BikinginLA

Just 38 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

But sure, raise your hand if you’ve heard a single LA city leader so much as mention it. 

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He gets it.

A writer for Fast Company says the common refrain of “safety is a shared responsibility” — or “a two-way street” in the parlance of too many newspaper editors — misses the point, absolving those who are really responsible for this country’s inexcusably high rate of traffic deaths.

Innocuous though it may seem, the refrain encapsulates much of what’s wrong with road safety in the U.S., where crash death rates are at least double other rich countries, from Japan to Finland to Canada.

In reality, the duty to prevent collisions should fall on the road engineers, car companies, and public officials who create the system in which people drive, bike, or walk—and not on road users themselves. By lumping everyone together, the phrase blurs that distinction, allowing those who can do the most to save lives to dodge accountability.

It’s worth giving it a quick read, because there are a lot of people to blame for the rising death toll on our streets.

Starting with the people who build and market oversized and over-powered vehicles virtually designed to kill. Not to mention the engineers and politicians who build the roads they speed on.

But the actual victims, not so much.

Graphic from Bike Santa Clarita. 

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Today’s common theme is bike lanes, And more bike lanes.

Or fewer bike lanes, even, in a few cases.

Velo says bike lanes make the road safer for everyone, not just bicyclists, citing a new study showing that adding bike lanes to a busy intersection makes drivers slow down, whether going straight or turning right.

No surprise here, as San Diego’s notoriously anti-bike lane OB Rag picked up the anti-bike lane screed from the Washington Post we debunked yesterday. And trust me, you don’t want to read the comments. 

A Petaluma op-ed considers the health benefits of the city’s bike lanes, including encouraging people to bike instead of driving.

You’ve got to be kidding. Quebec’s anti-bike provincial government covers its bases by amending the bill allowing them to overrule local governments to rip out bike lanes, by absolving themselves of any liability for anyone killed or injured after one is removed.

Seriously? City officials in Bangkok ripped out a new bike lane just one day after it was installed, reopening the lane to motor vehicles and apologizing for the traffic “chaos” it caused. Never mind that drivers likely would have adjusted to the change if they gave them half a chance.

And heading back to Quebec, a tongue-in-cheek new game clarifies the risks to riders once the lanes are removed. I lasted a whopping 51 seconds before dying in a dooring; thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

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The OC Wheelmen say it’s starting to look a lot like party time.

New date and time for our Holiday Party in Capistrano Beach pic.twitter.com/ALrTimpqiN

— OC Wheelmen (@OCWheelmen) November 22, 2024

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Yes, that pretty much sums up the value of hi-viz.

https://t.co/QdXw8kR2gm pic.twitter.com/1hRZip66xe

— Yeah But Cyclists (@but_cyclists) November 21, 2024

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It’s now 338 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

You’re invited to attend the official opening of the new Bouquet Canyon Trail in Saugus this Monday.

 

State

Calbike is hosting a Zoom meeting December 3rd to unveil their priorities to make California’s streets safer and more sustainable.

More bad news from the Victorville area, where a man riding a bicycle was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver in nearby Apple Valley Thursday night.

Ventura nonprofit Bikes 4 a Cause will offer a free class to teach kids to ride a bicycle tomorrow.

Bad news from Northern California, where a man was killed while either riding or walking his bicycle in Del Norte County.

 

National

Singletraks offers 13 gifts for the “badass” modern mountain biking women in your life.

If you bought your kid a Nerf Barrage Bike Helmet from Walmart, it’s been recalled because they don’t meet mandatory federal safety regulations and could result in a head injury. Never mind why the hell you’d put your kid in a Nerf helmet to begin with. 

That’s more like it. A 27-year old Las Vegas man will spend up to ten years behind bars — and at least four — after copping a plea to killing an ebike rider while speeding and driving under the influence with a suspended license. Although maybe someone should tell the TV station the victim probably had a name, too. 

A writer in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown says the site of the old Colorado State University Rams football stadium would make the perfect site for a bike park to serve kids and adults. I once saw the Rams kicker set the NCAA record for the longest field goal there — which lasted about half an hour until someone else at another college broke it. 

Des Moines, Iowa opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge over the Racoon River.

A Texas man will spend the next 42 months behind bars after pleading guilty to stealing six bikes worth more than $100,000 from Lance Armstrong’s storage locker; no word on whether Lance ever got them back. Although if it makes you feel better, one of the bikes was only worth 500 bucks.

Tragic news, as it turns out the Mississippi woman killed in a dispute over a bicycle that we mentioned yesterday was shot multiple times by her own 29-year old daughter, who now faces a murder charge along with another man.

 

International

Road.cc recommends budget-friendly gifts under the equivalent of $68 for the bicyclist in your life. Hint: You’re probably the bicyclist in your life. Just saying. 

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Momentum offers a guide to biking in Reykjavik, Iceland. Better yet, you’re only 40 miles or so from the active volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula. 

That’s more like it. A British driver with a history of speeding got a well-deserved eight years behind bars for killing a 12-year old boy riding a bicycle, after recklessly weaving while speeding through traffic and roaring his engine.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old Irishman — from Tipperary, no less — is keeping fit by riding his new ebike, after years riding a racing bike.

Aussie adventure cyclist Jimmy Ashby — named Australian Geographic’s Young Adventurer of the Year for 2019 — spent the last 11 months riding his bike from Asia to the Middle East to North America and home again. So what did you do this year?

 

Competitive Cycling

British road champion Pfeiffer Georgi still won’t watch video of her crash at the Tour de France Femmes, when she went over her handlebars in a mass crash and fractured her neck, but she says she’s ready to get off her sofa and back onto her bike — and hopefully make it back to the Tour next year.

Remco Evenepoel’s road to the 2025 Tour de France runs through an American wind tunnel.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be both recycled and recyclable. You can never have enough lights on your bike — or a jersey that says you’re packing.

And if the cops can catch a violent bikejacker less than a day after installing bike path security cams, maybe they should have done it just a tad sooner.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin