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Police: but we aren't going to discuss two of the biggest issues in serious and deadly crashes.

[B' Spokes: OK the police did not actually say that but it is implied. But I seriously wonder now that police are not enforcing traffic laws (especially for vulnerable road users) are they still qualified to comment on safety? Anyway Wash cycle's comments are worth reading.]

http://www.thewashcycle.com/2016/10/cyclists-hit-by-careless-drivers-so-montgomery-county-police-tell-cyclists-to-be-more-careful.html

Related article:
http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/Web-2016/Site-of-Fatal-Bethesda-Crash-Calls-for-a-Redesign/
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Drivers to other drivers: You’re doing it wrong

[B' Spokes: There are two concepts in this article I would like to enforce. 1) Traffic enforcement makes the roads safer for everyone. Even outside the targeted enforcement area because I believe if you get rid of the driver's ability to always fulfill their need to try and trim a second here, a second there by put others people's lives at risk. 2) Driver's are not just risking there own lives but also some random person along there path. I assert that it is always the other person that will be at more of a risk. If you run a red light and T-bone another car, your air bags are set up well for that type of colision. The other person gets a side colision and most people/cars do not handle that well. In summary: So much about Maryland that rewards unsafe/agresive drivers and creates hazardous road condition for everyone else.]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/drivers-to-other-drivers-youre-doing-it-wrong/2016/09/10/83ce3f9e-75b3-11e6-b786-19d0cb1ed06c_story.html
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Join the 20th Walk to School Day!

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (August 11, 2016) - Grab you backpack and lace up your shoes, it’s time to register for International Walk to School Day! On October 5, students, families, school and community partners, and mayors around the country will bring light to safety concerns, celebrate the benefits of walking, and mark a special occasion - the 20th celebration of Walk to School Day in the USA.

In 1997, Chicago’s Mayor Daley and Los Angeles’ Mayor Riordan walked with students to school. Since then, hundreds of mayors have hit the sidewalks in October.

As a way to celebrate this event, the National Center is working with the US DOT’s Mayors Challenge for Safer People, Safer Streets to encourage mayors nationwide to join the 20th Walk to School Day celebration. Walk to School Day offers a unique opportunity for mayors to talk about their commitment to child and youth pedestrian and bicyclist safety and to discuss how to make their communities more walkable.

Also new this year, we've streamlined Walk to School Day registration so no account log in is required and the process just takes a few steps. Walk to School Day event registration is free and open to individuals and organizations holding an October event in the United States.

Events that register on the Walk to School website, www.walkbiketoschool.org, will be displayed on an interactive U.S. map on the website, where neighboring communities, media and other organizations can identify who is walking in their area.

For more information on Walk to School activities in the U.S., visit www.walkbiketoschool.org.
...

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=55978ef31b4a403489524d3b8&id=8eec4292ae&e=c20c7cfbce
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NEW FED GRANT TO REDUCE BIKE/PED DEATHS & INJURIES IN 22 STATES

-> According to a National Conference of State Legislatures the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), includes a new grant program to decrease bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities and injuries. The 22 states where bicyclist and pedestrian traffic deaths exceed 15 percent of total annual statewide traffic deaths will be eligible for approximately $14 million in annual grant funds under Section 4005. The grants may be used to train law enforcement personnel about state pedestrian and bicycle safety laws, to fund enforcement campaigns related to them, and to fund public education campaigns for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. http://bit.ly/2beqj3M

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.

[B' Spokes: And Maryland is at 24.5%, just a bit higher than the 15% required to quilify.]
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When governments make road data public, anyone can help make roads safer

By Jacob Mason , Greater Greater Washington

This map shows where people have been caught speeding in Montgomery County this summer. If DC and other local jurisdictions released more open data, we could make maps like this for places all over the region.
...

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27732/when-governments-make-road-data-public-anyone-can-help-make-roads-safer/
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MD DOT: $14 M FOR WALKING, BIKING & TRAIL ACCESS

MD DOT: $14 M FOR WALKING, BIKING & TRAIL ACCESS
-> This year Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and its State Highway Administration is making $14 million in reimbursable grant funding available for projects that enhance walking, biking, and recreational trail access statewide. MDOT is making state and federal funding available to support enhancements to Maryland’s bicycle and pedestrian network through its Maryland’s Bikeways, Safe Routes to School, Transportation Alternatives and Recreational Trails programs. http://bit.ly/1sKxGnH

MDOT also recently updated its Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan (http://1.usa.gov/20StrS7), which establishes a 20-year vision to support cycling and walking as modes of transportation.

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.



[B' Spokes: It looks like we are finally getting federal money rather then just state money. (Was $3 million from state money.)]
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Traffic deaths in Maryland up 17.3 percent in 2015.

By Ben Weathers, Capital Gazette

Some 520 people died on Maryland roadways last year – an increase of 17.3 percent from the previous year, state transportation officials said Tuesday.
...

"There's no sugar coating this news and quite frankly these numbers are unacceptable," Ports said.


The state saw a 35 percent increase in traffic fatalities involving commercial vehicles and a 26 percent increase in fatalities involving young drivers, officials said.

In addition, the bicycle fatalities doubled — from five in 2014 to 10 last year, officials said.
[B' Spokes: IMHO as long as we stay below 12 cycling deaths a year, we are good. Stating this as a doubling does not do our small numbers of deaths justice.]

Anne Arundel, however, saw a slight decrease from 35 traffic deaths in 2014 to 33 last year, officials said.

...

Jurisdictions that saw increases in 2015:

•Baltimore City saw 39 traffic deaths, up 10.

•Baltimore County saw 65 traffic deaths, an increase of six.

•Harford County saw 22 traffic deaths, an increase of five.

•Carroll County saw 16 traffic deaths, an increase of five.

•Queen Anne's County saw six traffic deaths, an increase of three.

•Howard County saw 18 traffic deaths, an increase of two.

The increase comes even though Maryland State Police troopers conducted some 564,000 traffic stops in 2015, said Col. William Pallozzi, police superintendent.

Police continue to aggressively enforce traffic laws and seek out impaired drivers. Troopers have conducted 30,000 traffic stops in April alone, Pallozzi said.
...

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/for_the_record/ph-ac-cn-traffic-deaths-0427-20160426-story.html

[B' Spokes: Thank you legislature for raising the speed limit and nixing our bike safety bills! I'm sure that helped a lot. [/sarcasium] The big question is what have the county police been doing and more to the point does Baltimore even try to do traffic enforcement? And of course the Highway Safety Office and it's victim blaming safety messages has helped. [/even more sarcasium] It's going to get worce till reducing traffic deaths becomes a top priority for the police and MDOT.]
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IT'S TIME TO BREAK UP MARYLAND'S STATE HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION

BY JEFF LEMIEUX, Strong Towns

"Despite the fabulous mural in their conference room, SHA is dominated by highway engineers, not street engineers. Trying to make a neighborhood street function like a highway is dangerous and unproductive. I think Maryland needs to split SHA into two separate organizations: one to build and maintain the true highways, and a completely separate organization, a State Streets Administration, to re-build and maintain our major commercial and residential streets."

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/5/its-time-to-break-up-marylands-state-highway-administration

[B' Spokes: Don't get me wrong, Interstates are great, they let me vist relatives and go on vacations but during rush hour they are a miserable experience and catastrophically fail. Even worce, these behemoth of expense, fail when you need them most are idealized as the ultimate in road design. So why not try to get every rode to emulate some feature of the Interstate?

And this is where it all falls apart, high speeds, generous turning radius, no stopping whatsoever all make sense on roads that are grade separated from other roads so no conflict points as well as cyclists and pedestrians have no need to cross such a road with the cars but not any where else.

Local streets need to have a different character than the interstates, like sharper turning radius that is slower and safer for everyone. Not to mention SHA puts some local street designs on the interstates, like my pet peeve, I swear this is a conversation SHA has:"We just spent $40 million on this interchage and are over budget how can we save money? I know we can save money by not painting really bold visible crosswalks just two thin lines, you know the kind that look like spastic stop lines." (Ref: area around Eastpointe Mall) With a $2 billion budget that are "saving" money with a bit less paint while Maryland pedestrian fatality rate is the top ten worst?!?! And not to mention the percentage of traffic fatalities that are pedestrian, that's also really bad compared to everyone else.

There is something seriously wrong within MDOT. It seems to me that since 2000 we have been enacting more and more laws that basically say MDOT do your job right. Is this going to be the next topic we try to pass a law on? Like the current transportation scoring bill, or the not to distant past "Establish bicycle and pedestrian priority areas and we really mean it this time" law. (Ref: http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20150418204955785 )]
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Translated - Victims of road violence

Via my Inbox

After reports began to circulate last week of a gruesome hit and run in the Fill in the Blank neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, people started asking the usual questions about the cyclist at the center of the attack: Was she drunk? Was she running red lights? Did she say or do anything to provoke the attack? Does she have a history of “aggressive riding"? Maybe she got what she deserved for slowing drivers down….

As Baltimore City Councilwoman Tell Itlikeitis sees it, all of these questions are code for 'How can we blame this cyclist for the act of violence committed against her?' So in a recent appearance on CNN, Tell Itlikeitis didn't just call out the victim-blaming language people are using to describe the case — she completely shut it down.

Speaking live with anchor Pamela Brown on Wednesday, the councilwoman highlighted the public's tendency to respond to hit and run assault cases with questions about victims' behavior, calling the typical reaction to violence against cyclists "not appropriate."

"There needs to be legislation, there needs to be strategy, there needs to be implementation as well as enforcement," Cumbo said. "Every cyclist in the city of Baltimore should feel safe, whether they are coming home late at night, early in the morning, coming from a party or going to work extremely late."

Like clockwork, Brown immediately fell into the trap of blaming the victim, asking Tell Itlikeitis for more information about the cyclist's behavior the night of the alleged attack. "Law enforcement sources have told CNN that this alleged victim in this case was riding in the middle of the lane, slowing traffic and yelling at cars that came too close," Brown said. "What can you tell us about that?"

Tell Itlikeitis responded, without missing a beat:
"I would say that that's typical of just what I spoke about — that individuals often talk about the cyclist; they rarely talk about the individuals who actually committed the crime. Those are the individuals that need to be focused on right now." She continued:

We shouldn't talk about whether she should have been even riding a bike, we shouldn't talk about whether she was properly dressed, we shouldn't talk about the time in the evening that it happened. That is too typical of the situation of how we discuss hit and runs in the city, the nation and, really, the world. We need to focus in this situation on those individuals that committed this heinous crime, and what were the bad decisions that they made all throughout the day.

Tell Itlikeitis response reiterates what anti-cyclist assault activists have been saying for a long time, evidently to no avail: The only people responsible for hit and runs are drivers, not victims. Regardless of what they wear or how much they ride, where they were riding or how many others ride with them, cyclists are never "asking for it." Victims of hit and runs are called "victims" because perpetrators commit criminal acts of violence against them, the same reason victims of burglary, battery and murder are called the same thing.

As Tell Itlikeitis went on to tell Brown, victim-blaming tends to go hand-in-hand with other cultural ills — specifically, institutional racism, anonymity and classism — in giving perpetrators the sense that they can act with impunity.

"A lot of it is neglect," she said. "[The alleged hit and runners are] thinking that because they're anonymous in their car, that no one really cares what they do in this community. There will be no repercussions."

But classism, arrogance of might-is-right, and cultural neglect aren't the only types of ignorance that contribute to our right to drive culture. Our willingness to blame victims and protect car drivers also allows affluent college students and star athletes to commit assault with the sense that they might just get away with it.

Tell Itlikeitis is saying otherwise. Before signing off, she made one final point about violence against cyclists, a guide to change the way we think and talk about hit and runs.

"We're discussing this matter," she said, "because we want to let individuals know: Whether you are on the bridge to East or West Baltimore or Downtown or wherever, all people on bikes matter — and we're here to make sure that message is sent loud and clear."

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