Three-foot passing law passes, along with bike lane exemption to CEQA; Jensie wins Colorado KoM

The state Assembly voted today to pass SB1461, the latest version of the state’s three-foot passing law.

According to the California Bicycle Coalition, the bill passed overwhelmingly, 50 – 16 — despite opposition from Republican legislators such as Diana Harkey of Dana Point, who insisted bicycling is getting out of control, and the responsibility for safety should be on cyclists.

As if it’s our responsibility to get the hell out of the way of dangerous drivers.

I hope Dana Point cyclists remember that when she comes up for reelection.

Then there was 59th District Assembley Member Tim Donnelly — yes, the guy who tried to take a loaded gun onto a plane — who asked if we couldn’t just trust the judgment of the California people and stop passing law after law.

Evidently, no one told him just who exactly elected the state legislature. And just what exactly they were elected to do.

Besides walk around with loaded pistols in their briefcases, that is.

The next step for the bill is a brief trip back to the Senate to reconcile a few technical amendments, then on to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature.

Of course, this is the same Jerry Brown who vetoed a similar bill last year, joining Texas Governor Rick Perry as the only governors to veto safe passing distance legislation. And making Jerry Browned a synonym for getting dangerously buzzed by a too close driver.

No, seriously Jerry. You earned that one.

Word is that he intends to sign it this time, as virtually no one, other than a few sadly misguided legislators, opposed it this time.

On a related note, legislation to exempt painted bike lanes from CEQA review passed the state legislature today, as well.

This one could ultimately prove the more important of the two, as it removes a roadblock that has been used to block bike lane projects in San Francisco. And that has caused LADOT to proceed with extreme caution — and expensive environmental reviews — for fear the same thing could happen here.

Thanks to the California Bicycle Coalition, aka Calbike for shepherding the three-foot bill through the legislature.

………

In a thrilling finish, Christian Vande Velde comes from behind to clinch the USA Pro Cycling Challenge by finishing second in the final stage time trial won by cycling scion Taylor Phinney. George Hincapie wraps up his long and storied career at the end of the Denver time trial. And in an unanticipated victory guaranteed to warm the heart of any aging long time bike race fans, the ageless Jens Voigt wins the King of the Mountain title.

The Guardian asks if professional cycling really wants to clean up its act. Surprisingly, Alberto Contador has good things to say about former arch-rival Lance Armstrong, even as he struggles to make a comeback in the Vuelta. A mathematician dissects the wording of the charges against Armstrong, and finds them fully consistent with being false. The French anti-doping agency says Lance was regularly tipped off about pending drug tests; thanks to CLR Effect for the link. Former framebuilder Dave Moulton says Landis and LeMond got screwed as part of the doping scandal.

………

Friends and family speculate Mt. Washington bike victim Jean Carlos Galaviz may have been a hit-and-run victim, despite drinking two beers before riding and leaving with a third; note to Highland Park Patch, getting doored or riding without a helmet is not the hallmark of a risk taker. If you missed it Saturday, you can still listen to Where to Bike Los Angeles authors Sarah Amelar and Jon Riddle on Bike Talk. Examined Spoke examines the city council’s backward bike thinking in the biking black hole of Beverly Hills. The LACBC rides to the rescue when a film crew blocks a Hollywood bike lane. A 70-year old cyclist suffers a broken leg when he’s hit by a bus in a Baldwin Park crosswalk. Evidently, Amanda Bynes really is the new Lindsey Lohan, as the City Attorney’s office re-examines her second hit-and-run in four months, along with a previous DUI. Glendale officials hope a revised bike plan results in a five-fold increase in ridership, while a Glendale Riverwalk project faces a one month delay. A Long Beach teenager chases down her stolen bike with the help of some strangers.

A former Santa Ana College student makes bike theft a family affair at her alma mater. Authorities seek a man who attempted to sexually assault a Murrieta cyclist. Paso Robles commits to becoming a bike friendly community. Seventeen-year old Concord driver pleads not guilty in deaths of a bike riding father and daughter; he faces less than four years in juvenile hall. Guilty plea from the driver who ran down a cyclist because he was wearing plaid — the cyclist, not the driver.

People for Bikes offers six ways to ride more; the most effective way is just get fired for riding when you should be working and you’ll have all the time in the world. A look at Evan Schneider, editor the bicycling literary review Boneshaker in my hometown. A road raging Michigan man is arrested for brutally assaulting a cyclist, but only charged with misdemeanor assault on just $5,000 bail; nice to know how lightly authorities take a violent attack on a bike rider. Gothamist effectively dismantles an anti-bike review of bike messenger movie Premium Rush. New York cyclists and pedestrians complain about a rough bikeway surface installed to slow down speeding riders. Suri Cruise is rapidly becoming one of us. A DC-area cyclist says it’s time to hold other cyclists accountable — besides him, that is. A Bethesda MD hit-and-run victim is unsure if she’ll ever ride again.

A Nova Scotia cyclist is threatened with a knife after getting hit by a road-raging driver. A UK cyclist is badly injured after he’s pushed off his bike by passing motorists. A one-handed Paralympic cyclist hopes to add to her seven gold medals. Urban cycling is getting more popular in Prague, though not without problems.

Finally, in a remarkably wrong-headed move, manufacturers of a new pill want to empower drunk drivers to kill more people by masking breathalyzer results.

5 comments

  1. karL says:

    I am just one person but would not characterise my opposition to avoiding the real benefit of paint -speech- as the governor is now empowered to do, as weak.

    I posted strong opposition, flawlessly reasoned, on the cities appeal to not have to be seen supporting etc. the paint. To not have to trot out the facts about cars, to not have to make good children hate those among them who will succumb to the temptation to not put away the toys of childhood but rather literally climb into there evil incarnations of them but for performance, imagination, and those slain’s ability to come out of the toy chest on other days and be played with yet again. I resist and implore Brown to brush off this insult to due process and open government by either rejecting it or if merely not signing it will prevent it’s imposition, it’s silence, then be so silent himself.

    The while line is a ghost line. It could be in red instead. Such in fact is a more then possible outcome of EIS’s- forced speech, the miles already decided, let’s get on with just why we think there worth the additional petroleum to dilineate visibly. Related? You mean legislative and in 2012? Biking pegged? Tagged? Otherwise not though.

    EIS would establish a metric. SUch a metric would be able to answer what an additional inch would provide for in reduced global warming from increased incineration from the body bags not avoided or at least delayed from the crematorium. Once calculated the decision to ignore that also on his desk is a law that requires cars stay away from bikes even that tow the line, meaning the line can go well beyond the gutter now, and still not be license to clip those bikes who don’t ride in the gutter, even if they merley approach it to the drivers perspective needlessly, becomes a crime against humanity if too much surplus ‘comfort’ space is given for cars.

    Let’s remember people that car lanes are the result of dirt roads that requires standardised wheel seperation and to continue to build roads with full width lanes instead of half width is consumately a crime against humanity. It IS that SIMPLE.

    Full width vehicles are no longer justifiable for use on at best more then one lane in only specific instances that the burden for must be explicitly met in a EIS.

    Ample half width or less vehicles are available including ‘optibike’ like miracles that cost less to own then the gas alone of a car- meaning you can keep the dam fat monster for free- you dont’ have to sell it to raise funds for a vehicle that fits in the new/restriped roads.

    EIS for the proposed bike lanes would inevitably raise the question of how many of the other lanes on the road, if any, should remain full width.

    A bike lane is a less then dirt road standardised horse drawn carriage accomdiatiing width almost always already.

    The gander deserves no accomidation beyond that either. WE are not made of money or having square miles of undeveloped land unless perhaps we are Mark’s neighbors, not nearer the beach, or wanting to maintain inventories of the most venal contraptions so when mass lunacy, full moons, superbowls etc. rob our population of competence we can infect them with terminal debt and unfit for the purpose bought bliting Nissan’s etc. of any gee whiz factor.

    I say we can all afford six figures for our vehicle if we restripe the roads and EIS would show me UNDERSTATING THIS FACT!

    To oppose it is to align with idiots without books to help them not be so much the problem.

    Environmental groups need EIS to be strongly heard. There nonprofit industrial complex is not them- THEY ARE. None of them know- only spandex owning hummers wanting nobody to know what those new white lines are for so they can enjoy them alone instead recreationally on the weekend and ont have ot see bikes when they drive m-f during hours that negate and how any work they might do in between them’s value.

    In this millenium there might not be a bigger mistake to be made Mr. Brown then to NOT veto the bill. It is the one you’ll guarantee you’ll burn in hell if that’s not already decided long ago for. It’s worht any delay to flush out those against bikes alone. WSe don’t have room on our roads for electric cars- the tax credits etc. are what having a majority of our population not voting only allows. If this law passes I will no longer have discretion to remain a citizen, and will instead expidite my voluntary filing of the paperwork to surrender this status before too many people are killed from the inambition of these miles of gutterdom being ‘staked off for us’ to suffer in while SUV’s remain able to travel on every road even single lane one way one’s we are not allowed on not just crazy if we dare try USING not because cars are there, but because fatter then necessary to transport not just a ‘driver’ but at least one additonal passenger rule.

    Be afraid of that speech- very afraid. But veto it anyway. Or fear only fear itself. You must be a republican governing California just like Arnold or what? Catch me up? Over this I learn your name etc? It’s the reason we have given you the veto power- because we can be so silly at times. Anyone who claims it’s moot upon investigation will almost certainly have a friend or family member who’s dealing death traps on four wheels or otherwise demented if not simply possessed.

    Lead.

  2. Opus the Poet says:

    I think there is a misconception about that pill, as I read about it it only reduces breathalyser results as a secondary effect of what it is intended to do which is reduce the uptake of alcohol in the bloodstream by inhibiting the linings of the digestive tract from passing the alcohol to the blood. IOW it won’t let you get blitzed and still pass the test, it prevents getting blitzed in the first place by preventing the alcohol from getting in the blood.

    • karL says:

      said like a true consultant to energy drink industry… however unwittingly- what ‘wet’ tolerance allows for is numbing thatallows behavior other then or inclusive of sleep and driving.

      It doesn’t matter if your sober if your conscience was ameliorated in the wrong way even only at some past moment. That moment is gone- the heart you could ofand should of ripped out of your host is still beating and no longer fair game.

  3. All I can say about Harkey is *smacks palm to forehead* DOH!

  4. Mike says:

    Story with numerous comments (50+) concerning a number of film trucks blocking the bike lanes on Sunset in Silver Lake at http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2012/08/lights-camera-shut-down-the-bike-lane/ .

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