KNBC-4 is reporting that a man was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the Sepulveda Basin Friday night.
According to the station, the man was riding south on a dark stretch of Woodley Ave near Victory Blvd when he was struck by a motorist shorty after 8 pm, and thrown roughly 45 to 50 feet from the point of impact.
The victim, identified only as 45-year old man, died at the scene.
The suspect vehicle is described only as a silver SUV with likely front end damage; there’s no description yet of the heartless coward who left him to die alone in the street.
Hopefully we’ll learn more in the morning.
This is at least the 16th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the fourth in the City of Los Angeles.
Six of those SoCal deaths have been hit-and-runs, as have four of the five deaths in LA County.
As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the driver in any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
LA residents blamed the high cost of living for their dissatisfaction, primarily excessive costs for housing and goods, as well as the quality of the city’s schools.
With rare exceptions, Metro train lines don’t connect anywhere but downtown. Buses seldom run on time, and many people don’t feel safe using transit after recent high profile crimes.
And long-promised biking and walking improvements remain just that.
Promises.
Advocates are understandably jaded after a long line of broken promises by city leaders in recent years, from the unbuilt and largely ignored 2010 bike plan, through the unfunded and unfulfilled Vision Zero plan, and Eric Garcetti’s completely forgotten Green New Deal.
The recent passage of Measure HLA shows the overwhelming hunger of Angelenos for safer and more livable streets. But that will take decades to build out as streets slowly get resurfaced.
And that’s if city leaders don’t find a way to weasel out yet again.
Pasadena will mark Bike Month next weekend with a pair of rides examining significant landmarks of local African American History, as well as honoring the contributions of women to the city’s history and culture.
Bad news for anyone who rides the Orange Line bike path, which will be closed for construction work until 2027.
Ran into @metrolosangeles outreach table on the G/Orange Line bikeway near Sepulveda. They led off with “did you know that this path is going to be closed for 3 years starting this summer?” Surface streets detour planned from near Sepulveda Station to near Van Nuys Station. pic.twitter.com/tAM1YBmMfu
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Life is cheap in Washington state, where two University of Washington football players just face misdemeanor assault charges for attempting to run down a man riding a bicycle with their car, after yelling at him to get on the sidewalk, then getting out and beating the crap out of him when the victim responded by flipping the bird.
Kansas reminds both drivers and bicyclists that traffic safety is a shared responsibility. Because evidently, you have the same responsibility not to get killed as drivers have not to kill you with their big, dangerous machines.
No tragic irony here. A 62-year old Massachusetts driver faces a vehicular homicide charge after hitting a pair of bike riders head on, killing a 76-year old man and critically injuring his 72-year old riding partner — while knocking down a sign warning drivers to watch out for bicycles.
International
The sister of an English teenager who died after he was struck by a driver and hit his head on a curb is calling for a mandatory bike helmet law in the country, saying she wants to make people who don’t wear one look like the stupid ones. Although a far better solution is designing safer streets so people don’t get hit by cars in the first place.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re up to 1,129 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us!
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More on this month’s Bike Month.
Metro is marking Bike Month with discounts on Metro Bike memberships — including free rides on Bike Anywhere Day May 16th — along with community bike rides throughout the month. But once again, there’s no mention of actually doing anything to encourage bike commuting on what was formerly known as Bike to Work Day.
Pasadena cops will conduct yet another bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation on Friday, ticketing any traffic violations that could put either group at risk, regardless of who commits it. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets written up.
The City College of San Francisco is going to the mattresses to fight a planned bike lane in hopes of saving a whole 29 parking spaces, along with another nine motorcycle spots. But the city’s transportation agency intends to build it anyway.
CNN lists the best bike accessories, as chosen by “actual cyclists.” Although they don’t clarify what kind of certification process you need to go through to be an actual cyclist, as opposed to someone who just rides a bicycle.
Life is cheap in Las Vegas, where an unlicensed, unregistered and uninsured driver who killed a bike rider last fall could be back out on the streets after just 28 months behind bars, despite the judge saying he “shouldn’t have been on the road” after getting 19 traffic tickets over the past 14 years.
A New Jersey op-ed says proposed legislation requiring even low-speed ebikes to be registered and insured, just like motor vehicles, would unfairly target delivery riders.
Police in Florida arrested an 84-year old hit-and-run driver who fled the scene after killing a 28-year old bike rider. And adding still more evidence to the case against elderly drivers.
International
Momentum says you have to see these “stunning and unique bicycle routes” to believe them, ranging from Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Trail to Europe’s nearly 1,900-mile Danube Cycle Path; the only one in North America is the The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route through the US and Canada.
What was supposed to be the quick and easy removal of a small skin cancer on my ear turned into an excruciating five hours on the surgical table, scraping every half hour before they got the whole thing.
All because every doctor I asked about it told me it was nothing to worry about, allowing it to spread unchecked for over a decade before anyone actually bothered to do a biopsy.
But at least I left with my ear still attached, albeit lacking most of the skin inside, and with a bandage the size of a golf ball shoved in.
LA Progressivecalls for the defeat of incumbent CD14 Councilmember Kevin de Leon, in part for cutting off communication with community leaders over the $16.3 million in funding raised by local residents for street improvements on Eagle Rock Blvd, allowing the project to go dormant for two years.
Santa Monica will conduct yet another bike & pedestrian safety enforcement operation on Friday, ticketing anyone who commits a violation that could endanger either group, regardless of who commits it. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits to ensure you’re not the one who gets ticketed.
Craig Medred takes a deep dive into the death of a 48-year old Alaska man who was reportedly among the area’s “safest and most responsible cyclists,” yet who was blamed by investigators for his own death, despite doing everything right before he was run down by a driver — because police couldn’t find the missing bike light they may not have looked for.
A Kentucky TV station answers the eternal question of why bicyclists don’t have to pay a road usage fee — and gets it mostly right. Although they left out a) local roads are funded primarily through the same state and local taxes we all pay, and b) most people who ride bikes also drive, and pay gas taxes and registration like anyone else.
And now you, too can have your very own Bob Marley One Love bike, a collaboration between State Bicycle Company and the reggae master who’s been dead for the last 43 years.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
On top of everything else, I’ll be having a small skin cancer today, no doubt a souvenir of decades of riding a bike when they still thought the sun was good for you, and and any lotion you might use was meant for tanning, not screening out dangerous rays.
So the status of tomorrow’s post is to be determined at this point. Not because of the minor surgery, but whether I’ll survive riding the bus with an effed up shoulder and ribs.
Hopefully I’ll bounce back and see you in the morning; if not, we’ll be back bright and early on Thursday.
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There may be hope yet. Eventually, anyway.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, unveiled the final draft of a new regulation to improve traffic safety, requiring every new motor vehicle sold in the US to have forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection braking.
According to the AP,
The standards require vehicles to stop and avoid hitting a vehicle in front of them at speeds up to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour). Also they must apply the brakes automatically at up to 90 mph (145 kph) if a collision with vehicle ahead is imminent.
The systems also have to spot pedestrians during the day and night, and must stop and avoid a pedestrian at 31 mph to 40 mph (50 kph to 64 kph) depending on the pedestrian’s location and movement.
Presumably, any system than can detect pedestrians should be able to protect people on bicycles, although that’s not guaranteed.
Or even required.
Yet another reminder that we remain an afterthought when it comes to safety.
However, the new regulations won’t take effect for another five years. And it will take decades before most older cars with more limited capabilities are off the roads.
It’s predicted the new regs will save just 362 lives each year, less than 1% of the more than 40,000 people killed annually on American roads.
But it’s a start.
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Metro offers a guide to next month’s Bike Month, including Metro Bike discounts for Bike Week, starting May 13th, and free Metro rides for Bike Day on Thursday the 16th. Although what’s missing is any mention of Bike Day activities, or the pre-pandemic Bike to Work pit stops to encourage more people to try bike commuting.
Beverly Hills will mark Bike Month with a series of events, ranging from a month-long commuter challenge and a “May the 4th Be With You” family bike ride to the kind of Bike to Work Day pit stop Metro appears to have forgotten.
Pasadena will also celebrate Bike Month, starting with National Ride a Bike Day this Sunday, the annual Rose Bowl Ride of Silence on Wednesday the 15th, and refreshments at City Hall for Bike to Work Day.
Meanwhile, LAist offers a guide to living carfree in the City of Angels, including how to use your bike for transportation; you can listen to their podcast from last year on the same subject below.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Sheriff’s deputies in San Marcos will conduct an “ebike safety sweep” on Wednesday afternoon to educate riders on ebike safety, while ticketing any violations committed by ebike riders — including a requirement to ride to the right, which only applies if you’re traveling at less than the speed of traffic. If you do get a ticket, fight it, because an operation specifically targeting ebike riders rather than all road users suggests illegally biased enforcement.
No bias here, either. A writer for Strong Townssays Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t wrong when he says “some activists want to make driving so miserable that people have to abandon their cars,” accusing a “significant percentage of safe streets activists” of being motivated by a hatred of cars and the people who drive them. Never mind that a “significant percentage” of safe streets activists are drivers themselves.
Eureka explains to drivers how to operate their big, deadly machines after a pair of new bikeways currently nearing completion are finished. Because evidently, that whole “licensing and registration” thing they keep insisting should be required for bicyclists isn’t enough to guarantee the people who pass them actually know how to drive already.
That’s more like it. An Arizona man will spend at least 12 years of a 14-year sentence behind bars, after pleading guilty to negligent homicide and hit-and-run charges for fleeing the scene after killing a bike rider; he was already wanted on outstanding state and federal warrants at the time of the crash. Which at least explains why he fled.
Autopsy results show a Colorado mom, whose body was found three years after she disappeared on a Mother’s Day bike ride, was murdered “by unspecified means,” and had been injected with an animal tranquilizer used to immobilize wildlife before her death; her husband was initially charged with her murder, but charges were dropped because authorities hadn’t yet found her body.
Israeli Occupation War Cabinet minister, and former opposition candidate Benny Gantz is one of us, too, breaking his foot while riding a bike in Southern Israel. But at least he has the freedom to ride a bike, unlike most people in Gaza these days.
Competitive Cycling
Sofia Gomez Villafañe and teammate Matt Beers won this year’s Belgian Waffle Ride in San Marcos on Sunday, with Courtney Sherwell and Caroline Wreszin rounding out the women’s podium, and Alexey Vermeulen and Petr Vakoč finishing second and third for the men.
Former Tour de France champ Geraint Thomas blames UCI boss David Lappartient and race organizers for half of the crashes in pro cycling, saying that level of carnage wouldn’t be accepted in any new sport. Although someone should tell him about all those people flooding ERs with pickleball injuries.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re now up to 1,128 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
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We’re back!
Kind of, anyway.
It’s been a rough ten days, but I’m finally doing a little better after my unplanned visit to the ER. I’m still struggling with pain and a loss of mobility, but at least I can lift my arm again and hold my laptop without too much discomfort.
I’ll try to keep bringing you the all latest bike news every day, but no promises until I can put this damn thing behind me.
And my apologies to everyone who sent me something while I was out last week. I’m just too worn out after writing this to go back and see who sent what, so please just accept my thanks, and I’ll try to do better going forward.
Meanwhile, my adventure cycling, former Iditarod-mushing brother has made it to the Arkansas River on his cross-country bike tour, after riding out Saturday’s Oklahoma tornadoes in a cement restroom in a deserted roadside campground.
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A new Strava report shows Los Angeles is a surprising ninth on a list of the top ten bike commuting cities in the US, behind Boston and above Denver.
We also have the longest average commuting distance of any of the cities on the list, at a whopping 9.5 miles per commute. Which suggests that people are actually replacing their lengthy car trips with their bikes.
It’s also worth remembering that Strava only tracks people who have the app installed on their phones, and misses a lot of casual and low-income riders. Which means LA probably has even more bike commuters than what shows up in their stats.
Just imagine what that could look like if we actually had safe streets to ride on.
In the video, explore five strange bike infrastructures in Calgary, Canada, reflecting on their origins and the community's input. Share your own odd finds from your city! #citycycling#urbanplanninghttps://t.co/niQntDWFtC
— California Bicycle Coalition (@CalBike) April 29, 2024
Twenty-five-year old Riverside resident Naomi Renee Velado was convicted on vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run charges for the crime, and sentenced to nine years behind bars.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Singapore crash devolves into an ugly racist road rage incident, after a bike rider and a driver argue over who hit who in a crosswalk, before attacking the other’s ethnicity.
Auto-centric WeHoVille calls on West Hollywood city leaders to share the pain of local residents whose parking spaces could be displaced by new bike lanes by giving up their own parking privileges.
Speaking of WeHo, the LA County Sheriff’s Department will conduct a bicycle and pedestrian traffic safety operation on Wednesday, ticketing anyone who commits a traffic violation that could put either group at risk, regardless of who does it. As usual, ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets written up.
A Decatur, Georgia man was sentenced to life plus 15 years behind bars for fatally shooting his neighbor for leaving his bicycle in the hallway — and bizarrely claiming the victim was spying on him through his smoke detector. Apparently, the state plans to prop him up an extra decade and a half to finish his sentence. Unless he gets time off for good behavior, since dead men seldom cause trouble.
Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, with the “stunning” La Seine à Vélo bicycle route following the banks of the Seine River through the Île-de-France and Normandy regions from Paris to the coast.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding “in an unknown direction” in the leftmost lane on eastbound Orangethorpe when he was struck by the 19-year old driver traveling “at an unknown speed.” He died at the scene.
The driver remained at the site following the crash, and police don’t believe he was under the influence at the time of the collision.
The awkward phasing that the victim was riding “in an unknown direction” suggests he could have been riding against traffic, or illegally riding with traffic in the left lane. However, it could also mean that he was simply attempting to cross the street when he was run down.
It also implies that the driver didn’t see the victim prior to impact, or he would have seen which way he was going.
Anyone with information is urged to call Fullerton Police Traffic Accident Investigator Manes at 714/738-6815, or email jmanes@fullertonpd.org.
This is at least the 15th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Orange County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
We’ve seen a number of police chases in recent years that resulted in close calls with people riding bicycles, with riders nearly struck by fleeing drivers.
The incident began when the suspect allegedly tried to break into a vehicle near East 48th and Central Streets in South LA, and attempted to flee in his car with the owner of the vehicle in close pursuit.
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was sent flying through the air, landing next to his badly damaged bicycle. A witness description suggests that he likely died instantly upon impact.
The driver lost control after the crash, smashing into eight other vehicles before rolling his car, coming to rest upside down in the street. He reportedly attempted to flee on foot before being taken into custody.
He will likely face yet to be determined felony charges, according to police.
One of which should be murder.
This is at least the 14th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the third in the City of Los Angeles.
And yet another tragic reminder of the dangers police chases pose to innocent bystanders.
A GoFundMe page set up by loved ones describes Monsalve Rojas as a father of five who left Colombia in search of a better life and had a dream, they said, of curing his daughter’s liver disease.
“Imagine, a regular morning now turned into a day we’ll never forget,” the campaign organizer wrote. “David touched lives in ways that words can barely capture. A soul so deeply devoted to his children.”
So far, the crowdfunding page has raised less than $700 of the modest $5,000 goal.
Meanwhile, the speeding driver who struck Rojas with her Chevrolet Suburban SUV was ID’d as 23-year old Germaine Smith.
Smith is being held on $327,000 bond after being booked for felony evading causing death, as well as additional outstanding warrants,
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Traffic Group Detectives at 213/486-0690; information can be provided anonymously online or by calling 800/222-8477.
My deepest sympathy for Jose David Monsalve Rojas and all his loved ones.
The driver of the SUV remained following the crash and cooperated with investigators; police don’t suspect the driver was under the influence.
Anyone with information is urged to call Oxnard Police Traffic Investigator Raul Camacho at 805/200-5668.
A crowdfunding campaign to pay Paquet’s funeral expenses has raised a little more than $2,700 towards the modest $4,000 goal. Commenters on the page described Paquet as a bright light who brought kindness and positivity to their neighborhood.
This is at least the 13th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of this year in Ventura County.
And it’s one more tragic reminder to always ride with traffic when you’re riding on the roadway.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Joey Paquet and all his family and loved ones.
Just hours after posting on here that I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the coming months, I found out when I found myself in the back of an ambulance hauling ass down Sunset Blvd.
As best as we’ve managed to put things together, I apparently suffered a sudden, extreme drop in blood pressure when I get up to use the bathroom, which dropped me down with it.
When my wife couldn’t rouse me, she called 911, and I spent the better part of yesterday morning in the emergency room.
They sent me home late in the day when a series of X-rays and CAT scans came up negative, concluding that nothing was broken, and my brain had managed to survive a sudden conversation with the floor.
Although I do have excruciating pain in my right ribs, and may have done further damage to my already torn rotator cuff.
Good times.
As for the sudden drop in blood pressure, the ER doc said it’s just one of those things.
Because of that pain, and the difficulty I’ve had just writing this, I won’t be posting a Morning Links update today. And I’m not even going to bother editing this, so if there’s some major screwup here, so be it.
As for next week, it depends on how I bounce back over the weekend, so stay tuned.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to bed and whimper myself to sleep.
Well, that was fun. 
