Update: M’Lynn sent me a breakdown of the events and her injuries:
“My head light was turned on and blinking. My tail light was on and blinking. An extra light on my backpack was on and blinking. I was wearing a florescent green shirt. In other words I was extremely visible to anybody who were to look both directions before pushing the accelerator. I turned hard, and was ultimately sideswiped instead of going under the vehicle. My fine bicycle was not damaged in any way. The suv hit me. It didn’t touch my bike. I have two fractured vertebrae im my spine ~ M’Lynn Hartwell, Director of Possibilities“
Cranky Thursday
(Dangerous by Design in Traverse City)
Almost a week ago community friend and consummate community advocate M’Lynn Hartwell attempted to connect to the multi-use trail along Division St. at the 14th Street intersection. She was riding a bicycle equipped with lights and other safety features. She serves on the Cherry Capital Cycling Club’s Safety and Education Team; she knows what she is doing. She looks both ways.
Does this communicate dismount?
Her trip was cut short while crossing 14th in the crosswalk with a green pedestrian light. A women driving south on Division St. made a left turn onto 14th St. right into M’Lynn. The driver later exclaimed, ” I just didn’t see her.”
I’m sure she didn’t.
The intersection’s design and function doesn’t encourage her to do so. It is built for speed and the engineering catch-all “efficient” movement of traffic (read, motorized traffic, not the all-inclusive recognition that traffic comes in many forms). It isn’t built for safety as a priority regardless of our mode of transportation, let alone for those in a crosswalk. An engineer will likely disagree with me. Fine. I invite them to take a 20 minute walk around the intersection with me, perhaps with their shoe laces tied together to mimic the most vulnerable. Then, if they want, they can still argue with me about this intersection’s “safety features.” Mind you, I don’t blame individual engineers for how it is built; it is built to standard and within a system that prioritizes in the order of: 1) Traffic speed 2) Traffic volume 3) Safety 4) Cost
I do mind when they adamantly defend that system and resist change.
To top M’Lynn’s day off, the officer who showed up on the scene was of the opinion that both parties were at fault. He claimed she wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle in a crosswalk and shouldn’t have been there. Excuse me? Under Michigan Vehicle Code 257.660c, the operation of bicycle upon sidewalk or pedestrian crosswalk #3 reads:
An individual lawfully operating a bicycle upon a sidewalk or a pedestrian crosswalk has all of the rights and responsibilities applicable to a pedestrian using that sidewalk or crosswalk.
Last I checked, operating a bicycle involves pedaling. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not aware of any odd reading of this passage. Anyone? And, despite Michigan’s weak rules about driver-pedestrian conflicts (we basically just can’t hit them) this case seems to be pretty obvious-someone did get hit.
Don't trust the design
This is important. M’Lynn gets hit. A women admits not seeing her. Both were told they were at fault. One drives away with a small ding in her car. The other limps away with lifetime back issue. It’s disgusting.
We need to keep this situation in mind when future construction is proposed. We need to recall that one alternative to a roundabout here was to create 6 lanes of traffic heading west by adding another left turning lane. I walked-off 80 feet that people are being asked to now cross from north/south across 14th Street. These intersections need to be narrowing the crossings, not widening them.
As a friend likes to say in nutty situations: god-damn-shit. We’ve inherited a load of it and we won’t fix it over night, but we do need to stop defending it, ignoring it and/or enabling it.
_
Dangerous by Design: 14th and Division
Above, an extra wide and smooth turning radius built for taking the corner at speed while looking over our left shoulder as we drive into a crosswalk. Below, 75-80 feet of exposed crossing awaits you with people turning right on red and left turns being made in between pockets of on coming traffic. A high stress zone for all.
Approaching the intersection there is little evidence that we are welcome to be here unless we are in an automobile, below. Further below, the human-less context is communicated to us when we are in automobiles and assists us in “not being aware” and “not seeing” what we expect not to be there. Take away: people will be there. You can not engineer people out of the context; design for them.
And, don’t block the crosswalk…thank you. (Note: these gentleman did apologize)
Supreme happiness to those who share:
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
screengrab
Sent in via Team Haas
Reader's Comments