What is wrong with this picture?

I had been mystified that I wasn't seeing new posts from one of my favorite bloggers, Dave Moulton, in my Bloglines Feeds. After clicking over to his blog, I realized that he'd changed where his blog is hosted, and I had to update my stuff. Once I was back in business, I was a little mystified to come across this post:

Right-Hooked: Almost

Wed, August 20, 2008

Here is a story with an interesting video clip, out of Rochester, NY. A cyclist is almost right-hooked by a police patrol car; the cop then pulls the cyclist Gabriel Zayas over, and lets him off with a warning.

I would hope the cop stopped him to apologize, although I doubt it. The cyclist did nothing wrong he was riding his bike, in the proper place on the right hand edge of the road, as required by law, when the police car makes a right turn in front of him. The police driver is clearly at fault.

To add insult to the situation, the local TV News Station ran the video as an example of police zero tolerance on crime. There was no crime, in fact there was a traffic violation against the cyclist.

The commentator states, “A patrol car is about to make a right turn when a bicyclist darts out from the side, narrowly missing the patrol car.”

Not true by what I see on the video; the cyclist is riding straight down the road and is clearly there before the police car attempted his turn.

Click here to read the rest of Dave's post or the intelligent discussion in the dozens of comments. Here is a screenshot from the news video of the incident:


I did a quick search of the NY State's DOT site and came across information that validates the police officer was in the wrong. Jason, founder of Rochesters's RocBike.com, has this to say (along with helping to summarize the NY laws):

I urge News 10 NBC to use this as a teachable moment, and to run a series of segments during your newscasts on safety procedures for drivers and cyclists. Let’s use this near-miss as a chance to score a hit for road safety in Rochester.

...

TAKE ACTION!: Ask News 10 NBC to help promote driver and cyclist safety. Feel free to use the letter above or write your own, then send it to news1@news10NBC.com. You can also call (585) 546-5670.

It’s really unfortunate that the news media feels the need to polarize issues in this way. It unfortunately takes a lot of effort to do a well thought out piece which would generate this much buzz in cycling circles, but it’s pretty easy to muck it up and embrace the (negative) publicity.