Actually, the story said the victim was struck by Tacoma Pickup, as if the driver had nothing to do with it.
A witness reported the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was lying on the dirt along the right-hand shoulder of the highway. They died at the scene.
The driver stopped and remained following the crash.
There’s no word on the victim’s age or sex at this time. There’s also no information on how the crash happened, or who may have been at fault. Or even which direction they were traveling.
This is at least the 12th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of already this year in Riverside County.
Update: This victim has been identified as 32-year old Perris resident Jaime Gutierrez. No details available.
Update 2: A crowdfunding campaign to help pay for his funeral has raised a little over $3,700 of the $30,000 goal.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jaime Gutierrez and all his loved ones.
My wife fell and broke her shoulder in two places yesterday. She spent last night in the hospital, but she’ll be coming home today with it in a sling because they need to let the swelling go down before they can operate to reset it.
Which means I’ll be her full time caregiver for the next few days, unless I can somehow talk the corgi into lending a paw.
Never mind that this was just her second week at her new job, after finally landing her first permanent position since the pandemic.
But those are the breaks.
As a result, I doubt I’ll be able to work the rest of this week. So unless there’s breaking news, I’ll see you bright and early on Monday.
I hope.
………
Good news for a change, as US traffic deaths continued to drop from their pandemic high last year — for the people inside the big dangerous machines, anyway.
Here’s what they said about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s figures for bike riders and pedestrians, though.
But in 2022, drivers had killed more cyclists (1,105) than they had in any single year in the entire history of the reporting system — and pedestrian deaths (7,522) were the highest since 1981.
The preliminary 2023 numbers, as usual, did not include estimates for vulnerable road user deaths at all, leaving advocates to wonder what bloody asterisks will eventually be placed on those stats.
Read that again.
More bike riders were killed on American roads in 2022 than ever before, at least since anyone bothered to track such things. And more pedestrians died than any time in the last 43 years.
In total, “only” 42,514 people died on American roads in 2022. Here’s Streetsblog’s Kea Wilson again, citing the new NHTSA figures.
As part of its 2022 reporting, the agency noted that the decrease in vehicle occupant deaths and been “correspondingly” offset by an increase in the deaths of people outside cars, who constituted a stunning 36 precent of all fatalities in 2022. (In 1996, they comprised just 20 percent.) That’s in part because hit-and-run crashes involving a pedestrian, which are far less survivable than if a driver remains on the scene to summon medical attention, surged by 4.6 percent in a single year.
Serious pedestrian injuries, meanwhile, spiked a shocking 11 percent.
The only other road user group who reported any year-on-year increase in injuries was cyclists, who tied pedestrians with an 11-percent rise.
The agency also reported that nearly a quarter of all bicycling deaths — 24% — were hit-and-runs. Which is roughly the level we’ve seen here in Southern California in the past few years.
And something our elected leaders continue to ignore.
Only when, and if, they start to take traffic deaths that seriously, we might finally see more people come home to their families, as if nothing happened.
Because for once, maybe it won’t.
………
Just three lousy years.
That’s all the life of a man killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle home from work was worth.
The sentencing came after Barnes accepted a January plea deal, agreeing to cop to a charge of hit-and-run resulting in death in exchange for prosecutors dropping the more serious charges of gross vehicular manslaughter and fleeing the scene of a crime.
After the undeserved gift from the Riverside County DA’s office, Barnes faced a maximum of just four years on the single felony hit-and-run count, with the judge generously giving him just three.
And with good behavior, Barnes will probably be back out on the streets in 18 months. Or less.
Meanwhile, Castro was sentenced to death by Barnes’ actions, and his loved ones to life without their beloved son, dad, brother, cousin, uncle and friend.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Brentwood, California are considering asking city leaders to pass an ordinance allowing them to seize the bikes of kids who flaunt traffic laws or ride through stores, after they were unable to find another city with a similar ordinance. Which somehow hasn’t stopped cops from illegally seizing bikes without legal authority.
LA TV station Fox-11 enjoys a good laugh over a bicyclist popping a wheelie next to a police chase, apparently unable to distinguish between a bicycle and what looks like a dirt bike, or maybe a throttle-controlled ebike.
It took a couple years, but a Colorado man is finally back on his bike after he was run down by a hit-and-run driver, suffering over 20 broken bones, with his right femur was shattered into 40 pieces. The driver was eventually charged with careless driving and leaving the scene; no word on whether he was convicted or sentenced. Which kinda puts my wife’s broken shoulder in perspective, I guess.
Seriously? Colorado has an official day just to celebrate ebikes. Meanwhile, California is trying to restrict their use, and can’t even offer a rebate voucher after three years.
The Japan Timesreports helmet use remains low in the country, despite a new law mandating bike helmets, as a report shows that only 14.7% of bike riders killed or injured in crashes were wearing one. Or it could just show that people wearing helmets weren’t the one getting killed or seriously injured.
Belgian cyclist Lars Daniels may have a future as a cowboy when he finally hangs up his saddle — bike saddle, that is — after corralling an escaped horse that tried to join the peloton during stage one of Belgium’s Arden Challenge on Saturday.
Twenty-two-year old Savaughn JoJuan Colon Barnes pled guilty to a single count of hit-and-run resulting in death in the killing of Margarito Castro as he waited at a red light in December of 2022, after prosecutors agreed to drop charges of gross vehicular manslaughter and fleeing the scene of a crime.
According to My News LA,
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Dawn Blair, about 8 p.m. on Dec. 4, Castro was in the center median, waiting to cross State Street at Dillon Avenue, when Barnes approached, going southbound on State “at a high rate of speed” in his Hyundai sedan.
“The driver of the Hyundai entered the center median … and struck the victim,” Blair said.
Unfortunately, under California’s overly lenient hit-and-run statutes, he now faces a maximum sentence of just four years behind bars.
And will likely be out in less than half that time.
………
Jim Lyle forwards news of a hit-and-run in Torrance yesterday that left a bike rider with road rash and broken ribs.
There’s no description of the suspect vehicle or the heartless coward behind the wheel yet, but hopefully that will change.
A Redwood City website says Formula 1 is following the lead of Caltrans, and adding bike lanes to the F1 race tracks. Which could lead to some very interesting races if cyclists and race car drivers competed at the same time.
But Pedal Ahead, the San Diego nonprofit charged with administering the virtually moribund ebike voucher program, hints that it may finally be showing signs of life.
Even if it does fund non-UL-certified ebikes that could suddenly and unexpectedly burst into flames.
Here's some kind of cryptic update from the #pedalahead FB page? Do the posters have anything to do with the @AirResources EBike incentive program? Looks like they are promoting electric mountain biking; which isn't an ebike you can purchase with a voucher? @lysmendezpic.twitter.com/cFJc49egAP
Meanwhile, Colorado’s new ebike rebate program may be smaller than California’s, which starts at $750. But unlike California, it’s available to anyone.
However, the state’s governor seems a tad out of touch arguing that it’s still worthwhile for bike shops to participate, even though they may have to wait as long as a year to get reimbursed — in effect requiring small shop owners to finance the state program.
As of today, any Coloradan can walk into a bike shop and instantly get $450 off an e-bike. No race to get a voucher, no income limits, no waiting to claim a tax credit.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. The editor of Palo Alto paper complains about proposed bike lanes on El Camino Real, arguing that it would be unsafe for kids and kill local businesses. Even though it’s been repeatedly shown that bike lanes are good for business, and little kids aren’t the only ones who might want to ride their bikes on the local main street just like people in cars.
The “biggest party on two wheels” is returning to Winston-Salem, North Carolina this September, with the multi-day Gears and Guitars music and bicycle festival. The only question is, how the hell am I going to get there, and who’s going with me?
According to a Bay Area CBS affiliate, the man was pulled over for not having a light on his bike, which somehow led to a search that discovered the credit cards, including one that had been used to run up $50,000 in charges.
There’s no question that we’re all better off getting an alleged criminal off the streets.
But it defies explanation how a stop for a simple fix-it violation escalated to a search of the bike rider’s body, clothing and/or bicycle. Which is comparable to a driver getting frisked and his car searched after being stopped for having a taillight out.
The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. And a missing bike light does not probable cause present for searching the rider or his bike.
It’s possible that the suspect consented to the search, even though you are entirely within your rights to refuse one. Or he could have been a convicted felon currently on parole, in which case he’d have no choice but to consent to a search.
But it’s most likely that the cops pulled him over for a vehicle code violation as an excuse to search him without probable cause, hoping to find something, anything they could use against him, whether it would be drugs, weapons or the stolen credit cards they allegedly found.
And a good defense attorney would stand a decent chance of getting the charges tossed as a result.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A self-professed Boulder, Colorado bike rider accuses his fellow bicyclists of brazenly breaking the law, alleging that Boulder bike riders “want all the rights of both cars and pedestrians without any of the responsibilities.” Actually, bicyclists already have the same rights, as well as the responsibilities, regardless of whether they may or may not want them. And it’s not like drivers or pedestrians behave any better.
An Indiana man was the victim of a bizarre attack while riding his bike when he was pepper sprayed and stabbed in the neck with a box cutter, in an apparent case of mistaken identity; as the victim lay on the ground, his attacker asked his name, then responded “Wrong guy” before running off, later telling police he was “Done with people.
No bias here. London’s Daily Mail complains about the “menace” of ebikes, noting that the 260 illegally modified ebikes seized by police last year was double the number in 2022. Even though that works out to less than one a day — and the vast number of ebikes on the streets weren’t modified, legally or otherwise.
March 29, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Guilty verdict in bizarre Palm Springs attacks, South Pas rips out safer streets, and new CicLAvia summer event maps
Just 277 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Including forcing a man to jump off his bicycle to avoid getting run over when the seemingly maniacal driver suddenly hit the gas and jumped the median, aiming directly at victim at an estimated 60 mph.
Juaquin Mercer Moraga was found guilty of three counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, two counts each of misdemeanor assault and misdemeanor vandalism, and one count each of felony vandalism and misdemeanor battery, after less than a day of deliberation.
The defense argued that Moraga was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the attacks, as a result of “major depressive disorder,” “cannabis use disorder” and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Apparently, drivers there insist on running over something. And if they can’t run down bicyclist and pedestrians, they’re going to kill the bits of plastic and paint installed to protect them.
According to Greenspon,
At this point, it’s been more than six months, and residents have formed opinions. On March 20th city council voted to do away with most of the bike lanes and all of the delineators, under pressure from locals who didn’t want them in their neighborhoods. Some neighbors allegedly even ran materials over.
Transportation Commissioner Diego Zavala told the council he’s been maintaining the project since August 2023.
“I’ve had at least three instances – seemingly intentional – of damaging; such as swerving into the cones to run them over while I was working on the streets.” Zavala said. “This is an indication that more permanent solutions will erase any opportunity for erratic drivers to harm pedestrians in these areas.”
Especially when the safety measures did virtually nothing to slow or inconvenience people in the big, dangerous machines.
Naturally, as with any other street installation that residents insist went in “overnight,” commenters at the South Pas city council meeting complained about non-existent outreach, insisting that they had no warning the project was going in until they woke up and saw it on the street.
Earlier in the meeting, South Pasadena’s Transportation Program Manager David Peña had gone over the outreach background for the quick-build project. He said a subconsultant had done door to door canvassing in 2021 and dropped off fliers in July 2023, about a month before the project was installed.
Must have been a very deep sleep.
………
That loud bang you heard yesterday wasn’t the St. Louis Cardinals falling to the Dodgers in their home opener yesterday; the Cards went quietly, with more of a whimper than a bang.
Instead it was CicLAvia dropping route maps for two more events, for Western Ave in South LA this June, and August’s return to Hollywood and WeHo.
The year will round out with October’s return to the ever-popular Heart of LA, and a first-ever visit to Ventura Blvd in the Valley in December, along with another CicLAmini in Lincoln Heights this September.
………
Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette forwards news of another massive legal judgement, after an 84-year old Santa Barbara man was awarded $3.8 million from Caltrans and the driver who hit him.
According to the Santa Barbara Independent, Ronald Wilmot was run down from behind while riding with a small group of friends on the Arroyo Quemada Bridge on Highway 101.
Whenever the retired elementary school principal and his friends would cross the narrow stretch of Highway 101 on their regular bike rides between Santa Barbara and Gaviota, he said, “we would look in our mirrors to make sure an 18-wheeler wasn’t coming, wave our left arms, and ride like hell.”
On January 3, 2021, Wilmot ― the last in a line of four cyclists ― was hit from behind by a motorist who said she felt squeezed by another car and veered into their bike lane, which merges into the slow lane of traffic on the bridge and shrinks to a 12-inch shoulder. The driver said she never even saw the group…
Most significantly, the jury found that the 400-foot bridge ― part of the state’s official Pacific Coast Bike Route ― constituted “a dangerous condition of public property,” and that Caltrans had failed to properly warn motorists of this “concealed trap.” While Caltrans has installed a “clutter” of signage around the bridge, the jury also said, none of it notifies drivers that bicyclists may occupy the slow lane.
Adding insult to literal injury — Wilmont suffered a “serious compound break of his left leg above the ankle, seven busted ribs, a punctured lung, and compression fracture to his spin” — he was also forced to give up bicycling, a major part of his life since he was 19.
I’d want a hell of a lot more than that if I had to give up something that’s been the main focus of my life since I was 24.
Maybe I could sue my own damn body for keeping me off my bike.
………
Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, is teaming with tonight’s Critical Mass for a vigil to honore the victims of traffic violence at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park.
VIGIL IN GRIFFITH PARK FOR THE 966 BICYCLISTS KILLED BY MOTOR-VEHICLE TRAFFIC CRASHES
Over 1000 bicyclists gather to remember bicyclist Andrew Jelmert and advocate for safer streets.
LOS ANGELES – On Friday, March 29, Streets Are For Everyone and LA Critical Mass are joining together in a vigil at The Autry Museum in Griffith Park at around 9:00 pm. Participants will remember and honor the life of bicyclist Andrew Jelmert who was killed while riding in Griffith Park in 2022 and to bring attention to the staggering number of bicyclists killed in motor-vehicle traffic crashes in Los Angeles and across the nation. Jelmert was struck from behind in the early afternoon of April 16 by a driver who was intoxicated while speeding through the park at 80+ MPH.
Over 1000 Bicyclists will arrive at Autry Museum for the vigil having started the ride with LA Critical Mass at Western and Wilshire. 966 bicyclists were killed in motor-vehicle traffic crashes across the United States in 2021 – each attendee at the vigil represents a lost bicyclist. The event will also include speakers who have been directly impacted by traffic violence.
WHAT: Thousands attend Vigil within Griffith Park at Autry Museum to honor fallen cyclists and Andrew Jelmert who lost his life 2 years ago in Griffith Park.
WHEN: Friday, March 29, 2024, from 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM (Interviews available from 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM; Cyclists will arrive between 9:15 and 9:30)
WHERE: Autry Museum
4700 Western Heritage Way
Los Angeles, CA 90027
SPEAKERS:
Damian Kevitt, Executive Director of Streets Are For Everyone, victim of a crash in Griffith Park in 2013 that resulted in the loss of his leg
Andre Goeritz, husband of deceased bicyclist Andrew Jelmert
Representative from Councilmember Nithya Raman’s Office
VISUALS:
More than 1000 bicyclists arriving to the vigil
Speakers at the vigil calling for safer roads
Background of Griffith Park and the location of Andre’s fatality
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
London’s Daily Mail reports on “amazing videos” depicting “exploding” rider-on-ride road rage. Which amounts to a motorcyclist gently criticizing bicyclists for riding through a red light, and a trailing bicyclist berating another bike rider for not undertaking a large truck.
Following the death of her friend on a Berkeley street last month, a writer for Cal Matterscalls for safer streets through the passage of a pair of Senate bills, which would force Caltrans to adhere to its own Complete Streets policies, and require speed governors to limit the ability of drivers to exceed the posted speed limit by more than 10 mph.
Oakland is down to the last five days for public input on proposals to redesign one of the city’s most dangerous streets by reconfiguring traffic lanes and auditing bike paths. Just please, please, please don’t put the bike paths in the middle of the damn roadway. No, seriously.
National
CBS News reports traffic deaths are spiking in the US, despite billions spent on improving safety. Except the $2.4 billion they’re talking about doesn’t go very far when spread among all the cities and states in the US, and doesn’t do a damn thing to reduce the size of SUVs, or get drivers to put down their phones and stop speeding.
Oregon’s bicycle tax, the only statewide bike tax in the US, reflects a significant bike boom in 2022, followed by a moderate bust back to pre-pandemic levels for 2023.
Streetsblogconsiders the disaster on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, questioning why we treat major transportation tragedies with so much urgency, while ignoring “our collective car crash epidemic” with over ten times the number of victims on the bridge dying as a result of traffic violence in the US every day.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re slowly gaining signatures, up to 1,027 now, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
………
It was a light bike news day yesterday. So if no news is good news, this may be one of my best pieces ever.
The better news is, that means you can get out on your bike that much sooner today.
The woman’s attorney argued that the she suffers permanent pain, and was forced to pay hundreds of thousands in medical bills tripping in the pothole, which was shaded by a parked car.
Kwan told CVN he believed the combination of Walmart’s alleged failure to comply with their own safety policies and the extended time the pothole was allowed to develop brought the jury over to his side.
“We presented evidence that Walmart never enforced their own ‘Parking Lot Safety’ policy, which states they must regularly check and fix any potholes in their parking lots,” he said. “We also showed that the pothole in question had been in bad shape since 2018, giving Walmart plenty of time to repair, which they didn’t.”
Duquette notes that the same arguments could be made by a bicyclist injured under similar circumstances.
March 27, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on The war on bikes shifts into high gear, “There Are No Accidents” author on Bike Talk, and Paris bike boom keeps booming
Just 279 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re slowly gaining signatures, up to 1,027 now, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
My Monday went to hell before I even got out of bed, and didn’t get any better until late that night, by which time I was too tired to form a thought, let alone a sentence.
That was followed yesterday by a shot in my right eye to control bleeding in the retina, yet another of the boundless joys of diabetes.
Good times.
But if you’re reading this, I guess that means I literally saw my way through my work tonight. So there’s that, anyway.
………
Like we note below, the war on cars may be a myth, but war on bikes is shifting into high gear, as the past few days have seen an unusual number of attacks on bicyclists and bike infrastructure.
Starting with a bizarre rant from a West Hollywood columnist who claims the city’s new bike lanes are “just an experiment in social engineering, and we are its test subjects,” followed by “We must not allow ourselves to be herded like sheep toward a future we didn’t choose by technocrats who think they know what’s best for us. Whether or not we’re driving a vehicle, it’s time for us to take the wheel back.” Because forcing people into cars, whether they want it or not, isn’t social engineering, apparently. And some of us would prefer to take the handlebars.
A self-professed bike-riding San Diego mayoral candidate attacks spending on bike lanes and bike paths, while failing to mention that it’s for the entire region, not just the city. It’s also funded by the San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, rather than coming out of city coffers, as he suggests. And once again confirming that the people who claim they ride bikes are the ones you have to watch out for.
“Countless” Edinburgh residents are up in arms, telling city leaders to “get their priorities straight,” after the city celebrated the opening of a new protected bike lane intended to make the city safer and more navigable. After all, who really wants safe streets when you can keep putting everyone at risk from people going “zoom, zoom,” while wrapped in a couple tons of high-powered glass and steel?
Even the animals are getting into the act, as a New Zealand Staffordshire Bull Terrier will now be under stricter restrictions after attacking a bike-riding 75-year old woman and a postal carrier because it’s triggered by bicycle saddlebags, according to its owner. Maybe the dog just prefers a nice set of panniers.
Meanwhile, one lonely voice of sanity speaks up, as a writer for The Guardianquestions why the right has declared war on bicyclists, which have somehow become the bete noire for the anti-woke, anti-green, anti-liberal crowd.
I made an appearance on Bike Talk last week to talk about the rise in cyclist and pedestrian "accidents" in the U.S. Here's the playback if you missed it. Thanks for having me @BikeTalkPFK! https://t.co/QW3rwdhMSg
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Marin columnist says a proposal to remove the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge on weekdays doesn’t go far enough, and he wants to give the lane back to drivers full time, even on days when they don’t need it. Because autos uber alles, evidently.
Providence, Rhode Island is considering the same thing, as city officials debate a plan to close the bike lane on a local bridge to make more room for motor vehicles. After all, it makes far more sense to remove alternatives to driving than to try to get more people out of their cars. Right?
Streetsblogaccuses New York officials of putting safety last, after four Brooklyn neighborhoods named Vision Zero “Bike Priority Areas” in 2017 still don’t have any protected bike lanes. To which Los Angeles says “hold my beer.”
WaPo is the latest newspaper to pick up the story of the Atlanta bike rider who tows a large magnet behind his bike to clear the streets of flat-inducing nails, screws and other metallic detritus. More proof that not all heroes wear capes. Or tights, for that matter.
A new Chinese study shows that ebikes serve as a crucial alternative to cars, as well as complementing transit services, and that banning ebikes “would not be conducive to curbing car growth.”
Sorensen was struck by a driver traveling west on Los Angeles. He died at the scene.
The T-shaped intersection doesn’t have a stop sign on Los Angeles, which has a 50 mph speed limit. A bend in the road could have hidden the car from Sorensen’s view until it was too late, especially if the driver was exceeding the speed limit by even a few miles.
The driver remained on scene and cooperated with police, and did not appear to be impaired.
Whether Sorensen actually ran the stop sign depends on whether there were any independent witnesses aside from the driver who may have seen whether he stopped, particularly since the driver’s view of Sorensen could have been obstructed by the bend in the road.
Anyone with information is urged to call Simi Valley Police Officer Bryan Sarfaty at 805/583-6189, or email bsarfaty@simivalley.org.
This is at least the 11th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
In February testimony to the L.A. City Council (minute 3:00:40), City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo stated that “[Measure HLA] will be effective five weeks – roughly five weeks – after the election, should the voters approve the item.”
“What that means is that,” Szabo continued, “this body [City Council] will be asked to make funding decisions immediately.”
The city could have made contingency plans in case it passed, especially since the city council had promised to come up with an even better alternative HLA last year, but never followed through.
And now they have to scramble to come up with something in just the next few weeks.
Even though neither ones even gone into effect yet.
In defense of the free-spenders, guys like me have been blubbering in newspapers and on talk radio for eons about the consequences of budget deficits, yet the sun continues to rise each morning. Somehow, we stumble through each fiscal year with the usual headlines about layoffs and cutbacks to programs that help paper-over the shortfalls. We’re already reading about school closures, hiring freezes and the inevitable layoffs resulting from HLA and previous spending binges, including Mayor Karen Bass’s homelessness initiatives and LAPD hiring plans. Those who lose their jobs or have their program cut will pay the price. But as long as it’s not our job in jeopardy, as long as somebody else’s taxes get raised… shampoo, rinse, repeat. We’ve seen this movie before. Fiscal “Groundhog Day.”
So for anyone unclear on the subject, literally no one has lost their job because of HLA. Nor has a single school closed as a result of the ballot measure.
Or is likely to.
If anything, HLA could mean additional hiring to implement the city’s mobility plan as streets are resurfaced. And even if the city somehow faced budget problems as a result of the measure, it could compensate by just slowing down the street resurfacing program.
Never mind that most of the $3.1 billion that City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo spuriously projected as the cost for the measure was actually for sidewalk repairs the city is already obligated for as the result of a previous court settlement.
Or that school funding has absolutely nothing to do with the city budget.
But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good political screed?
The story reports that 32 bicyclists have been injured along the one-mile bike lane since 2020, raising questions about its safety. Although the only way to judge whether it has increased risk is to compare it to the number and severity of any injuries before it was installed.
Tragically, Currie’s four children are now orphaned, after their mother died of cancer in 2019.
Thanks to Phillip Young and Malcomb Watson for the heads-up.
Tragic news from Honolulu, where two people riding bicycles were collateral damage when a 20-year old speeding driver lost control of his vehicle, hit a utility pole, and landed in the crosswalk they were riding in.
A 24-year old Colorado woman was arrested in Arkansas, two months after she fled the Rocky Mountain state to avoid charges for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle; she’s accused of knocking the 43-year old victim off his bike and over an embankment, and taking his bike to hide evidence of the crime.
Life is cheap in England, where dashcam video captured a careless driver crash into two women bicyclists, resulting in life-changing injuries to both victims, yet the 20-year driver got just ten lousy months behind bars, and was banned from driving for two years. If you ever wonder why people keep dying on the streets, slap-on-the-wrist sentences like this are a good place to start.
March 22, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on New Flax bike book out now, Hollywood Complete Street plan announced, and Senate bill promises local bike/ped funding
Just 284 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Men’s Journal offers an excerpt from the book, describing it as a celebration of “just how far and wide those two wheels can transport us.”
Here’s a brief excerpt from their excerpt:
Of course, a road bike can at times feel like an imperfect instrument for immersing yourself in nature. A beautiful and quiet paved road can disappear beneath your tires, leaving you open to embrace all the gifts that surround you, but too often there is traffic or development or angry drivers. Most cyclists diligently try to find the prettiest and safest routes in their area, but for a growing number of riders, it has gotten tougher to roll a bike out the front door or out of the garage and find peace.
This discouraging trend informs a number of seismic shifts within bike culture—the popularity of gravel riding, bikepacking, cyclocross, adventure riding, mixed-surface touring, electric mountain biking, and indoor riding. Other than that last trend—the Zwift and SoulCycle phenomena—the rest are all activities and equipment that help people have meaningful outdoor experiences without the chaos of cars or the elbows-out personality of road racing. The purity of the experience can be distilled in a beautiful way.
Many of these emerging subcultures highly value self-sufficiency and community. These are styles of riding where your smartphone is not your most important tool. These are communities where sharing an experience with people carries more weight than beating them. Activities in which you still need strength and fitness but are likely more focused on exploration or tenacity than on traditional endurance. You are out in a wild place, in tune with your surroundings, looking to test yourself against natural conditions.
It’s more than worth spending a few enjoyable minutes to read the piece. Or however long it will take you to buy and read the whole thing.
Then follow his lead, and get out and ride your bike for the sheet joy of it, wherever, however and whatever you ride.
The overall project consists of two abutting Hollywood Boulevard stretches being improved collaboratively by two different city departments.
LADOT’s Hollywood Boulevard Safety and Mobility Project will extend 2.3 miles from Fountain Avenue to Gower Street
The city Department of Public Works Bureau of Engineering (BOE) “Access to Hollywood” project will include quick-build upgrades on 1.1 miles from Gower Street to Orange Drive – the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. BOE is the lead agency for this stretch, where it is collaborating with LADOT, Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA), and Metro.
But it’s a long-needed project, which will provide the first protected bike lanes in Soto-Martinez’ district, as well as the first east-west bike lane through Hollywood.
Although it stands little or no chance of passing the dysfunctional Republican-controlled House and becoming law this year, even if it does get approved by the Senate.
A Gold Country cycling columnist says don’t let bad behavior define bicyclists, and it’s never appropriate to flip off a driver. No matter how much they might deserve it.
A 24-year old Colorado woman was arrested for a fatal hit-and-run, two months after she knocked a 43-year old man off his bicycle and left him to die on an embankment on the side of the road; the victim wasn’t found for more than two days after the crash. Drivers like that should face a murder charge for making the conscious decision to let their victims die rather than stop and call for help.
