Standalone 

Reminds me of the time I was driving to a church choir potluck dinner, with my fog lamps on in my 760 wagon. Pulled over for "high beams." Cop didn't believe my stated destination and quizzed me on my church's address...

I didn't believe the mom's house story either, but it's not really that relevant.

Digital_Cowboy

I think that you need to rethink your last line. As it's always been my understanding that certain professions have a legal obligation to report someone who is a danger to themselves or others. If one were to take your last statement literally then anytime a LEO sees someone about to commit suicide they're under no obligation to stop them. And I think that we all know that that is not true.

KD5NRH

This is what I've seen a time or two, coupled with a warning that if he's seen riding it at night again before putting lights on, it will be impounded and he'll get a citation that will cost more than a $15 light set at WalMart.

KD5NRH

The courts don't agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_...ct_of_Columbia Police have no duty to protect any individual against themselves or anyone else.

Scrockern8r

Fixed.

I found the comments in this thread to be clear, concise, and articulate... Please slow it down... It stings.

Digital_Cowboy

What makes you presume that Mr. Jenkins first name is "African American," and not European?

Obviously not, otherwise Mr. Jenkins might still be alive.

Most cops that I see nowadays have cell phones, and even though there aren't as many as there used to be there are still payphones around. Also even IF the Deputy in question didn't have a cell phone on him or her at the time they still have their two-way radio that they could have used to ask someone at dispatch to have someone call the mother or a cab or a friend or whomever.

I've read enough comments to enough articles about car v. bicycle crashes to know that sadly there are enough people out there who do take that outlook.

Yes, sadly we all see drivers who are behaving in an irresponsible manner all the time. As I've said I've seen/heard countless drivers who when it's been raining that when they are taking off from a stop light their tires are squealing. Which tells me that they are traveling too fast for the road conditions.

That I agree with you on. Given that the driver of a motor vehicle is in control of a "guided missile" that at any second can be turned into an "unguided missile." And that there are WAY TOO many distractions in the modern car. Crashes between cars and between cars and bicycles happen far too often. And particularly when it is a crash between a car and a bike all the driver has to say is "I didn't see him/her" and they're given a "get out of jail free card." That and sadly as we see far too often here the cyclist is blamed for "daring" to be on the road in the first place.

Digital_Cowboy

Even though we know that the McD case has shifted into myth/urban legend. The gal in question has to accept some of the blame for putting the cup of coffee between her legs in the first place. That even takes into consideration that McD's had had received previous warnings that their coffee was too hot.

It doesn't (or shouldn't) take a "rocket scientist" to realize that when one orders a HOT beverage that putting it between their legs while driving a car isn't a smart idea.

NoReg

It's worse than that. She was a passenger, not the driver, and the car stopped so she could add cream. And whoops she gets coffee all over herself. As outlined in the url on page 1, McD's main fault was that their coffee was intentionally super hot. Be that as it may, it was within a reasonable range for coffee, given that coffee is to be made at sub boiling temp. She was assessed 20% blame, and McD was held for the rest. What I remember drawing all the attention was the size of the initial award, which is not sited in the summary anywhere near as high as I remember.

Also the fact a person should realize a risk exists will not stop a richer defendant from paying a large portion of the claim, so it may not prove all that important in the case.

KD5NRH

Cruiser kiddies (who are often up to late twenties physically, but stuck around 15 psychologically) on their ninja blackout bikes who can't see where the &^$* they're going.

cyclezealot

Think a warning might constitute a sufficient response.? Who would think a kid would not take into heart the advice of a friendly cop... Lots of cops don't consider bikes a real form of transportation and thinking the kid might go back to riding on the sidewalk, where they belong.
.. . Last year while on vacation , I was driving on a back country road after the sun had just set . I was lucky not to kill a kid in an incident where the kid was riding on the wrong side of the road again light-less and in dark clothing. Where were the cops when you need them. Guess, kids do it all the time, but that incident left me shaking.

chipcom 

No...speeding really isn't applicable here. We'd have a hard time making the case that we had a reasonable expectation that simply exceeding the posted speed limit might cause death or injury unless there were other factors involved...driving recklessly or erratically, school zone with kids and peds present, etc. If we assumed that speed alone might cause death or injury (even though it might) we'd have to make driving itself illegal, no?

Valid points, no doubt. I am not trying to prosecute this guy...just showing how he could be held liable.

chipcom 

It's also called playing the devil's advocate, which is what I think we are both doing.

chipcom 

Discretion <> legal power. I certainly agree that we have given government and law enforcement a LOT more legal power over that time, not to mention gutted our own protections from abuse of that power, but the trend has also been to reduce an LEO's power to use his discretion when dealing with a situation. Drunk driving is a good example here...back in the day when my Dad was a cop, it was common to give drunk driver's a break by simply having them park the car and giving them a ride...or even just following them home. That leeway of discretion no longer exists.

chipcom 

I think there is a reason why most state laws requiring the use of lights and reflectors when riding at night don't make exceptions for riding on the sidewalk.

Of course I guess one could make the case that a sidewalk cyclist is, in effect, a ped...and I don't know of many laws requiring peds to use lights or reflectors.

KonAaron Snake 

Now that I'll buy. Just as an example...in Philly, they used to let minor infractions go...like if someone didn't have their license with them...now they are required to tow your car if you don't have proof of insurance, license, registration, etc. There was a lot more leeway 10 years ago.

The police have a tough job...they're given nearly unlimited authority and dealing mostly with the dregs of society. I'd wager that alcohol and/or drugs factors into 90% of people the police deal with on a daily basis...and that wears you down. On the flip side, if we're giving them nearly unchecked power, there has to also be heavier oversight than what we have in my area. I'm also generally pro-union, but the FOP is ridiculous and politicians/judges and journalists are terrified of them. When all is said and done, they're our paid employees and too often they act like our masters.

A case that jumps to mind is a cop whose son was involved in a traffic altercation. Little Jimmy tells his daddy, and daddy, while off duty, hunts the other folks down. He finds them in a convenience store and beats the crap out of several of them, including pistol whippings, and shoves the barrel of his gun down a woman's throat. He says things like "you don't know who you;re messing with, I can kill you all". The whole episode is taped by store surveillance...and next day 4 boys in blue go to the store owner and say things like "you need to give us that tape, it will be bad for you if you don't." To me...that kind of abuse of power means daddy cop should be spending 10-20 in prison and losing his pension, and the 4 cops who bullied the store owner should all have been fired without pensions. To date, every officer is still working...I think daddy was demoted. but that's it. I find that gross.

sudo bike

Which still doesn't generally end in a car being impounded.

See, the problem with the DUI analogy is that the reason it's taken so seriously as a crime is because you are very likely to harm someone else while impaired. Not because you can harm yourself (that's a factor, but not as to the seriousness of the crime). Same thing with carrying a gun illegally.

For all intents and purposes, riding without a light, while being dangerous to oneself, is not as likely to be dangerous to someone else. Sure, it's possible someone could swerve, and there's certainly the argument of mental anguish caused to the poor person who hits you, but the chance of killing someone else is a lot less than in a car.

Speeding is actually a much better analogy. Even if you were to change it to something like speeding around a blind curve, which is much more likely to kill someone, we still don't generally impound the vehicle, and an officer who simply gives a warning OR issues a citation would very unlikely be held responsible because he continues to speed.

njkayaker

You can't make this case for riding without lights either. Many, many people ride bicycles without lights and survive. Riding a bike with out lights isn't unsafe unless "other factors are involved" (like other cars).

Speeding is illegal for a reason and that reason (presumably) is because it is unsafe.

No, the problem with speeding isn't just moving. It's moving faster than other traffic.

But simply not having lights doesn't cause injury or death.

One reason that it's more like speeding than driving a car without lights is that speeding and bicycle riding without lights is much more socially acceptable (ie, "everybody does it"). Very, very few people drive without lights and basically nobody would find id acceptable.

The only way he could have prevented the subsequent event was to have impounded the bike.

Since that (it would seem) is a highly unusual response (and one that most people would consider highly unreasonable), it seems unlikely that the cop could be held liable for an action he was not legally required to take.

Note that it's possible that a suit would be brought (on behalf of Jenkins) but it's unlikely that it would be successful. Being a juror on a liability case was enlightening. It's hard to establish liability/negligence.

Glossing a bit, one important aspect of liability is that the person/entity who is liable has an ability or knowledge or responsibility that the casualty does not have.

In this case, Jenkens, a responsible adult, should have known bicycling without a light was illegal and dangerous. If he didn't know that ahead of time, he certainly knew that after the cop talked to him.

The cop wasn't responsible (wasn't the cause of) Jenkens riding without a light. Only Jenkens was and Jenkens was more than capable of executing that responsibility.

dougmc

Of course, to take this line of thought further ...

Many, many people drive drunk and survive.
Many, many people get hit by cars while riding their bikes and survive.
Many, many people get shot with guns and survive.

I've seen people without lights ride smack into curbs and hurt themselves nicely. They didn't die, but I think they broke a wrist or two.

But ultimately, "safety" isn't an either/or thing. It's a continuum, with really safe things on one side and really dangerous things on the other. And it's not even that simple, as some things are dangerous for the person doing them and not for others, some are dangerous for others and not so much for the person doing it, and some things are dangerous for for the person doing them and for others -- the latter items are arguably more serious than the former.

Drunk driving is dangerous to yourself and to others. Riding a bike without lights is dangerous, but less dangerous to the rider than drunk driving, and much less likely to harm others than drunk driving. If you must make an analogy, moderate speeding is closer than drunk driving (though even so, it's still more likely to harm others than riding without lights), though driving with your lights off would be a better analogy. Not that we need analogies -- the danger of riding without lights is pretty simple, we don't need an analogy to simplify it further.

njkayaker

Do you realize that you are quoting me out of context?

I'm not suggesting that riding at night without lights is reasonable to do. No one is discussing that in this thready anyway.

So what? People do this in bright daylight.

I'm not suggesting that riding at night without lights is reasonable to do. No one is discussing that in this thready anyway.

So what? What does this have to do with the question of whether the cop was liable or not?

No one is arguing otherwise!

Speeding was what I was using. Apparently, you are commenting without reading what you are commenting about!

chipcom 

Speeding doesn't mean you are necessarily moving faster than traffic, it merely means you are moving faster than the posted speed limit.
As I mentioned yesterday, perhaps a better analogy is driving a car without working lights. Sure, a car can cause more damage due to its size and speed, but this notion that a bike without lights might only harm the rider is incorrect. The potential for harm for drivers trying to avoid an unlit rider in the road is real and undeniable. riding a bike at night without lights and reflectors is illegal for a reason and that reason (presumably) is because it is unsafe. It is not only unsafe for the rider, but also for other users of the road.

Tell me that the poor soul who's vehicle killed this guy is uninjured.


No...impounding was not the only option. He could have ensured that the rider got safely to his alleged destination. Of course that may not have prevented an accident later, but the officer could reasonably maintain that he did his due diligence by both warning the cyclist and getting him to his destination safely.

Going back to the car without lights analogy...do you really think the officer could get away with letting the driver go by telling him only to drive on lit streets?

njkayaker

Yes, of course.

But speeding is considered less safe/more risky than not speeding. That's why it's illegal!

No, it's a worse analogy because very, very few people do this. Many people speed and many people ride bicycles without lights.

Not a notion I am promoting by the way.

I wonder if a cop anywhere has ever done this for an adult!

The adult was (should have been) quite competent to get himself home safely and legally (especially after the warning). There is nothing that indicates otherwise.

This nicely explains why the cars without lights analogy doesn't work!

=========================

Bad place to be riding at night without lights.

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...169.36,,0,8.17

dougmc

And do you realize you're quoting me out of context too? [To a large degree, BF does that for you, by not quoting what I quoted, but they're part of the context too.]

In any event, you explicitly bolded that section, as if it was the most important thing you said, as if it stands on it's own. You shouldn't be surprised when somebody takes that at face value.

Deal with it -- we have to trim the quoted stuff down to the important parts, or soon people would never be able to follow the thread. If somebody wants full context, there's a little [>>] link that will provide it.

Yes, but the case I referred to they didn't even see it, presumably due to the lack of light. And that was in response your claim of "Riding a bike with out lights isn't unsafe unless "other factors are involved" (like other cars)." -- I think it IS unsafe, and people get hurt (or killed) when they do it. And besides, those "other factors" aren't always under your control. Even if you stick to the sidewalks, you're not safe from the cars for example.)

(It's still not as unsafe (especially to others) as driving drunk, however, and probably better than riding drunk, but the devil is in the details.)

And yes, you were talking about speeding being a better analogy. But not everybody has been. Just because I only quoted your post, that doesn't mean I'm only responding to things you've brought up.

Still, even speeding is a lousy analogy, especially since there's no need for analogies here anyways -- they only complicate the issue. If you want to explain quantum entanglement to a layperson, analogies may be helpful. If you want to talk about biking without lights, talk about biking without lights.

njkayaker

?? I quoted your whole paragraph. You changed the meaning of what I said by selecting a part of what I said.

No, it was the "most important" part of my reply to a particular comment. Nothing more.

Yes, careless people would do that.

The problem is that your sloppy selective quoting is changing what I said!

The curb is "another factor". Anyway, I said that speeding is inherently less safe/more risky. So is riding at night without a light.

This is a straw man. No one is arguing that riding without lights isn't less safe than riding with lights.

Well, making that comment after my quote sure makes it seem like you are replying to what I said.

But I wasn't talking about biking without lights. I was talking about the issue of liability.

chipcom 

So popularity is an indication of potential danger? I don't think so.

I have, wouldn't you? The car analogy does apply...would a warning suffice there?

Digital_Cowboy

Speaking of drunk drivers wasn't part of that discretion also that if there was a sober and licensed driver in the car to allow said sober and licensed driver to drive the car home?