BikinginLA

Accused killer driver Craig Wendell Nelson has been charged with the hit-and-run death of bike rider Kevin Wilson east of El Cajon last week.

Nelson faces a well-deserved four years and eight months behind bars if he’s convicted.

Police found him hiding in the bushes after abandoning his car, possibly to avoid being taken into custody for a number of probation violations for previous convictions.

Didn’t work.

But that’s just one more example of the penalty for hit-and-run not even coming close to matching the severity of the crime in this state.

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This is who we share the roads with.

A jury awarded a Calabasas woman $18 million for the hit-and-run crash that killed her mother and critically injured her as they walked in a crosswalk.

The jury also ruled there was malice in the case, considering that after running over the two women, the driver pulled the mother’s body out of the road, then backed up her pickup and parked it on a side street, pretending to police she wasn’t involved.

Note to world — whatever else you may or may not think of them, cops aren’t stupid.

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This is who we share the roads with, part 2.

A Los Angeles fire captain is under investigation for the apparent high-speed hit-and-run crash that totaled a woman’s parked car, knocking it 160 feet down the street and into a neighbor’s driveway.

He then went home and refused to respond to sheriff’s deputies, later denying he’d been drinking, despite being found passed out in the bathtub the next morning.

Instead, he told the victim the next day that he’d had to rush home after the crash because he was suffering from vomiting and diarrhea.

Sure. Let’s go with that.

Deputies couldn’t enter his home to arrest him because a hit-and-run that results in property damage is just a misdemeanor.

Even if it destroys an entire car, and gives the driver plenty of time to sober up from his, uh, diarrhea.

Just another example of how California’s lenient hit-and-run laws don’t fit the crime.

Thanks to Ted Faber for the link.

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If you’re going to use a tragic Huntington Beach bike death to promote your law firm, maybe figure out where the hell the city is, first.

Hint: It’s not in San Bernardino County.

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San Diego kicks off the second Regional Bike Summit next Thursday featuring beer, pizza, group rides and advocacy discussions; the three-day event is sponsored by the San Diego Bicycling Coalition.

The SDBC is still looking for volunteers to help out. Contact the coalition for more information.

Thanks to Robert Leone for the tip.

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The World Economic Forum offers a quick look at the world’s most exciting bicycle infrastructure projects, none of which are in Los Angeles.

https://twitter.com/wef/status/1222096980610093057

Thanks to Thomas Riebs for the heads-up.

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Local

A Hollywood Hills-based private chef describes how he and his riding partner heard the helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant and eight other people crash, and were among the first people on the scene afterwards.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton suggests 13 fun and family-friendly bike rides you can get to using Metro transit lines. I’m going to bookmark this one myself. No, wait, I just did.

 

State

An Escondido transient with major facial tattoos is behind bars for fatally stabbing another man in a Burger King parking lot, in a dispute that allegedly was over a bicycle.

Santa Ana police are looking for a bike-riding man who shot and killed another man in a Santa Ana restaurant parking lot.

Authorities in Santa Cruz are looking for an unidentified bike rider as a person of interest in the unsolved murder of a tech millionaire last October.

Now you, too, can own a 120-year old San Francisco bike shop.

San Francisco’s iconic Market Street is now officially free from cars; the fight for a carfree Market Street dates back to 1896. Los Angeles, the ball’s in your court. 

 

National

Your next ‘bent could be a shaft-driven foldie.

Like it or not, e-scooters and other micromobility devices are here to stay.

Kindhearted police buy a new bike for a nine-year old Utah boy after learning his stolen bike was his family’s only form of transportation.

No overreaction here. Police in San Angelo, Texas shut down an entire neighborhood because a man on a bicycle refused to pull over when they tried to stop him for the crime of…wait for it…riding salmon. After finally tracking him down, police searched him and found an empty baggie with drug residue and a pipe. Which any good lawyer should be able to get tossed as an illegal search and lack of probable cause.

A pair of teenaged Detroit brothers founded a $100,000 handmade soap company in order to pay their father back for a new bike, after the older brother’s bike was stolen when he failed to lock it.

Michigan authorities recovered an $8,000 bicycle stolen from a motel room prior to last summer’s inaugural Traverse City Ironman Triathlon; a brother and sister were busted for the theft.

Call this Michigan event whatever you want, it’s not a real bike race unless the bikes actually move.

Demonstrating true zero vision, as opposed to Vision Zero, New York police continue to ticket more bicyclists than truck drivers, despite the significant difference in their respective risk to others.

A bike-riding thief burgled a Pennsylvania American Legion post.

Now that’s more like it. A New Orleans program takes cops through the city’s crowded rush hour streets on bicycles to give the officers a bicyclist’s eye view of what bike riders are up against.

Talk about not getting it. The same day Coral Gables, Florida declared a climate emergency, they shot down a proposed bike lane. Evidently, they’ve been mentored by the LA City Council.

 

International

The US isn’t the only country where bicycle and pedestrian deaths remain high, despite an overall decline in traffic fatalities. Pedestrian deaths are on the rise in the UK, as well, while bicycling fatalities have shown a modest decline even as bicycling rates have remained stagnant.

Curbed examines how European countries are offering a roadmap to a world with fewer cars.

The Dutch province of Utrecht is moving forward with the installation of a 82-foot long solar bike path; a second one will be nearly a quarter-mile long.

A new study from New Zealand says biking to work could lower your mortality risk up to 13%.

 

Thai police are investigating the death of a promising teenage South Korean cycling champ, who was killed in a collision while training in the country on Tuesday.

Call him the two-wheeled Kobe Bryant. Peter Sagan says the only reason he’s on a bike is a desire to win.

 

Some people can’t seem to see the bike lane for the parked cars. If you’re carrying non-legal weed and an illegal gun, don’t ride salmon, already.

And fighting for your right to keep using rim brakes since, um, now.