The issues my friend Cherokee has before her have consumed a LOT of my mental and emotional energy for the last six months. There is much wrong in how she is being treated by the law enforcement community and the Jessamine County Attorney's office.
I've tried several times to type out the background, and have not been able to top what Keri wrote in this recent blog post for the I Am Traffic site. For another take on it, have a listen to the Outspoken Cyclist pod cast interview with John Schubert, as aired on October 4th (John's interview starts about ten minutes into the 'cast).
The short version is that Cherokee has been cited several times for driving her bicycle as if she is a normal vehicle operator (well, she IS operating a vehicle, after all). After finding her guilty of violating KRS 189.290 (which holds that road users must operate with regard for the safety and convenience of other road users), and at the same time ignoring that some of the very motorists the police were claiming proved such disregard were themselves being far worse at operating with any regard for the safety of others, Cherokee was arrested for Wanton Endangerment 2nd Degree.
How a cyclist controlling her lane can be endangering an overtaking road user that has fifteen or more seconds to recognize that he has to slow a little bit and change lanes to pass her defies all rational thought. However, the prosecution's position is that she cannot legally control that travel lane since she is allowed to use the shoulder, and is thus required to use the shoulder without regard for her own safety.
I've ridden the road in question (US27 in Jessamine County). I've driven it several times. I've spent too much time looking at the satellite view of that road. I cannot find any stretch of more than fifty yards' length that is even remotely practicable for a mindful cyclist to ride on, and that ignores surface conditions that involve glass, sand, gravel, detritus from furniture that has fallen from passing motor vehicles, and the like. The shoulder geometry is BAD and horribly unsafe for a cyclist trying to make decent time on the road. There are numerous side streets, not to mention driveways into businesses that front on the road. At every single one of these points, there is significant risk of right-hook and left-cross crashes. A cyclist on the shoulder has to "play chicken" (or perhaps "Frogger" is a better reference?) at every single one of these driveways and cross streets, and the motorists are going a mile a minute (or faster).
I appeared in court as an expert witness several weeks ago. I was one of four experts (two as defense witnesses, two as prosecution witnesses) who testified that for HER safety, the shoulder was not even remotely practicable. At all.
Yet the prosecutor was able to convince the judge that the shoulder WAS practicable, using a series of statements that essentially lead a reasonable person to infer that the prosecutor considers a cyclist's safety to be far subordinate to the perceived convenience of incompetent motorists. Such a position borders on barbaric in its ethical bankruptcy.
Officials in Jessamine County are working hard to keep Cherokee, and by extension ANY cyclist, from using US27 as vehicle operators who can control their own safety. The beneficiaries of this? Incompetent motorists. Only. The. Most. Incompetent. Motorists.
