Make that five.
On the day the LA Times columnist Steve Lopez examined the LA-area ghost bike movement, a heartless coward created the need for yet another in Downtown LA — the fifth bicycling fatality in Southern California in just the last five days.
According to KABC-7 and a number of other sources, the victim was struck by an unknown vehicle on Alameda Street at the offramp to the westbound 10 Freeway around 2 am this morning. Police responding to a call found him dead in the number two lane of the offramp with no vehicle in site.
The victim is described only as a man in his early 30s; no description of the vehicle or the driver who killed him is currently available.
Anyone with information was urged to contact the CHP at 213/744-2331.
The location of the victim’s body on the offramp seems odd, since a car exiting the freeway would be more likely to knock his body off the ramp, rather than onto it. That suggests the rider was either hit by a car driving on Alameda, rather than exiting the freeway, or was somehow riding on the offramp itself.
The location itself also seems problematic, since the westbound off-ramp from the 10 empties onto 14th Street well before it connects with Alameda.
The Times places the location near Alameda, rather than on it, and identifies the victim as in his 40s.
In my personal opinion, there is no lower form of scum than someone who would run away like a coward after a traffic collision instead of stopping — as the law requires — and call for the help that might have saved the victim’s life if it had come in time.
This is the 18th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 7th in LA County already this year. It’s also the 2nd in the City of Los Angeles since the first of the year, and the year’s first fatal hit-and-run involving a bike rider, compared to 10 in 2013.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Hit-and-run needs to be charged as murder when the victim was still alive after the wreck but dies before reaching medical attention. Additionally it needs to be charged as attempted murder if the victim lives. This is not just for cyclists but for pedestrians too as way too many pedestrians are also victims of hit-and-run, as well as the functionally blind drivers who can run over an adult in the road and never see them…
The new link to maps is not working fir me so i am not certain I commuted down the respective sections of alameda daily DTLA HUNTINGTON PARK but I hope I rode the sidewalk if so. I believe industry that lawfully abuses our bodiess should be sued not just when filmed passing us at unsafe speeds but as too subtly noted today in the same lane. Even if it was not unwitting chicken lethal again as usual such business must no longer be profitable. I support a public law closing the right lane permantly to commercial use when danger is known not just after as now with multiple predicted fatalities shown. Opus put it on the ballot asap. Let people vote know if they want to be sued instead. It will pass given that choice.
It’s certainly dangerous.. I stopped biking on anything but smooth, unexciting bike trails after two close calls with trucks passing me on roads. Many drivers, especially truck drivers, have no idea what kind of an effect their speed on the road has on bikers. I do not want to have an accident on a bike. I’d rather take that option out of the picture.