Your Monday morning tour through the weird, wacky and wonderful world of bicycling

Just a brief — or not so brief, as it turns out — update from the world of bicycling.

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La Opinion examines LA’s ghost bikes — or bicicletas fantasmas — and quotes yours truly on this year’s very scary stats.

Evidently, I am now un activista.

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Get ready to get run over. The LAPD has decided it’s no longer a crime to drive without a license. Violators can still be ticketed, but will no longer be arrested or face felony or misdemeanor charges if they don’t have a license for the vehicle they’re driving.

Yeah, let’s not do anything to hold unlicensed drivers accountable or get them off the streets.

It’s not like they can suspend the licenses of dangerous drivers who don’t have one.

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Yet another bike rider has been injured on the Marina’s Fiji Way, which, anecdotally at least, seems to be one of the area’s more dangerous places to ride a bike, even with the new semi-buffered bike lanes.

And even if the description of the collision doesn’t make any sense.

According to Marina del Rey Patch, an 85-year old woman pulled out of her parking stall at 13737 Fiji Way, which places her in the parking lot at Marina Village (photo pre-bike lane). After waiting for another car, she pulled out of the lot and into a bike/walk path, hitting a cyclist.

Except there is no bike/walk path there.

There’s a sidewalk for pedestrians, and an on-road bike lane for bike riders — which is, presumably, where the victim was riding.

Unless he was on the sidewalk. Or riding through the parking lot, which would explain what the hell pulling out of a parking stall in a parking lot has to do with hitting someone on a bike.

Let alone what waiting for another car to move has to do with anything.

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After a San Jose priest is killed just short of his goal of biking 100,000 miles, parishioners ride in his honor to complete the goal for him. Thanks to Cyclelicious for the heartwarming story.

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KNBC-4 tackles bike theft and busts a ring of thieves; thanks to Sam Winkler for the heads-up.

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Scotland’s new Nice Way Code tells drivers to treat you like a horse — evidently Scots are more familiar with horses than those strange two-wheeled conveyances — and that if any bike riders runs a red, it makes us all look bad.

Right.

And when any motorist runs a red, it reflects badly on everyone behind the wheel, and justifies whatever hostility you want to spew on those law-abiding drivers who haven’t done anything wrong.

Nice way, my ass.

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Speaking of the nice way, Elly Blue says if you ever feel like yelling at a cyclist — even just a friendly warning — don’t. Just don’t.

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Tomorrow’s scheduled meeting of the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee has been moved up to tonight at 7 pm to avoid a scheduling conflict.

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In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, bike race volunteers now must be anti-terrorism experts, as well.

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And speaking of terrorism, a father tries to teach is seven-year old daughter to ride a bike on a quiet side street. And both get hit by a drunk driver. At noon, no less.

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In one of the most bizarre accidents I’m aware of, a 10-year old boy in Nepal is killed when the brake on his bike breaks, sending a fragment through his eye and piercing his brain.

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This is why dooring can be deadly.

A Chinese woman barely avoids being thrown under a passing truck when the driver of an SUV unexpectedly throws open the door. In the video, she appears to hit her head on the truck’s rear wheel, sending her helmet — or is it a hat? — tumbling.

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One quick thought on Saturday’s horrific assault on the Venice boardwalk, in which a homicidal driver killed an Italian tourist on her honeymoon and injured 11 others — apparently intentionally.

We screen gun buyers in this country — even if there are a lot of gaps in the system. But we let anyone who can pass a simple test get a drivers license and own or operate a motor vehicle.

Maybe that needs to change.

We have to recognize that a motor vehicle can be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. And some people simply shouldn’t be allowed to drive, for any number of reasons.

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Finally, congratulations to Velo Club La Grange for pulling off another great Brentwood Gran Prix. Nice to spend a perfect LA day watching high-quality bike racing on the Westside.

Midway through the men's Cat 3 race

Midway through the men’s Cat 3 race

One comment

  1. karl says:

    Help me jog my memory- there is insurance available for unlicensed driver’s as at some point at least you had to be a citizen to get a license but that didn’t stop you from driving without insurance…. that’s what I’m recalling.

    Secondly I also heard that news and along with the plain fact that not only can it be deliberately used as a weapon of mass destruction it is in fact causing more destruction then all the atomic bombs dropped or tested anywhere ever have collectively, this use of cars for there supposed intended purpose is.

    On my walk home today I realized that it should never cost more per hour to park a car anywhere then it does to drive it past that space. Parking should always cost less per hour then being in the more expensive part of the street to offer to the public- LESS NOT MORE.

    I’m considering circulating a petition to pass such a law. PARKING MUST ALWAYS COST LESS PER HOUR THEN USING THE CONNECTED ROADS DO!

    ACCESS TO ROADS MUST NEVER BE CHEAPER TO CRUISE ON THEN COMING TO A FULL STOP COSTS! I’d say licensing the use of roads for moving vehicles should cost at least twice, AT LEAST TWICE, as much per hour as parking anywhere near such real estate costs.

    IN honolulu a condo with 350 feet of living space and TWO parking spaces included, though not with the ocean view, just sold for thirty some grand, and the hoa was also dirt cheap, ten bucks a day.

    including 24×7 parking for two huge cars! More car space it seems then indoor space!

    it was on the ocean!

    yeah our ocean!

    when you pull out of venice/santa monica just keep swimming till you see it

    anyway our city decides now that roads are for cars, not drivers. it’s the cars that matter- who’s driving them less so, which I agree with in slight part.

    Cars that burn fuel, that generate mainly heat or that involve absurd capital costs to recover braking energy etc., should not be allowed at the normal rate at least.

    BMW is ok to warrant the batteries for only sixty thousand miles but if they have engineered them to be more cost competitive if used under that as opposed to over that should not be praised for it.

    The batteries they are using are not available to ordinary bike enthusiasts to help going uphill or recover energy when going downhill instead of just wasting rubber that gets into the rivers and lakes etc. as we worked so hard to grind/shave it off stroke by stroke earlier going the other way.

    It matters that a modern electric bike can charge as fast as a blender prepares your smoothie. It matters so much.

    Cars can’t do that. Yet instead of kicking them well past the curb a dealer in Portland has the gall to continue to sell mere trimetal paving the rest of the worlds way to hell- and at $2500 a pair do that stare into that unfair glare.

    So yeah if your going to drink and drive you better not be licensed.

    We have been letting infinite numbers of people get licenses and own cars for free essentially. This to maximize profit of the makers of these crazy contraptions. We can let people use cars in the city- as long as they are models with computers that do ALL the driving. So I agree, criminalizing lack of license is antiquated. Being caught with your hands on a ‘driver’s wheel should have it and the rest of it confiscated permanently though…. just give whoever’s so reckless as to dare coming around here a brochure about bikes, as we can let people steer those a few more years at least.

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