It might be time to check snow conditions in the underworld.
For the first time in memory, if not ever, Los Angeles officials overruled drivers right feet for setting speed limits, slightly lowering limits on 177 miles of LA streets.
And reversing, if ever so slightly, the ever-climbing speed limits forced on them by the deadly 85th Percentile Law.
The move came in response to legislation sponsored by Burbank state Assemblymember Laura Friedman, which allows cities to drop speed limits no more than five mph.
Which isn’t the legislation we need to repeal the 85th Percentile Law. But it’s a start.
Now we just have another 6,323 miles of streets to go.
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They get it.
https://twitter.com/NACTO/status/1496190934572273666
Not everyone does, though.
Curmudgeonly conservative Seattle shock jock Jason Rantz appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to complain that it’s just one more example of “everything is racist.”
Rantz accuses a “woke” professor of using a small sample size to show the law disproportionately ticketed people of color, while suggesting that some of those ticketed were probably just homeless people on stolen bicycles, anyway.
Schmuck.
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She gets it, too.
“My vision for the next 10, 20, 30 years for Tucson is definitely to institutionalize the concept of @CompleteStreets and mobility. It's where we have to go.” – @TucsonRomero, Mayor of the City of Tucson
WATCH NOW: https://t.co/HUrC7tcXir
— Smart Growth America (@SmartGrowthUSA) February 22, 2022
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A reminder about Walk ‘n Rollers upcoming 10th Anniversary celebration next month.
The Culver City-based organization deserves a lot of credit for teaching kids how to walk and ride safely.
So PUMPED to have @rcbmxican featured at our free 10th Anniversary Event on March 19th! Register to attend or volunteer at our event page https://t.co/f5aDIiWSJM#BMX #biketoschool #roll #bike #bicycle #birthday #free #gratis #SoCal #LACounty #CulverCity #freethingstodoinla pic.twitter.com/lt6owTvul6
— Walk 'n Rollers (@WalkAndRollers) February 22, 2022
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This may just be the coolest 100-year old bike I’ve ever seen.
Jaray Sesselrad pic.twitter.com/ASRPhAc12n
— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) February 22, 2022
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GCN considers whether a British company’s move to ban bike helmets for its delivery riders is science, or just plain stupid.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. An Italian bike rider was fined the equivalent of $380 after he was nearly doored by a careless cop, because bicyclists aren’t required to wear a Covid mask in the country, but pedestrians are — which he became when he got off his bike to argue the point with the cop.
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Local
Glendale police busted three men for attempting to steal bicycles from an underground parking facility at the Americana at Brand shopping center.
Norwalk has dropped the final draft of its proposed bicycle master plan.
State
Calbike comes out agains AB 371, which would effectively end bikeshare and e-scooter rentals by imposing an “unprecedented insurance requirement,” after killing a similar proposal two years ago.
PeopleForBikes announces the schedule and speakers for next month’s Bicycle Leadership Conference in Dana Point.
Business owners in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood continue to complain about lost business due to the removal of parking spaces for a protected bike lane on 30th Street, even though a nearby parking structure remains underutilized. Which suggests the real problem isn’t the bike lane, but drivers who are unwilling to pay for parking.
A Folsom letter writer says it’s time to allow bicycles on an 11-mile local trail, since mountain bikers outnumber equestrians in the area.
National
As if the company didn’t have enough problems these days, Peloton users were faced with a major service outage yesterday.
That’s more like it. Denver traffic engineers and planners took up a wheelchair-bound woman’s challenge to walk with her to see what her daily experience on the streets was really like.
Colorado is considering a bill to legalize the full Idaho Stop Law, which would allow bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and red lights like stop signs. The state currently has a confusing patchwork of local ordinances that allow riders to roll stops in one jurisdiction, while risking getting ticketed for the same thing in the next.
Bighearted students at an Iowa community college dug into their own pockets to buy a new bike for a cafeteria worker, after discovering his was worn out.
A Chicago chef feels vindicated after a jury awarded her over $212,000 for the dooring that left her seriously injured with a concussion, contusions and other injuries.
Get $900 off the provocatively named, Detroit-made Babymaker II ebike.
Bicycle Retailer says there’s still hope the dilapidated building that housed the Wright Brothers first bike shop could be saved, despite a Dayton, Ohio committee approving a permit to raze it.
Police in New York arrested an ambulance driver for the hit-and-run that killed a beloved teacher last year, while he was driving a Rolls-Royce that he may have rented; he also seriously injured a bike rider in another crash in 2017.
Kindhearted North Carolina sheriff’s deputies bought a nine-year old girl another bicycle, after one they bought for her following her involvement in a hostage situation was stolen.
There’s a special place in hell for an Alabama man who’s charged with sexually abusing a young child, two years after killing a bike rider in a collision.
International
Pink Bike examines why bike companies are changing hands like playing cards these days.
After discovering how essential bicycles are in Havana, a travel writer overcomes his childhood fears and learns to ride one to discover the other side of the Cuban city.
More on the move by Paris to install traffic cam-like noise sensors to detect and photograph loud vehicles in an effort to reduce noise levels, calling it a public health issue. Can we please have those here in Hollywood? Pretty please?
Aussie bicyclists are being urged to log their crashes and near misses on an app to provide data for researchers attempting to understand how and why collisions happen, and how to prevent them.
Competitive Cycling
About damn time. The 2022 Tour of Flanders will offer equal prize money to men and women, joining a worldwide movement to towards equal purses.
Finally…
If you’re going to use a stolen credit card to buy an $8,200 bike, don’t leave a paper trail stretching from New York to Pittsburgh and back. That feeling when a tree swallows your bike, and a myth grows along with it.
And I still want a damn Pashley Guv’nor, already.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
