April 29, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Former NTSB official says no deaths should be the only goal, legalize crossing the street, and building the 15 minute city
Sometimes I arrived at the scene of a business jet or helicopter crash, other times it was a train derailment, once it was a cargo ship lost in a hurricane — always, it involved a tragic loss of life. But despite the terrible toll of motor vehicle deaths on our nation, I never launched to the scene of a traffic crash. Why? Perhaps because the NTSB only has the capacity to investigate a handful of vehicle crashes each year. Perhaps because there weren’t any crashes classified as major disasters when I was on duty. But in 2019, more than 36,000 deaths were recorded on U.S. roads, so an average of nearly 700 traffic deaths occurred every week I was on duty.
Yet our nation doesn’t think of a traffic crash as a disaster, since deaths typically occur one or two at a time. Many of us don’t believe that every road death is preventable. As a nation, we haven’t yet decided that we can protect everyone, including the most vulnerable among us who use our streets and highways — people who are younger or older, people who are walking or biking, people with disabilities. We accept tens of thousands of deaths on our roads every year as simply unavoidable “accidents,” even though we have proven solutions to prevent them.
It’s worth a few minutes to read.
Because she’s right. There’s no acceptable number of traffic deaths.
And it’s long past time we did something about it.
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Los Angeles Walks is joining with partners across the state on Monday for a national discussion about jaywalking and efforts to decriminalize it.
Like their sponsorship of AB 1238, aka the Freedom to Walk Act, which would get rid of California’s jaywalking law, which is too often used to target people of color.
Tonight's @LADOTofficial meeting presentation photo usage complainer. This LADOT slide features 4 photos – the first three, I @JoeLinton took, and the 4th photo I didn't take, but it is a photo of me! (DOT can use SBLA photos free w credit, but never credit.) pic.twitter.com/4AAZWd7kPY
'What the MUTCD Can Be' on revising engineers' 'bible-' with Andy Singer and Mike Mcginn AND an interview by @AndreaLearned with @davidmiller, author of Solved: How the World’s Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis. This Friday, 6pm Pacific, @ https://t.co/Wb6M83EfPv
Bay Area transportation officials marked the beginning of Bike Month by announcing nine Bike Champion of the Year winners, honoring one person from each county in the Bay region for their commitment to bicycling.
They get it. A new survey shows Pittsburgh residents overwhelmingly support bike lanes, walking routes and reduced speed limits. And think traffic injuries are a major problem. Maybe someday someone will finally get around to asking Angelenos those same questions, so our elected leaders might finally see that the car-first crowd is just a very loud minority.
This is who we share the road with. A newlywed English teenager gets a well-deserved year behind bars for stealing a crate of eggs, then driving his car while friends threw the eggs out the window at passing people and cars, permanently blinding a motorcycle rider in his right eye with a direct hit. He took the fall for his friends, refusing to name who actually tossed the eggs.
Go ahead and leave you mask at home on your next bike ride.
If you’ve had your shots.
California and LA County are going along with new directives from the CDC, which conclude that masks are no longer necessary for people who’ve received both shots when you’re outside and away from crowds.
And they specifically call out bicycling as safe to do without a mask.
So feel free to breathe freely.
But maybe keep one handy in case you decide to go inside somewhere, or find yourself around people who may not have had their shots yet.
A modern British remake of Vittorio De Sica’s classic Bicycle Thieves will premier on streaming platforms next week.
The Guardian likes it, but says it could be better.
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This is who we share the road with.
In a rant that will sound familiar to most bike riders, a road raging British driver complains that horses don’t belong on the roads, and uses his car as a weapon to attack a woman on a horse.
Although hardly anyone complains about bike riders pooping on the streets.
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Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A pair of Canadian burglars demonstrate that you can carry anything with a bike. Even a stolen safe.
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Local
Cities Todaycelebrates LA’s pre-pandemic 22% jump in bike ridership, which is likely to be even larger when the post-pandemic numbers finally come in. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another two years to get a snapshot of current ridership, like we did last time.
Portland has waived an $11 million fine against the US government for blocking one of the nation’s busiest bike lanes for the better part of a year with a fence surrounding the federal courthouse, to protect it from protesters.
Thieves take their time cleaning out the bike storage room at a Denver apartment complex, easily walking out with six bicycles. Another reminder that most storage rooms just offer bike thieves a more convenient place to shop for your bike.
The container ship Ever Given may have been freed from the Suez Canal, but your new bike may still be stuck in Egypt because the ship and its cargo are being held as ransom until the company forks over $900 million in damages.
Yes, a bike helmet can cut your risk of a head injury if you come off your bike, though studies disagree on just how much.
But what helmet advocates seem to forget is that bike helmets are designed to protect against relatively slow speed falls. Not high speed collisions with a couple tons of semi-ballistic steel and glass.
They should always be seen as the last line of defense when all else fails, not the first; the key to bike safety is to ride defensively so you don’t get hit in the first place.
And telling people not to ride after dark makes no more sense than telling them not to walk or leave their house.
The college settled with the family of the victim for $115,000 as a result of the 2018 case, when the cop briefly chased him in his patrol car, then bizarrely pulled his gun on him, despite a total lack of probable cause.
The university alleges the officer, Troy Phillips, lied about what happened, and hid the existence of video and audio recordings of the incident, accusing Phillips of unlawful arrest, malicious prosecution and fabricating evidence.
And says he should be on the hook for the settlement, rather than the school.
In a tragic coda to the story, the victim, 40-year old Eliborio Rodrigues Jr. was shot and killed by a cop the following year, after refusing to show his ID and asking for a sergeant when he was stopped for taking a plastic bottle out of a recycling bin.
Yes, he was killed over a lousy piece of trash.
The shooting was inexplicably ruled justified, despite the flimsy probable cause, when the cop claimed Rodrigues reached for his taser.
Bensalem Township Police have created a portal to upload photographs and/or videos of bicycle riders causing traffic issues in the township. Follow the link below for more information or this link to directly upload to Bensalem Police: https://t.co/21RZXWgPsRpic.twitter.com/VnID8zUIuV
So, if a heavy bollard can’t keep a car out of a building, how are those little plastic bendy posts LA uses to demarcate “protected” bike lanes supposed to do the job?
Improperly Installed Bollard Fails To Keep Shitty Driver From Crashing Into Local Bank.https://t.co/j4kvUzRt1m
LA Magazine says Hollywood’s newly trendy Sycamore Ave, home to SiriusXM and the offices of Jay Z and Beyoncé, are due to get bike lanes soon. Even though they really belong one block west on busy La Brea Blvd.
An Arkansas bike rider learned the hard way that drivers aren’t the only risk we face on the roads when he was attacked by a pack of angry dogs that came charging out of a couple’s yard; he was rushed to the hospital with a tourniquet on his leg. Never mind that the dogs should have been secured so they couldn’t rush out into the street like that, for their own safety, as well as others.
A new poll conducted by PeopleForBikes shows Pittsburgh residents don’t hate bike lanes after all, with three-quarters agreeing that additional bike and pedestrian infrastructure would more it a more desirable place to live.
It was a bad day for scofflaw Manchester drivers, as a cop in Manchester, England commandeered a bicycle from a passing rider to catch a car thief before he could flee on foot after crashing. And a pair of bike cops in a French district by the same name chased down and busted a Porsche driver for driving recklessly.
April 26, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Murder charge for intentionally killing Port Hueneme teen, San Diego hit-and-run victim ID’d, and bike riders behaving badly
An Arkansas man got five years for a pair of drug cases, as well as riding his old bike into a Walmart and riding out with a new one while claiming it was okay because he was a police officer. He isn’t, and it wasn’t.
In news that would have been unbelievable just a few years ago, the former Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills adopts Complete Streets as a “high-level concept,” though just what that will mean on the streets will need to be fleshed out. Thanks to Keith Johnson for the link.
Road Bike Action lists nine essential skills every bike rider needs to master. Actually, some of these only apply to roadies, and only if you plan to ride in a group. Unless maybe you plan to bump cruiser bike riders on the beach bike path.
After initially cancelling their annual Christmas bike giveaway, Fayetteville, Arkansas’ Bicycle Man organization donated 1,000 bikes to local kids; the group has given away over 27,000 bicycles since starting in a couple’s backyard 31 years ago.
This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Kentucky man faces a DUI charge in Wisconsin after he was found sleeping in his car with the engine running; this is his fifth DUI in four different states. The law has to be changed to make drunk and drugged driving offenses follow drivers from state to state, so they can’t escape prosecution for multiple violations.
Bikes can take you anywhere. Even to the cemetery of a 920-year old Northumbrian church, where the father of the UK’s National Health Service rests, along with a leading WWII-era British Nazi and, briefly, half of his best-selling author son.
Even Nairobi is outstripping Los Angeles, with plans to invest 1.47 billion Kenyan shillings in new bikeways and walkways outside of the city center, although that converts to just $13.5 million. But as Stormin’ Norman points out in forwarding the story, the average Kenyan consumes just 2% of the resources of the average American, so that figure is a lot higher in context.
Thanks to John H and Megan L for their generous, and unexpected, donations to help support this site, and keep SoCal’s best bike news coming your way every day.
While my hand is doing better today, it seems to be asking a little too much of it to write this post, along with the earlier piece about a fatal bike collision in San Diego’s Balboa Park.
I’ll try to catch up on Monday if we missed anything important.
The driver stopped briefly after striking the man as he rode his bike on the north sidewalk of Olympic Boulevard just east of Boyle Avenue, but didn’t identify himself or stick around.
So much for the usual truck driver excuse that they didn’t know they hit anyone.
The 30-year old victim spent several days in the ICU with multiple fractures and internal injuries.
The truck is described as possibly being a white 2015 Freightliner Columbia 120, with what looks like a sleeper cab, while the driver is described only as a man in his 30’s who could be Latino.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Officer Garcia at 213/833-3713 or email 39759@lapd.online.
The local chief of police defended his officers, insisting they acted appropriately — even though about the only way they matched the suspect description was they’re both men.
Listen 10-12 minutes in. @AirTalk host @LarryMantle responds to a parent whose kids want bike lanes that bike lanes are really controversial, but in 2035, all the cars will be electric, so kids can drive instead.
Metro announce that Bike Month will be back this year, with a Bike Anywhere Day on Friday the 21st replacing the usual Thursday Bike to Work Day; Bike Week will take place from May 17th to the 23rd. Maybe I’ll be recovered enough by then to ride somewhere on Bike Anywhere Day.
Um, no. The CEO of bicycle subscription company Buzzbike says urban private bicycle ownership will be dead within the coming decade. Meanwhile, Twitter user Steven Mandrapa responded by writing “We also predict people will no longer own their own pants and will prefer to rent pants anytime they go outside.” Touché, Steven.
Life is cheap in Ohio, where a motorcyclist will spend a lousy nine months behind bars for killing a 15-year old kid riding a bicycle, despite riding with a suspended license. At least they’re suspending his license for five years, even though that didn’t seem to stop him the last time.
Apparently, it’s the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Opponents of London’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods — the equivalent of Slow Streets on this side of the Atlantic — claim they impede emergency vehicles, with little or no facts to support it. And yes, Low Traffic Neighborhoods is a much better name than Slow Streets.
Apparently the only thing that will allow someone else to win the women’s Flèche Wallonne will be Anna van der Breggen’s impending retirement, after she won her seventh consecutive title.
The victim, who was not publicly identified, was reportedly trying to cross from the center divider to the right shoulder. There’s no word on why he was crossing where he did, rather than use the nearby bridge.
This is at least the 21st bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and all his loved ones.
April 21, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on San Diego woman critical after hit-and-run, more on Biking While Black arrest, and CA Stop as Yield Bill up for vote tomorrow
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was riding her bike on Ingraham Street near Fortuna Avenue when the driver ran her down from behind Monday night.
The suspect was driving a dark colored, four-door SUV with front-end damage; anyone with information is urged to call the SDPD’s Traffic Division at 858/495-7805.
A longer video show the events leading up to the arrest in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where a group of teens were popping wheelies and riding salmon through traffic.
Officers were able to corner several riders who broke away from the main mass of riders, leading them to confiscate four bikes that didn’t have the city’s required bike license. Even though they were initially promised their bikes wouldn’t be taken.
The Black teen was arrested for refusing to turn over his bike.
Even though it’s highly questionable whether police have the right to confiscate bicycles for a simple infraction — let alone arrest someone for what amounts to a ticketable traffic offense.
Especially if the kids are from out of town, since a city’s licensing requirement can’t be enforced against nonresidents.
And even though licensing laws, like helmet laws, are too often enforced against people of color, often as a pretext for an otherwise illegal search.
Fortunately, the cops came to their senses and returned the bikes a few hours later, as well as releasing the young man who’d been arrested.
The head of the New Jersey chapter of the ACLU offered this take on the incident.
This is Perth Amboy, NJ. Are the police really arresting kids over bike registrations? Does it really require this many officers to address whatever situation this is? Police CANNOT continue to be our response to EVERYTHING. https://t.co/fcrPfJNKBI
“The incident in Perth Amboy is an example of the kind of excessive criminalization that invites selective enforcement by police officers,” Sinha told NJ Advance Media. “Black and brown people are targeted and racially profiled for normal activities like riding bikes, walking down the street, or driving a car.”
“No one should be threatened with arrest or have their bike confiscated just for riding down the street rather than the sidewalk,” he added. “And we should be alarmed when police use their authority to brand normal behavior as crimes.”
Which pretty well sums up this whole sad affair of Biking While Black or Brown.
Thanks to Al Williams for his help in identifying the location of the first video yesterday.
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It’s time to weigh in on California’s proposed Safety Stop Bill, aka the Idaho Stop Law, that would allow bike riders to legally treat stop signs as yields.
Which is exactly what many, if not most, of us already do.
We just heard this is coming up for a vote on Thursday. Please sign the petition! https://t.co/8nQXKdDGav
— California Bicycle Coalition (@CalBike) April 20, 2021
Bike Talk recently discussed the bill with Burbank Assembly Woman Laura Friedman.
Florida just legalized vehicular homicide if someone you disagree with politically blocks the roadway.
"The law, which goes into effect immediately, grants civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road.” Legalized vehicular homicide against protesters seems a bit much, to me.
Megan Lynch also forwards video of Portland bike cops violently attacking a man on a bike who tried to ride through a small group of protestors, and using their bikes to push back the other people.
A UCLA professor is using art to promote bicycling, working with the LACBC and the school’s Luskin School of Public Affairs to create interactive, digital murals that “will simultaneously connect commuters, create safe routes around the city, and allow everyone to contribute to a work of public art.”
UC Davis is teaming with the city to reimagine Russel Boulevard, the busy thoroughfare that forms the northern border of the campus; the street carries 8,000 bike riders and 13,000 transit users each day, topping the daily 20,000 motorists that use the street.
Cycling Tips finds what they call the silliest bike campaign on Kickstarter, a low-end carbon fiber mountain bike that appears to have been cobbled together using spare parts from Alibaba, China’s ubiquitous Amazon equivalent.
And at last, a solution for the age old problem of never having a speed bump when and where you really need one.
@bikinginla The perfect accessory, er well will need a trailer to haul it around. And then some way to unroll & roll it back up while pedaling pic.twitter.com/UM92f9GPBu
One victim, described only as a teenage boy, died after being taken to a local hospital.
Another boy was hospitalized in critical condition with what was described only as major injuries, while a third suffered significant lower body injuries.
Twenty-eight-year old Port Hueneme resident Samuel Rocha turned himself in to police sometime overnight. He was still being processed at 9:30 this morning.
KABC-7 reports Rocha has been booked on one count of homicide and two counts of attempted homicide, in a story that hasn’t been posted online yet.
Let’s hope they’re right, and authorities are taking this crime seriously for a change.
This is at least the 20th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
That matches the county’s total for all of last year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victims and all their loved ones.
