My blood sugar crashed suddenly as I was working on today’s post, and took me down like a shot. Within a matter of minutes, I went from feeling okay, to sick as a dog and down for the count.
Which is just one more reason why I miss the Corgi, who used to warn me about my blood sugar before it got that bad.
In addition to calling for a 30% improvement in bus speeds, it calls for the development of active transportation corridors for walking, bicycling and micromobility, with “at least one major regional project and one neighborhood-oriented network per year.”
It now goes before the full council, and if approved, will require LADOT to respond with an implementation plan this July.
So what we basically have is a motion for a plan.
And as we’ve learned the hard way, Los Angeles is very good at coming up with plans, but not so good at actually putting them on the pavement.
Like the 2010 bike plan. Or the more recent halfhearted non-embrace of Vision Zero.
Perhaps sensing the growing frustration, Transportation Chair Mike Bonin had this to say.
If we want a real #GreenNewDeal in LA, we need more bus lanes, better active transportation, EV charging infrastructure, and more — and we need to implement, not just promise. That’s what I’m pushing as chair of Transportation Cmte. https://t.co/5u9cJAMyy9
But only 35 percent of bike riders and 28 percent of people who walk to work concurred. Which tells you that the overwhelming majority of people who walk or bike to work actually like it.
As opposed to the overwhelming majority of people stuck in traffic who don’t.
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Once again, science confirms what most of us have already figured out.
More on the near-fatal crash that sent renowned LA chef Walter Manzke of Republique fame to the ER with several broken bones; he was getting out of his car near his upcoming new bistro Bicyclette when he was run down by the driver, who stopped, for a change.
A San Diego man is suing the city, claiming its new pump track is too dangerous because it allows bike riders and skateboarders to use it at the same time — even though the injuries he’s claiming came in a “brutal attack” by a boarder, rather than a crash.
No bias here. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, if you’re not white, male and earn $250,000, the city’s bike lanes aren’t for you. Except, of course, for the 75% of regular bike lane users who earn less than that, and the 33% that are female. Or who don’t otherwise fit with their highly skewed premise, based on notoriously unreliable census data.
Mumbai is working to become bike-friendlier with bike mayors for each of the city’s 24 districts, along with two junior bike mayors. Which is about 26 more than you’ll find in Los Angeles.
If you’re riding your bike with a stolen handgun, a sock full of meth, ten fake or stolen IDs, a criminal record and an outstanding warrant, maybe try riding a little closer to the curb. Ramming your bike into a police car is not likely to hurt it — or help you get away.
If you have the patience to click through all 51 pages, you’ll see we’re in good company here in the late, great Golden State, with San Francisco checking in at #3, followed by San Jose at #4.
Also in America’s top — or maybe bottom 50, you’ll find San Diego at #12, Riverside at #16, Sacramento at #18, Fresno #27, and Bakersfield at #31.
Yes, Bakersfield.
The good news, though, is that Los Angeles has only the 31st worst traffic worldwide. So it could be worse.
And probably will be if we keep adding more and more cars to the streets, without providing safe alternatives to driving.
Although Southern California is well represented by San Bernardino (#3), Chula Vista (#6) and Bakersfield (#11).
Yes, bucolic, fog-shrouded Bakersfield is the only SoCal city to make both unlucky lists. If you want to stretch the definition of Southern California a little.
However, the point of the second list is to show how many of those people killed in each city were wearing helmets at the time of the crash. Bakersfield checks in with a big, fat zero, as does Chula Vista; San Bernardino does a little better with 14% helmet use.
As always, though, there’s no breakdown on how many of those people died as a result of head injuries, or whether their injuries might have been survivable even with a helmet.
So take it with a grain of salt. If not an entire bag.
But you might want to be careful riding in Bakersfield.
Naturally, the driver played the universal Get Out of Jail Free card, claiming he never saw the victim until he was on his hood.
But about a month later, the guy on the bike was sued in small claims court for $900 in damages to the car that hit him.
Somehow, though, the location of the crash described in the suit moved from a surface street to an Interstate highway. And instead of rear-ending the victim, the driver claimed the guy on the bike hit him while pedaling at 60 mph.
Or maybe 80.
When a reporter asked him about the bike’s remarkably high speed, the pizza man claimed it was doable if the victim was riding an expensive bike.
So maybe those $12,000 or more bikes are worth it, after all.
Despite telling officers he’d had just one beer four hours earlier, his BAC measured 0.17 — over twice the legal limit, or “super drunk” under Michigan law.
But he will get eight days credit for time served.
Just to be clear, alcoholism is a disease.
But deciding to get behind the wheel after drinking — or on the saddle of a motorized bike — is just plain, old fashioned stupidity.
That’s exactly the kind of truck that killed nine-year old Nicholas Vela in Anaheim in 2009, because the driver couldn’t see a little kid riding his bike in the crosswalk directly in front of him after he stopped for a stop sign.
I’ve never forgotten the sheer, effing needlessness of Vela’s death, all because a driver somehow felt the need to jack up his pickup to the maximum level allowed by law.
Something tells me he never will, either.
Maybe someday someone can tell me why machines like this are even allowed on the streets.
Calbike is hosting their annual California Dream Ride down the Left Coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles in October. And not only are ebikes allowed, they’ll let you borrow one if needed.
It may not be the carfree street that’s been discussed, but San Francisco’s Valencia Street will be getting protected bike lanes, complete with protected intersections.
February 25, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bike registration and green transportation at LA council this week, new CicLAvia to the sea, and selective enforcement in NYC
Mea culpa.
Once again, I accidentally hit the wrong damn button and posted this piece before it’s ready.
Except I can almost guarantee someone — Koretz, perhaps, maybe Cedillo — will argue that it should be mandatory, taking us back to the bad old days when police used missing registration stickers as a pretext to stop bike riders, particularly when their skin tone was something other than white.
The police are proposing a partnership with a still-unnamed nonprofit bike registration program, allowing easy online bicycle registration and reporting of stolen bikes.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly what you’ll find with the links to Bike Index at the top of this page — with the exception that reporting with them doesn’t currently link to an online theft report with the LAPD, though that would be easy enough to fix.
However, it’s also what you can find with their only major US competitor, Project 529, formerly known as the National Bike Registry.
At this point, it’s not clear whether they will announce their choice at today’s meeting, or if they’re only looking for authorization to set up a program with a company to be named later.
A New York bike rider complains about getting a ticket for not having a bell on her bike when she stopped to take pictures of three cops ticketing a bicyclist for not using the bike lane.
And ignoring scofflaw drivers in the process.
Meanwhile, there are double parked cars everywhere and cars stopped in the crosswalk as pedestrians are trying to cross. I asked the officer why they’re not ticketing them also and he said, “I’m using my discretion” pic.twitter.com/PrSiLsvcCD
Not only did an ebike rider soundly defeat a driver in a race through LA traffic, he even beat the camera crew — despite giving them a half hour head start.
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Best argument for universal single-payer healthcare, as former pro Phil Gaimon gets shafted stuck with a quarter million dollar hospital bill following a crash, despite being insured.
I'm insured, I was brought to an ER unconscious, and I owe $250,000. https://t.co/yhkF2KtAwo
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.
An English bike rider barely escapes a close call when a driver pulls out directly in front of him. Note to bike riders: Edit down your bike cam videos. No one needs to see a full minute or more of peaceful riding before some idiot in a car does something stupid.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Streetsblogoffers an open thread on Sunday’s South LA CicLAvia. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make this one, because I being interviewed, along with a couple other people, for a story about the foster corgi; hopefully that one will appear in print and online in the next week or two.
Bicycling calls the new $2,200 Batch E-Commuter ped-assist ebike an affordable and efficient solution for bike commuting and other daily outings. Evidently they have a different definition of affordable than the one I use.
Someone stabbed a Chicago man after knocking him off his bicycle as he rode on a bike path, for no apparent reason, in an apparently random attack before running off and leaving him there. Special thanks to Block Club Chicago for that lovely photo of the victim’s blood pooled on the ground inside the crime scene tape. Really nice.
No bias here. A Long Island NY town is preparing to crack down on “objectively moronic” teenagers who pop wheelies while impeding motor vehicle traffic, by impounding their bicycles. If they think that’s bad, just wait until they hear what drivers do.
This is who we share the road with. A Florida man spent the day drinking at a bar, accidentally ran over his girlfriend after leaving the bar, then went back to the bar to keep drinking; remarkably, investigators waited several hours to administer a blood test, by which time he had sobered up. He had also gotten arrested a year ago for attacking a bike rider after nearly crashing into him.
A group of Australian bicyclists will ride sans skid lids to protest the country’s mandatory helmet laws while promoting the benefits of bike riding. Just keep on depressing bicycling rates by fining people hundreds of dollars for riding without a helmet. It’s not like the country is literally burning or anything.
Competitive Cycling
Bicycling asks the burning question of whether road bikes are already as good as they can get, or if there are still better ideas being stifled by bike racing’s governing body. I’d put my money on the latter, but what the hell do I know.
Apparently, the United States is now in favor of traffic deaths.
Or at least disagrees with the rest of the world — literally — on the urgent need to keep people from dying on our streets.
Writing in Forbes, British bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid points out that the United States was the only one out of more than 140 nations which refused to sign on to the Stockholm Declaration from the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety held in the city last week.
Because of the latest dissent it’s likely that road safety professionals will say the U.S. is a “road-death reduction pariah.” Pedestrian organizations, including the leading American one, have already expressed disappointment at the U.S. decision to dissent…
Among the key conference resolutions was the call to rein back speed on the world’s roads. The Stockholm Declaration wants countries to “focus on speed management,” with increased enforcement of existing speed limits and “mandate a maximum road travel speed of 30 kph (18.6 mph) in areas where vulnerable road users and [motor] vehicles mix.”
The declaration noted that speed reductions would result in improvements in air quality and could therefore help countries tackle climate change.
And that’s where they lost American support.
The U.S. delegation at the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety objected to a declaration that wants to shift “toward safer, cleaner, more energy-efficient and affordable modes of transport and promote higher levels of physical activity such as walking and cycling as well as integrating these modes with the use of public transport to achieve sustainability.”
Also, the U.S. dissociated from a declaration that aims to focus attention on the “safety needs of those road users who are the most vulnerable including pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and users of public transport.”
A statement from the U.S. delegation said it “dissociates itself from references [to] climate change, gender equality, reduced inequalities, responsible consumption and production” claiming that these issues are “not directly related to road safety.”
So, in addition to the usual climate change denial from our nation’s leaders, we’re evidently now opposed to energy efficiency, walking, bicycling and public transit. Or gender equality in transportation, for that matter.
Not to mention saving the lives of vulnerable road users.
Something I would have thought no one could possibly oppose.
And yet, here we are.
The world’s only traffic safety deniers and road-death reduction pariahs.
I don’t care whether you’re liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. Or anything else in-between, above, below or beyond.
A San Francisco bike shop owner comes out against a proposal to make Valencia Street carfree, apparently preferring the business he gets from motorists to all the additional sales he might get from people who no longer have to worry about getting hit by cars and the people in them.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.
A mixed race Indiana couple are accused of harassing two teenage bike riders and running them off the road because they were flying pro-Trump flags on their bikes. I’ve spent the last several months training the foster corgi to ignore dogs he disagrees with; we shouldn’t have to do the same thing for people in cars who don’t like someone else’s politics.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Talk about keeping dangerous people on the streets until it’s too late. An Irish man got a well-deserved eight years behind bars for crashing a stolen bicycle into an English tourist as he was making his getaway, leaving her with life-changing injuries; he had a whopping 92 previous convictions, including several involving gratuitous violence.
Letter writers in the LA Times come out strongly in favor of enforcing speed limits. The problem is, there aren’t enough cops in the country to catch every speeding driver. Which is why we need to legalize automated speed cameras in California.
A San Diego letter writer says stop pushing bike lanes as a solution to traffic, insisting the city has failed to convincingly demonstrate demand. Although as someone much smarter than me once said, you don’t demonstrate the need for a bridge by counting the people swimming across a river.
No bias here, either. The New York Post’s notoriously bike-hating columnist calls out the city’s plans for a bike lane on Sixth Avenue, insisting it “raises the bar for malicious streetscape tampering.” Because evidently, no one who works in those high rise professional buildings would ever want to ride a bike to work.
A year after the drunken Mardi Gras parade crash that killed two people and injured several others, a New Orleans paper questions whether the city is any safer for people on bicycles, as improvements suggested by the mayor continue to exist only on paper.
Tour de France, Giro and Vuelta winner Chris Froome makes his long-delayed comeback from severe injuries suffered in a training ride crash last summer, saying “it feels good to be a bike racer again.”
The Orange County Transportation Authority wants to know how you get around the county.
And yes, the correct answer is by bike.
OCTA Seeks Community Input on O.C. Transportation Needs
Transportation Needs Assessment Survey is available online and in multiple languages through March
ORANGE – The Orange County Transportation Authority is conducting an online survey to gain better insight into how people living in Orange County are changing the way they get around the county.
The Transportation Needs Assessment Survey is intended to gauge people’s opinions on the current public transit system and help shape future transportation planning in Orange County.
The online survey is part of an ongoing effort by OCTA to reach out to current riders of OC Bus and Metrolink, as well as non-riders, to deliver a balanced and sustainable transportation network for the county and to enhance overall quality of life.
The survey, at www.OCTAsurvey.com, will be online through the end of March. In an effort to engage residents from a variety of backgrounds, the survey is available in English and six other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
“Our goal is to ensure all residents have a voice when it comes to transportation needs,” said OCTA Chairman Steve Jones, also the mayor of Garden Grove. “The Transportation Needs Assessment is an opportunity for residents to have a say in local and regional mobility and to ensure everyone is being served.”
The brief survey, which should take approximately 10 minutes or less to complete, asks how residents currently get around Orange County, and seeks suggestions on what can be improved to encourage people to use public transportation or consider active transportation options, such as walking and cycling.
Save the date! The 30th Annual SANDAG Bike to Work Day will be Thursday, May 14, 2020. Online registration will open on March 2. Register by April 12 for a chance to win a $500 gift card to Moment Bicycles!
Interested in hosting an official Bike to Work Day pit stop? Applications will be accepted from March 2–20. Support new and experienced riders throughout the county as they roll by a pit stop to pick up a free t-shirt, snacks, and encouragement.
Be sure to stay tuned to the SANDAG Facebook page to vote for this year’s official Bike to Work Day t-shirt later this month!
For more information about Bike to Work Day, visit the iCommute Bike Month web page.
A Twitter thread from Streetsblog makes the case that the proposed widening of Magnolia Blvd in North Hollywood is a zombie project that has somehow lived on, despite a call to narrow the street in the city’s mobility plan.
This project was apparently partially funded via 2009 federal grant. The $8.4M is $5.46 million federally funded, plus $2.94 from local Proposition C monies. The decision-maker is L.A. City Councilmember @PaulKrekorian
Portland bike owners can now report stolen bikes online. Which should solve the problem of cops who don’t want to be bothered with writing up a report.
Unbelievable. The allegedly intoxicated man who ran down five Australian bicyclists as they rode in a bike lane was granted bail on a previous drug charge just one day before the crash. Just one more example of authorities keeping dangerous drivers on the road until it’s too late.
February 20, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA Times tells state to speed up slowing drivers down, Streets For All goes all in on ads, and 5 riders run down Down Under
I seem to be apologizing a lot this week.
Sorry for the downtime on this site yesterday morning, and thank you to everyone who notified me about the 502 error; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to access the backside of this site, either.
It turned out to be a large scale glitch that took down a number of sites across the internet. But everything’s back to normal now.
Hopefully, it will stay that way.
And let me apologize to everyone who sent me links the past few days. I’ve lost track of most of them, and I’m way too tired to track them all down now.
So allow me to just offer a general and generic thank you to everyone who contributed something for your help, which I genuinely appreciate.
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They get it.
In recent years, the LA Times editorial board has taken strong stands in favor of safer streets and alternative transportation.
The problem stems from a decades-old state law that essentially requires cities to set speed limits based on how fast people are already driving on that stretch of road, regardless of whether that speed is safe or whether the street has a history of wrecks. It was adopted more than 60 years agoto prevent cities from setting speed traps, or arbitrarily low speed limits aimed at sticking drivers with pricey tickets…
The more common and unintended consequence of the 85th percentile rule is what’s known as speed creep. Higher speed limits encourage motorists to drive faster, which in turn prompts higher speed limits. That’s what happened on Zelzah Avenue in L.A.
It’s not surprising, then, that the task force has recommended giving cities more flexibility to set lower speed limits, particularly on streets with lots of injury crashes or an abundance of pedestrians and cyclists. Research shows that speed limits do affect drivers’ behavior, and even modest reductions in speed can save lives. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a vehicle traveling 35 miles per hour has a 68% chance of survival. A person hit by vehicle traveling at 40 mph — just 5 mph faster — has only a 35% chance of survival.
They conclude this way.
None of these steps will be easy; Californians have fiercely resisted safety-promoting reforms that might slow their commutes. But at the very least, lawmakers should get rid of a system that forces cities to give in to speeders before cracking down on them.
Amen, brothers and sisters.
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Here’s something that’s been missing from Los Angeles for far too long.
LA nonprofit Streets For All has produced YouTube ads supporting safe streets candidates in the upcoming March 3rd election.
While there’s an argument to be made against independent groups getting involved in local political races, until campaign finance laws are reformed to remove outside influence and expenditures, it’s vital to get our side out there, too.
And yes, I’ll be casting my vote for Sarah Kate Levy during the early voting period next week.
He faces numerous charges, including multiple counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing grievous bodily harm; dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and adversely affected by an intoxicating substance; and failing to remain at the scene and render assistance.
The question is whether he was just too drunk and/or stoned to control his damn vehicle, or if this was a deliberate attempt to run down as many riders as he could.
………
A meeting will be held in NoHo this afternoon to discuss the ill-advised widening of Magnolia Blvd, which contradicts LA’s Vision Zero and climate action plans, and all that is holy.
Pasadena News Nowallows the four candidates for the city’s mayor to make their case; all but one ignore transportation, except to complain about traffic. The fourth, Major Williams, gets points for wanting to get cars off the street — but what the hell are “motorized walkway paths?”
An 88-year old DC crossing guard is a hero, holding his ground against a speeding driver and sacrificing his own life to save two children. Thanks to Orange House for the heads-up.
This is who we share the roads with, too. A 75-year old London rabbi offered to help a woman park her Jag, and somehow confused the brake and gas pedals, crashing into two pedestrians before plowing into a pharmacy. Yes, the news is two years old; British privacy rules prevent releasing details on cases like this before they go to trial.
Apparently, no one is safe from idiots with engines.
According to a tweet from the Norwalk Station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a woman was killed in a collision with a motorcyclist while riding on the San Gabriel River Bike Trail a little over two weeks ago.
Yes, on an offroad bike path.
And yes, her killer fled the scene.
The victim was identified as 31-year old Carla Becerra, who was killed in the crash on Saturday, February 1st.
#HitandRun Arrest 2/1/20, Carla Becerra (31) was cycling on riverbed bike path when she was struck & killed by susp riding a motorbike. #RIP
2/13 Brandon Lindsley (29) was arrested for the crime.
Twentynine-year old Brandon Lindsley was arrested for the crime eleven days later, and charged with vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run last Friday. Since Becerra died, both should be felony counts.
Unfortunately, that’s all we know right now.
No word on exactly where or how the crash happened. And no explanation for what the hell someone on a motorbike was doing on a bike path.
Hopefully we’ll learn more on Wednesday, when the department is expected to issue a press release.
This is at least the seventh bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
Becerra was found lying unconscious on the path, with her bicycle several feet away. She was taken to Coast Plaza Medical Center, where she died.
Investigators identified Lindsley as a person of interest based on a distinctive tattoo seen by people who did not witness the crash itself. He was arrested after reportedly making incriminating statements to investigators.
Lindsley is being held on $105,000 bail in this case, as well as a no-bail hold on an outstanding warrant for assault with a deadly weapon.
Comments from Mike Wilkinson and Michael of CLR Effect say motorcycles aren’t unusual on the San Gabriel River Bike Trail, despite a prohibition on anything with an engine.
Maybe this will be a much-needed wakeup call to actually do something about it.
Update 2: Chris Klibowitz reports that the sheriff’s department gave the location as between Imperial and Firestone, rather than near the intersection, as KTLA reported, which makes a lot more sense.
Update 3: I received a message from Carla Becerra’s brother Quin, who offered a few details missing from previous reports.
According to Quin, the first call to 911 came around 6:45 pm on February 1st, as Carla Becerra was riding her bicycle south on the bike path, and Brandon Lindsley was traveling north on his motorcycle; he places the crash site roughly a quarter mile south of Imperial Highway.
Lindsley apparently fled because he had an outstanding warrant for a robbery assault with a deadly weapon.
Then again, he might have run anyway.
And still no explanation for why he was riding illegally on the bike path.
Adding insult to injury — literally — someone stole Becerra’s phone, earphones and ear rings while she was lying unconscious and dying on the bike path, sometime before the first responders could get there.
As a result, emergency personnel were unable to identify her for several hours, and her family had no idea where she was or what happened to her until they received the tragic news at 3 am the next day.
This is how Quin described his sister Carla.
My sister was a full time RN at UCI medical and at MLK hospital. She had worked her entire life, to buy my parents their dream home in Lakewood, even put her social and love life on hold to do so. She always put others before herself, just so her life can be taken away from someone so selfish. The messed up part about all of this is that if he (Brandon) was the one left unconscious then she would have stayed and made sure he made it. She had a huge passion for cycling and running. The only comfort my family and I take from this is that she left us while doing something she loved. It just wasn’t her time yet.
He concluded by noting that Brandon Lindsley will be arraigned on Tuesday, February 25th — the same day his victim will be laid to rest.
There are no words.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Carla Becerra and all her loved ones.
February 18, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Redesigning our cities for people, Metro planner killed in SaMo, and illegal bike dismount signs on Wilshire Blvd
My apologies to anyone who saw a premature draft of today’s page while it was still under construction; I somehow hit the Post button instead of Save.
Blame a daylong rollercoaster dealing with the literal highs and lows of diabetes.
Shops on streets that are closed to private cars do not suffer, but quite the opposite. Living in a city without a car is perfectly possible: it is already significantly cheaper to rent a car as often as you need than to own one and have to face expenses such as insurance, parking or taxes. But all these solutions raise a fundamental question about changing our habits, about how we get to work, for example: working from home or flexible hours are increasingly established trends.
Sad news from Santa Monica, where Metro Transportation Planner Daniel Chuong was killed when he was struck by a driver while training with his brother for the LA Marathon.
This is so incredibly sad. A 34 year old LA Metro Transportation Planner killed by a car while running in Santa Monica. We need safer streets. pic.twitter.com/CT9YpKoZp4
However, the signs do not appear to be compliant with the California MUTCD manual — the state’s official traffic sign guide — and not legally enforceable.
Although I could be wrong on that.
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Apparently, the bike lanes on Jefferson have been closed for sewer pipe work for the next year.
And as usual, there doesn’t seem to be any accommodation for bike riders.
The city restriped the Jefferson bike lane out of existence and now you have to merge into speeding traffic. @LADOTlivable this is going to get someone killed. What were you thinking?? pic.twitter.com/BFWJre34SC
However, the OC Register mentions that the driver fled the scene almost as an aside, before finally getting to a description of the suspect vehicle near the end of the story.
An Oklahoma couple is planning to set a new Guinness world record for the longest ebike ride, traveling 20,000 unsupported miles across 48 states. Get back to me when they actually do it. Because it’s easy to make plans, much harder to actually do it. As I’ve learned the hard way.
An Orlando, Florida writer confesses to blowing through stop signs while riding a bicycle on a trail dedicated to non-motorized transportation, where bike riders should get priority, but don’t. Each of the past two nights, I’ve watched drivers blow through the stop signs on my block without even slowing down. But let a bike rider do the same thing at 10 – 15 mph, instead of 30 or more, and people get apoplectic.
They get it, too. A writer for Rouleur says the one thing all bicyclist have in common, regardless of ability, is how vulnerable we are on the roads. And concludes that the culture, and the laws, have to change.
File this one under you’ve got to be kidding. Melbourne residents are calling for bikes to be banned from shared paths because riders are exceeding the ridiculously low 6.2 mph speed limit. I’m not sure my bike can even go that slow without falling over. Or maybe it can, and I can’t.
Adults over 50 are invited to compete in the Pasadena Senior Games, which includes cycling as well as a number of other sports. Although it’s not clear from the article whether you have to be a Pasadena resident.
February 17, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Stolen bikes and the jerks who take them, 9-year old San Marcos BMX bike flipper, and South African bicycle hip hop
Today’s a holiday, in case you hadn’t noticed. Which is easy to do if you didn’t get it off.
But my wife did, surprisingly enough.
So we’re going with sort of a Morning Links lite today, with most of the weekend’s bike news, so I can get a little sleep before she wakes me up too damned early in the morning; we’ll catch up on the rest tomorrow.
Today’s photo is what’s left of a bike after thieves stripped it, leaving its mangled carcass behind.
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Today’s common theme is stolen bikes and the jerks who take them.
Introducing my new favorite South African hip hop video.
Seriously, who can top rhymes like this?
When I hop on the metal and push on the pedal, there’s a certain peace that I get that’s really good for my mental.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. And on.
A Willits CA woman intentionally ran over a man on a bike who she had been arguing with; she was arrested after fleeing the scene, along with her husband and son-in-law, who were booked as accessories after the fact for helping with her coverup.
No bias here, either. A Toronto columnist says the city’s Vision Zero isn’t failing because drivers need more safety education, but rather, they break the law because they’re frustrated by gridlock caused by all those bike lanes and lower speed limits. Which doesn’t explain why drivers broke the law before all those things, though.
