The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020

commuter

BY JUSTIN WM. MOYER

D.C. resident Andrew Logan
calls his neighborhood the city’s
“helicopter highway.” Some eve-
nings, whirlybirds of unknown
origin seem to descend en masse.
“There were a lot of nights
where I’d wake up and these
things were circling or buzzing us
real low,” said Logan, who lives in
the Shaw neighborhood. “I natu-
rally turned to Twitter to see what
they were. There was not a whole
lot there.”
Logan, an audio engineer by
day, was quick to remedy that. At
the start of the year, he launched
the Twitter handle @Helicopter-
sofDC as a clearinghouse for all
things chopper-related. Now
more than 7,700 followers strong,
the account uses publicly avail-
able data to identify the sources of
all that buzzing, often tweeting
out photos of the choppers.
L ogan isn’t out to shame the
many rotors. HelicoptersofDC is
decidedly pro-helo, selling heli-
copter schwag, hosting helicop-
ter-identification contests and
generally getting residents hyped
about hueys.
“It’s created a community ex-
cited to discuss helicopters,” Lo-
gan said. “It’s changed the way we
think about helicopters.... It’s
not, ‘Oh man, there it is again,’ but
‘Oh, I've got to get a photo of
that.’ ”
It’s not always an easy sell.
Helicopters and Washingtonians
generally get along as well as

hawks and bunny rabbits.

Legislators — including Del.

Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)

and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) —

have sought to create a central-

ized system to track helicopter

noise and asked the Government

Accountability Office to study the

problem. A GAO spokesman said

that report is due in January.

Residents have claimed the

abundance of helicopters is a

source of nightmares and com-

pared living beneath rotors to

living in a war zone.

In one high-profile incident

this year, helicopters have also

proved aggressive.

In June, following the killing of

George Floyd in Minneapolis po-

lice custody, low-flying military

helicopters piloted by the D.C.

Army National Guard were part

of a show of force against protest-

ers. The incident is under investi-

gation and the Guard has been

sued by a protester who claims

she was injured.

But D.C. choppers don’t appear

to be going anywhere. Helicopters

are nearly as native to the nation’s

capital as go-go and half-smokes.

“I do think we could compete

as being the most-helicoptered

city,” said Gray Brooks, an ama-

teur helicopter enthusiast. “It's a

pretty tight concentration.”

Brooks, a D.C. resident and em-

ployee of the General Services

Administration, started the web-

site Helicopters of DC in 2019

during the government shut-

down. (Logan said Brooks was

“not at all offended that I stole his

name,” and Brooks said he consid-

ers Logan a collaborator.) Like its

Twitter counterpart, the site iden-

tifies aircraft, explaining which

agencies are behind which birds

and their missions.

Brooks noted D.C. has lots of

agencies with lots of missions,

and there appear to be more heli-

copters than, say, 20 years ago

before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Like other cities, D.C. has po-

lice helicopters and medevacs —

although no news media circling

above, as the region has the most

restricted airspace in the country,

according to the Federal Aviation

Administration.

But D.C. also has the Marine

Corps HMX-1 squadron flying the

president around and the 1st He-

licopter Squadron out of Andrews

Air Force Base providing trans-

port to high-ranking officials

while permanently on call for na-

tional security incidents.

There’s also the occasional

mystery craft that proves enticing

to chopper enthusiasts — as in

October, when a low-flying twin-

engine Bell 412 flew a grid pattern

over D.C. at about 80 mph. It

turned out to be a National Nu-

clear Security Administration he-

licopter mapping background ra-

diation ahead of January’s inau-

guration of President-elect Joe

Biden.

“There's a young-child-excited-

by-things element,” Brooks said.

“Helicopters beat the air into sub-

mission.”

Alan Henney, a longtime

chronicler of police chatter who

often beats traditional media to

crime stories on Twitter, said He-

licoptersofDC “ties it all together.”

The account provides a basic serv-

ice every citizen is interested in:

When someone looks up and sees

something in the sky, they want to

know what it is and why it’s there.

“Nowadays, especially in the

corporate media, they have been

concentrating predominantly on

the big stories, and rightfully so,”

he said. Still: “People worry when

they hear helicopters over their

head.”

Logan has more plans for Heli-

coptersofDC, including a podcast

and a computer program that can

automatically identify an aircraft

from a photo. He also has a lot of

helicopter data, but isn’t sure he

wants to plunge deeply enough

into data science to track trends

on chopper usage in the city.

Tracking trends could be im-

portant, he said, but it might not

be as fun.

“I'm not sure whether the role

of this tool is going to be investi-

gative or cathartic,” he said.

[email protected]

THE DISTRICT

Shaw resident keeps eye on city’s ‘helicopter highway’

KRAMER DITTY

Andrew Logan photographs helicopters from a rooftop in Foggy Bottom. He operates a Twitter

clearinghouse of all things chopper. “It’s created a community excited to discuss helicopters,” he said.

BY LUZ LAZO

Scooter and e-bike riders in the
District could soon have a greater
chance of collecting damages
when they are involved in colli-
sions with vehicles.
The D.C. Council is weighing
legislation to exempt riders of
motorized bikes and scooters
from the contributory negligence
standard that governs tort claims
in the District. The legislation
would make it easier for them to
recoup money for medical bills
and other costs when injured in
crashes.
The bill expands on a 2016 law
that gave that protection to pe-
destrians and riders of nonmo-
torized bikes, ensuring them a
greater chance at collecting medi-
cal costs after a crash.
Before 2016, bicyclists and pe-
destrians were also barred from
recovering damages, even if the
driver was 99 percent at fault.
Lawmakers and advocates say it
is time to give riders of motorized
devices the right to argue fault
with insurance companies and
juries.
The bill passed on first reading
Nov. 17 and is expected to receive
a final vote Dec. 1.
“If you’re injured in a collision
on our streets, your ability to
recover in a lawsuit hinges on
what you were riding, whether
you were walking, where you
were injured and who injured
you. And most important, wheth-
er your own negligence contribut-
ed even 1 percent to the crash,”
Council member Charles Allen
(D-Ward 6) said while discussing
the proposal in committee earlier
this month.
D.C. is among a handful of
jurisdictions in the country that
maintains the doctrine of con-
tributory negligence. Forty-six
states have abandoned that stan-
dard in favor of a comparative
negligence standard, which dic-
tates how responsibility for a col-
lision would be shared between
those involved.
Supporters of the change call
the contributory negligence doc-
trine harsh, noting that when a
scooter or e-bike rider is struck
and injured, he or she is barred
from recovering any damages if
the rider is even 1 percent negli-
gent.
Because of the law passed four
years ago, a bike rider has a
chance at collecting damages
when injured in a collision. But

had the person been on an e-bike

or e-scooter, their chance to re-

cover damages are doomed be-

cause those users would not have

been covered in the law, officials

said.

The 2016 law, lawmakers said,

was a step to offering equity to

vulnerable road users but it didn’t

anticipate the proliferation of

motorized scooters and bikes,

two transportation modes that

have grown in recent years.

Shared e-scooter services arrived

in the nation’s capital in early

2018 and are a popular choice for

residents and visitors to get

around.

D.C. Council member Mary M.

Cheh (D-Ward 3), the lead spon-

sor of the bill, said the Vulnerable

User Collision Recovery Amend-

ment Act catches the law up with

the new forms of transportation.

Under the measure, she said

vulnerable road users “have to be

found by the jury to be beyond 50

percent at fault for their injuries

in order to be barred from recov-

ery. And that makes it so much

more equitable and fair.”

T he measure establishes that

comparative standard will be ap-

plied in cases where the plaintiff

is a pedestrian or a “vulnerable

user” of a public highway or

sidewalk. A vulnerable user is

defined as someone “using an

all-terrain vehicle, bicycle, dirt

bike, electric mobility device, mo-

torcycle, motorized bicycle, mo-

tor-driven cycle, nonmotorized

scooter, personal mobility device,

skateboard, or other similar de-

vice.”

The bill also expands the com-

parative standard to incidents

that occur on sidewalks. It now

applies only on roadways.

Between 2017 and 2019, 114

people were injured and one per-

son died in crashes involving e-

scooters, according to the District

Department of Transportation.

During the same period, 1,635

people were injured and six died

in crashes involving bicycles.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s ad-

ministration has expressed sup-

port for the measure. If approved

by D.C. Council, the bill will go

into effect after approval by

Bowser (D) and a 30-day period of

congressional review.

Some scooter companies, in-

cluding Lime, have voiced sup-

port for the measure. The compa-

ny, which operates 720 scooters

and up to 2,500 e-bikes in the

District, said scooters are quickly

growing in popularity and “the

laws should reflect the reality

that D.C. residents want scooters

as a transportation option.” Near-

ly 1 in 6 D.C. residents used

e-scooters in 2019, according to a

Washington Post poll.

“This bill is an important step

in protecting vulnerable road us-

ers including pedestrians, bicy-

clists, and scooterists, who dis-

proportionately bear the burden

of traffic violence,” said Robert

Gardner, Lime’s director of gov-

ernment relations for the Wash-

ington region.

Although advocates for scooter

riders, cyclists and pedestrians

support the change, the insur-

ance industry has in the past

lobbied against it, saying the

switch would result in unintend-

ed consequences, including high-

er insurance premiums for city

residents.

In comments to the D.C. Coun-

cil about the legislation last year,

the Trial Lawyers Association of

Metropolitan Washington D.C.

urged against expanding the defi-

nition of “vulnerable user” to

include electric scooters, saying

the devices were relatively new

and the city still lacked estab-

lished regulations for the devices.

The council last month approved

new rules governing e-scooter

services.

“Providing scooter riders with

special legal standards is prema-

ture until these regulations have

been established and fully vet-

ted,” the group said.

Wayne E. McOwen, executive

director of the District of Colum-

bia Insurance Federation, did not

express a position on the bill but

said the city should consider ad-

ditional initiatives aimed at con-

trolling motorized scooters.

“Of course it is true that in a

collision with a motor vehicle, a

scooter operator is at a distinct

disadvantage,” McOwen said.

“Nevertheless, the simple fact is

that vulnerability should not ex-

cuse responsibility. We are all

taught to obey the laws, that there

are consequences to not doing so,

consequences from our negli-

gence. And there should be.”

Allen said at a committee meet-

ing on Nov. 12 that the bill will

ensure road users a more equita-

ble standard, noting that without

the shelter from the contributory

negligence statute, people often

can’t even get an attorney to take

their cases.

It will also, he said, “encourage

all road users to conduct them-

selves safely and with due regard

for others.”

[email protected]

THE DISTRICT

Council may smooth paths to collecting crash damages

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

A scooter user crosses 17th Street NW in Washington. Between 2017 and 20 19, 114 people were injured and one person died in crashes

involving e-scooters, according to the District Department of Transportation. A bill aims to expand the chances of r ecouping medical costs.

“In a collision with a motor vehicle, a scooter

operator is at a distinct disadvantage.

Nevertheless, the simple fact is that vulnerability

should not excuse responsibility. We are all taught

to obey the laws, that there are consequences to not

doing so.... And there should be.”

Wayne E. McOwen, executive director, D.C. Insurance Federation

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