The good news is, my recent bout with high sugar is finally getting back under control after my doctor put me on a new medication.
The bad news, I’m still shaking after a sudden blood sugar crash knocked me out for a few hours last night.
Which serves as the latest in a series of periodic reminders that diabetes sucks. If you’re at risk, get tested. And do whatever it takes to avoid it, or at least get it under control.
Seriously, the only good thing about diabetes is that cookies and candy are lifesaving medication.
Get out and ride this weekend. And stay safe out there.
We’ll see you back here next week to catch up on anything we missed.
Had another rough night after my diabetes kicked my ass, proving once again I’m not in charge of my own body any more.
As a nearly life-long cyclist, I’ve proved to myself time and again that I could will my body to do anything, at least on two wheels.
Now my own body is attacking me. And all I can do is struggle to control it, and too often, fail.
So let me remind you once again, if you’ve been told you’re at risk for diabetes, or have a family history of the disease, get tested. Then do whatever it takes to avoid getting it.
Seriously, you don’t want this shit.
As usual, we’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed.
New York officials say macho men in SUVs and pickups are killing people on bikes and foot, so they’re introducing a new ad campaign to shame them.
Although most drivers probably won’t be.
Not to mention when I look at the ad, his expression and dress doesn’t exactly say “macho” to me.
Meanwhile, the SUV reference is so subtle, it’s barely there. And could be literally any other type of vehicle without changing anything.
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In what looks like a case of out-of-control cops, Seattle bike cops appear to ram pedestrians on a sidewalk from behind with their bikes, apparently without warning, then bust them for obstruction and resisting arrest.
Although remember, we’re not seeing what came before this, which may or may not be relevant.
Inexcusable. The chair of the Oakland Bicyclist and Pedestrian Commission was held at gunpoint by private security guards for the crime of taking pictures of yarn-bombed bike racks on a public sidewalk. But it couldn’t have anything to do with him being black, right?
DHL has been ordered to pay over $9 million to a Canadian couple who were run down while riding single file on on the shoulder an Oregon highway. The driver said it wasn’t his fault, claiming they were actually in the traffic lane and he couldn’t avoid them; one victim nearly lost his leg as a result of the crash.
File this one under you’ve got to be kidding. An off-duty Michigan cop could walk with probation for the hit-and-run that left a bike rider with a broken elbow. Then coming back and directing traffic — without telling anyone he was the one who hit him.
A Calgary letter writer says scofflaw bicyclists are getting with murder — and the editor of the local paper evidently agrees with him. Never mind that its the people on four wheels who are actually killing people, and disproportionately the ones on two wheels or feet getting killed.
Apparently, some drivers really can’t see us. After an English driver critically injured a woman on a bicycle, she failed an eye test the next day.
I’m committed to bringing you the news no one wants, even though it’s by far the hardest thing I have to do.
And probably the hardest things you have to read.
I write about the victims of these crashes both to remember and honor them, and provide a bike rider’s perspective that the police and press too often don’t — and the victims can’t.
Because if we don’t know what’s really going on out there, it’s impossible to fix it.
And that’s something you won’t find anywhere else in Southern California.
It’s up to you to decide what that’s worth to you, if anything.
No amount is too small — or too large, for that matter. All I ask is that you give if you want, and if you can.
And if you already have, thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.
Either way, I’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed today.
Because the most important thing you can do to support this site is to simply keep coming back every day.
The one time of year I come right out and ask for your money.
Okay, beg.
Because operating this site is a more than full-time job, for far less than minimum wage. And while I truly appreciate each of the sponsors over there on the right, their support, as valuable as it is, doesn’t cover what I need to keep this site going.
Especially after a year like this, when the money that came in went out just as fast. Or faster, even.
But that’s where you come in.
Your support helps fill in that gaping gap, and allows me to devote all my working hours to bringing you the latest bike news on a daily basis, from around the corner or around the world.
And devote whatever time I have left in this life to helping make this a safer place for people on bicycles, and a more livable world for all of us.
Or call it the 1st Corgi Memorial Fund Drive in memory of our late, great spokesdog
It’s not an easy job. Especially when I have to bring you news that none of us want.
But it matters. Because we can’t fix problems if we don’t know they exist. And our leaders can’t hide the truths we shine a light on.
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But please give if you can, and what you can. Because we can really use the help.
This year especially.
Thank you to Felicia G and theMuirs for their generous contributions to this fund drive even before it officially began.
And as always, a special thanks to Todd Rowell, who came up with the idea for this fund drive in the first place.
Stephen Taylor Scarpa’s arraignment, scheduled for last Friday, was delayed again.
There are so many facets of this case that don’t look good for him: his status as an addict; his admission during interrogation that he should not have been driving; the amount and sheer number of drugs in his system; the presence in his vehicle of drugs obtained from an alleged overprescriber; his crash after “passing out” behind the wheel earlier in the year… etc.
He’s going down.
What perplexes me is the murder charge, because I can’t find any evidence of a prior DUI conviction — within LA or Orange County, at any rate. He could have priors elsewhere.
The Watson law is specific in its requirements: party has to be informed upon a DUI conviction of the possibility of a murder charge if said party kills someone while DUI.
So, this would mean, wouldn’t it, that Scarpa’s been convicted in some court at some point within the past 10 years?
A Watson advisement notwithstanding, PSA’s, American alcohol ads, and the DMV paperwork you sign before the state issues you a license all tell you that DUI is dangerous. But is that bombardment of facts enough to define malice, which is a required component of murder?
There’s one other thing that might convince a jury that Scarpa was aware of the dangers of DUI, enough so to convict of murder and not just manslaughter.
In 2011, as a student at Esperanza High, he participated in an Every Fifteen Minutes event, which is pretty comprehensive. In addition to pulling “dead” students out of classrooms every 15 minutes, a simulated collision is set up on campus, with the driver “arrested,” and moulaged “injured” & “dead” students extricated from the wreckage. These actors don’t go home that night; they’re sequestered overnight at a hotel, where they write a “Today I died” letter to their parents. (The parents also write to their dead kids.) The next day, these letters are read aloud at a school assembly.
Scarpa was one of the dead who was extricated from a mangled vehicle, who told his parents he died, who read this letter to his entire school.
I hope, every night before he falls asleep, he thinks of all the letters Mike Kreza never gets to write.
Pratiti Renee Mehta is back from her vacation in Chowchilla Women’s Facility. She’s in custody in County, awaiting a court appearance this morning. I will be there, because I am a horrible person and will enjoy seeing her violent, unrepentant ass in saggy jail-issued fashion and shackles. The sentencing was in July, and I missed it. How it wasn’t on my calendar, I dunno. (Busy week with the PAC on the 18th and the Caltrans D7 BAC on the 19th, but I wouldn’t have skipped the sentencing for anything.)
Due to a “clerical inadvertency,” Mehta had been sent up to state prison prior to a required sentencing assessment.
According to court records, on July 17th, the Defense’s request to reduce the felony hit-and-run count to a misdemeanor was denied, and then the judge sentenced Ms. Mehta to 3 years in state prison.
Two other things surprise me about the sentence: (1) The judge actually threw the book at her, wow. (2) The People didn’t request anything close.
That’s right, the People actually requested leniency: 90 days in County and an additional 200 hours of community service. For a woman who broke a guy’s bones, left him in the street, and then put in deliberate effort to lie to the cops about it. I remain furious that the ADW charge didn’t stick.
Hannah Jordan suffers from an unknown metabolic disorder that prevents her body from storing glucose; when she started on an intravenous formula from a Santa Barbara company, she began to thrive — and kick ass on her bicycle.
She’ll compete in Phil Gaimon’s hillclimb competition on Gibraltar Road with the feeding tube attached, then may train for international competition at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs CO.
And yes, her tube has been approved for competition.
There’s a special place in hell for a Japanese man who rode his bike up from behind a bike-riding 17-year old girl and groped her breast as he rode past, telling police he just couldn’t control his lust for her. Which should be read as a confession from a total asshole.
Streetsblog says Gavin Newsom’s veto of the state’s Complete Streets bill stinks, and that Caltrans’ reasoning for fighting it is “hogwash.” Someone suggested that we should now call getting hit by driver on a Caltrans-controlled street “getting Newsomed,” just like we called a close pass “getting Jerry Browned” after he repeatedly vetoed the three-foot passing law.
Virgilio Lemus Garcia, the 60-year old victim in Sunday’s Santa Ana hit-and-run, remains in grave condition; police are looking for a dark blue mid-’90s, four-door Honda Civic with probable front end damage and a possible shattered windshield.
Apparently never having heard of induced demand, Caltrans will close San Diego’s Friars Road this weekend in preparation for adding a fourth lane in each direction, along with sidewalks and bike lanes. Hopefully, they’ll also consider how the hell pedestrians are supposed to cross that massive monstrosity.
Apparently, it’s okay to be nuts for nuts. But don’t eat too many because they can cause kidney stones, as I learned the hard way.
A new survey from Lime says scooter users don’t want to ride on the sidewalks, but do it anyway because they don’t feel safe on the street. Which is exactly the same reason many bike riders do. And the answer isn’t threatening or ticketing them, it’s building more and better bike lanes.
Kansas City’s mayor wants to rip out a new protected bike lane less than a month after it was installed, saying it’s made things very difficult for businesses and residents. Apparently, it must have been installed on a whim, without any studies, since he wants to remove it the same way; any change to a roadway requires time for people to adjust to it before you know how its going to work out.
A new British study shows a cheap, widely available drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide if given in the first few hours after a head injury; the medication, called tranexamic acid, costs the equivalent of less than $8 in the UK. Which means it will probably sell for a couple thousand dollars a dose in the US.
And it’s not a record jump if you don’t stick the landing.
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Thanks to John Hall for his generous donation to support this site, and help keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way (nearly) every day.
