli Damon

John:
* The idea about the camera and microphone are good. Can you recommend any particular products, brands, or features?
* Where did I mention Section 11D?
* Last year, the West Springfield police did cite me for violating the pedal/ankle reflector requirement. I was on an Xtracycle with some boxes of sewing supplies on one side so it is possible, although I never checked, that reflectors on one pedal were not visible from the rear. The citation was bogus for several reasons. (1) I did, in fact, have pedal reflectors. (2) While it was dark by the time they issued the citation, it was still light out when they first stopped me. (3) My lights and my vest made me far more visible than the legally requirements. In addition to the absurdity to (2) and (3), it seems unreasonable that the reflector requirement should be interpreted to forbid carrying cargo that might obscure the cyclists pedals or ankles.

A.d. Wade

Living in rural Tennessee, it's stunning to read something like this could happen. My initial reaction (besides disbelief) was that the cops seem to be abusing the powers vested in them by harassing an easy (i.e. read 'safe') target. Sounds like the next safest thing to sitting in a patrol car w/radar looking for easy/fast money to help fund the city's expenses.

John S. Allen

I think I read that it was one of the officers who asked if you know about section 11D.There are many inexpensive digital audio recorders. Radio Shack is as far as you need to go.

As to video, there are cheap ones and there are good ones but a cheap one probably is good enough. I think that Brian DeSousa has given you advice. Your experience, which is by no means unique, points to the abysmal state of police training in Massachusetts. You will be doing a public service if you can document the misinformed and unprofessional actions of the police officers you have encountered, take this to court and get a judge to read them the law. Been there, done that...but it doesn't end because the training remains abysmal. I hope that the new training required by the bicycle Safety Bill will begin to retivfy this problem.

Eli Damon

The newly mandated training will address some issues but it will not address the principal issue in my case, which is that of civil rights, not traffic regulation. If a police officer had simply written me a bogus ticket due to his or her ignorance about traffic regulations, that would be a simple problem of education. But what actually happened is totally different. I am dealing with police officers who are not only ignorant of the law regarding bicycles, but who also have no respect for the law regarding their own conduct as police officers.

Serge Issakov

For those of you who might think this case is unique to Mass, it's not. At least not the aspect about police being ignorant about the law as it affects bicyclists, much less what is safe and what isn't. See the following link for some examples:

http://www.bicyclelaw.com/blog/

Serge Issakov

John/Eli: I think I see where the 11D confusion came from: "I brought his attention to a State statute (Massachusetts General Laws: Chapter 85: Section 11B) which contradicted his accusation. He asked me if I had ID, which I did not have."

I think John read "asked me if I had ID" to be "asked me if I had read 11D". LOL! Sounds like something I would do.

CYCLES

League Membership: To Renew or Not to Renew

Letter to Big Y Regarding Bike Parking and Bikes in Stores

A Candidate's Experience

CONTENTS

Charges Dismissed

Good News

Bad News

Evidence

Arguments

Hearings

Afterwards

Help Me Become a Director of the League of American Bicyclists. Sign the Petition!

CONTENTS

1. Commitment to cycling, Knowledge of Bicyclists' Concerns

2. Prior Involvement in Bicycling, Complementary Activities

3. Participation in League Activities and Programs

4. History of Volunteer Service, Familiarity with the Role of the Board

5. Professional Level Skills

6. Of "Good Moral Character"

7. An Ability and Willingness to Bring Substantial Resources

Strengthen cycling education and right-to-the-road advocacy.

Facilitate communication among members and between leaders and members.

Re-democratize the process for selecting directors.

Letter to Frederick, Maryland State Senator Alex Mooney and Delegate Charles Jenkins

District Attorney Race: URGENT (for residents of Franklin and Hampshire Counties and Athol, Massachusetts)

Letter to Editors of "Living on Earth" Regarding its Piece "It's No Copenhagen"

Persecution, Abandonment, and Betrayal: Comments on the Reed Bates Saga

The Situation

My Thoughts

Resources

Structured Websites

Blogs

Articles

My Encounter with Eric Perkins and Adam Bartlett

Case Update: A Distant End in Sight, or at Least a Middle

Undue Process of Law

CONTENTS

Letter to John Hook at radio station KTAR in Phoenix Arizona

Editorial Policy

Letter to Umbra Fisk, host of Ask Umbra on GristTV

The Arraignment

Delays in Comments being Posted

Response to Racerx's Comment

Charged with Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful Wiretapping

Analysis of Charges

Traffic Ticket

Disorderly Conduct

Unlawful Wiretapping

Follow-up

Letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

Response to Maureen's Comment

Comments on AASHTO Draft

Instructions

Chapter 1: Introduction [001-006]

Chapter 2: Bicycle Planning [007-040]

The Third Hadley Encounter: Relapse

Frequently Asked Questions about Bicycle Driving

Questions

Questions and Answers

1. What is bicycle driving? Why do you call it "bicycle driving"?

2. Why would you want to drive a bicycle rather than ride a bicycle in some other manner?

3. Isn't it dangerous to ride a bicycle in traffic? Won't I get hit by a car?

4. Isn't it safer to stay out of the way of cars as much as possible?

5. Bicycle driving might be okay where you live but it would never workaround here. The other drivers are crazy and drive too fast.

6. Bicycle driving might be okay for a skilled athlete like you but I could never do it.

7. Your arguments in favor of bicycle driving make sense in principle but the notion terrifies me nonetheless.

8. Is bicycle driving legal?

9. Is bicycle driving the same thing as obeying the law?

10. Are you opposed to bicycling that is not bicycle driving?

11. Are you saying that I should ride my bike just like I would drive a car?

12. Are you saying that bicycle drivers should always drive in the middle of the lane? What is an appropriate position for a bicycle driver to take on the road?

13. Is road positioning for bicycle drivers as important as it is for motorcycle drivers?

14. Does riding on a shoulder count as bicycle driving?

15. Does riding in a bike lane count as bicycle driving?

16. Are you opposed to bike lanes?

17. Shouldn't we support bike lanes because they help promote bicycling?

18. Are you opposed to bike paths/trails?

19. How can I promote bicycling in a manner that is consistent with bicycle driving?

20. Where can I learn more about bicycle driving?