Southern Arizona receives gold rating for bike safety

" An example of a city resisting bicyclists instead of being bicycle-friendly is Newport Beach in Southern California. Newport Beach has a three mile road called Back Bay Drive through a water preserve. The roadway is one-way for cars with a 15 mph speed limit, two-way for runners and bicyclists, and has no lights as a natural preserve for water wildlife. The road is designed to be multi-purpose for scenic recreation. The Newport Beach police cars patrol this roadway hoping to find open alcohol containers. But the police cars apparently are still on-call to respond to other incidents. I have had three incidents of risky driving to runners and bicyclists. On one occasion, the police car was surreptitiously driving with no headlights at sunset in the dark fog trying to find alcohol violations. The police officer had the window rolled down, but he did not notice me cycling by. His forehead was pasted against the windshield trying to see through the fog without headlights. For two other incidents, police cars flew by me at speeds much higher than the Back Bay 15 mph and did not light their emergency indicators. I heard the roar of a car engine behind me, and was in disbelief when a police car sped by.
The left-turn signal to enter this scenic Back Bay Drive is probably used by a several hundred cyclists on a summer weekend. The Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD) and city planning engineers have collaborated to make the left-turn signal into a citation revenue generating unit from bicyclists. Civil Engineer Tony Brine and Traffic Technician George Barnard have set back the left-turn signal not to trigger for cyclists. NBPD motorcycle officers have exploited the signal to generate citation revenue. It is a sight on a quiet Sunday afternoon with no traffic to see a police officer hiding in the adjacent condominium driveway suddenly crouch down low on his motorcycle to chase a bicycle entering the natural preserve. For my personal incident, I made the left turn during Christmas weekend on a cold afternoon with no traffic and a green light for through-traffic. The officer, David Darling, did not even tell me what the violation was. Instead he reprimanded me for not carrying my driver’s license and interrogated me about why I could not remember my car license plate number. The implication was that bicycles are used to generate revenue for vehicle violations. And the violator is left to prove in municipal court that the incident was a bicycle and not a car. Public Relations Lt. Steve Shulman sent me a two page letter describing the department’s policy of regarding bicyclists as vehicles for citations, but as pedestrians for left-turn lanes. The letter advocated that cyclists try to trigger the left-turn arrow, and if unsuccessful, dismount to use crosswalks. The lieutenant also pointed out that citations are at the discretion of the officer. What bicyclist on a cold afternoon during Christmas has the discretion to wait for left-turn arrow on a green light with no traffic in order to appease motor officers trying to show productivity before catching a cup of hot coffee at headquarters just a half mile up the road? Newport is an example of a city police department not just resisting bicycling, but exploiting and detesting bicyclists. "