The driver was apparently headed west on Rosecrans when she slammed into the victim, then crashed into a pair of parked cars, telling police she lost control after hitting “an unknown item in the roadway.”
An unknown item that turned out to be a man on a bicycle.
The driver suffered some sort of unspecified injury; police planned to arrest her once she was released from the hospital.
Unfortunately, there’s no other information available at this time.
This is at least the 49th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
October 9, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Soda pop cargo bike art in East LA, has Covid-19 affect your bike riding, and the war on bikes just keeps on going
Why does East LA get all the good art?
Aurelio Jose Barrera caught this soda pop delivery truck adorned with a Jariritos-selling cargo bike.
If they didn’t have so much sugar, that would be enough to get my dollars.
No bias here. A London paper gleefully reports that a popup bike lane will be removed after causing traffic congestion, leading to calls to remove others, as well. Although no one seems to consider that it’s all those cars that cause traffic congestion, not bike lanes or the people using them.
Overtaking me at speed, presumably out of frustration, led this driver nearly to miss the fact that someone was already on the zebra crossing in front of her. And then the cycle box. pic.twitter.com/vD8GdcElcq
Bike-riding Downey city council candidate Alexandria Contreras will be on Bike Talk this evening. However, the link in the tweet is dead, but you can find the show here.
One app to rule them all, one app to find them. Lime takes a step towards world domination, or at least the world of micromobility, by offering Wheels scooters through their app, along with the usual Lime e-scooters and ebikes.
A new candidate to replace termed out Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York says bike lanes should be part of the city’s transportation network. But fails to mention that city law requires 50 miles of new protected bike lanes and 30 miles of bus lanes every year. Unlike Los Angeles, where city officials are legally required to build absolutely nothing. And too often don’t.
Maryland drivers will now be allowed to briefly cross a double yellow line to pass bike riders on narrow roads. California drivers would have the same privilege, except Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed an early version of the three-foot passing law because it contained the same provision.
October 8, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Hit-and-run driver crashes twice in 15 minutes, Union Station virtual open house tonight, and a relic of 1930’s planning
The #LinkUnionStationProject (LinkUS) is hosting a virtual public scoping and open house to discuss the transformation of Los Angeles Union Station (#LAUS) into a modern transit and mobility hub on October 8. More information below! https://t.co/eLpPvNdjuf
Austin, Texas is closing down its Healthy Streets program to provide safe, low-traffic areas for walking, running and bicycling during the coronavirus crisis. Apparently, the pandemic must be over down there, unlike everywhere else.
Good point. A Canadian letter writer complains that it’s apparently wrong to hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk, but perfectly okay if that person’s on a bike. And if the law is so confusing that even a cop gets it wrong, maybe it needs to be changed.
Maybe they should hold a bake sale. The Canadian capital says they know where they need to make safety improvements to protect bike riders, but don’t have the money to do it.
October 7, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bike-riding boy injured in Hawthorne hit-and-run, car ID’d in Palos Verdes bike crash, and driver busted in NY assault
If only our elected leaders had the political courage to actually do something.
But they don’t, and we don’t, because it might inconvenience impatient drivers just a little.
Thanks to Sindy for the heads-up.
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If you’re the driver who hit a bike rider in Palos Verdes yesterday, she’s got your number.
No, literally.
The cyclist managed to stay upright and continued cycling along PV Dr West. The driver of the black car that cut him off took a hike with a woman and a dog. I took a zoomed pix of the driver. Stopped to get the license plate on my way out. @bikinginla Help me find the cyclist pic.twitter.com/BnalUfUGUY
Lime wants to help you scoot to the polls next month.
Lime, the global leader in micromobility, today announced it will provide free e-scooter rides on Election Day, November 3, in an effort to reduce transportation barriers to voting, such as cost, lack of car ownership or COVID-19-related fears over public transit in cities throughout the country. Riders will be able to use the promotional code LIMETOPOLLS2020 to receive two free rides up to 30 minutes on Election Day.
“This is the most important election of our lives,” said Wayne Ting, CEO of Lime. “Healthcare, climate change and the future of so many cities we serve are on the ballot in 2020. At Lime, we’re focused on doing all we can to register voters, ease access to polls, and encourage our riders to vote.”
Offering free rides to the polls is just once part of Lime’s Roll Call initiative to increase participation in this election. The company has partnered with When We All Vote to promote voter registration to riders via email and within the Lime app. They have also joined Power the Polls to encourage riders to become Poll Workers and ElectionDay.org to provide employees with time to cast their vote on or before November 3.
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GCN explains how to remove and fit bike wheels, calling it an essential skill.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
A road raging Portland driver took offense to a bike rider’s request to drive a little better because they both have a right to the road, firing two shots at the person on the bike. And apparently missed, fortunately.
An 18-year old British driver walked with community service despite spitting at a pedestrian, throwing soda at a female jogger then tossing the bottle at 15-year old boy, knocking him off his bike, and hurling an egg at a passerby during a six-month “spate of violence” after passing his driver’s test. But other than that, he was a prince, right?
Huntington Beach has followed Long Beach’s lead in attempting to ban bike chop shops by prohibiting the repair and sales of bikes and bike parts on city property(scroll down). Good intention, but that means you’d be breaking the law if you stop in a park or sidewalk to fix a flat or dropped chain.
Bicycling offers tips on how to save big on Amazon Prime Day. Although it looks like you’re on your own if you get blocked out by the magazine’s draconian paywall this time.
For once, it wasn’t a race moto that injured a cyclist in yesterday’s Giro — it was a low-flying helicopter that blew debris onto the course, resulting in serious injuries to Italy’s Luca Wackermann, including a possible fractured vertebrae.
The Press-Enterprise is reporting that an 82-year old Murrieta man died late Sunday afternoon, a little over 32 hours after he was struck by a driver while riding in Temecula.
And Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputies didn’t hesitate to blame the victim for his own death, when he’s not around to share his side of the story.
Skinner was taken to Wildomar’s Inland Valley Medical Center, where he died around 4 pm Sunday.
The driver remained at the scene and called 911.
A street view shows four lane roadway, with bike lanes and a left turn bay in each direction on Margarita, the intersection controlled only by a single stop sign on southbound Paseo Brillante.
It strains credibility to believe that an 82-year old man would somehow violate the right-of-way by riding out into oncoming traffic, as investigators suggest.
The paper doesn’t say which direction Skinner was traveling, but it’s easy to imagine that the broadly curving roadway may have appeared clear before he started crossing.
He may have struggled to get across the wide roadway before drivers caught up to him — especially if they were traveling at a high rate of speed, which seems likely given the early hour and the wide open roadway design.
Which means a better question isn’t why was he was in the roadway, but why did the driver fail to see a man on a bicycle directly in front of him?
If sheriff’s investigators can answer that, they’ll know why this tragic crash happened.
October 5, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Sheriff’s deputies shot Dijon Kizzee 16 times, blaming road diets for CA decline, and things are looking up in Santa Ana
And escalated when Kizzee allegedly dropped a stolen gun as he struggled to escape the deputies; what’s in dispute is whether he attempted to pick the gun back up. Especially since the official version of events has changed several times in the days following the shooting.
At least four of those shots could have been fatal.
BIKE RECOVERY: "Someone was offered the bike by a Craigslist seller, and contacted me after seeing it on Bike Index." @BikeIndexBOUpic.twitter.com/fM8MmBY21I
BIKE RECOVERY: "Bike Index was key to police being able to recover this bike from a pawn shop. Inputting the serial was very very important. Thank you for this tool." #yegbike@stolenbikesyegpic.twitter.com/mx5w01S3zL
it’s up to us to make sure the free, voluntary program stays that way to prevent abuses like we saw with the city’s previous mandatory licensing program, which became an excuse to stop people of color without probable cause as they rode their bikes.
Talk about not getting it. Apparently confusing the treatment with the disease, a London columnist complains that bike lanes are choking the life out of the city through fume-filled traffic jams. Someone should tell him that it’s all those cars that cause the noxious fumes — and the traffic. And safe bike lanes mean fewer of those on the roads.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A columnist for the Southern California News Groupremembers Long Beach real estate scion and bike advocate Mark Bixby, who fought to get a bike lane across the new replacement for the Gerald Desmond Bridge, and won, before dying in a 2011 plane crash along with four other people.
State
Sad news from Eureka, where a bike rider was killed in a collision when the victim allegedly swerved in front of an oncoming car, according to the driver and multiple witnesses.
Chicago business owners blame new protected bike lanes for a drop in business, with one hardware store owner insisting the loss of parking spaces has meant a 30% drop in sales. Although a far more likely explanation is the same drop in business suffered by brick and mortar retailers across the US during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Sportsmanoffers a nice profile of Josh Quigley, the bicyclist who set a new record for the northern crossing of Scotland, just months after he barely survived getting run down at 70 mph driver by a Texas driver while on an around the world bike tour. He was inspired to do the ride by Britain’s Sir Chris Hoy after a failed suicide attempt.
A bike-riding Philippines columnist says it’s time the country has a mandatory bike helmet law. Never mind that experience around the world shows that helmet laws depress bicycling rates, which is exactly the wrong thing to do with the world facing a climate crisis — let along the Covid-19 pandemic.
The victim, who was publicly identified only as a 68-year old man, was riding on the 2900 block of Harbor Blvd when he was struck by a tow truck driver around 11:30 pm.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver stayed after the crash, and was not suspected of being under the influence.
Unfortunately, no other information is available at this time.
A street view shows a six lane divided roadway with a wide sidewalk, lined with a number of car dealerships; it’s possible the driver was entering or leaving a car lot at the time of the crash.
Anyone with information is urged to contact to contact Costa Mesa PD Traffic Investigator Darren Wood at 714/754-5264.
This is at least the 47th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th that I’m aware of in Orange County, continuing a very bad year for bike riders in the county.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his family and loved ones.
He was transferred to the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where he remained in critical condition until passing away on this past Wednesday.
Unfortunately, no information is available about the crash. A street view simply shows what appears to be a pair of relatively quiet two-lane streets in a residential neighborhood.
Police say the driver, who remained at the scene, did not appear to be impaired at the time of the crash.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Santa Paula Police Department at 805/525-4474.
This is at least the 46th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries.
According to the police, he was apparently riding in the bike lane when he hit some unidentified object, and was thrown from his bike.
The article stresses that no other vehicle was involved.
However, without identifying the object he allegedly struck, it’s also possible that the victim could have been sideswiped by a passing driver, or fallen in an attempt to avoid one.
There’s also no word on whether the victim was wearing a helmet, which might have helped in this situation, depending on the speed he was riding. Or it might have been of no use, since they don’t specify what injuries he suffered.
Hopefully we’ll learn more later.
Anyone with information is urged contact Traffic Investigator Keith Phan at 562/799-4100 ext. 1625, or email kphan@sealbeachca.gov.
This is at least the 45th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eleventh that I’m aware of in Orange County, which is having a very bad year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
