After criticizing the CHP last week, it’s only fair to give them credit when it’s due.
An Orange County CHP officer got it right when he was asked whether bike riders could use left turn lanes.
Almost, anyway.
He said that bicyclists have a right to turn left just like drivers do, and even noted that they are allowed to take the full lane when traveling at the speed of traffic — an exception to the ride to the right rule most cops seem to miss.
But the CHP officer incorrectly notes that bicyclists must hug the curb in other instances. Even though the law says people on bicycles are free to take the lane anytime it’s too narrow to safely share with a bike and car side-by-side, which is the case with most righthand lanes in Southern California.
And he suggests that anyone who’s uncomfortable turning from the left turn lane should get off their bike and walk in the crosswalk.
Never mind that bicyclists have the right to ride in a crosswalk under California law.
Or that box turns work better, anyway. With or without painted turn boxes.
Photo from CHP website.
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The war on bikes may have raised its ugly head right here in Southern California, after a handful of razor blades were found in a Culver City bike lane.
https://twitter.com/d_mcneary/status/1124364013721145345
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Keep your fingers crossed.
If a Calbike proposal is adopted, you could be eligible for a rebate up to $1,000 on the purchase of an ebike.
Or better yet, sign the petition.
Californians, would you buy an e-bike if you got a $500-1000 rebate, the same way electric cars are incentivized? @CalBike is asking @AirResources to launch a program doing exactly that—sign here to support it! https://t.co/UW0p5d5zJ3 pic.twitter.com/TorZwcedTW
— Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) May 5, 2019
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An ad featuring a boy walking his bike up a steep hill to deliver bread in post-war England has been named Britain’s most iconic classic ad.
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Local
The LA Times wants to know if Bird can finally build a better scooter before it runs out of cash.
Displaying more cuteness than allowed by law, Strider Bikes hosted a series of toddler races at LA Live this past weekend.
CicLAvia shares their favorite moments from the recent Wilmington event.
There will be a meeting to support the Rowena road diet and help keep the street safe at 6 pm this Wednesday at the Friendship Auditorium.
One more reason to ride a bike. The founder of the Golden Road Brewery in Atwater Village changed her career trajectory after meeting the owner of the famed Oskar Blues Brewery while riding her bike in Colorado. Seriously, you’re not likely to meeting anyone while speeding down the same roads in your car — unless you hit them.
Roughly 75 people turned out for last week’s meeting on a proposed two-way protected bike lane on Pasadena’s Union Street.
Santa Clarita’s mayor invites you to celebrate all things cycling in the city as they mark bike month, and a visit by the Amgen Tour of California.
A bike-riding man is the chief suspect in a series of alleyway arson fires in the Cal Heights neighborhood of Long Beach.
State
A legendary backcountry OC mountain bike ride raises a whopping $1.25 million to aid people in Rwanda.
Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss proves he’s not that snobby after all, riding this Cambria’s Eroica California on the cheapest bikes he can buy.
Authorities stopped an Amtrak train for over an hour to search for a man who was apparently struck by the train while he was walking his bike along the tracks in Pismo Beach; he turned up later in an ER with hand and arm injuries, after all searchers found was a mangled bicycle.
An East Sacramento hit-and-run driver left a bike rider lying in the street with serious injuries. Meanwhile, a mother asks the hit-and-run driver who left her bike-riding son with a serious brain injury to turns themselves in.
National
An Irish man rode and ran across the United States in just 36 days to raise funds in an effort to raise over a quarter million euros — $279,670 — to fight Spina Bifida.
Ai Wei Wei’s sculpture may be titled Forever Bicycles, but it won’t be displayed in Austin TX that long. Or much longer, for that matter. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
An Arkansas newspaper breaks the shocking news that you can get hurt riding a mountain bike.
Minneapolis has pulled the plug on Minnesota’s North Star Grand Prix once again after a last-ditch crowdfunding effort raised just $12,000 of the $200,000 they needed to put on a UCI women’s race
Proving once again that we all face the same problems, Boston bike riders complain about the glacial pace of implementing the city’s bike plan, arguing that the mayor’s plan is falling short.
New York held their annual Blessing of the Bicycles over the weekend; LA’s version will take place at Good Samaritan Hospital on May 14th as part of Bike Week.
A 50-year bike commuter says New York bicyclists have to do better, and calls on riders to welcome stricter enforcement by police. Sure. That’ll happen.
Today weatherman Al Roker is one of us, joining thousands of other riders for New York’s Five Boro Bike Tour.
A West Virginia bike rider urges people to control their dogs after suffering a concussion and separating his shoulder when his bike broadsided a dog that ran out in front of him. No word on how the dog fared.
Police in Charleston SC respond to rising rates of bicyclists and pedestrians by insisting that pedestrians would be safe if they just used crosswalks, rather that concluding that maybe there aren’t enough crosswalks or they’re in the wrong places. And never mind all those people in the big, dangerous machines.
Two kindhearted South Carolina cops pitched in to buy a kid a new bike after he was run down by a hit-and-run driver. Although someone should tell the TV station that the car probably had a driver.
New Orleans’ mayor sees better bus service and more dockless bikeshares — not more traffic lanes — as the solution to the city’s transportation problems.
A Key West parade celebrates human powered sculpture.
International
A Vancouver writer describes how she learned to love commuting by bicycle.
A Toronto business owner complains about plans for a road diet to make room for protected bike lanes, insisting that he only sees a single bike rider every few days. Which is like saying we don’t need a new bridge because you only see a few cars driving into the river.
London bicyclists donned their best Harris and Donegal woolens and mounted classic bikes for this year’s Tweed Ride.
You have exactly one month to get to the UK to ride your bike naked on the Queen’s official birthday.
An Indian man who spent five decades riding across the country has given his Trek Madone to a 15 year old cycling prodigy, after he had to quit riding due to medical problems.
An Indian paper looks back on seven Parsi men who travelled the world on their bicycles over 100 years ago.
India’s Economic Times says bicycling in Bengaluru is a cruel joke on bicyclists.
A Sydney, Australia writer says check your biases next time you hear the word cyclist or get stuck behind one in traffic, after a Facebook post about the death of a bike-riding woman got 464 comments — only four of which expressed any sympathy for the victim or her family.
An Aussie bike rider caused considerable, and reasonable, consternation after he was photographed wearing a Nazi armband.
Competitive Cycling
Don’t plan on seeing Colombian pro Egan Bernal in next week’s Giro d’Italia, after breaking his collarbone on a training ride.
The New York Daily News considers the meteoric rise and fall of Major Taylor, the one-time world’s fastest man, who broke cycling’s color barrier more than a century ago. Now we just need someone to do it again.
Finally…
Maybe next time, he’ll listen when a cop tells him to get his golf cart out of the bike lane. Apparently, a bicycle only makes you invisible if you don’t don a hideous blond wig to bike through a police dragnet.
And no, that’s not a bicycle riding in a new bike lane.
The expression “hug the curb” gives people the idea that a cyclist has to ride in the gutter right next to the curb. I see few cyclists use bike lanes in my area and most of them ride in the concrete gutter. I’m convinced there is a relationship between the often repeated “hug the curb” and the almost universal habit of leaving the bike lane at every intersection, hugging the crosswalk ramp or curb and proceeding across in the crosswalk. Whenever law enforcement writes a blurb about cycling in a local paper they tell us to hug the curb and walk in the crosswalk. Few people will get off their bikes and walk. Instead they ride in the gutter, stop at the curb facing right as if they are making a right hand turn, make a u-turn onto the crosswalk and ride through the crosswalk, maximizing their expose to a right hook collision and putting themselves in a place where they lose the right of way(?) and will be blamed when they are hit.
Everyone is also under the impression that you have to press a beg button regardless of traffic volume and loop detectors are a well kept secret. If you have to hug the curb you might find yourself next to the button, so I guess it seems like it has to be pressed. If cyclists can’t find a bicycle beg button they use a pedestrian. A lot of cyclists in my area are also under the impression that they are governed by crosswalk signals. Everyday I see cyclists stop and press a beg button of some sort when they have a green light, waiting for a white man signal to appear. In my area I’m the only cyclist who has ever used any of the bicycle pocket lanes to the left of right hand turn lanes. This is not surprising, they are not designed to be visible or used. Of course this has exposed me to all sort of verbal abuse and lectures from cops who tell me to “hug the curb.” Everyone is under the impression you can’t stay in the bike lane at an intersection and 99% of cyclists of observe, when passing through an intersection on a green light, move over and ride through the crosswalk. Drivers in socal absolutely do not tolerate people like me who try to put ourselves to the left of cars turning right and will not tolerate cyclists who stay in the bike lane at a light. The result: everyone uses the crosswalk and is blamed for their own injuries or death when they occur.