Re: The Second Annual Pro Bike/Pro Walk Florida Conference,
St. Augustine, April 19 - 21, 2006

Cyclists, walkers, runners - consider this road trip recommended by:
Christopher A. Hagelin,
Research Associate and avid cyclist,
Center for Urban Transportation Research, USF
813-974-2977 (office/voice mail)

This conference is a collaborative effort of many agencies involved with bicycle and pedestrian issues. We are hoping that each person attending will leave with new tools and vision to improve the environment for bicyclists and pedestrians in our beautiful state.

This is the first statewide conference dealing with both pedestrian and bicycle issues.

The issues are broad, complex and intertwined: For Florida to become truly pedestrian- and bicyclist-friendly, those of us at this conference, as well as those unable to attend, must seek improvements in traffic safety education and law enforcement, transportation facility design and operation, development regulations, and attitudes toward these environmentally friendly and health-building modes of transportation.

The many sessions at the conference will help us all progress toward this worthy goal of improving our state for walkers, runners and bicyclists. While at the conference, we hope you will learn new approaches to issues you deal with, learn about other issues you should get involved in, and ways to network and make new friends who can support you in your efforts.

See also: http://www.probikeprowalkflorida.com/.

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... Do it.

Downtown Tampa is the place to be tomorrow, but not the place to park..

It’s worth a reminder that 20,000 people are expected at the “Get Motivated” event at the St. Pete Times Forum Wednesday starting at 8 a.m. Additionally, the Marriott Waterside is hosting a lunch for 1,000 people.

The City of Tampa, Transportation Division recommends:

* There will be serious traffic congestion in Downtown Tampa between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.  Streets to avoid are Bayshore, Platt/Channelside, Ashley and Tampa.

* If you work downtown and do not have reserved/monthly parking, you will want to flex your hours and arrive by 7 a.m. to secure your normal parking spot. You can also consider parking on the northern end of downtown and utilize either of the InTown Trolleys or any bus going south on the Marion St. Transit Way (free).

* Carpool or take mass transit.

* Great day to take vacation!

* You may want to avoid scheduling meetings on this day with clients from outside downtown, as there will be no hourly parking available in downtown south of Kennedy after 7 a.m.

Traffic congestion throughout downtown is expected to be heaviest between 6:30 am and 8:30 a.m.  While parking will be available in downtown lots, attendees are encouraged to use shuttles in and out of downtown to reduce of traffic.

Shuttles will run from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday (March 8). Shuttles are available to and from the following remote lots:

Ybor City: Parking will be available in all Ybor City parking garages.  Shuttles will have several separate pick up locations along Seventh Avenue.  Signs will be posted and “Get Motivated” staffers will be on hand to direct patrons to these pickup locations

Raymond James Stadium: Parking will be available at the stadium in lots 5 and 6. Shuttles will run periodically from the stadium to the St. Pete Times Forum and back to Raymond James Stadium throughout the day.
Signs will be provided by the City of Tampa Transportation Department directing guests to available parking and or shuttles. 

For more transportation information, log on to http://www.hartline.org.

—Karen Kress, transportation manager, Tampa Downtown Partnership

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Re: The death in a crash of state Road Ranger Donald Bradshaw Sunday, March 5.

Reading in The Tampa Tribune about the tragic circumstances of Mr. Bradshaw’s untimely and senseless death last week, I would like to comment.

First of all, I did not know Mr. Bradshaw and I believe that is my loss. But about five weeks ago, our paths crossed on I-275. I was stranded with a blown tire early in the morning on my way to work. I was not there more than eight or ten minutes when the Department of Transportation vehicle driven by Mr. Bradshaw arrived. Within fifteen minutes, he had the tire changed and I was ready to continue on.

We exchanged a few pleasantries and comments about the traffic and how people drive mostly asleep at the wheel. I asked him if there was a fee for this service and he replied, “No, Sir”—with emphasis stating that this was a service provided by DOT. I started to reach into my pocket anyway, but he waved me off.

We parted ways with my hearty “Thank you.”

I now wish that we would have had a few more minutes to chat, but our duties called—mine, to an office, his to help some other unfortunate soul.

To his family, my deepest sympathies and prayers: “May God comfort you and give you strength.”

Dennis Walker.
Tampa

From the Tampa Downtown Partnership… Downtown parkers take note:

A new surface parking lot is now available. Located on the southeast corner of Marion and Washington streets, behind SunTrust Financial Centre, this lot is renting spaces at $3 per day or $65 per month.

For details, call (813) 228-7722, extension 241. Remember, the Partnership maintains a complete list of parking options available downtown including sites that are convenient to the In-Town Trolley shuttles.

Call (813) 221-3686 for details.

Also, from the Partnership:

Did you know that downtown employees are eligible for a comprehensive commuter benefits program including subsidized vehicles, free emergency taxi rides home, reduced fare on trolleys, and more?

This is all possible now that Tampa’s downtown was designated as a Best Workplace for Commuters (http://www.bwc.gov/) District by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Call the Partnership at (813) 221-3686 to schedule a briefing on how a company can become eligible for a corporate version of the same EPA designation—with similar benefits to employees.

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There are a lot of sites on the Internet that claim to be able to tell you which gas stations in your zip code have the cheapest gas. Some take the word of station owners or rely on volunteers to call in each day, or every time there is a change in price.
Station owners might not call with every price increase; volunteers can get sick, be out of town, get lazy or forgetful.
But there are several sites, among them MSN Autos, http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx?zip=&src=Netx , that instead get their information from OPIS, the authoritative Oil Price Information Service.
OPIS gets its information from credit card data—how much real people are paying per gallon at more than 120,000 gas stations nationally—each day.
Scott Ehlers, manager of the MS Autos site, says that because his site is part of a popular Web portal, more people access his site’s gas price data in a day than visit any other gas price site “in a month.” He won’t share the actual number of site visits.
OK, the Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft site is a biggie, but ....
At any rate, the site is very easy to navigate; the maps provided with each fraction-of-a-second search are clear, with nice, large type, and the list below the map spells out exactly where each station is and what it charges for gas.
If they’re timely and accurate—and I’d like to hear your evaluation of MSN and other gas price sites—I guess they could save us a fair chunk of money.
And if some stations are consistently lower than those around them, that would be good information to share, too.

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Answering your questions is a big part of this job. This week, I’ve gotten letters about several things readers may find interesting: a possible danger to bicycle riders on U.S. 301 south of Sun City Center; the need for a traffic light at the intersection of Big Bend Road and Summerfield Boulevard; and potholes and bumpy sections of pavement on Big Bend Road between U.S. 41 and U.S. 301.
Well folks, thanks to the Florida Department of Transportation and Hillsborough County Roads and Streets, I’ve got your answers.
Richard Dombrow of Sun City Center writes that earlier this year, 6- to 8-inch grooves were ground into the shoulder of U.S. 301 which has made it hard for his group of bicyclists to ride its regular route into Manatee County.
“We’re now forced to ride to the inside of the white line in the flow of traffic,” Richard said. “Every Thursday morning our group of 15 to 20 cyclists ride on this southern portion of (U.S.) 301. Many other cyclists from the area also ride on this portion of the highway. But we can no longer ride on the shoulder because of the grooves. In some areas the shoulder is not wide enough and riding across the grooves shakes your hands from the handlebars.”
Richard said he wrote to the county commission but received no answer.
The problem with that is Hillsborough County is not responsible for U.S. 301 – or U.S. 41 and State Road 674. They’re handled by the Florida Department of Transportation.
Kris Carson, spokeswoman for FDOT, checked out the installation of the grooves. As it turns out, they’re called “rumble strips.”
“We installed rumble strips as an audio warning device for drivers who may run off the road,” she said. “It’s for the safety of the drivers.”
But something can – and will be – done to help the cyclists, too. “Overgrowth has grown up and covered some of the shoulder, but we’ll get that cleared soon which will widen the area for the bicycles,” she said. “It won’t be a bicycle ‘lane’ but there will be more room.”
Summerfield traffic light
I have good news for Deb Kosmela who writes about the accidents she has seen recently, including two school bus accidents, at the intersection of Big Bend Road and Summerfield Boulevard.
“Traffic is rarely doing the 25 mph that is posted when coming eastbound on Big Bend Road. This makes even a right-hand turn out of the development next to impossible. Forget about turning left, you have to wait an extended period, even in the evening, to do that,” Deb said.
The good news is that Hillsborough County spokesman Steve Valdez said a solution to this problem is already on the drawing board.
A temporary traffic light is in the design phase. Temporary lights can be put up quickly, usually in a couple of months, and used until a permanent light can be designed, made and installed – which usually takes around a year, Valdez said.
“Temporary lights aren’t meant to be pretty, they’re meant to alleviate an immediate problem,” Valdez said. “They’re mounted on a wooden pole, with the electrical box on another wooden pole, and there are normally no pedestrian features.”
The permanent light will go into the design phase and be fabricated while the temporary light is up, he said.

Potholes on Big Bend
Eleanor Thallman’s question about who’s responsible for fixing the potholes on Big Bend Road between U.S. 41 and U.S. 301 is harder to answer. Hillsborough County and FDOT are both responsible for that stretch of road. Although it normally falls within the county’s duties, FDOT has responsibility there too because of the interstate ramps.
“Much of the conditions now found on the road were caused by the recent changes at the on and off ramp areas for I-75,” Valdez said.
Other areas of the road are the responsibility of the county.
No resurfacing of that stretch of road is planned by either Hillsborough County or FDOT at this time.

Penny Fletcher is the editor of The Sun and the South Shore News.

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As Tampa’s downtown work force grows, and with more residents moving into the core, there is a growing need to explore various commuting/transportation options.  One of today’s newest and growing trends in densely populated U.S. communities is a concept called:

Carsharing.

Carsharing is neither carpooling nor car rental.  Carsharing provides an alternative to car ownership for people and businesses. Vehicles are parked in reserved parking spaces throughout downtown. Members of carsharing companies can reserve and use the vehicles by the hour, with gasoline and insurance included in the rates.

Studies have shown that carsharing can reduce car usage and parking needs and promote the use of public transit, walking and bicycling. Businesses, government agencies and universities have also begun exploring the use of carsharing as a commuter incentive to reduce the costs of owning and operating a fleet.

The Tampa Downtown Partnership will hold a session on carsharing - “Enjoy the Benefits of Using a Car without the Costs of Owning One” - that includes lunch to create interest among downtown companies, residents, developers, city staff, transportation planners, neighborhood groups and individuals.

The keynote speaker for this event will be David Brook, founder of the first commercial carsharing company in the United States, Flexcar (web http://www.flexcar.com ), now with more than 35,000 members in seven metropolitan areas. He will present an overview of how carsharing works, who uses it and some steps needed to make it happen in Tampa.

This session will be March 15 from noon to 1 p.m. at the USF Downtown Center at the Tampa Port Authority building, 1101 Channelside Drive, Room 114.  There is free parking and participants are encouraged to travel the TECO Line Streetcar System to the Port Authority Station.

RSVP by March 13 to Karen Kress at the Tampa Downtown Partnership, (813) 221-3686 or email .

- From Paul Ayres, Tampa Downtown Partnership

More Car-sharing information, by Catherine S. Mitseas, for the Partnership:

A small but growing transportation metamorphosis is under way. The movement is turning auto owners into pedestrians and taking cars off the road. It is simple to understand, elegant in its strategy, and not federally funded. It is car-sharing; a business in which individuals rent locally-parked cars for short bursts of time. Begun in Europe, the idea migrated to the U.S. about five years ago. According to companies involved in car-sharing, many customers eventually shed their automobiles, preferring to let someone else handle the hassle of owning and maintaining a vehicle.
In car-sharing, a private company parks vehicles throughout a city for the use of registered members, who then select and reserve a car online or by phone. At the appointed hour, the individual walks to the car, unlocks the auto by pressing a keycard to the window, drives it away for the allotted time, and then returns it to its original spot. There is no paperwork, no annoying up-selling, and no complicated returns. Just ramble up to the designated car and drive away.
The company owns, maintains, and insures the car. The driver pays only an hourly fee or a daily rate, and may choose from such zippy, fun and functional transportation as the MINI Cooper, Honda Element, Volkswagen Jetta, BMW 325i and the Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, among others.
Karen Origlio, an MBA student at the University of Tampa, is a proponent and messenger for the service. After researching car-sharing for a graduate school project, she began exploring its potential in the Tampa market.
Could it work here? Maybe, maybe not, is the answer. Car-sharing works best in densely populated areas with a high percentage of single-person households, a large number people who either walk or use public transportation to reach work and, in some cases, strong government involvement.
Besides downtown residents, car-sharing attracts other users including fleet-owning businesses and government offices, and on-campus university students. In Tampa, cruise passengers could be a good market, Origlio believes.
Tampa’s ongoing residential growth indicates the city is on its way, Origlio says, but it still needs time to mature. But it’s not too early to teach local leaders about car-sharing and, perhaps, entice a company to consider our city.
The concept is growing rapidly around the United States. Zipcar (web http://www.zipcar.com ), of Cambridge, Mass., reports 50,000 members, and says it was the first car-sharing service in North America to attain profitability in all of its markets.
Established in 2000, Zipcar cars can be found in seven states and 21 cities, primarily along the east coast. The company recently launched west coast operations in three cities after securing $10 million in funding.
Seattle-based Flexcar (http://www.flexcar.com) covers 30 cities in seven major markets, and boasts a high-profile investment team. AOL founder Steve Case’s investment firm, Revolution, recently acquired a controlling interest in Flexcar. Lee Iacocca is both senior adviser and an investor/director of Flexcar.
Additionally, Flexcar, which began in 1999, provides a franchise-like network service called “I Go,” in which the company arranges the back-office operations for entrepreneurs interested in opening new locations. Flexcar spokesperson John Williams says the company looks for dense urban areas with three primary criteria: costly and/or scarce parking, good public transportation, and a city structure with a strong, pedestrian-oriented grid.
Both companies cite Miami as their first prospective Florida location. Car-sharing, proponents say, decreases congestion, reduces car usage, and promotes alternative transportation.
It’s green. It’s good. And maybe, someday, it will come to Tampa.

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Red-light running is epidemic in the U.S., and the state Department of Transportation is leading a campaign _ with the Florida Highway Patrol _ to cut it way back. Enforcement works, but often only for the duration of the enforcement campaign, and as its memory lingers for those ticketed or witnesses to the ticketing.

Florida ranks seventh in the nation for traffic deaths caused by red light runners, and fatal vehicle crashes at traffic signals increased 19 percent last year, outpacing the rise of fatal crashes by all other causes _ according to stats from the state’s “Stop Red Light Running’’ campaign.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also reports that disregarding red lilghts and other traffic control devices is the leading cause of urban crashes—causing 22 percent of them. The economic impact is estimated at $7 billion a year in medical costs, time off work, insurance rate increases and property damage.

Worse, nationwide more than 900 people die and 200,000 are injured in crashes involving red light-running. About half the deaths are pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles hit by red light-runners.

Many jurisdictions around the country are fighting back, often with red light cameras that lead to tickets based solely on the cameras’ photograph. Florida is not one of them, begging off that bandwagon on the grounds that tickets should go to the operator of the vehicle, not to the owner, and the cameras cannot make a positive I.D.  Yet.

OK, we all know that we shouldn’t do it. In fact, the yellow light means stop, and only cars alread moving through the intersection should continue through. We have many excuses, many of them some version of “I was in a hurry, and ...’’

A report from no less than the office of the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives—which seems to be part of a legislative effort to curb the proliferation of the red light cameras—made an interesting discovery, after first noting that some jurisdictions purposely shorten the times of the yellow lights to increase violations— and revenue.

The discovery? That LENGTHENING the duration of yellow lights reduces accidents at intersections, quite sharply.

Here’s a part of the executive summary. Below is the URL for the full, 29-page report:

The Red Light Running Crisis: Is it Intentional?

There’s a hidden tax being levied on motorists today. In theory, this tax is only levied on
those who violate the law and put others in danger. But the reality is that the game has been
rigged. And we’re all at risk.
We are told to accept the idea that our laws should be administered by machines—not
human beings—because it is a matter of safety. We must accept this expansion of government
and this Orwellian threat to our privacy because cameras are the solution to the so-called red
light running crisis.
This is a federal issue, not just a local one. The federal government is promoting and
offering funding for this “solution”, because the safety benefits are supposed to be indisputable.
After all, who’s going to object? Nobody likes a red light runner. They endanger
themselves and others. They must be penalized.
But why have so many people become wanton red light runners all of a sudden? The
answer seems to be that changes made to accommodate camera enforcement have produced
yellow light times that, in many cases, are shortened to the point that they are inadequate. And
when people come upon an intersection with inadequate yellow time, they are faced with the
choice either of stopping abruptly on yellow (risking a rear end accident) or accelerating. The
options for those confronting such circumstances are limited and unsafe. But each time a driver
faces this dilemma, government increases its odds for hitting the jackpot.
This report suggests there is something that can be done to address this hazard. It cites
examples of problem intersections where yellow times have been raised by about 30 percent and
the number of people entering on red fell dramatically. It cites, in addition, controlled scientific
studies that confirm the hypothesis that longer yellows are better. The following reductions in
red light entries are documented:
Mesa, Arizona 73%
Georgia 75%
Virginia site 1 79%
Virginia site 2 77%
Virginia site 3 Problem “virtually eliminated”
Maryland Problem “virtually eliminated”
It is no coincidence that each of the “problem” intersections mentioned above happened
to have yellow times that fell short by about 30 percent....

see: rhttp://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/finalreport.pdf.

More food for thought, and from Washington.

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Folks have expressed concern over the height of the barriers on the elevated, reversible lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway as they see its construction progress.

Mainly, the concern is that if a high-profile SUV gets thrown up against the 32-inch barriers, what’s to keep it from plummeting over and landing on traffic passing below, causing injuries, likely deaths and certain traffic chaos.

The short answer is that under most circumstances, the standard barriers—named “Jersey barriers” because in profile they resemble the shape of the state—should be sufficient. To guarantee no vehicle could ever go over this structure might require barriers as high as six feet or taller, which would put way too much weight on the roadway—especially this structure with its single support columns which give it a somewhat delicate, even graceful appearance from below.

And, as the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority’s acting executive director, Ralph Mervine, points out, significantly taller barriers would ruin the view, which along much of the six-mile elevated roadway’s run is interesting, expansive and sometimes even scenic.

It would also seem as though people driving the speed limit and paying attention might be able to avoid leaping the barriers—at least for the six-mile elevated stretch.

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Oh, this brings me to the question on everyone’s mind hereabouts:

Have you any reservations at all about driving on—or under—the thing? Will you drive it anyway? In other words: How important is shaving upwards of 20 minutes from your commute from Brandon to downtown? 

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In Monday’s column in the Tribune, the last item asked the eternal question: Why do those motorists with the $1,500 boom box car stereos—the really loud ones—feel compelled to share all that joy with the public at large? Well, a few people offered answers. Here are two of them, from different generations:

Ben Spitolnick, 21, called to say he installed two or three different versions of the booming stereos when he was younger _ and installed them for others, “sort of lilke a hobby.’’ And he wants folks to know young people don’t really install them just to annoy everyone they pass.

“It’s more to get attention,’’ he said. “When we were in high school, the girls would hear them and come around, you know—it’s to get people’s attention, see who can put in the loudest equipment...’’

And if you close the windows, “there’s nowhere for all the air pressure from the bass to go, and it’ll reallly hurt the sound quality ... And if you keep them closed, the speakers will cause all sorts of things inside to rattle—the trim, everything. So you need to keep the windows open.’’

Reader Mike Conway, a retired police detective sergeant from Clare County, Michigan, has another theory. He wrote:

“Throughout my many years in law enforcement prior to retirement, I had occasion to observe many trends in people’s behavior ... In your closing comments Feb. 27 you asked why the operators of vehicles with boom-box radios feel the need to share their noise with everyone for half a mile.

“Simple. I have labeled our new generation the ‘See Me Society.’ In an era of single-parent homes and dysfunctional families, we have brought up children who have the need for attention no matter what the cost: multiple piercings, tattoos covering both exposed and unexposed skin, and of course the dreaded boom-boxes.

“In Michigan, law enforcement officers’ rule of thumb is: ‘The louder the music coming out of the vehicle, the lower the IQs of the occupants within.’ ‘’

... There you go.

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From the expressway authority: The new Brandon Gateway just west of U.S. 301 will temporarily close from 9 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, March 4. Upon completion of bridge work, the Gateway Bridge will open permanently. These closures are necessary for bridge work and coating on the new reversible bridge.

Due to overwhelming positive response to the opening of the eastbound Brandon Gateway Bridge, the bridge will remain open during the peak travel hours of 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. The contractor will be completing the Gateway Bridge work during the off peak hours rather than closing the bridge completely.

Motorists will still have access using the existing roadway to the exits at I-75, U.S. 301 and Falkenburg Road. The Brandon Parkway intersects with Town Center Boulevard, Lakewood Ave. and Lumsden Road.

While traveling through the work zone, motorists are urged to use caution and obey the posted speed limit of 50 mph. Of course, unforeseen circumstances such as weather may affect the completion schedule.

-- Lori Buck, The Tampa-Hilllsborough Expressway Authority

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Paulette Vasey of New Suburb Beautiful would like to see more area sidewalks fitting the ADA standards for handicapped-accessible design.

She wrote in last week to tell me about a trip to Bella’s restaurant on South Howard Avenue with her daughter Rebecca, a 37-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who operates an electric wheelchair.

Rebecca has difficulty navigating the crooked, narrow and sometimes nonexistent South Tampa sidewalks. One of my closest friends has muscular dystrophy and uses the same type of chair, so I’m all too familiar with this problem.

Some of the walks are tilted at crazy angles by subterranean tree roots. Others abruptly come to an end. More still are blocked by parked cars, forcing any wheelchair-bound person out into traffic – an impossibly dangerous experience on Howard Avenue.

“The barriers to handicapped travelers in South Tampa are enormous,” Paulette said. “A block north of Mississippi (on Howard), the sidewalks are like ramps, and your wheelchair is really tipped and unstable. It just gets very frustrating.”

She pointed to other impassable locations around MacDill Avenue and Estrella Street, and said portions of Mississippi Avenue have no sidewalks at all.

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First off, I’m seeing way too much tailgating out there. Maybe it’s just my perspective, but most of it seems to be on my tail.

It certainly is frustrating to peek up at the mirror and not be able to see the hood of the car behind you. The last guy looked like he was driving from a remote console in my backseat.

Please. Back. Off. I can’t take much more of this stress.

Even though it’s likely to be your dime if I get rear-ended, I prefer not to go through the hassle.



Resurfacing in planning stages

I got a follow-up call from city transportation manager Roy LaMotte this week, addressing my question about resurfacing the bumpy intersection at Kennedy Boulevard and MacDill Avenue.

In all fairness, the original question came from South Tampa News reader Tom Allen, who wrote in hoping to see improvements at the site.

Turns out Allen will get his wish – just not overnight. Plans for resurfacing and addition of turn lanes at Kennedy and MacDill are about 60-percent complete, but LaMotte said construction is still at least a year away.

“We’re working on a project that will add north- and southbound left-turn lanes at that intersection,” LaMotte said. “We recognize the urgency of the project, but are trying to be thorough about the design.”

Hey, at least it’s on the books.

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Chip Thomas called this morning. He has a lot of beefs with Tampa Bay area drivers, but primary among them is their increasingly common failure to signal for a turn or lane change.

Failing to do so can be annoying, he said, and can also be dangerous in a car. But as an avid bicyclist, Thomas said the results for cyclists can be deadly.

“"It’s not a difficult thing to do,’’ he said. “"And it’s dangerous to yourself, never mind for others.’’

“"And the cops often don’t bother to signal, either,’’ he said.

Heather Derusha would agree wholeheartedly.

She drives about 500 miles a day on average, day-in and day-out, more than 100,000 miles a year, now for a medical supply company. She’s been a professional driver for 31 years and estimates she passed the 3-million-mile mark a while back.

This is how she qualifies herself as something of an expert on motorists’ increasingly turning or changing lanes without signaling in advance. She figures that is the “real” cause of a whole lot of crashes that safety experts and law enforcement investigators overlook, to the driving public’s peril.

“Oh, speeding may escalate a highway crash into a fatality,” she said. “But what most often causes the crash itself, is failing to signal.”

And officers on traffic patrol not only rarely ticket anyone for failing to signal, she says, in recent years police and highway patrol troopers don’t bother to signal for a lane change either, setting a poor example.

It usually unfolds like this, Derusha said:

One driver checks his mirrors, sees an opening and abruptly changes lanes. But when it happens just as the car in back of the opening speeds up - or another car moves toward the same space—one car is forced to swerve and loses control, or rear-ends another, sometimes causing a major pile-up.

And for the defensive driver who sees the trouble rapidly unfolding, she said, too often today roads are so crowded, and walled-in by barriers, there is no place to bail out.

She’s gone so far in her crusade as to mount a video camera on her dashboard, recording failures to signal by motorists and law enforcement, and even caught wrecks on video she says resulted from the practice. She’s buttonholed a variety of officials, trying to inspire a public awareness campaign for years now, with no luck.

Dick Miller, a highway safety consultant for Michigan AAA—where Derusha ran a limousine service for years—is one of them. He served in the Michigan Highway Patrol for 27 years and has since been a member of national safety committees and works on highway safety issues in Washington, D.C. for two years.

“She wanted AAA to mount a major, national campaign for signaling for lane changes,” he said. “That just isn’t going to happen.

“There are so many more serious hazards to vehicle safety - drunken driving, speeding, failing to wear seat belts, running red lights, reckless driving, even distracted driving - that the lane-change issue isn’t going to merit such attention.”

Miller concedes that “people don’t tend to signal as much as they used to. People just aren’t as courteous today. But accidents resulting from this sort of behavior tend to be sideswipes and rear-end collisions, not typically as serious as those resulting from other infractions.”

Derusha “is very committed to her cause,” Miller said. “But I know of no one who will support her. And I know I never once issued a ticket for failing to signal a lane change.”

Ironically, in the last session of the state legislature, lawmakers amended Florida statutes to make it specifically illegal to change lanes without signaling:

The law now reads: “No person may ... move right or left upon a highway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety, and then only after giving an appropriate signal...in the event any other vehicle may be affected by the movement.”

Larry Coggins, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and a patrol spokesman, said he and other troopers have given out many tickets for failing to signal a lane change over the years, most often when it results in crash or a near-crash, or an officer is cut off.

“And we’ve seen the results of people doing that, forcing another driver to take evasive action, and maybe crashing himself,” he said. “But, no, it’s not among the major causes of crashes.”

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Frequently on my way to work, depending on the route I take, I pass a sign advertising traffic school. I’m always a little curious about what goes on in traffic school, though I sincerely hope I never have to go “back to school” to get a refresher on things I should have taken more seriously in driver’s ed.
A few years ago when I lived in California, in Hollywood country, there were always ads in the paper for traffic school teachers. Since we are talking Hollywood, the ads always specified they were looking for comedians. I guess after you’ve paid the traffic school fee and committed yourself to an eight-hour lecture, a comedian might help lighten your mood.
Nowadays, at least here in Florida, drivers can attend an online traffic school. Since I have rarely seen a motorist abide by the posted speed limit and have frequently seen motorists doing other ticketable offenses (and have witnessed motorists getting ushered to the side of the road accompanied by flashing red and blue lights), I’m going to make an assumption that there are many drivers out there that will one day consider traffic school as an option to prevent points being assessed to their driving record. Perhaps even some of my readers?
So I decided to check out the online traffic school, and here are a few pertinent points I learned from the Web site, http://www.florida-traffic-school.com.
The fee to attend Florida Traffic School online is $34.95, which the site states is less than attending an eight-hour in-class traffic school. The time it takes to complete the class is a minimum four hours, but you can take as long as you like, keeping in mind you want to finish well before your assigned court due date.
You can attend traffic school for moving and nonmoving traffic violations that would result in points being assessed to your driving record, except for criminal violations and CDL (commercial) drivers charged with serious traffic violations while in their commercial motor vehicle. Also, you can take the course only once in any 12-month period and no more than five times in your lifetime. Of course, none of my readers would be five-time offenders, right?
The exam consists of 40 questions, and you must score 80 percent or more to pass. For those of you who are math challenged, that is 32 correct answers out of 40 questions. Now here’s a helpful note: You can retake the exam as many times as needed to pass. The questions will be different, but they will cover the same material. You can also review the chapter information during the course. In school, we called that using your notes when taking an exam.
You have to notify the court of your intention to attend traffic school. For exact information and procedures, consult the traffic division in the clerk’s office where you received your citation. In Hillsborough County the number is 276-8200 and in Pasco County it is (727) 847-2411.
Many other traffic school questions are answered on the Web site.

Traffic blog
While surfing the Internet, you can post comments about traffic by going to http://www.tbo.com and clicking on “Community” at the top of the page, then click on “Traffic” on the left hand side of the screen. See you there.

More about rain
Sometimes a couple of basic reminders about driving in the rain are helpful, even to my experienced Florida readers. As we head into summer storms and hurricane season, here are two reminders from Hillsborough County Emergency Operations that I thought particularly worth mentioning.
u When heavy rain causes flood waters to pool on streets, drivers can unknowingly steer into a deep body of water, such as a canal or pond.
u Electricity from streetlights and power poles may be conducted through standing water, causing a deadly shock to anyone coming in contact with it.
Those are thoughts too grim to close with, so to lighten up the mood, here is:
Today’s bumper sticker
I don’t know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

Carole Dickey is a staff writer. who lives in Pasco County.  Share your blogs here or send your rants and raves about traffic and motorists in the Land O’ Lakes/Wesley Chapel/New Tampa areas to . 

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Early Warning…

A creature named “Bus Rapid Transit, A/K/A ‘BRT,’ is rearing its ugly/promising/dreamlike head in the Tampa Bay area. It all came to a crescendo last week, with a big eight-county, two-day “Tampa Bay Region BRT Collaborative Engagement - 2006 ‘Share the Road,’ A Bus Rapid Transit Workshop” in Largo.

Commit that title to memory. There will be a quiz.

Bus Rapid Transit, it seems, is a transportation planners’ term meaning: really nice buses, limited stops, off-bus fare collection, expedited passage along main corridors, generally with electronic schemes to ensure the bus gets a green light when it reaches intersections.

Bottom line: Riding a bus must be cheaper AND faster than driving, or it isn’t BRT.

But what really makes the idea successful - in places such as Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Miami - are such niceties as designated BRT lanes (maybe shared with High Occupancy Vehicle carpool lanes); stations that allow passengers, including wheelchair users, to move directly onto the bus; double, articulated high-capacity buses, and other nice-to-have enhancements.

But it can work with existing traffic.

Much of this information is courtesy of Jim Byers, a transit planner for Pinellas Suncoast Rapid Transit, which is spending a $250,000 on preliminary design and engineering plans for an initial BRT route across St. Petersburg.

Byers said Hillsborough County is on the bus rapid transit bandwagon, and not far behind, but representatives from a number of agencies from Sarasota, Manatee, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus and Polk counties are highly interested as well: 140 people with 54 organizations, including many decision-makers.

The good news is that so many people care about doing something about the area’s obvious transportation crises; the question is whether mass transit here will ever be attractive enough to lure large numbers of people from their cars.

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