Last week, the LA City Council’s Transportation Committee debated whether to patch potholes or fund Vision Zero projects, ultimately deciding in favor of safety over street repair.
Today, we got a painful reminder that sometimes it’s the same thing.
Hansen reports the pothole had been patched a week later, too late to save the very popular rider.
This is the 11th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth in Los Angeles County.
Update: I’ve received second-hand reports from people who were on the March 11th ride that Lim may have lost control to avoid hitting the pothole, striking his head on the curb. However, even if that is the case, the pothole would have been the proximate cause of the crash, since he would not have swerved if it hadn’t been there.
As Albert Lakes points out below, though, we don’t have all the facts at this point; all we can do is consider the limited information that is available and draw our own conclusions.
My deepest sympathy and prayers Edgar Lim and all his family and loved ones.
More reaction to Wednesday’s meeting of the city council Transportation Committee, which voted to devote 60% of Measure M local return funds to the city’s Vision Zero plan.
According to the LACBC, the remaining funds will be split with 10% going to bike infrastructure, 10% to sidewalk repair and reconstruction, and 20% to median island and curb extension improvements.
A Los Feliz paper looks at Wednesday’s meeting that resulted in prioritizing Vision Zero work over repairing potholes with Measure M return funds.
The anger is understandable. Measure M was pushed in large part with promises that it would fix our crumbling streets. Although I’d like to think we could all agree that improving safety for everyone on the road is more important than patching potholes.
But I could be wrong on that.
The proposal goes before the Public Works and Gang Reduction committee next week.
Whether this comes under the heading of public works or gang reduction remains to be seen.
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Hats off to a group of LA police officers, who will be riding from Hollywood to DC to honor fallen police officers in the first-ever Hollywood Memorial Ride.
New Zealand cyclist Keagan Girdlestone completes a near-miraculous recovery after severing his carotid artery and jugular vein when he crashed into a team vehicle during a race last year, as he prepares for his first race since the crash.
Model CJ Franco is one of us, as she rides a WeHo Pedals bikeshare bike to Bristol Farms in Beverly Hills for a little shopping. But if the Daily Mail doesn’t stop drooling over her, it’s going to short out my keyboard.
Miami considers adopting a Vision Zero plan to reduce bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities; the city ranks third in the US for pedestrian deaths, after Los Angeles and New York.
Yet another bike rider has been murdered by a heartless cowardly driver in Los Angeles County.
According to KABC-7, the victim, who the coroner said appeared to be a woman in her 30s, was found by someone passing by the Pico Rivera crime scene shortly after 2 am this morning.
Sheriff’s investigators say there are no apparent witnesses. However, based on debris from the crash site, they’re looking for a dark green Honda Accord, 2003 to 2007, with significant front end damage.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Pico Rivera Sheriff’s Station at 562/949-2421.
This is the tenth bicycling fatality in Southern California, and the seventh in Los Angeles County; nearly half of the deaths in the county have been hit-and-runs.
Given the hour, the driver should be assumed to have been under the influence at the time of the wreck.
Once found, he or she should face a second degree murder charge for making a conscious decision to leave the victim to die in the street, rather than call for the prompt medical attention that might have saved her life.
Of course, since hit-and-runs are seldom taken seriously in LA County, that’s not likely to happen.
Update: The LA Times reports a suspect was arrested after deputies pulled over a 2005 Honda Accord for several vehicle violations two miles from the crash site, and saw extensive damage to the front end that matched the suspect vehicle.
Twenty-one-year old Berta Ramirez of Pico Rivera was arrested, and was being held on $50,000 bond.
Update 2: The victim has been identified as 45-year old Pico Rivera resident Suzanne Corona. Her accused killer was released on bail a day after the crash.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Suzanne Corona and her loved ones.
Meanwhile, the results in CD1 are expected to be certified today, with long-time bike and community advocate Joe Bray-Ali taking on the extremely bike unfriendly Gil Cedillo. As you’ll recall, it was Cedillo who singlehandedly blocked the desperately needed road diet on North Figueroa, and attempted to have all the proposed bike lanes in CD1 removed from the Mobility Plan, earning him the moniker “Roadkill Gil” from some in the district.
Think of it as the game going into overtime. Both candidate start out on even footing, and who wins will depend on what happens in the coming weeks.
It will take the support of the entire bicycling community, and everyone who wants a better LA, to overcome the massive amounts of special interest money that will inevitably flow in from outside the district to help keep a career politician in office.
The ad depicts a fallen spandex cyclist. The text reads “When life gets rough.” The ad falls into the all–too–commongrim bicycling-equals-danger trope which shames cyclists and reinforces misperceptions about cycling safety.
To be honest, it really doesn’t bother me.
Given the unpaved surface, I read the image in the ad as a face plant by a mountain biker, which is just part of the sport.
But maybe that’s just me. What do you think?
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Former Stallone stunt double Eric Barone beat his own record with a 141 mph downhill on a snowy French ski slope. Which is just a tad faster than most of us have done on dry land.
Bay Area bicyclists ride to consider what can be done to fix the Hairball, a maze of intersecting highways where a bike path that runs underneath has turned into a de facto homeless camp.
Performance Bike is using the world’s most famous computer to get inside your head, or at least your browsing history, to target their marketing at you.
Outsiderecommends an e-fat bike to power your way over backcountry terrain. Because don’t we all want to rip up endangered terrain by riding off trail, while annoying the crap out of everyone else on trail? Or is that just me?
The Mayor of Maui tells bicyclists to ride in the door zone to avoid salmon cyclists in the bike lane, and misreads the law to suggest that’s required anyway. There is no law, anywhere in the US, that requires people to ride to the right in a bike lane. And it’s usually safer to ride in the center to left third, depending on the width of the lane, to ensure you’re outside the door zone.
Au contraire, Findley, Ohio’s The Courier; the city is not proposing a ban on bicycling in the downtown area, just against riding on the sidewalk. Big difference, mais non?
The Village Voice asks if racism will derail plans for bike lanes and other safety improvements on 111th Street in Queens; one opponent insists the lanes won’t be necessary once Trump deports all the illegals, since there won’t be anyone left to ride a bike. Maybe someone should explain to her that lots of people who ride bikes were born in this country, including the many of the ones she assumes don’t belong here.
They’re onto us, comrade. A North Carolina letter writer insists a group of new hotels under construction are a plot to make driving so impossible everyone would be forced to bike or walk.
A new British report says new roadways damage the countryside, quickly get jammed due to induced demand, and discourage alternative forms of transportation like biking and walking.
According to a CHP spokesman, the driver had veered into the the bike lane where Munoz was riding, and fled the scene after striking him.
KCBS-2 reports Anaheim police later spotted the driver, 25-year old Riverside resident Jason Roy Rocha, when they tried to pull him over for an unrelated traffic violation. Rocha fled from the police, losing the officers, until he crashed his Ford Expedition into a fence at the intersection of Seal Beach and Westminster boulevards in Seal Beach.
Munoz leaves behind a wife and three kids. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay his funeral expenses; so far it has raised just $85 of the $25,000 goal.
This is the ninth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, four of which have been hit-and-runs. He is the third person killed while riding in Orange County since the first of the year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Encarnacion Salazar Munoz and his family.
An LA bike rider was harassed by the road raging occupants of a car, and intentionally doored by a passenger in the back seat.
Even though the door never made contact with him or his bike, this is a clear case of assault, since the passenger obviously intended to threaten, if not injure, the victim. As such, any case like this can and should be reported to the police — especially when there’s video evidence.
And yes, the cops do want to know about cases like this.
Even if the authorities aren’t able to press charges, it could establish a pattern of behavior if the driver or passengers do something like this again.
The video also provides strong evidence to make a case under LA’s cyclist anti-harassment ordinance, which entitles victims to $1000 or actual damages, whichever is higher, plus triple damages. As well as reimbursement for any legal fees.
It’s not easy to make a case under the law, since you have to have witnesses and/or corroborating evidence to prove the harassment occurred.
But with a video like this, it should do the trick.
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After blocking a three-foot passing law in the state legislature, Montana Senate Leader Scott Sales plans to introduce legislation to ban bike riders from many state highways.
Sales’ legislation would prohibit bicycles from any two lane roadway with less than a three-foot shoulder, and require riders to place reflectors on their bodies as well as their bikes. And he’d require bicyclists to pay a special tax to ride on state roadways that they already pay for with their tax dollars.
Never mind that, as Bicycling points out, his proposal would kill the state’s burgeoning bike tourism industry.
His apparent distaste for bicycles and the people who ride them stems from his observation that bike riders are “some of the rudest and most self-centered people [he’s] ever encountered.”
Evidently, he’s never looked in the mirror, since he freely admits to blaring his horn at riders who have the audacity to get in his way. Or encountered many of the motorists he shares the roadways with, for that matter.
Meanwhile, a massive new study says bike riders aren’t really rude, we’re just trying to stay alive.
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The state issued another $56 million in grants to fund 25 active transportation and Safe Routes to Schools projects in six SoCal Counties, including $15 million for bike lanes in the Arts District in DTLA, bike lane connections at Cal State Long Beach, and a bike track in Santa Ana.
A former rider for Team Sky says he broke cycling’s no needles rule to inject himself with vitamins leading up to the Vuelta. Vitamins, sure. Let’s go with that.
No one was hurt, but a bicycle was mangled when a 45 foot shipping container fell off a big rig. No word on whether someone was riding the bike and jumped off, or if it had been parked.
A writer for City Watch calls CD1 challenger Joe Bray-Ali a ray of hope, saying “If Mr. Smith rode his bike to Washington, he’d look and sound a lot like Joe Bray-Ali.” We could find out today if Bray-Ali will be in a runoff with incumbent Gil Cedillo, when the latest vote counts are released.
According to the Santa Clarita Signal, sheriff’s deputies arrested a homeless man for riding his bike at night without lights, then says he was issued a citation. Something is seriously wrong if he was actually arrested, since riding without lights is a simple traffic violation, not a misdemeanor or felony offense subject to arrest. He should have been stopped, cited and sent on his way; let’s hope that’s what really happened. And someone please tell them it’s not that homeless people refuse to disclose their occupation; they usually just don’t have one.
State
San Diego cyclists will take a two-day, 90 mile tour of the coastline this weekend in honor of a beloved local bike advocate and cycling instructor who was killed in Oregon in 2014 near the beginning of a planned ride from Canada to Mexico.
Sad news from Tulare, where a 69-year old bike rider was killed in a crash after allegedly running a red light. As always, the question is whether anyone other that the driver involved witnessed the crash and saw whether the light was red or green.
Berkeley police say it wasn’t excessive speed or impairment that was responsible for the collision that killed a 78-year old bike rider last month, blaming poor lighting, rain and a wet roadway. Yet that would suggest a violation of the state’s basic speed law, which prohibits driving too fast for current conditions. Or is that only used as an excuse the ticket bike riders these days?
Apple applies for a patent for a new way to calculate a cyclist’s performance from wind resistance and other factors, suggesting they may develop a new form of power meter.
Defense attorneys argue that second degree murder charges should be dropped against the — allegedly — stoned driver who killed five Kalamazoo MI bicyclists because prosecutors failed to show that a combination of amphetamine, meth, hydrocodone and tramadol would have affected his ability to drive. On the other hand, they certainly didn’t improve it.
A one-woman Canadian performance illustrates the role bicycles played in the emancipation of women, starting with the story of Annie Londonderry, the first woman who biked around the world.
A new study of London bicycling shows bike riders experience an average of one close call at intersections every two weeks.
This is why people continue to die on the streets. A UK van driver was given a suspended sentence for running over a doored bicyclist who fell into his path — even though he fled the scene and was three times over the legal limit for drunk driving. His lawyer claimed he only started drinking after the wreck, though he was still drunk from the previous day. Seriously, that’s an excuse?
Chinese app-based bikeshare company Ofo has decided the way to get users to take better care of their bikes is to flood the streets with even more, so they know another bike will be readily available. Um, probably not.
Which means that if the totals stand as they are now, challenger Joe Bray-Ali will face Cedillo in the May 16th general election.
Of course, things could still change. There are more ballots to count, with the next update due on Friday.
And even if Bray-Ali does qualify for a runoff, it will be an uphill battle against the entrenched city hall establishment and massive piles of special interest money that inevitably flow in to support any LA incumbent.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
A San Francisco driver punched a bike rider in the eye, knocking her off her bike and into traffic, for the crime of complaining that he was illegally stopped in a bike lane — even though there was nothing to his right and he could have easily pulled over to the curb.
A Ross CA man is charged with misdemeanor reckless driving after allegedly attempting to run a bike rider off the road, and threatening to come back with a shotgun and blow his head off. So evidently, the driver’s own words aren’t enough to prove he was threatening the rider.
A British bike rider was lucky to escape with superficial injuries when someone strung a wire at neck level across a promenade; fortunately, the police are investigating it as the assault that it is, rather than a prank.
A sports site talks with former pro cyclist Rebecca Rush, as a new movie documents her 1,200-mile journey along Ho Chi Minh Trail to find where her father’s plane crashed in the Vietnam war, when she was just three years old.
The Executive Director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition writes to demand protected bike lanes on upper Market Street, saying a decision to delay implementing them is incompatible with Vision Zero.
Streetsblog asks when the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the overly conservative national guide to traffic signal, signs and pavement markings, will finally catch up to the 21st Century; they just got around to approving Bike Lane Ends signs. Even though American bike lanes have been ending — without warning in most cases — for 50 years.
A man is under arrest for breaking the window of a Pittsburgh bike shop and making off with a $4,000 mountain bike; he also threatened to shoot one of the arresting officers in the head and kill his family when he gets out of jail. Hopefully, that will be a very long time off.
The Orange County coroner reports he was taken to UCI Medical Center, where he died at 11:16 pm. He has been identified only as a man in his 30s.
The driver remained at the scene and called 911. She is not suspected of being under the influence.
No details are available on how the collision may have occurred; the Register says it is unclear if he was using a crosswalk at the time of the crash.
A streetview shows two lanes in both directions on La Palma with a center divider and left turn lane in both directions, with the same on Moody. There are curbside bike lanes on both streets.
This is the eighth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second in Orange County; he is the first bicyclist killed in La Palma since at least 2011.
Update: The Orange County Coroner has identified the victim as 52-year old La Palma resident David Garcia. Thanks to Bill Sellin for the heads-up.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for David Garcia and his loved ones.
A Nebraska researcher concludes it’s like the Wild West on our streets, as the behavior of both bicyclists and motorists are governed by unspoken rules of behavior that go beyond traffic laws. But even when riders break the law, in most cases they do it to avoid being injured or killed by a driver.
A Colorado woman will face anywhere from four to twelve years in jail after pleading guilty to the drunken hit-and-run death of a bicyclist; she was on probation for a previous drunk driving conviction at the time of the crash, and had two other alcohol-related arrests.
Sad news from DC, where an editor for Kiplinger’s died after she was struck by a bicycle. Bikes don’t pose anywhere near the danger to others that cars do, but as this tragedy shows, a collision with a bicycle can result in serious injuries, or worse. Always slow down and ride carefully when pedestrians or less skilled riders are around.
Anti-bike incumbent Gil Cedillo appears to have eked out a victory in CD1, setting the stage at least five and a half more years of deadly streets as the city switches to holding its elections at the same time as state and national votes.
Although a runoff with Joe Bray-Ali is still possible, as Cedillo topped the minimum 50% threshold by just 198 votes; Bray-Ali issued a statement saying he isn’t conceding until all the votes are counted.
And in CD5, current councilmember Paul Koretz won a final term with nearly two-thirds of the vote over bike-friendly challenger Jesse Creed.
In the end, Creed and Bray-Ali struggled to overcome the power of LA incumbency, where office holders running for re-election almost never lose — thanks in large part to the city’s gerrymandered districts and the massive amount of out-of-district special interest money that inevitably pours in to benefit sitting councilmembers.
Not that those special interests would dream of expecting a return on their investment or anything.
The news was better in CD7, where Bike the Vote LA-endorsed Monica Rodriguez was leading, and will enter a runoff with Karo Torossian if the totals hold.
As expected, the other current officeholders steamrolled to victory over their token opposition in all the other races.
So if nothing changes, it looks like nothing changes.
A few districts with bike-friendly councilmembers such as Joe Buscaino, Jose Huizar and Mike Bonin will continue to get safer and more complete streets, while Cedillo and Koretz will continue to block much needed improvements.
And our city will suffer for it.
But at least we can end on a brighter note, as anti-growth Measure S went down to defeat, handing AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Michael Weinstein his third loss in three tries at ballot propositions in four months; attempts to regulate drug prices and require condoms for porn shoots statewide lost last November.
And Measure H passed with the necessary two-thirds majority, as the city and county finally appear to be getting serious about working together to end the crisis of homelessness.
I wasn’t found at fault in my crash; I wasn’t speeding, distracted or impaired on the night I rounded a highway curve and a bicyclist crossed in front of my car, too close for me to avoid. But I will always see him staring wide-eyed at me as he flew into and over my windshield. I will never forget his body at roadside, utterly motionless.
If you remember nothing else I write, I hope you’ll remember this: You do not want to be me. No destination, no text, no drink, no glance away from the road is worth knowing that you have killed another human being. You don’t want to feel you’d give anything not to have been on that road at that time. You don’t want to believe that anything you accomplish in life is offset by the death of another person. You don’t want any happiness you experience to remind you of the happiness denied the person you hit, her family, his friends. You don’t want to struggle to go on living, convinced you don’t deserve to exist, wishing you hadn’t been born.
She still says the collision could have been avoided if only the victim had lights on his bike. But notes that drivers have to change their attitudes to prevent similar tragedies.
Her own friend was killed riding a bike two years ago.
The driver for the mayor of Sacramento hit a bike rider at a notoriously dangerous intersection on Tuesday evening while the mayor in the car; naturally, they blame the victim for running a stop sign. So if the intersection is so dangerous, why haven’t they fixed it already?
National
A new US study posted on an Aussie website shows bicycling can slow the effects of aging, and that older people benefit more than the young. And here I assumed all those close passes were aging me, not realizing I was getting younger, and yes, better looking, with every pass.
A Calgary driver says it’s not her fault she hit a cyclist because the sun was in her eyes. Seriously, if you can’t see what the hell is directly in front of your car, pull the damn thing over and wait until you can.
British police are asking for bike cam video to protect cyclists and enforce the law against dangerous drivers. It’s questionable whether similar video footage can be used to prosecute drivers for traffic violations in California, where current law says police must actually witness the violation, except in the case of felonies. Thanks to Cyclist’s Rights for the heads-up.
In an update on yesterday’s story, it turns out a Brit bus rider could tell it was a bicyclist fucking in the bushes because he still had his helmet on; his more traditionally attired partner was wearing a coat, at least. Or maybe it was just a couple with a weird bike helmet fetish.
