APD denying any crackdown on cyclists ever happened

Jan 21st, 2009

In interesting e-mail from Austin cyclist Tom Wald is circulating about the Austin Police Department and their much reported crackdown on cyclists who break traffic laws. Tom wrote the police department a letter criticizing the program for singling out cyclists when motorists cause the vast majority of accidents that involve injury and deaths.

Regardless of whether you think the crackdown was a good idea or not, everyone should be amazed by the response of APD’s public relations officer in denying that the crackdown ever occurred. Here’s their response:

Dear Mr. Wald,

Thank you for your email to City Council expressing your concerns regarding the enforcement of bicycle and motor traffic violations. On behalf of City Council and the Chief of Police, please allow me to respond.

I would like to take this opportunity to address your initial concern of our department advertising a campaign against bicycle traffic violations. I have been in contact with our Public Information Manager and she has informed me that no such campaign has been implemented in the media recently. For any questions regarding our current projects, please feel free to call their office at 974-5017.

I must stress the Austin Police Department and its officers are dedicated to keeping its citizens safe. Department cruisers should not be violating any traffic laws. If you witness such an offense, please contact the Police Monitors Office immediately at 974-9090. However, I must explain that officers may be responding to emergencies including situations in which a fatality or injury has just occurred or may occur. For these specific calls, officers are authorized to drive at speeds greater than the posted limit and proceed through traffic signals after ensuring an intersection is clear.

I must further explicate that our department is dedicated to enforcing all traffic violations to include bicyclists and motorists. We can ensure that our department in no way is emphasizing focus on any particular group. We perform regular speed enforcement through our Strategic Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) as well as addressing complaints of traffic violations through increased patrol efforts (also called Directed Patrols). If you are aware of an intersection that is in need of immediate police enforcement, please do not hesitate in contacting me. I will refer you to the local District Representative officer for enforcement and follow-up.

Again, thank you for bringing your concern to our attention. Should you have any further questions, please contact me directly at 974-4711, or by email at Leander.Davila@ci.austin.tx.us.

Sincerely,

Lee Davila, Constituent Liaison
Austin Police Department

This is amazing as several news organizations covered the crackdown including this KVUE video which includes interviews with a police officer about the crackdown. The Austin Chronicle reported on this including a quote from APD Lt. Patrick South saying ”This is one of many initiatives conducted by the Downtown-area command to make the area safer.”

It seems like representatives of APD are willingly talking to the press about this crackdown and yet we have this denial from public relations. If these officers were speaking out of turn, where were the corrections? APD seemed happy to use the press to promote the crackdown, but when called out on it by citizen communication resorts to Orwellian double speak.

Very strange indeed.

#1 JasonATXBS
on Jan 21st, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Hahaha, the first time I perused this entry I didn’t see your mention of “orwellian doublespeak” at the bottom. I guess we both subconsciously though the same thing, as I’m sure you can tell from my response to the issue: http://www.atxbs.com/?q=node/737
#2 M1EK
on Jan 21st, 2009 at 3:53 pm

The more interesting excerpt would be from Wald’s letter:

The impetus for my e-mail is that two of my friends were ticketed for going through a red light while riding their bicycles. These friends of mine are conscientious riders and were not likely taking any considerable risk for themselves nor others. My hope is that APD would focus on violations where there is a real and present safety risk to others rather than singling out bicyclists and expecting bicyclists to follow the letter of the law while motorists are free to speed and otherwise put others in real danger.

Hate to break it to you, but as a dedicated former cyclist who also drove (still drive, can’t bike), running red lights is a LOT worse than minor speeding. Not even in the same ballpark. There’s no such thing as a conscientious red-light runner, and speeding by motorists is no excuse. To say nothing of the fact that the same juvenile anarchists who think traffic laws don’t apply to them because of their choice of vehicle would likely break speed laws without a second thought if they were capable of doing so.
#3 elliott
on Jan 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm

Mike,

Tom’s position is not anywhere as interesting as APD. He’s admitted his friend broke the law and doesn’t think that is just. That’s a point philosophically I would tend to agree with you more on, but can see his view point. The fact that the APD did this media blitz on this and have no institutional memory or are trying to cover that up is strange.
#4 cloyd...
on Jan 22nd, 2009 at 1:55 am

my own personal story…

im not going to pretend that im an extremely traffic conscious cyclist, especially when im just busting around town on my bike to go off to do whatever in the city. if im on a ride strapped up in the attire of “serious cyclist” i follow the traffic laws and maintain a level of traffic awareness that most people my age and disposition would not normally take…let me put it this way when im in my spandex im a fucking bicycle saint and im usually in an arena where i have plenty of room where i dont have to compete with a car to maintain my space because i have space. but when im on guadalupe with agitated sorority girls and testoster-brodies barreling down a street at 50 miles an hour which has a 35 mile on hour speed limit in an suv or a F450 supercharger with a 6 inch lift which im sure they routinely pick pedestrians out of the grills of, i ride like an asshole and claim my space where i can get it. needless to say some times that involves running a red light here and there in order to maintain a decent enough speed or jumping a light right before it turns green to get a good run up so i dont get plowed from by an over zealous soccer mom in a car too big for her own damn good while talking on her cell phone about whatever inane bullshit…
anyways several months back at the end of september i was on my way to work rather early and was traveling down congress towards fifth…i came to the light at sixth and congress and noticed a couple of police officers on bicycles hanging out in front of the starbucks on 6th. so in order to avoid having to either run from these pedal pushing police which wouldn’t be hard or receive a nice fat fine from good ole johnny law i stopped at the light…light turns yellow for crossing traffic, i wait…light turns red for the crossing traffic, i begin to move, however assumption is always a great thing because at the moment the light turned red a semi decides to run said light and almost hits me. of course this invokes a rather angry and i think purely justified response from me, a loud shout of “HEY” and i pleasant display of my middle finger well needless to say i get pulled over and given a citation for not only “jumping the light” but for a nice little infraction they like to call “failure to stop at proper place” and the officer had the audacity to give me a stern warning that “[he] could have arrested me for insubordinate and profane behavior had his partner,” who had thankfully pursued the vehicle that had blatantly ran the light, “had decided to see if anyone had been offended by me [colorful display].”
#5 M1EK
on Jan 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 am

cloyd, I used to ride regularly on Guadalupe. There’s no excuse for ‘jumping’ lights there any more than anywhere else in town – it’s all in your head. (and if Guadalupe was so dangerous you felt the need to break the law, why not try Speedway or Duval instead?)
#6 Tom Wald
on Jan 31st, 2009 at 11:47 pm

Yes, the primary point I was making was that APD seems to be double-speaking about the crackdown. My point in the original letter to city council was to address whether a crackdown _specifically_ on bicyclists (or pedestrians) is warranted.

I was not making the point that it’s okay for bicyclists to go through red lights. I didn’t make that point in my city council letter either. Let’s just leave my opinion about that matter out of the discussion.
#7 Debbie Russell
on Dec 28th, 2009 at 3:07 pm

The difference here is that Davila said there is no campaign via the media…not that there is no campaign. I.E., they weren’t putting out press releases to the media to highlight any targeted enforcement – a different matter from whether they were in practice targeting bicyclists.

RE: “We can ensure that our department in no way is emphasizing focus on any particular group.”
This may be, on paper, true for traffic enforcement (except if you look at their profiling numbers for stops/consent searches)…but they do regularly “emphasize focus” on “particular groups” such as certain areas of town for drug busts/prostitution or at homeless camps with initiatives like “Operation Cleansweep.”