Our Founder, Craig Davis, will be speaking at the League of American Cyclists’ National Bike Summit in Washington D.C. on Tech Approaches to Safety Advocacy. He will discuss topics including: equipping cyclists to prevent collisions, analyzing jurisdictional risk, and providing objective near miss data to traffic planners.
Our mission is to get cyclists to ride with cameras in order to give them the confidence that someone is always watching out for them, and to get cyclists to always submit egregious near miss incident reports to our free Incident Management System (IMS). Our IMS allows cyclists to track, analyze, update and map their incidents. Their incident reports also allow all cyclists to search for repeat offenders, before future collisions occur. Cyclists can also update their incident reports as they move through the legal system allowing us to analyze jurisdictional risk, i.e. are cycling safety cases processed in a timely manner or are they shunted off to low priority “overflow boxes” as in one of our current cases?
By analyzing cyclists’ incident reports we can also identify specific cycling safety legal barriers and work to remove them by setting legal precedents that all cyclists can leverage. The California Highway Patrol routinely refused cyclists’ incident reports by telling cyclists that a CHP officer had to “On View” all incidents. We had to take the CHP all the way to the California Legislature before they admitted they could use cyclist video evidence without having to witness every incident. This legal barrier is now removed since cyclists can point to our precedent if law enforcement tells them they have to “On View” all incidents. Incident reports were also routinely rejected when there wasn’t a collision and “therefore there was no victim” as stated to us by the second in command at the Alameda District Attorney’s office. Our Glendale and Castro Valley precedents, where drivers have been charged for assault, using cyclist video evidence, without a collision, remove that legal barrier for all cyclists.
Up to now the only data that traffic planners and government used for road design and safety planning are collisions. Collisions are severely underreported by up to 60% according Federal Highway Administration Research, so collision data is incomplete at best. Our cyclist incident reports also generate objective near miss data supported by irrefutable video evidence. This can provide traffic planners with much better data for cycling safety planning and road design. In fact, the number one reason cyclists stop cycling are near misses, not collisions, so planners should prioritize near misses as their most important data.
Cyclists from across California have repeatedly told us they do not feel law enforcement and our court system protect cyclist’s safety by enforcing our laws. We will be launching a Jurisdictional Risk survey so cyclists can share their experiences submitting egregious near miss incident reports to law enforcement. You can help design the survey by commenting below. Please also help us get the largest survey participation possible by sharing this post with every cyclist and cycling group you know, as well as via social media.
We created a large 24 * 36 poster that distills the ten law enforcement legal barriers our member cyclists have repeatedly faced, and the three legal precedents we have secured that remove legal barriers to enforcing laws that can change driver’s behavior. The poster also documents law enforcement inconsistencies within the California Highway Patrol, and between the CHP and local law enforcement even when they use the same District Attorney’s Office,
Please help fund our free Incident Management System, advocacy and research by donating via our Donate page or purchasing from our store.
Wishing you safe cycling!
Craig, Great to hear you are presenting at League of American Cyclists. Sounds like a great forum. Thanks again for all your great work.
Also, this article that I just found supports the position that close calls are under reported and contribute to fear, thereby reducing cycling– http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/09/29/houston-close-calls-cyclists-pedestrians
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for your kind words and support. We will show video from several of our precedent setting cases, including yours, during our presentation.
Interesting Houston Public Media report. The Police Captain actually says they have to “On View” all incidents just like the CHP told us for over a year in your case until we took them to all the way to the California state capital at which point they admitted they have to authority to use cyclist video evidence without a collision to charge drivers.
“When it comes to near misses incidents that didn’t result in a crash that’s a lot harder to measure.” Captain William McPhearson, Head of Houston Police Department’s Vehicular Crimes Division, “you could be talking about 10,000” near misses per day. “The officer has to witness it, see the infraction.”
We will reach out to him to share our assault prosecution precedents and explain that police do not have to “On View” every incident if the cyclist has video evidence. We will also share that when cyclists submit their incident reports to our Incident Management System it can provide objective near miss data for law enforcement and traffic planners.
CVE.com