Incident Report Frequently Asked Questions

  1. If I submit a PB&PC incident report, should I also submit a report to local law enforcement?
  2. How do I report road hazards?
  3. Do I have to be a member of the PB&PC or the SVBC to submit a report?
  4. What geographic areas do the incident reports cover?
  5. Do I have to provide all the information requested on the form?
  6. How can I format the incident description for legibility?
  7. What does the PB&PC do with the incident reports?
  8. Are the reports made public?
  9. What do I do if there is an error emailing the form to the PB&PC?
  1. If I submit a PB&PC/SVBC incident report, should I also submit a report to the local law enforcement?

    Yes, if you think a report to local law enforcement is appropriate, please submit a report to law enforcement as well. Our incident reports are not a substitute for an official police report. In particular, if you are reporting the driver of a motor vehicle as the perpetrator, and you got the license plate, a report to the local law enforcement agency will help us document patterns of reckless behavior.

    And some more advice from Gary Richards (Mr. Roadshow) at the San Jose Mercury News ...

    If you have access to a phone after an encounter with a motor vehicle, we also recommend that you call 911 and give a description of the vehicle with license plate and a description of the dangerous behavior.If officers are in the area, they can attempt to stop the offending driver. If not, the very fact that you reported the errant driving is a matter of record in the event an accident occurs involving that vehicle and documentation of its driving history can be established.

    Another optioin is to call the California Highway Patrol at 1-800-TELL-CHP to report the incident. A letter will be sent to the registered owner of the car, advising him or her that it was observed being operated in a reckless manner. If the CHP receives repeated calls involving the same vehicle committing violations at the same time in the same location, officers may set up and wait at or near the location where the problem is occurring.

  2. How do I report road hazards?

    The SVBC road hazards page at http://svbcbikes.org/hazards.cgi lists helpful information and contacts by city.

  3. Do I have to be a member of the PB&PC or the SVBC to submit a report?

    No! We are interested in reports from anyone and everyone in the area.

  4. What geographic area do the incident reports cover?

    The incident reports should include incidents in the geographic areas covered by the PB&PC and the SVBC. This is nominally San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. If you're not sure, go ahead and submit the report, we'll sort it out.

  5. Do I have to provide all the information requested on the form?

    No, but please enter as much as you can. The more information you provide about the incident, the more useful it will be in compiling incident statistics.

  6. How can I format the incident description for legibility?

    You can use standard HTML formatting in the incident description. E.g. insert a <p> to start a new paragraph or a <br> to start a new line.

  7. What does the PB&PC/SVBC do with the incident reports?

    The PB&PC archives all reports received. We check the reports for:

    • Hazards which we can lobby to have corrected.
    • Repeat offenders who can be brought to the attention of appropriate authorities. Cyclists often encounter the same reckless drivers, and the incident reports allow us to correlate experiences of different riders.
    • Incident trends which help us plan for better bicycle/pedestrian accommodation in public facilities.
    • Incident trends which help us provide better education for cyclists and pedestrians.

  8. Are the reports made public?

    The reports are archived by members of the PB&PC/SVBC, but are not posted to the website. The reports may be used as a part of a larger report to local government or as a part of educational efforts. There is no guarantee of privacy, so do not post personal information which you want to keep strictly confidential (but the reports are much more authoritative if you include contact information).

  9. What do I do if there is an error emailing the form to the PB&PC?

    When you submit your incident report form, it is automatically emailed to the PB&PC. This should be quite robust, but, computers and networks being what they are, it is possible that there will be an error while emailing the report. If you see an error message after submitting your incident report, please mail the page with the error to incident@penbiped.net. If you can't do that, please at least drop us a note to let us know there is a problem with the incident report page.

    The most likely error would be something related to the "SMTP Server". This happens if the computer that sends the email is unavailable. We have no control over this server, but, if you get this error, try again in a few minutes as it is not likely to be offline for very long. You can use the "back" button on your browser to recover your entries into the incident report form.

incident@penbiped.net

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