Mayor wants to increase fines for reckless cyclists, motorists
Mayor wants to increase fines for reckless cyclists, motorists
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com May 7, 2013 6:32PM
On Wednesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to do both.
The even-handed ordinance Emanuel plans to introduce at a City Council meeting would raise fines for cyclists who disobey the city’s traffic laws — from $25 for all offenses to $50-to-$200, depending on the severity of the violation.
The mayor’s plan also would double — to $1,000 — the fine imposed against motorists who open their doors without looking into the path of cyclists. The fine for leaving a car door open in traffic would also double — to $300.
Last year, there were 1,675 bicycle crashes in Chicago, 250 of them so-called “dooring” accidents.
In an attempt to reduce those bone-crunching accidents that send cyclists flying, City Hall is launching an awareness campaign to remind taxicab passengers of the need to look before they open passenger doors.
Stickers to be placed on the rear passenger windows of all 7,000 Chicago taxicabs were designed by MINIMAL design studios.
Neill Townshend, a 32-year-old MINIMAL employee, was killed last fall while biking to work on the Near North Side. He was hit by a semi-trailer after swerving to avoid an open car door.
Ron Burke, executive director of the Active Transportation Alliance, applauded the mayor for his even-handed approach to making Chicago streets safer and his particular emphasis on preventing “dooring” accidents.
“With more and more people cycling in Chicago [and bike-sharing on the way], it’s imperative that motorists look for cyclists before opening car doors. This needs to become second nature,” he said.
Burke acknowledged that the city currently issues few tickets and mostly warnings against cyclists who text while riding and blow through red lights and that the higher penalties likely mean more tickets.
“We support that 100 percent. One of our over-arching goals is to see fewer crashes and injuries. One important way to do that is to issue tickets. Enforcement is crucial,” Burke said.
Emanuel’s decision to create a ground-breaking network of protected bike lanes in Chicago has increased tensions between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.
But Burke said, “It’s not so much bikes vs. cars vs. pedestrians. Unfortunately, there’s a percentage of the population that travels recklessly — whether it’s on foot, on bike or driving a car. The Active Transportation Alliance supports increased traffic fines [across the board] as an important way to improve safety.”
In a news release, Emanuel argued that “everyone is safer” when traffic laws are obeyed.
“If they are sharing the roadway with vehicles, cyclists must obey all traffic laws, including yielding to pedestrians, stopping at traffic signals and indicating when they are making turns,” he said.
“By increasing the fines for failing to obey the law, cyclists will behave more responsibly, increasing safety and encouraging others to ride bikes.”
Like Daley, Emanuel is an avid cyclist who campaigned on a promise to make Chicago the nation’s most “bike-friendly” city.
Emanuel installed Chicago’s first, of what he promised would be 100 miles of protected bike lanes over four years less than a month after taking office.
The city now has 204.1 miles of on-street bike ways. That includes: 18.6 miles of protected or buffered bike lanes; 134.2 miles of standard bike lanes and 39.8 miles of marked shared lanes.
Protected bike lanes are expected to be installed this summer on Milwaukee and on Clybourn.
More than 20,000 people bike to work each day to jobs in downtown Chicago. That’s a 200 percent increase since 2005, according to City Hall.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/19960894-418/mayor-wants-to-incr...
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by blair on
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I am happy to see this. Dooring needs to be taken more seriously and so do cyclists that don't obey traffic laws. At least twice/week, I wave a pedestrian on that already has the right away only to have a pack of cyclists behind me blow through the intersection.
When you blow through red lights, those angry motorists take it out on ALL of us.
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Permalink Reply by Michael J Blane on
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blah, blah, blah.
Another useless law that will get some press, be enforced a few times and then ignored; just like the stopping for pedestrians in the cross walk on all streets.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew on
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Stop being reasonable!
I firmly believe that few things engender more goodwill towards cyclists from drivers than seeing someone on a bike stop at a red light when there's no cross traffic present.
Cameron 7.5 mi said:I've had my differences with ATA lately, but in this case I agree with them. Respect gets respect and especially with the spring thaw there are a lot of people ridding like idiots out there. Unfortunately, the bad apples are the most visible. The guy wearing headphones on a brakeless fixie who weaves around pedestrians to blow a red light at a high traffic intersection just became the most memorable cyclist of the day to a lot of people whom he just endangered. He did something wrong and deserves a ticket. Arguing otherwise is condoning bad ridding. You don't see many drivers lining up to defend a driver who gets a ticket for running a red light, why should cyclists be different?
Instead of debating whether cyclists are ruining the roads for drivers or drivers are ruining the roads for cyclists, it's time to talk about bad cyclists and bad drivers who are ruining the road for everyone. There are minorities in both groups that are the source of a lot of conflicts and animosity. Even handed enforcement could improve everyone's experience.
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Permalink Reply by David Barish on
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Whatever your opinion of the Mayor, this may be a good thing. Bad behavior or all kinds is the target. Obviously, enforcement can determine how this proposal would help or hurt all concerned. Stricter rules of the road for both bikes and cars give the authorities greater license to stop, encounter, and perhaps to search. Keep this in mind if you are rolling through or ignoring signs and signals.
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even more blah, blah, blah.
I'm sure that the powers that be will start enforcing/ticketing motorists who violate the 3' law too.
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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on
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I would love to see some red light and crosswalk yield enforcement in the Loop and River North again. There are times in evening rush hour when I see as many as 3 cars barge through a crosswalk full of peds during a single walk signal. If/when I see leadfoot drivers getting tickets for that again, I think I'll fall over from the shock.
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Permalink Reply by Will on
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Do any traffic laws ever get enforced in Chicago? I've never actually seen nor heard of this, except for tickets issued by cameras, or as a result of a crash.
Has anyone ever seen, heard of, or been issued a traffic citation resulting from an officer simply witnessing the illegal behavior?
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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on
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Has anyone seen mention of jaywalking tickets? In other cities around the world pedestrians don't run in the middle of the street cause they know they will get a ticket.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson Trautman on
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To be fair, I have never been to any city in the world where people don't jay walk constantly, and I do travel.
Julie Hochstadter said:Has anyone seen mention of jaywalking tickets? In other cities around the world pedestrians don't run in the middle of the street cause they know they will get a ticket.
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I've had people from foreign countries get so surprised when I jaywalk.
Nelson Trautman said:To be fair, I have never been to any city in the world where people don't jay walk constantly, and I do travel.
Julie Hochstadter said:Has anyone seen mention of jaywalking tickets? In other cities around the world pedestrians don't run in the middle of the street cause they know they will get a ticket.
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I would love to live in a world where we could all obey the law and respect each other and scorn the scofflaws.
But the current law is not sustainable for cycling in Chicago. If they enforce the stop sign rule upon cyclists, it would completely ruin most people's commutes.
Bikes are not cars, and they should not be treated like cars. It is absolutely insane to apply the exact same rules to bikes and cars. We need to enshrine the stop sign as yield into law. THEN we can talk about better enforcement and mutual respect.
Cameron 7.5 mi said:I've had my differences with ATA lately, but in this case I agree with them. Respect gets respect and especially with the spring thaw there are a lot of people ridding like idiots out there. Unfortunately, the bad apples are the most visible. The guy wearing headphones on a brakeless fixie who weaves around pedestrians to blow a red light at a high traffic intersection just became the most memorable cyclist of the day to a lot of people whom he just endangered. He did something wrong and deserves a ticket. Arguing otherwise is condoning bad ridding. You don't see many drivers lining up to defend a driver who gets a ticket for running a red light, why should cyclists be different?
Instead of debating whether cyclists are ruining the roads for drivers or drivers are ruining the roads for cyclists, it's time to talk about bad cyclists and bad drivers who are ruining the road for everyone. There are minorities in both groups that are the source of a lot of conflicts and animosity. Even handed enforcement could improve everyone's experience.
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