Posts about AAA

Maryland officials explained that an outer Beltway isn't a priority and conflicts with smart growth and environmental principles. But they were the only ones saying that in the original article. They got scant attention. The broadcast audio paraphrased a few objections, but in nearly every case followed up with a sentence beginning with "But," implying that the arguments against the Outer Beltway deserve only rebuttal, not serious consideration.

The idea that arguments against the Outer Beltway are inconsequential is dangerously wrong. An Outer Beltway would primarily serve the large landowners in rural Virginia who want to fill their property with more cookie-cutter subdivisions. It actually won't help current commuters. VDOT's own 2004 study showed that 92% of drivers in the I-270 and Dulles corridors travel to and from the core, or along the current Beltway. An outer crossing wouldn't serve them.

Even for those who could use an Outer Beltway, a free or subsidized road would just induce its own demand, spurring new development in current farmland and filling up the road with new drivers stuck in new congestion. A toll road would have to charge a lot of money to pay back its costs. AAA would subsequently whine, as they are doing with the ICC, that it's too expensive and not enough people are using it.

The region needs better transit solutions between Bethesda and Tysons and the Metro lines in each corridor, not the failed Outer Beltway ideas of 50 years ago. The region has turned down these highways, over and over, because they simply won't solve our transportation troubles.

AAA is not a neutral source

It's not surprising that Bob Chase and AAA are still pushing an Outer Beltway as a transportation panacea, but it is disappointing when reporters fall for their pitch. Sadly, too many transportation reporters view AAA as some kind of neutral party.

AAA's helpful press releases on gas price trends and holiday weekend traffic let reporters fill column space without doing a lot of work. There's nothing wrong with those stories, but many reporters then fail to question when the organization's press releases attack officials on policy grounds, like AAA's broadsides against Mayor Gray's traffic safety camera initiative, or Governor Martin O'Malley saying that an Outer Beltway is not the priority for Maryland.

Bob Chase has a high-powered, expensive PR firm, Dewey Square, pitching far and wide his aggressive push for more and more highway lanes at the region's edge. Nonprofit advocates voicing alternative views, like the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Sierra Club, have to make do with much thinner resources. Good reporters put pitches from PR firms in their appropriate context and realize that they represent the interests of well-funded groups, not necessarily truth.

Unfortunately, we've seen several cases of journalists falling short on balanced coverage of late. WAMU stepped over the line recently with a brief morning story that only quoted AAA, and no pedestrian safety advocates, on traffic cameras. Reporter Armando Trull adapted an AP story which unquestioningly repeated the slant from The Washington Times.

AP reporters don't sign their articles, so we don't know who broadcast this biased story out on the wires without thinking. Besides WAMU, Fox5's Will Thomas also rewrote the traffic camera story, and the Washington Business Journal aggregated it, both without questioning its one-sided premise.

There's nothing wrong with opinion journalism—our articles are all opinions—but people know it. The Washington Times is mostly opinion, too, and so is anything from AAA, but many reporters and others mistake both. Running editorials on the Outer Beltway is one thing, but news reporters can and should stop regurgitating AAA's line on policy questions, and should look more critically at other outlets' stories when they don't.

WAMU worked to fix its mistake

After getting an earful from myself and a number of environmental and smart growth advocates on Friday, WAMU agreed with the criticism. Metro Connection Editor Tara Boyle told me on the record, "In looking at story a second time, we think the critique that we needed a bit more balance is real, and there is merit to these critiques."

The reporter, Martin Di Caro, spoke to Stewart Schwartz of CSG and myself, and added a section to both the audio and text versions with quotes from both of us. Di Caro has written many other, good-quality transportation stories in his 2 months at WAMU thus far, and I look forward to many more from him.

During our discussion, Di Caro mentioned that he's currently working at WAMU thanks to a grant. Their former transportation reporter, David Schultz, was also only at WAMU for a short time. It's terrific that WAMU is getting money to cover transportation issues, but it would be far better if they could rustle up more consistent funding to keep a single reporter more permanently. Transportation is not a trivial subject, and it's very helpful to have reporters able to develop some expertise in the beat. When a reporter is new, they're more likely to fall victim to AAA-itis or the related affliction, PR-rep-itis.

Meanwhile, WAMU deserves praise for looking at the story, recognizing that it was one-sided, and taking steps to do better with coverage now and in the future.

The stories, like many press accounts about traffic cameras, are fairly one-sided, assuming that all readers drives, not walk or bike, and all of the drivers care more about having to pay a ticket than about being safe on the roads. Fox reporter Brian Ackland starts out with the leading question, "Is it about safety or is it really about making money?" Then, he talks only about the money and not at all about the safety.

Like too many reporters, he also quotes AAA and nobody else. There's one paraphrase of something Mayor Gray said in "a recent interview" on the opposing side. There are actually many groups in DC, like the Pedestrian Advisory Council, which have advocated and testified around cameras, and could provide a meaningful perspective from those who like the safety effect of cameras.

Still, the original petition has a point. A $40 fine in Maryland seems to get people to drive slower. Does DC need higher fines?

It would make sense to lower fines, if DC adds more cameras to catch more unsafe behavior. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) issued an RFP in June to buy more cameras, including ones that can detect drivers blocking crosswalks, not stopping before turning right on red, and not stopping when another vehicle stops to let a pedestrian cross. Some of the cameras will be mobile, so MPD can periodically move them to hot spots where residents have complained about dangerous driving.

Unfortunately, the RFP is still stuck in procurement, and it's been well over a year since MPD publicly talked about getting these cameras. Whichever agency or official currently needs to sign off, for whatever step it's at, should move it forward swiftly, and start the process to get even more cameras. Then, it may make sense to lower the fines.

How does the level of fines relate to the number of cameras? To achieve the goal of deterring unsafe driving, we can either hit drivers with huge charges when they're caught, or just catch them more often.

Criminologist Mark Kleiman has done substantial research on the tradeoff between the severity of punishment and the certainty of getting caught. A long prison term might deter someone from a crime more than a short prison term, but a far better deterrent is simply arresting people more quickly and more frequently when they commit a crime.

Kleiman studied fairly complex policing strategies to achieve this in criminal law, such as focusing intense police attention on a certain area for a period of time. For traffic, it's simple. With cameras, it's possible to enforce more of the laws against unsafe driving behavior, more of the time.

At a recent policy forum, I met Kleiman and asked him what he thought of cameras. He said the ideal enforcement system would be one where running a red light, or speeding, triggered a fine every time, but the fine was fairly low.

We'd need to make sure it's high enough that wealthier people don't just decide to constantly run red lights (which is dangerous) and then pay the extra cost, but it doesn't need to be very high. Experimentation could determine the lowest level of fine that actually deters the dangerous behavior.

And what of the argument that this is all about money? Lower fines but more cameras would prove it's not really about money. So would a policy of keeping the camera revenue out of general spending. Camera revenue used to go into a special fund to pay for traffic safety programs. Mayor Gray ended almost all such funds when he took office, but keeping the fund would ensure that nobody is trying to soak speeders just to pay for other priorities.

Regardless, DC needs to break the infuriating logjam in procurement. These cameras pay for themselves through tickets. In a for-profit company, a division that brought in revenue that covered costs would get to keep growing. Government budgeting doesn't work that way, and MPD can't simply take the money from camera tickets and buy more cameras. They need the Mayor and Council to allocate budget to buy and maintain the cameras, even when the effect is to return all the money to the budget for the next year.

Mayor Gray and the DC Council: Please put more cameras on the streets. Then, let's seriously look at whether we can still deter unsafe driving with lower fines.

The above is not, you might guess, what the Post article said. But it said the exact same thing, substituting the act of speeding for shoplifting. Ashley Halsey III printed this article on Wednesday, writing:

When zipping through the near-vacant streets of the District on Thanksgiving, most drivers give thanks for the lack of traffic. They are less likely to be thankful later when they get a speeding ticket in the mail.

AAA cautions its members seeking information on traveling to Washington that the District is a "Strict Enforcement Area" for speeding. "That's a modern-day parlance for speed trap," said AAA's John B. Townsend II. "By zipping through town this weekend, you're likely to speed and to get a ticket."

Nowhere does the article note a simple, but extremely important fact: if you don't break the law, you won't get any tickets. MPD argues that they only place the cameras in areas where there's greater danger to drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists. AAA doesn't think that's true.

We need more traffic cameras, not fewer, and should place them in the real danger spots. DC is getting 9 new permanent cameras, but it's been over a year that MPD has been trying to bring in a more comprehensive system. There would be mobile cameras that they can deploy temporarily at high-danger spots, and cameras to catch box-blocking or failing to yield to pedestrians.

A year ago, MPD's Lisa Sutter told the Pedestrian Advisory Council the camera program was waiting to go through the procurement process. In February, she told John Hendel the same thing. What's the holdup?

Cameras meaningfully reduce fatal crashes, catch unsafe behavior, and even bring in less money than anticipated because people's behavior is changing.

I drove Connecticut Avenue to and from Montgomery County for Thanksgiving, and there's not much speeding, especially in Chevy Chase and Kensington where everyone knows there are cameras.

The only problem with Montgomery's cameras is that people know they only write tickets for driving more than 12 mph over the speed limit. Therefore, many people confidently set the cruise control for 40 in the 30 mph zone. What speed does Maryland want you to drive—30 or 40?

AAA's Lon Anderson told Halsey,

One would think that traffic safety in the city must be going south with this infusion of new camera sites or that the city's coffers desperately need replenishing. So if traffic safety isn't the issue, we must conclude that the city is more concerned that the $43 million netted last fiscal year in automated speeding enforcement was insufficient. If they are for safety, we applaud the city. But if, perchance, they are for revenue, then shame on them.

I can agree with AAA's Lon Anderson on one thing: cameras shouldn't be a revenue grab. In fact, criminal justice science suggests that cameras should carry much lower fines. When we increase the chance of catching lawbreakers, we don't need such high penalties. Just as a 5¢ fee for a plastic bag was enough to significantly change behavior, might a $20 or even $10 ticket stop speeding or red light running if drivers knew they're sure to get caught?

This would be especially fair for box blocking cameras. When we discuss them, many drivers worry that they'll inadvertently get caught blocking the box if they enter an intersection expecting room on the other side, but suddenly find traffic stopping. Many drivers abuse this by moving into intersections even when there's stopped traffic on the far side, but it's true that from time to time the unexpected happens and even a well-behaving driver can get stuck.

Instead of levying a high fine and expecting drivers to contest tickets they think are unfair, just set the fine low, like $10. If you get stuck blocking the box, you did screw up a bit, so pay the fee that's less than the cost of most parking garages anyway. It will only really start hitting people's pocketbooks when they drive in a way that frequently creates box-blocking. Those drivers need to reexamine their actions.

How about it, AAA? Would you join me in lobbying for a Council bill to speed up implementation of a number of box blocking cameras, provided that the fines are set low?

AAA Mid-Atlantic's John Townsend explained that the program aims to turn around the negative opinion that many in our region have of motorists. "The goal," he said, "is to show that motorists are responsible people who behave courteously and try to avoid endangering others."

These good intentions have created a storm among Washington-area motoring enthusiasts, as online message boards for "motorheads," as some call themselves, lit up. Writing on one local forum, "IWillNotBeMufflered" wrote, "Everyone knows there is a war on drivers out there. My baby is in danger of being scratched every time I take her down the street." User "Fast&Furious" added: "That pedestrian is a real threat to me. I do what I've gotta do to make sure my vehicle is protected."

Even other automobile advocacy groups are calling AAA Mid-Atlantic's tactics into question. Veronica Moss of the Automobile Users Trade Association said that AAA may have ceded too much ground in its advocacy efforts. "I see what they're trying to do," she said, "but the reality is that drivers are a small minority under siege on our streets. We are little lambs, and those nonmotorized road users are real wolves out to get us. We shouldn't just offer ourselves up to them like that. They could do real damage to us."

This blog disagrees with Ms. Moss's absolutist perspective. Despite its flaws, AAA's Resolution to Drive Responsibly embodies values we should all have, whether walking, biking or driving.

However, the motorists have a point. More must be done to make travel by automobile safe and convenient, including construction of dedicated lanes for cars, encouragement initiatives like "drive to work day," and reform of mobility education for high schoolers to include information about the rights and responsibilities of motorists. Pioneering cities such as Los Angeles and Houston have led the way in these initiatives. Washington should follow their lead.

Our region can do more. We encourage the "bicycular motoring" movement, which teaches motorists to operate their vehicles in a manner consistent with a world dominated by active transportation when there is no dedicated motoring infrastructure available. Even the radical "freeway" concept, which has been described as being like a Capital Crescent Trail for automobile use only, should be considered in our region's transportation plans.

Even as motorists make strides in making our region safer for high-speed automobile traffic, they must remember that they are still operating in an environment designed for nonmotorized users and must obey the rules. Being courteous is the least they could do to help their cause.

If you want the discounts and the extra services, there's Better World Auto Club, a direct alternative to AAA. If you join using this link, WABA will get a small donation from them, so you're doing good twice over.

Some articles from several years ago online warn against using the insurers' plans because some companies have used the information to raise people's rates after they use the service. However, my insurer and several other leading ones said they stopped doing that years ago. I called and they confirmed that this does not happen. The service is limited to 4 uses per year, just like AAA.

Cycle advocates and AAA also found common ground following the death of Natasha Pettigrew in Maryland. An SUV driver hit Pettigrew on her bicycle and continued driving for four miles. Townsend told WTOP that Maryland laws are inadequate for punishing drivers who kill negligently cyclists.

"They're killing people on the highways and they're only getting a slap on the wrist and being charged a fine," he said. "We need to close that loophole now." And, writes WTOP, "Townsend emphasized that in this situation the person outside the car is the victim, 'even if he contributed to the crash.'"

However, while AAA Mid-Atlantic may not "hate cyclists," want drivers to share the road amicably, and believe in laws that allow punishing negligent drivers, they want to take away the federal dollars that cover most transit, bike and pedestrian programs.

Don Gagnon, President and CEO of AAA Mid-Atlantic, published an editorial in the July/August AAA World magazine recommending that Congress reallocate the entire transportation trust fund to road programs in the upcoming reauthorization.

Rails to Trails Conservancy sounded the alarm and have asked AAA members nationwide to ask national AAA to disavow this.

AAA Mid-Atlantic is again not representing the will of their members in the region.

According to Rails-to-Trails, Americans in a survey wanted to spend 22% of transportation money on pedestrian and bicycle programs. 10% of trips are walking or biking trips. But only 1.1% of this federal money goes to ped and bike programs, and Gagnon wants to cut it to zero.

While they're free to say what they want, Gagnon and others are drawing their salaries from members across the region who just want roadside assistance. Yet their dues are going not only to pay lobbyists who fight against pedestrian and bicycle projects in Washington but to a magazine that spreads these messages to unsuspecting members.

Gagnon is careful to emphasize that AAA Mid-Atlantic isn't specifically advocating for funding cuts, but just to dedicate all of the existing trust fund money to highways. This is a distinction without a difference. Kim Snedaker repeated the party line in an email:

Do we think bike trails, hiking trails, sidewalks, museums and transit ought to be funded? Of course! Don did not in any way suggest we should stop funding any of the list of items, but simply change the federal account from which they are paid to improve road conditions and motorist safety.

I appreciate Snedaker's work to be nicer to cyclists, but this statement seems very disingenuous. Gagnon's editorial is not suggesting a new, alternative revenue source for the existing ped, bike and transit programs. It's not suggesting ways to expand the pie for everyone. Instead, they "simply" want to "change the federal account" to take all the ped, bike and transit funding and give it to highways.

While we're at it, let's "simply" also change the federal accounts so all federal money that goes to California goes to DC, Maryland and Virginia instead. But no, we're not suggesting actually cutting any aid to California. It's a little insulting to our intelligence, actually.

National AAA has denied lobbying against transit in the past. But either that's splitting hairs on what "against transit" means, or else they're just hiding behind the fact that their affiliate around Washington, DC does the lobbying for them.

Rails to Trails can only ask its members nationwide to push national AAA on this issue. But we live in the AAA Mid-Atlantic region. If you're still a AAA member, switch to the Better World Club. And tell AAA you might consider being a member again only if they focus on their real mission, providing services to drivers, and stop trying to lobby against transit, pedestrian and bicycle programs.

Articles that talk about drivers' pain often include colorful descriptions by the reporters themselves, like Halsey's lede: "Drivers call it the "free at last" traffic light. After doing the stop-and-go head bobble all the way from downtown, when they reach the light at Bladensburg Road they feel they've earned their freedom from the purgatory of New York Avenue."

Meanwhile, look at Bob McCartney's intro to a terrific column about the value of Smart Growth at Tysons and elsewhere: "If you're upset about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and want to do something to fight America's petroleum addiction, support a local cause that would make a difference: transforming Tysons Corner from a snarl of suburban sprawl into a grid of transit-friendly, urban high-rises. If done right—a big if—it would curb reliance on automobiles while allowing continued growth of population and jobs."

On the one hand, we have stirring words about freedom. On the other, an intellectual argument about the importance of reducing our reliance on oil. Does the urbanist crowd need some really vivid prose to stir the soul instead of making rational arguments about the need for better policy?

There are people who write that kind of stuff, like James Howard Kunstler. I personally find his palpable hatred of suburbs somewhat cloying, and have a hard time reading most of his books. But I also find Anderson's language nauseating as well. Somehow, though, Anderson ends up in every Post article about traffic, and Kunstler doesn't. Kunstler gets labeled as extreme and Anderson doesn't.

My problem isn't with AAA's positions or their fairly effective press operation. My problem is that they get quoted all the time in traffic stories, but no nutjobs on the other side saying something equally insane about how all drivers are evil or something. The only case that comes to mind is Jim Graham calling Maryland drivers the "devil incarnate," but that was reported only because it came from an elected official's mouth, and Graham came under criticism for it.

What do we need? Should we create some crazy alter ego "Ann Londerson" who says all the things about drivers that some people say about cyclists? Who talks about drivers who habitually break some laws the way Glenn Beck talks about undocumented immigrants? Would that get quoted? Would that improve the quality of the discourse? Somehow I doubt it on both counts.

So why can't we just declare Lon Anderson an extremist and start ignoring him? Maybe reporters lack an alternative quote source. Maybe The Hill is Home writer Nichole Remmert, who likes to drive but isn't a complete lunatic, should set up an organization called American Association of Reasonable, Not Hateful, And Generally Lawful Drivers (AARNHGLD) that can get quoted in the press instead, sensibly arguing that this particular speed camera isn't so well placed but not trying to stir up old North-South Civil War tensions because the Secret Service wants people to walk to the Inauguration.