Bike Crazy

Our trend line from a car-centric to a bike-centric community has much promise for the environment, but I fear it is spinning out of control.

Every day, especially Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of bikes ride through downtown, maybe over half not stopping for lights or STOP signs. Bikes on neighborhood streets, often speeding—sometimes three times the posted speed limit, frequently blowing STOP signs, often expecting walkers to get out of the way. Teen bikers trying out trick maneuvers. Barefoot extra riders straddling bike backs. I saw one young ebike with no helmet blow the light at 9th Street to careen across four lanes of moving traffic. Too many instances of bikers working a smart phone in one hand while maneuvering a bike handle with the other—not smart.

Having just renewed my driver license, I know that the law requires bikeriders to obey all traffic laws—many bikers seem to have a different understanding of the law. Too many bikers ignore traffic lights, STOP signs, yield signs, lane changes, turn signals, speed limits, and pedestrian rights. Motorized electric bikes are often the biggest offenders. And it appears that many offenders are younger than legal driving age for automobiles and are not wearing safety helmets.

Our City Council has asked the Sheriff Office to increase its enforcement action against bicycle traffic violations. A return call from a lieutenant assures me that bike violations are a growing problem in all of the north coast cities. Increased attention in Del Mar has yielded a half dozen citations along CDM, as well some referrals to “diversion” education programs. Citation fines can amount to $495 and more depending on circumstances. Hopefully their priorities will spread to cut-through streets like Stratford, Nob, Luneta, Amphitheater, and Crest.

We spend a large amount of our city budget on Sheriff services so we should expect them to get in front of those growing problem before we see tragedies that could have been averted.