APD Chief Art Acevedo answers a question from the panel.
Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo spoke and answered questions before a large audience at the Austin Cycling Association meeting last night. Before we talk about the rest, let’s get the Austin Police Chief’s “big faux pas” out of the way:
In the middle of a really long answer about sharing the road, APD Chief Art Acevedo said something like, “if you’re biking along at 2 miles an hour and there’s a big line of cars behind you, you know what the smart thing to do is. Pull over and let the cars pass.” Those are not his exact words, but you get the idea. Big mistake, and the crowd let him know. Several people booed, most of us groaned. This was NOT the answer that a cyclist wants to hear, because if we did that every time the roadway was too narrow for cars and bikes to share the lane at the same time, we would never be able to get anywhere. Not only that, but IT’S NOT THE LAW.
Thankfully Mr. Acevedo was much better the rest of the evening. Here are some tidbits from his speech and question answers:
Chief Acevedo said he was “hell on wheels” as a kid with his own bike. Cute, but I was a little put off by that as it reinforced the notion of bicycles being toys. Good thing he followed it up with:
His wife will be a bicycle commuter at her job with Travis County, starting in April. This should help us! We’ll definitely “have the ear” of authority, looks like.
His last two bikes were stolen in Sacramento, which is where he worked before becoming our chief (he was head of the Planning and Analysis Division of the California Highway Patrol). Bummer. There are around 1,000 bikes stolen every year in Austin. That amounts to 3% of all stolen property. Ouch. Most bikes stolen are either cannibalized right away, sold on eBay, or sold to pawn shops. He hopes that some changes in the laws can help with the pawn shop issues.
Eileen Schaubert of Mellow Johnny's asks a question
The Chief was pretty irritated by the common belief that police give tickets to “meet their quota.” He emphatically stated that, “we don’t get the revenue from tickets, the municipal court does.”
Acevedo believes very strongly in enforcement having an effect. He gave the same statement in response to several questions that “when enforcement goes up, offenses go down.” He did feel though that Texas laws against drivers who endanger others are far too weak in Texas, much better in California. There just isn’t enough accountability here for negligent behavior. An example he brought up was about an APD staffer recently killed by a reckless driver. One thing he shares with us was his feeling that traffic fatalities in the U.S. were just WAY too high.
Consistent with APD’s behavior in the past year or so, Chief Acevedo encouraged all cyclists to “ride defensively,” adding that “I get a lot of complaints about cyclist behavior too.” That’s nice and all, but between drivers and cyclists, only one of them is commanding a deadly weapon.
An important thing to note is that he acknowledged that his officers may not know all the laws that affect cyclists, and when in doubt, “carry a printout with you.” Acevedo was quick to say he really needs more money for training APD officers. He would like to see training scenarios presented at every roll call, including tests on bicycle laws.
Chief Acevedo has a poor opinion of Critical Mass. He tried to watch what he said when asked by Rob D’Amico of the League of Bicycling Voters about it, but gave no guarantees and really gave the impression he didn’t want it happening. Also, if you’re thinking about biking through 6th street on the weekends when the barricades are up, don’t. They’re going to enforce this from now on: they want the areas to be pedestrian only.
Except for a few points above, I got the overall impression that Acevedo is a good chief. He’s got a lot of interests to balance, and seemed to genuinely believe in being a good public servant. His wife becoming a commuter cyclist can only help us in the future, too, as he begins to hear things from a different point of view than behind the wheel of a car.
Related posts:
- APD Chief Acevedo returns for second forum with the cycling community ...
- March Critical Mass Ride Ends with tickets, arrests ...
- Careful when you glide through that stop sign, it may cost you over $150 ...
- Political Pedal and Cyclist Happy Hour ‘09 Pics ...
- Minnesota cyclists collide in accident, one dead ...
on Mar 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I feel like the cycling community kind of have APD and Acevedo by the balls when it comes to Critical Mass, and while as a participant in CM I won’t be losing sleep over the situation any time soon, I’m broadly sympathetic to their frustrations.
APD’s job, obviously, is to enforce the laws for the ENTIRE community, and not merely for a particularly passionate special interest, which we definitely are. And if that massive LiveJournal shitstorm from a couple of days ago is any indication, there’s an awful lot of pent-up anger from Austin’s motorists (understandably, I’d argue) towards Critical Mass. And I’m sure Acevedo has to deal with a tremendous amount of those complaints and concerns, which must be wearying.
Of course, there’s not a whole hell of a lot APD can do about Critical Mass — they’re sure as hell not going to arrest 500 cyclists at once. Hell, if they arrest even one the entire “junior anarchist” (to appropriate a M1EK-ism) community comes down on them like a hurricane. And that’s a unique dynamic — if a motorist gets arrested, they can bitch to their wife and (for a fee) their lawyer, and that’s pretty much it. If something happens to a cyclist, Jason Abels can sic an entire community on APD. Which is kind of cool, but, from their perspective, probably a hassle. They basically have to stand idly by while Critical Mass commits what HAS to be the largest, most public, most organized flaunting of the law in the entire city, receive God only knows how many calls and e-mails and complaints about it, and do… absolutely nothing, because there’s nothing they can do.
It’s tricky. Like I said, it doesn’t keep me up at night, but I feel kind of bad for him.
on Mar 4th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I don’t think CM is actually much of a flaunting of the law anymore. There’s too much traffic out there, and most of the ride is just going through stacked cars!
I look at it as an “expression.”
on Mar 5th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I think both of you are right, it’s a gray area of sorts. Officially though, I feel like Acevedo should have given a little better answer on Critical Mass than he did, one way or the other. I think he was just holding his tongue as to not piss us all off.
By the way, one of my favorite books is Nowtopia, by Chris Carlsson, one of the founders of CM. Highly recommended, especially if you’re into anti-capitalist/post-capitalist thinking.