Why drivers stopped signaling

Until that car ran into me, Tuesday’s morn ing ride was normal.

Pedaling back into town, six of our seven riders headed to Common Grounds Coffee in South Davis. We were going westbound in the bike lane on Lillard Drive when a young man in a small car made two mistakes.

He backed up suddenly without making sure the bike lane adjacent to his house was clear. It wasn’t. And he was wearing headphones, which is illegal and dangerous. When several of us noticed his car moving in his driveway, we shouted, “Stop!” He couldn’t hear us. He didn’t jam his brakes until he felt the back of his vehicle striking my right arm.

Because the driver was going no more than 5 mph, I didn’t fall over when I got hit.

I didn’t realize until later, because I had on riding gloves and sleeves, that the minor collision tore the skin off my hand and forearm in several places. My wrist and arm were sore for a few days.

The young man hopped out of his car to make sure I was OK, and he said he was sorry. I accepted his apology and left quickly for coffee. None of us thought to scold him for driving with headphones on. We were just glad the collision didn’t result in any serious injuries.

After I posted a blurb about this crash on the nextdoor app — asking parents of young drivers to remind them to not drive with headphones — the discussion centered on my observation that police officers can get in trouble if they ticket drivers for minor violations, perhaps including wearing head-

Fairness in sports

The fairness of allowing sports participation by trans individuals is in question. But here is a question I do not feel has been answered.

Testosterone increases neurotransmitters, which encourage tissue growth. It also interacts with nuclear receptors in DNA, which causes protein synthesis. Testosterone increases levels of growth hormone. Estrogen hastens the fusion of growth plates of long bones and leads to secession of growth and does not increase muscle mass.

phones. Although that infraction did not come up when I last did a police ride-along in Davis, an officer told me more than a decade ago there were certain violations of the vehicle code that he was instructed not to enforce.

I had specifically asked why he didn’t pull over a driver who had changed lanes in front of us without engaging his turn signal? The answer was that law enforcement agencies could be sued if they were found to have engaged in what courts deemed “pretextual stops” that disproportionately affected Black and Latino drivers.

This patrol officer, who was not white, said he could be fired if he pulled over too many racial minorities for “minor offenses,” presumably including driving while wearing headphones.

The legal theory is that all races and ethnicities drive the same and obey or disobey the vehicle code in equal proportions. So if, say, Latino drivers are 39% of all drivers in California, and they are 46% of those pulled over for failing to have a registration tag, the extra 7% must be racism on the part of the police.

It is often the case, when a driver is found to have, for example, illegal drugs or weapons, the initial stop was for a lesser offense. So ambitious attorneys — more than 20 years ago — began defending their clients and suing cops on the theory that the stop was “pretextual,” a fishing expedition to put non-white drivers in jail.

In 2015, the legislature passed AB 953, the “Racial and Identity Profiling Act.” RIPA requires the police log the race, gender and sexual orientation of anyone stopped. It also created the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, which is tasked with reporting disparities in who is getting pulled over and what is the outcome of the stop.

Their 2019 report showed big differences among ethnic groups in our state. Asians, for example, make up 15% of Californians, yet only 1% of those who are handcuffed consequent to a stop. Blacks make up 6% of residents, but constitute 35% of drivers put in handcuffs. Non-Latino whites are 35% of residents, but only 14% of those detained. Latinos are 39% of the total population, but 46% of detentions.

Under the theory that unequal law enforcement numbers don’t reflect the behavior of those pulled over, but rather the bias of the cops, these divergent outcomes “prove” the truth of this ideology.

Last December, Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) introduced SB 50. It would prohibit law enforcement officers from enforcing certain “low-level” infractions, mostly related to license plate registration stickers and nonfunctioning equipment, such as working brake lights and turn signals, “unless there is an independent, safetyrelated basis to initiate the stop,” Sen Bradford said.

According to Bradford, “SB 50 builds on recommendations from the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board and the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code to limit enforcement of minor traffic offenses that pose little to no risk to public safety and result in racially biased harms.”

His bill is still several steps from becoming a law. In March, it passed out of the Senate public safety committee, and in May Senate appropriations gave its blessing.

SB 50 will ultimately need to win over a majority of the Senate and the Assembly and then obtain Gov. Newsom’s signature. Not wanting to be called racists for opposing this bill, it seems likely it will get a majority in both houses of the legislature later this year. Gov. Newsom’s approval is less certain. I don’t believe he has commented on SB 50. However, he has shown allegiance to the law enforcement lobby. For example, he vetoed a bill last year that would have made it legal for cyclists to not fully stop at stop signs when the coast is clear.

An old thought experiment asks, “If a tree falls and no one is near, did it make a noise?”

I have a similar question: If we have laws that are prohibited from being enforced, are they still laws? — Rich Rifkin is a Davis resident; his column is published every other week. Reach him at Lxartist@ yahoo.com.

These are science facts about testosterone and estrogen with the outcome of their influences on growth. At puberty, hormones such as testosterone play a role in formation of muscle mass, lean body mass, bone growth while the hormone estrogen can suppress bone growth and does not increase muscle mass. Each causes secondary characteristics unique to the maturing individual.

The question needed to be asked and addressed: Is there an advantage to an individual undergoing or having undergone hormonal changes at puberty and will these changes influence or potentially influence performance? In fairness to all, an answer to this question needs to be addressed.

John Clark Davis

Evidence of house price premiums

Roberta Millstein chastises Davis High School students for misinterpreting