News is just breaking that a woman was killed in a collision while riding in La Jolla yesterday afternoon, continuing the county’s unusual rash of bicycling deaths.
The victim, identified only as a 34-year old woman, was reportedly riding in the right lane of the roadway when she merged into the left lane, and was struck by a 74-year old driver.
She died at the scene.
The driver remained following the crash — which should not need to be said, but sadly, does — and was not suspected of being under the influence.
However, the report raises a few questions, since there is a bike lane on Torrey Pines Road where she would have presumably been riding, unless she had shifted into the right lane in preparation for merging into the left lane.
In which case, why didn’t she see the large oncoming Mercedes to her left — and why didn’t the driver see her?
There is also the question of why she was merging into the left lane, since there is no street to the left on the three-way intersection. It’s possible she was attempting to make a U-turn, or may have been turning onto a pathway that appears to lead to the UCSD campus on the north side of the roadway.
And as always, the question is whether there were any independent witnesses, other than the driver, who actually saw her move in front of the car that killed her. Although there should have been several people around the busy intersection at that hour who may have seen the crash.
The story reports that the collision is still under investigation, so hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
This is at least the 29th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in San Diego County already this year, in what is turning out to be an exceptionally bloody year.
Update: The victim has not been publicly identified. However, comments below indicate she was from India with her husband, and the mother of a one-year old child.
Meanwhile, Douglas Alden left the following comment.
I passed by the crash on my bike commute home shortly after it happened. It occurred in the southbound lanes of North Torrey Pines Road just north of the intersection with Revelle College Drive. The police had closed the road in both directions and several cars were pulled over. The body of the woman that was killed was covered by a yellow sheet and was still lying in the street in front of the car. It is possible that the cyclist was crossing lanes to make a left from southbound North Torrey Pines onto Revelle College Drive. There is a protected left turn lane at the intersection. It is hard to speculate without knowing all the facts.
There are a number of other comments below that add insight to this tragedy.
Which raises the tragic question of what scientific breakthroughs in the field could be lost or delayed because of her needless death.
Tyagi leaves behind her husband of six years, a scientist at The Scripps Research Institute, and their 11-month old son, who is just shy of his first birthday.
Meanwhile, her parents and other family members have been unable to enter the US due to Covid restrictions in India, or to get her body sent back to the country of her birth, compounding the tragedy.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Swati Tyagi and all her loved ones.
Phillip Young writes today with a brilliant DIY workaround for the problem of carbon wheels not being recognized by traffic signal sensors.
Would you please pass this traffic light safety tip along to your readers with carbon rim wheels?
Carbon rim bicycle wheels usually do not trigger traffic signal light sensor coils buried in the pavement and can be a safety issue. The non-conducting carbon rims do not change the magnet field around sensor coils, so the traffic light doesn’t change for you.
If the traffic signal light doesn’t trip in your travel direction and you have waited for 2 or 3 minutes, you may be inclined to run the red traffic signal light dodging traffic at your peril.
My carbon rim bicycle wheels would not trigger traffic light sensor coils buried in the pavement until aluminum foil tape was applied to the rim circumference with some foil tape overlap.
I added 3M adhesive backed aluminum foil tape cut about the width of rim tape where the normal cloth rim tape goes. The adhesive backed aluminum foil tape sticks well to the carbon rim material and weighs almost nothing. This should work on all carbon rims using inner tubes.
Push the aluminum foil tape down against the rim to get full contact and adhesion. Install the normal cloth rim tape on top of the aluminum foil tape. The foil tape also offers additional support to the rim tape over the rim spoke holes.
The rim with aluminum foil tape now reliably triggers traffic light sensor coils. The bicycle wheel rim with aluminum foil should be positioned parallel to and directly over the sensor coils buried in the pavement rewarding you with a green light.
May your travels be safe and green lights will always be with you,
Phil
PS: Aluminum rim bicycle wheels usually work triggering traffic signal lights if the wheel is positioned parallel to and directly over the pavement sensor coils.
For those looking for a more detailed explanation of why this works, Young followed up with this post from Cyclelicious.
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Nextdoor users have been reporting a possible bicycling fatality Monday morning on Dover Drive near PCH in Newport Beach.
So far, though, I’ve been unable to find any confirmation. So let’s hope that Nextdoor, which is not exactly known for its veracity, is wrong this time.
Thanks to David Huntsman and Lois for the heads-up.
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Downey has a new painted bike lane on Old River School Road.
Los Angeles received an $18 million grant for safety improvements to the Broadway corridor in South Los Angeles, rather than the $64 million the city asked for, on the condition that they limit the project to the safe street infrastructure component of the application for the deadly street, and guarantee completion; the street is one of LA’s most dangerous streets for bike riders and pedestrians.
An Ontario, Canada man begged a judge for mercy after he was convicted of the hit-and-run death of a bike-riding woman, insisting he just “panicked and made a mistake.” Never mind that the prosecutor is only asking for a “stiff sentence” of only two years behind bars. Then again, how much mercy did he show his victim, who was sentenced to death at his hands?
The AP reports Chock has a long criminal record, dating back to a 2007, when he pled guilty to a reduced charge after being indicted for aggravated assault, followed by disorderly conduct with a weapon a few months later.
Three years later, Chock was allowed to walk with probation after prosecutors dropped three DUI charges, allowing him to plead to a single count of felony aggravated DUI, as well as shoplifting and another aggravated assault.
He ended up serving 19 months behind bars anyway, after violating his probation.
Chock himself is in critical condition after he was shot by police during a standoff following the crash.
Maybe someday our courts will take driving under the influence seriously, and put the public’s right to safety on the roads above the privilege — not right — of driving.
Lentz was just below the entrance to the Daley Ranch Recreation Area when Connor rounded a blind curve at a high rate of speed, slamming into him head-on.
Yet despite a well-deserved sentence of 29 years and ten months, Connor could be out in just six years due to a quirk in California law, Prop 57, passed by voters in 2016, allows a prisoner to be considered for parole after completing the sentence for the primary offense if it was a nonviolent crime
Remarkably, Connor’s primary sentence of vehicular homicide is not considered a violent crime.
Although I’m sure Lentz and his loved ones would disagree.
The Transport Workers Union of America reports that Metro Bike workers are trying to unionize.
Workers always deserve a strong voice on the job. Glad to see that @BikeMetro workers are exercising their right to form a union with @transportworker. Together, we will grow the LA Metro Bike Share system and make sure that bike share jobs are good-paying, long-term career jobs. pic.twitter.com/AstPCcshej
Apparently this was done by the construction crew so they could lay the new concrete without disturbing the bicycle.
They seem to have wired the bike to the rack—see the highlights in these two pictures—to suspend it above nominal ground level, without disturbing the lock. pic.twitter.com/ZaWzTabEie
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Oklahoma residents are fighting plans for a bike path through their neighborhood, trotting out the trope that bicycles and pedestrians don’t mix — even though they’d be on separate pathways — and fears that people on motorcycles or small cars would use the pathway. Which says a lot more about the mentality of Oklahoma residents and drivers than it does about bicycles.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The San Diego Reader accuses scooter companies of bullying, and says the tragic death of actress Lisa Banes raises safety concerns for the San Diego area, after she was killed by a hit-and-run e-scooter rider in New York. If they’re that worried about a single death caused by a scooter rider, just wait until they learn about cars and the people who drive them.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An 83-year old British man is back on his bike, just two weeks after a major endo left him a “bloody mess.” I mean, aside from the endo and bloody mess, that is.
June 21, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Six bicyclists critically injured in attack by pick driver in Arizona bike race, and LGBTQ+ hate from Florida pickup driver
Once again, a driver has used a motor vehicle as a weapon, leaving broken bodies in his wake.
This time during a bike race in Show Low, Arizona Saturday morning.
But just minutes after the men’s 55 and older masters race began, the driver of a Ford F-150 pickup traveling in the opposite direction deliberately crossed over three lanes of traffic to slam into a group of bicyclists, critically injuring six people, with a seventh rider hospitalized in stable condition.
Two other people suffered less serious injuries.
A witness describes the horrors of the crash, which came just six minutes after the start, with bodies flying in every direction. Be forewarned before you click on the link, though, because the story features disturbing photos of the victims lying on the ground after the crash, as well as their mangled bikes and helmets.
You’ll find most of those same photos here, without the graphic photos of the victims. But even then, there’s a photo of a bike wheel and busted fork stuck in the truck’s grill that will haunt me forever.
Helmets, shoes and crumpled and broken bicycles were strewn across the street after the crash, and a tire was wedged into the grill of the truck, which had damage to its top and sides and a bullet hole in a window.
Instead, he backed out and drove down the road, before making a U-turn and heading back toward the bicyclists, who feared a second attack that thankfully never came.
It should be at least six counts of attempted murder. And hopefully, with a sentence to be served consecutively so he’ll be locked up for a very long time.
The Eastside Riders want your support to win an LA 2050 grant.
Save the date 6.21.21 we need all of your votes, shares and telling a friend to help us win 1k. We’re in the @LA2050 grant finals and we need you to help us #win!! We’re a finalist in the play category hope to get your vote starting on Monday 9:00 am pst.https://t.co/XP2U50Rb7gpic.twitter.com/FyWceSBJGM
A Kenyon rider offers a fascinating view of bicycling conditions in east central Africa, with a challenging soda-fueled, 102-mile ride to the Tanzanian border and back on torturous tuk tuk filled roads.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Opponents of a bike path through a Florida seniors community insist that “bicycles and people do not mix.”Apparently forgetting that people ride bicycles, including many older people. And those who do are usually healthier and happier than those who don’t, regardless of age.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Now that’s more like it. Responding to complaints of anti-social behavior from groups of bike riders and skateboarders, London police welcome them to ride in the city center, where its relatively safe compared to other areas.
Metro will vote this Thursday on whether to modernize their Highway Program to open up spending for bus lanes, bike lanes, pedestrian infrastructure and other projects that work to reduce Vehicle Mile Traveled, instead of adding lanes to already overcrowded freeway.
In yet another example of keeping dangerous drivers on the road until it’s too late, a Massachusetts man was arrested for his fifth DUI after hitting a bike rider(scroll down), following four previous convictions; he was also arrested for possession of a powdery substance believe to be coke. Let’s hope they finally take it seriously this time, and he never drives again.
An op-ed writer in the New York Post insists that the city has to reign in ebikes after the death of Gone Girl actress Lisa Banes, and the ebike hit-and-run that left her seriously injured. Except Banes was struck by a rider on an e-scooter, not an ebike. And in her case, the problem wasn’t the ebike, it was a salmon delivery bicyclist going the wrong way in a bike lane on the wrong side of the street.
A writer for Cycling Weeklytakes a ride through the UK’s equivalent of Top Gun on Northern Wales’ Mach Loop, one of just two places on earth where you can look down and see ground-hugging fighter pilots roaring beneath you.
Never have heroes unless you can accept that they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us.
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They didn’t waste any time observing Juneteenth this week.
Just a day after Joe Biden signed a rare bipartisan bill making the day Texas slaves belatedly learned they had been freed two years earlier a national holiday, federal government offices will close today, since the 19th falls on a Saturday.
Highlights include the original home of the groundbreaking gay magazine The Advocate, and the Black Cat Tavern, home to what may have been the nation’s first gay rights protest, two years before Stonewall.
I drove by on Firestone and Downey Avenue today and saw a crushed pink bicycle next to a white Jeep. Also looked like they had someone on a gurney covered in a white sheet. I’m wondering what exactly happened? I walk on Firestone often to go to the gym and it really shook me to my core. Especially the pink bike. How scary and extremely sad.
Thanks to Joe Linton for the heads-up.
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You may not want to walk your bike in the coming autonomous future.
Or bend over, for that matter.
Sam Schwartz, 2nd keynote speaker at #ICTH on warnings by #AV manufacturers. Be afraid! Be very afraid! This is what Toyota says: pic.twitter.com/63Za3zx9ri
Correction: A series of comments from Eban points out that these warnings come from the current Toyota owner’s manual. So despite what the tweet says, it doesn’t refer to future autonomous vehicles, but rather, current automotive safety systems.
However, as near as I can tell, the only practical difference that makes is that you might get run down by car that can’t detect you and its inattentive and/or distracted driver now, as opposed to getting run down by the car alone at some point in the future.
LAist wants to know how the pandemic affected your personal experience on the streets, as bicycling and walking were up 22% last year, but too many people who couldn’t work from home fell through the cracks. A 22% jump is nice, but ridership doubled in a number of cities that implemented popup bike lanes during the pandemic. And many of those were made permanent after proving their worth.
Hats off to the Mammoth Lakes Police Department, who mostly get it right with their Rules of the Road for bicyclists, thankfully not starting with the usual recommendation to wear a helmet. The only place they miss the mark is on the many exceptions to the requirement to ride to the right, which few cops don’t seem to get. Before anyone comments, yes, I always wear a helmet when I ride. But they’re not magic hats that somehow ward off Mack trucks. Or keep you safe if they don’t. Your best protection is to avoid the need for one in the first place.
A writer for Bicycling says the real problem with “wheelie kids” is that too many people see Black and Brown kids on bikes as a threat. Although to be fair, the weaving in and out of traffic, popping wheelies and playing chicken with oncoming drivers typical of Bike Life rides could have something to do with it. Once again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.
A retired Connecticut bike cop offers reasonable advice on how to stay safe riding your bike. Although the newspaper’s editor should go to journalist jail for trotting out the tired “safety is a two-way street” cliche.
VeloNewslooks at the “lionesses of L39ion,” after Skylar Schneider and Kendall Ryan finished 1st and 2nd in last weekend’s Tulsa Tough while riding for Cory and Justin Williams’ L39ion of Los Angeles cycling team.
Earlier this week, we mentioned a story with tips on how to ride a bike with your dog.
Something I hope to do with our corgi, once I find a decent e-cargo bike I can mange to ride without her killing me.
And something Adam Ginsberg is already doing with his.
Well now…..it’s just so happens I started riding with our rescued Boston Terrier, Bailey, last July. During one of our daily walks, my wife and I saw a man riding with his dog…but the dog was in a backpack!! I had a good hunch Bailey would enjoy doing the same. So, I employed my mAd Google sKiLlz, and found…..www.k9sportsack.com.
They have all manner of pooch backpack goodness so us 2 legged humans can take our 4 legged family members on adventures. Within a few days, a pack arrived, and I immediately set about training Bailey to ride. My hunch proved correct, and she fell in love with riding.
To help protect her vulnerable eyes, I added a pair of Rex-Specs, too.
Now, we go on rides 2-3 times a week, down to the beach, and thru downtown Ventura, where the city closed off Main Street to cars and opened it up to restaurants, shops, people and bikes (yay!!!).
We get so many great reactions – people from 1 to 100 love seeing us riding around town. We regularly are asked if they can take a picture, and Bailey never says no.
I already have the backpack Ginsberg mentioned, a gift from a fellow corgi aficionado. And a pair of pink corgi-sized goggles that our last corgi never took to.
So maybe I’ll have to give it a try once my hands heal enough to get back on a bike.
An outstanding emergency response/preparedness project award for its COVID-19 pandemic response programs, including the al fresco dining program, slow streets program, automated touchless traffic signals, and support for COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites.
An outstanding bikeways and trails project award for the new protected bike lanes on Fifth and Sixth streets from Spring Street to Central Avenue.
An outstanding applied mapping technology project award for its GIS strategic plan, which uses all available department and city data to create a network to identify priority projects for Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal.
An outstanding big data project award for its pandemic travel behavior study, which analyzed travel trends during the pandemic, affirming long-standing racial inequities created by decades of policies oppressing people of color.
What’s not on the list, of course, is any mention of popup bike lanes created during the pandemic. Because there weren’t any, unlike most other major cities.
Nor was there any attempt to speed up implementation of the city’s mobility plan or traffic elements of the Green New Deal while traffic was lighter during the pandemic, squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
There was also no mention of an award for implementing LA’s Vision Zero program, apparently acknowledging that nibbling around the edges with easy to implement, non-controversial projects will never make a significant dent in the city’s traffic fatality rate.
A rate that’s measured in broken human lives and shattered families.
So let’s all give LADOT a warm and well-deserved round of applause for what they accomplished last year.
While recognizing that it’s nowhere near enough. And that we’ll be paying for a generation for what wasn’t done when they had the chance.
Evidently, I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Yesterday, we asked @LADOTofficial what it would take to double their pace of active transportation implementation as part of LA’s Green New Deal. LADOT built a lot of bike lanes during the pandemic, but it’s not enough and not fast enough to meet our climate and mobility goals. https://t.co/MOIuMhs4pt
And yes, it can be done, if we have the will to do it.
In 2012, #Ghent Belgium’s bike trip mode share was 22%.
They wanted to get it to 35% by 2030.
Thru creative, decisive action, they reached 35% by 2019, in 7 years, 11 YEARS EARLY!@Streetfilms tells the #Ghent story that I learned working there in 2019.pic.twitter.com/pEVhCUh65z
Or rather, he was run over by the police officer responding to the call, who was too busy reading street address numbers to pay attention to the roadway ahead of her.
Never mind the actual crime scene.
And never mind that the initial police report didn’t even mention the collision, which the police chief later wrote off as just an oopsie.
No word on whether it was the oopsie or the gun actually killed the poor guy.
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LA County wants your input on how we’ll all get around in the eastern San Gabriel Valley in the years to come.
More details on yesterday’s tragic news about the fatal driveby shooting of a 22-year old man in South LA, which also wounded an eight-year old girl; the victim was Marcelis Gude, son of the man behind the Twitter account @FilmThePoliceLA, who was apparently mistaken for a gang member as he stood speaking with a woman. The girl, who is in stable condition, was just collateral damage, caught up in the gunfire as she was riding by on her bike.
Thirty-one people have suffered broken bones at the hands and batons of Bakersfield cops over the last four years, including a 37-year old man who was beaten for the crime of not having a light on his bicycle, ending up with a compound fracture and charges for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest by allowing them to beat him.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionprofiles the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, and their efforts to make bicycling safer and more comfortable in the Big Peach.
An Ottawa, Canada man was overjoyed to get his stolen bike back, newly repaired by a local bike shop; he had initially gone viral for wishing the thief well when it was stolen back in January, saying he hoped they treated it with respect and enjoyed the ride.
A British man learns the hard way that just because you’ve safely left your vintage bike outside for the last decade doesn’t mean someone won’t steal it.
Despite Bonin’s overwhelming popularity, winning 71% of the vote in the 11th Council District in 2017, he has been repeatedly targeted by conservatives who hate his policies, but haven’t been able to beat him at the ballot box.
Whether this latest recall attempt is a genuine effort to get him out of office, or just an attempt to harass and distract him, it seems like a remarkable waste of time and money for someone who will be up for re-election in less than a year.
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No hypocrisy here.
Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of the Los Angeles City Council’s Transportation Committee, outgoing CD5 Councilmember Paul Koretz says hardly anyone uses the bike lanes in his Westside district.
@PaulKoretzCD5 says that bike lanes in his district “you hardly ever see anyone using them” though calls #DTLA bike lanes “heavily used” “smashing success” a “triumph” and says they should be expanded
That couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Koretz repeatedly blocking bike lanes on Westwood Blvd and other major streets in his district, though.
Could it?
People might be more likely to use them if they were safer and provided more separation from the Westside’s high speed traffic, legal and otherwise.
And if they connected with other safe bike lane in an actual network that could be used to travel throughout the district, rather than a handful of disconnected bike lanes that unexpectedly end, forcing riders to fight their way through heavy traffic.
A failure of planning that can be laid directly at Koretz’s feet, who is clearly all in favor of building bike lanes.
In someone else’s district.
Correction: Call it a poor word choice on my part. The failure was not one of planning, as former LADOT Bicycle Coordinator Michelle Mowery pointed out in the comments yesterday.
I’d like to take issue with your use of the word “planning” in respect to the lack of bikeways on the Westside. It is not “a failure of planning” that the Westside does not have a sufficient bikeway network. What the Westside does not have is enough political will. The planning was done, the funding was available for implementation, and the projects were all blocked by the NIMBYs and sitting elected officials.
She’s right.
I should have known better, because I remember those losing battles all too well. My apologies for unintentionally placing the blame where it doesn’t belong.
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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 op-ed in the New York Daily News says “ebike blood” is on the hands of New York’s progressive city council for the crime of finally making it legal to ride an ebike or e-scooter in the city. Then goes on to lump both together, without noting that the injuries and deaths he cites could just as easily have happened with regular bikes or skateboards.
Cell phone video taken inside a #SanFrancisco Walgreens shows a man packing a garbage bag full of items while multiple people, including security filmed from feet away. Video shows him riding right past them on his bike down the aisle and out the door. https://t.co/llBFeD1cjppic.twitter.com/9BwSHuTVII
Once again, the bike rider gets the blame, after a 69-year old Sonoma woman suffered major injuries when she allegedly rode her bicycle into the path of a motorist. Which is hard to imagine, since she was riding west and was struck by a driver headed east on the same road; as always, a lot depends on whether there were any independent witnesses to corroborate the driver’s story.
Once again, a driver is somehow unable to avoid crashing into a group of bike riders, as one person was killed and another wounded when the driver smashed into a group of four people riding bicycles in Syracuse NY. And once again, fled the scene, leaving his or her victims bleeding in the street.
No pun here, as a Miami paper says the city is driving to become more bicycle friendly, when it’s all that driving that made and keeps it unfriendly. But it’s interesting that they included Santa Monica, along with Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm, as their examples of bike and pedestrian friendly cities.
According to NBC7, some people have complained on Nextdoor — as if everyone on Nextdoor doesn’t complain about something — and circulated a petition demanding that ebikes be banned from Moonlight Beach.
But the station widely misses the mark when they try to make the case that ebikes are somehow dangerous, by lumping them together with e-scooters and hoverboards to argue that 41 Americans were killed due to the devices over a three-year period.
Not that ebikes have anything in common with the other two, aside from having a battery.
And never mind that an average of 13.6 deaths a year pales in comparison to the 42,000 people killed in traffic collisions last year alone.
Yes, some people on ebikes may ride in a rude or unsafe manner. Just like some people do on regular bikes, on foot or in motor vehicles.
However, many of those scofflaw ebikers likely stem from their popularity with new riders, and people who haven’t ridden in years, if not decades, and haven’t learned decent bicycle etiquette yet.
So just use a little common courtesy and common sense, however you get around.
But don’t try to ban ebikes just because you don’t get it.
And someone please tell North County residents to get their collective ebike-hating heads out from whence the sun don’t shine.
The new and improve Golden Gate Bridge railing isn’t exactly working out that way for people on bicycles.
Yes. I biked on the GG bridge on a windy, howling day and thought I was going to die. The wind blew my helmet off—almost choking me—and my bike rammed into the railing. I'm absolutely terrified of biking on the bridge, but it's the only route out of SF. ☠️ https://t.co/fBAedfSFq1
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton rides the Expo Bike Path, and complains that Culver City abandons bike riders on a short gap in the bikeway near the Culver City Metro station, forcing people to take a poorly marked half-mile detour along city streets. And offers a long list of recommended fixes.
Speaking of the SDMBA, the group is partnering with Canyon Bikes and the founders of the popular Canyon Belgian Waffle Ride for a new fundraising campaign to support local trails, with a grand prize of $4,000 towards any Canyon bike.
June 14, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Carlsbad GOP candidate gets proposed ebike bill all wrong, sexist anti-bike bias, and the high cost of traffic violence
The proposal, AB 117, is supported by current Assembley Member Tasha Boerner Horvath, whom she hopes to unseat.
At a price-point anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000, they are a noteworthy investment, but should the government be subsidizing these purchases without accountability? Absolutely not. Yet Assemblymember Tasha Boerner Horvath wants to spend unlimited amounts of money to do just that.
Maybe someone should tell her about the massive rebates the state already gives to people who buy electric cars.
But rudeness, rather than money, seems to be her chief objection.
Worse, many of us have witnessed near collisions between e-bikes or e-scooters and vehicles. Personally, I have been almost struck while crossing the street in a crosswalk, and many people have observed near-catastrophes on a daily basis.
So, from her point of view, we should make it harder to buy ebikes, because someone almost struck her while riding one.
Because apparently, no one on a regular bicycle — or a scooter, skateboard, roller skates or running shoes — would ever do such a dastardly deed.
And she’s evidently never experienced the way rude, aggressive and/or inattentive drivers treat people in crosswalks, either.
But the most frightening part, from her bizarre perspective, is that the bill would provide up to $10 million in state tax rebates. Never mind that California currently has an $85 billion — yes billion, with a b — tax surplus.
Which, by my English major math calculations, works out to less than 0.012% of that surplus.
Now the state government wants to fund incentives for purchasing electric bicycles — atop significant out-of-control spending already happening at the state level.
Think I’m kidding? One of Boerner Horvath’s latest bills — Assembly Bill 177 — states that the purpose of her newest taxpayer-funded program is to “fund…incentives for purchasing electric bicycles” under the guise of an “air quality improvement program.”
But wait, there’s more!
Despite Horvath’s empty virtue signaling to the environmentalists, the government should not be incentivizing us to purchase electric bicycles when they are already affordable and available. That’s the job of Lime, Bird, and other companies in the San Diego region. Plus, those companies are held accountable by the cities in which they operate — not by nameless bureaucrats in Sacramento.
Maybe $1,500 to $4,000 — or a lot more, actually — is affordable to her. But it’s a major stretch for many of the constituents she hopes to represent.
And she apparently has no idea what Lime, Bird and other e-scooter providers actually do.
Or what bikeshare is, for that matter.
Then she trots out the usual bike hater screeds.
This legislation is a disaster in the making. Beyond the notion that this isn’t the role of government, there are no safety precautions, no spending limits, and no licensing requirements. Above all, there is no accountability to determine the efficacy of the program or its reduction in air pollution.
So, she wants to license ebike riders. Or maybe all bike riders.
Never mind that California already regulates ebikes into three distinct classes, with increasing levels of safety restrictions and requirements.
And did we mention that $10 million spending limit?
As for reducing air pollution, she’s got a point. Everyone knows the paltry electricity consumed by a little ebike, and its burrito eating rider, would create far more emissions than your average massive gas-guzzling SUV.
Right?
Let’s hope that, contrary to her wishes, AB 117 does see the light of day.
And the very confused and uninformed Melanie Burkholder doesn’t.
When white men start using a bike, I often think they experience a sort of status shock. They see what marginalisation feels like: the dehumanisation, the fear, the threat of violence. If you ride a bike and you belong to another group who already lives with this threat, there is a familiarity to it all…
Being a cyclist often reminds me of being a woman. If someone hurts me it’s my fault because I didn’t wear the right thing, I didn’t defer to them and “know my place”, and I didn’t just smile and put up with their abuse. Power imbalances foster bullying.
So, avoid them if you can, the dehumanising stereotypes. All the comparisons to vermin this past fortnight on conservative radio and social media – cockroaches, rats, lice, etc – have been way out of line. Even the fixation with lycra. It’s something male sports cyclists usually wear. The obsession with men wearing tight revealing clothing in public so often veers into an obviously homophobic place. Just don’t.
One of the top dog handlers missed out on this year’s Westminster Dog Show after his van was rear-ended in Laramie, Wyoming while driving ten canine competitors cross-country to the show; he ended up in the hospital, but fortunately, the dogs were uninjured. Which goes to show how much safer cars could be if everyone inside just rode in the human equivalent of a dog crate.
In another form of violence due to motor vehicles, the grave of Robert Meacham, who rose from slavery to Florida state senator and helped establish the state’s public school system, is likely buried unmarked and unremembered under a Tampa parking lot, along with the bodies of hundreds of other Black people.
A year ago, LA Times readers were asked to envision life post-pandemic, but only one lonely response addressed how nice life was with fewer cars on the streets. The simple fact is, if we go back to life as normal pre-pandemic, with cars maintaining hegemony over our streets, we will have failed. And looking outside, it appears we already have.
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Two armed Orange County men were busted after blocking the path of a pair of Garden Grove bike riders with their car, robbing the woman of her bike, pack and cellphone while her male companion bravely rode away; police seized six guns from their home, was well as gun parts.
Members of the group reportedly beat the man unconscious, before leaving after bystanders intervened.
The helicopter pilot tracked the group to Mission Bay, where a man police identified as the main aggressor was taken into custody on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault likely to result in great bodily injury.
However, what’s missing from the story, as usual, is any indication of what the driver may have done to set the riders off like that, if anything.
Because it’s highly unlikely they picked some random person in a car to attack just for the hell of it.
But whatever the reason, let’s all try to remember that violence is never the answer, tempting as it may be in the moment.
Lord knows, there have been more than a few drivers I’ve wanted to punch. But thankfully, didn’t.
When the boy and some young relatives came over to retrieve it, Ryan Le-Nguyen came out of his house and confronted the kid, unsuccessfully swinging a sledgehammer at the boy, who was able to avoid the blows.
Le-Nguyen then went back inside, and fired a shot through the window, hitting the boy in the arm.
Despite being charged with assault with intent to murder, Le-Nguyen is already out on a ridiculously low $10,000 bond. And presumably back home, next to a kid he tried to kill.
No real surprise that Bakersfield and San Bernardino make the list at 25 and 24, respectively.
Bizarrely, though, so does newly bike friendly San Diego at number 18, which has made huge strides in accommodating bikes and other forms of alternative transportation in recent years, while neighboring Chula Vista joins them at 12.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina came out at the bottom, as their pick for the nation’s worst bike city.
A writer for City Watch insists the fix is in, as Metro plows over Eagle Rock with the planned NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project, regardless of resident’s wishes. Or, hear me out here, maybe a lot of local residents actually support the plan, even as others continue to oppose it. Kind of like every other project ever built, planned or proposed.
For a change, the Wall Street Journal’s notorious paywall lets you see four of the six rewarding rail trail routes they recommend throughout the US, including Lassen County’s Bizz Johnson National Recreation Trail in Northeastern California.
British king-in-waiting Prince Charles took a rare public bike ride to launch the 250-mile Palaces On Wheels ride to benefit the British Asian Trust. Although the prince didn’t look too steady on a bike that appeared to be set much too low for him.
Ten-time world champ Chloe Dygert will compete in three events, just nine months after she was seriously injured following an apparent speed wobble in the world time trial championships; SoCal’s world-beating Coryn Rivera also made the team.
