BikinginLA

So what the hell is taking so long?

Nearly six months after cyclist and former Napster CEO Milt Olin was killed by a sheriff’s deputy while riding in a Mulholland bike lane, investigators still haven’t sent the case to the DA, claiming they’re just being thorough.

The sheriff’s department raised a lot of eyebrows by deciding to investigate their own officer in Olin’s death, rather than turn the investigation over to an independent agency such as the CHP; I’m told the CHP — which usually handles traffic fatalities in the area — was more than willing to step in but was never asked.

The endless delay just raises more questions about whether the department is leaving no stone unturned in a search for the truth, or simply trying to find a way to exonerate one of their own.

Or perhaps the department itself, since many have suggested that it’s department policy for deputies to use the patrol car’s onboard computer while driving, which would be illegal for anyone not in uniform. And dangerously distracting for anyone, regardless.

Then again, maybe they’re just hoping that once they finally release the results, no one will care anymore.

Not gonna happen.

………

Once again, small minded representatives in the US House Appropriations Committee vote to gut bike and pedestrian funding. The proposed appropriations bill would turn the popular TIGER grant program into just another roads bill.

More proof, as it it’s needed, that too many of our elected leaders know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

………

Local

In advance of tonight’s community meeting to discuss bike lanes vs sharrows on dangerous North Figueroa, Richard Risemberg says your life, health and prosperity are at stake. And astutely calls sharrows the junk-food of bicycle facilities.

On the other end of Figueroa, the Times says the MyFigueroa project could result in a bikeable, walkable LA. And we shouldn’t settle for OK Streets instead of Great Streets.

Streetsblog offers five changes to improve the proposed LA mobility plan.

After wrapping what may have been its final season, the entire crew of Lifetime’s LA-based Drop Dead Diva — from grips to the stars of the series — are given new bikes.

A federal judge says you no longer have to pay a fee to bike or hike in undeveloped regions of the Cleveland, Los Padres, Angeles and San Bernardino national forests.

 

State

The Newport Beach Committee investigating restricting usage of the city’s Back Bay Drive has issued their report. I haven’t have a chance to read it yet, but you can download your own copy here.

A lightless, sidewalk-riding 73-year old Thousand Oaks cyclist is injured in a left cross collision with a 75-year old driver.

A casual cyclist embraces Bike to Work Day, as San Francisco prepares to celebrate theirs a week before we do.

The Bay Area’s Bicycle Coffee delivers fresh roasted coffee by bike; a new “chapter” plans to open in Silver Lake in three weeks.

 

National

Strava plans to sell its data to urban planners and advocacy groups; problem is, their data only shows where Strava users ride, not other types of riders.

Pharrell rides a bike in an undisclosed location. And yes, he looks sort of happy, maybe.

Boulder CO cycle track uses standard, inexpensive parking stops to form a protective barrier.

A New York lawmaker proposes increasing penalties to treat cyclists who flee the scene of a collision the same as hit-and-run motorists.

Cyclists may not have discovered DC’s new two-way cycle tracks, but drivers have. Meanwhile, a DC-area cyclist is ticketed in the hospital after she’s hit by a car when a witness claims she came out of nowhere, didn’t have lights, wasn’t in the crosswalk and was in the middle of the road. Sounds like maybe that witness was the driver who ran her down.

In a case of man bites dog, a Hattiesburg, Mississippi cyclist is the victim of a hit-and-run — and witnesses identify the suspect vehicle as a marked police car.

And these new compression shorts come complete with a fillable codpiece. Make of that what you will.

 

International

Most Toronto residents — and Canadians in general — want to require licenses for bike riders.

Former Amgen Tour of California winner Robert Gesink has surgery to correct the cardiac arrhythmia that has kept him off his bike in recent months. No word on when or if he’ll race again.

An Aussie writer says don’t feel sorry for careless cyclists, feel sorry for the poor innocent drivers who hit them — even though a study last year showed drivers were at fault in 79% of cycling collisions Down Under. Link courtesy of Opus the Poet, who’s Witch on a Bicycle blog you really should be reading if you don’t already.

 

Finally…

Following our discussion of scofflaw cyclists the other day, Priceonomics says it’s drivers’ fault that cyclists run stop signs. No, really.

And after an auto-centric writer for MotorSport magazine said the problem with cyclists is they get in your damn way and interfere with your right to zoom dangerously around winding roads, wiser heads prevailed and the story was removed from the website. But nothing ever really disappears from the Internet.