BikinginLA

Let’s start with a little good news for a change.

Charlotte Sena, the 9-year old girl who disappeared while riding her bike in a New York state park campground two days ago, was found safe after a massive police search, and her alleged captor arrested.

She was found after police discovered a fingerprint on a ransom note left in the mailbox at her home, and traced it to the 47-year old suspect.

Charlotte appeared to be in good health after she was discovered hidden in a cabinet in the camper the suspect lived in behind his mother’s home.

The suspect, Craig Nelson Ross, Jr., suffered minor injuries after resisting arrest when SWAT teams made a “dynamic entry tactical maneuver,” which sounds like cop speak for busting down the door.

Ross’ fingerprint was on file following his arrest on a 1999 DUI charge.

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The allegedly stoned and suicidal driver who killed two men participating in a Michigan Make-A-Wish fundraising bike ride, and injured three other people, went on trial in Ionia, Michigan yesterday.

Forty-three-year old Mandy Benn was reported to be on Suboxone, Hydrocodone and Lorazepam at the time of the crash, and was recording a live Facebook video as she drove; police also found multiple narcotics in her car afterwards.

Benn crossed onto the wrong side of the road while passing a truck, and hit the victims head-on.

She faces multiple charges, including two felony counts with possible sentences of up to 15 years behind bars.

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Calbike is urging you to contact the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, to support a proposed budget including $18 million in ebike incentives for the next fiscal year.

CARB is also in the process of adding another $3 million to the current $10 million state ebike rebate program, which still hasn’t launched.

The additional $3 million would make roughly $10 million available for actual ebike rebates, after the state burned through $2.5 million of the original budget in overhead just getting to this point.

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Good question.

To the best of my knowledge, California’s three foot passing requirement is usually used in retrospect, when cops are looking for something to ticket a driver for after hitting a bicyclist.

Although drivers are now required to change lanes to pass someone on a bike if another lane is available.

Even if that hardly ever seems to happen in real life.

Is there any evidence that California's 3 foot passing law has ever been enforced? Here Hamburg police conduct a 1.5m bicycle passing sting, after marking 1.5m center of the bike lane. That's 5 feet. @bikinginla @calbike https://t.co/u7YuK1Ubtc

— Designed to Fail (@jbengough1701b) October 2, 2023

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In a clip from the Kelly Clarkson Show, an “avid cyclist” forgives the driver who rear-ended him while riding on PCH, leaving him with serious injuries.

He also called to make sure the driver was emotionally okay after the crash.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A lawyer in Alaska argues that nearly every ebike sold in the state, and throughout the US, is illegal under a 2002 federal regulation, and insists that reducing motor vehicle use can be “accomplished rationally and deliberately without letting motor vehicles loose on our trails and sidewalks under a scheme which makes enforcement impossible.”

Robbins, Iowa residents got out the torches and pitchforks to complain about a proposal for a bike trail that would connect one end of town to the other, for reasons the local TV station apparently couldn’t be bothered to explain.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A Rome, New York man faces charges for leading police on a chase on his bicycle, and attempting to fight the cops off with a pipe, after he threw a rock through the window of the police station for reasons known only to him.

Former US late night host James Corden apparently committed the unforgivable sin of riding a bikeshare bike on the sidewalk, which is strictly prohibited in the UK.

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Local 

The Los Angeles Times estimable Patt Morrison offers an overview of the city’s forever war on smog. You know what doesn’t pollute? A bicycle.

Metro rides will be free tomorrow for Clean Air Day, including the Metro Bike bikeshare.

Santa Monica’s city council voted to extend the existing Shared Mobility Device Pilot Program while the city negotiates a new contract with two e-scooter providers, even as one councilmember says the devices no longer belong in the city.

While we were away, Long Beach decided that 20 is plenty, dropping speed limits on 50 street segments to 20 mph or lower, while reducing speed limits by 5 mph on another 50 segments in an effort to improve safety. Just tell me where to send the thank you card. 

 

State

The California Office of Traffic Safety announced $127.3 million in grants for traffic safety projects throughout the state, with the overwhelming majority of funding going to enforcement and education programs, including bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operations. Although I’d like to see data showing whether those bike and pedestrian safety enforcement programs actually reduce traffic injuries and fatalities, or if that money could be better spent on fixing dangerous streets.

Irvine is considering building a physically separated cycle track along the South Yale corridor, where bike-riding middle school students are currently protected by just a thin line of paint.

Tijuana’s Economic Development Council is teaming with San Diego and Tijuana bike advocates to push for a cross-border bike path connecting to San Diego’s 6.7-mile Border to Bayshore Bikeway bike path.

Police in Porterville concluded that a 21-year old man who suffered “significant injuries” in a collision with a city truck driver was riding in an unspecified unsafe manner before the crash, and that the driver was just where they were supposed to be.

 

National

Pirelli, Lectric Ebikes, Shimano, Woom Bikes and Trek are all involved in current product recalls involving their bikes and/or bike parts.

Triathlete lists their 20 most memorable bike routes in the US, only one of which is in California.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole several bikes and vandalized a trailer belonging to an Oregon Safe Routes to Schools program.

Seattle unveiled a cute little compact, fully electric bike lane sweeper.

Dallas, Texas has nixed plans without explanation for a 55-mile bike trail known as The Loop, which has been included in city plans for the last dozen years.

Even a separated bike path isn’t safe from reckless drivers, as a bike rider on Chicago’s popular Lakefront Trail was hit by a driver who went through a guard rail on Lake Shore Drive, and into a 54-year old woman riding on the pathway; fortunately, she was not seriously injured.

Speaking of a special place in hell, that applies equally to whoever stole an ebike from an autistic man in upstate New York.

 

International

A Canadian handcyclist has become the first quadriplegic to ride the entire 5,200 mile across the country.

Wrexham, Wales, home to the popular eponymous fourth-tier English soccer team, must now hang its collective head in shame after being named the worst city in the UK for bicycling.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a driver was sentenced to just two years and eight months behind bars for killing a 31-year old woman out for a New Year’s bike ride, while he was still drunk from the night before.

A team of British engineering students have been named runner up for the 2023 National James Dyson Award for their handlebar mounted device offering blindspot and crash detection, as well as video and data recording.

The Jerusalem Post recommends the best bike U-locks, which appear to be available in this country through Amazon.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports a growing number of bike riders and pedestrians are somehow straying onto major highways, where they are prohibited.

 

Competitive Cycling

Pro cyclist Charles Planet of the Novo Nordisk type 1 diabetic cycling team has struggled to overcome his fear following his return to the peloton after he was struck by a driver while training last year.

Bicycling reports Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky celebrated her recent road cycling world championship on a pedal-powered beer bus. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Who says you’ve got to have both feet clipped into your pedals to win a mass sprint at the end of a 117-mile race?

 

Finally…

That feeling when the local radio station inexplicably puts “bike” in quotation marks, as if “bike” somehow isn’t actually a word in its own right for a two-wheeled vehicle. Yes, your kid needs an updated Raleigh Chopper.

And this may be my new favorite bike art.

The Bicyclers
Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) pic.twitter.com/vFwiDgrtaT

— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) September 29, 2023

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin