Too often when someone is injured while riding a bicycle, we never hear any more about it.
This time we did. But the news wasn’t good.
According to multiple, virtually identicalnews reports, 61-year old Scott Andrew Morris died three weeks to the day after suffering a head injury in an Irvine collision earlier this month.
Morris was riding his beach cruiser north on MacArthur Blvd, in the onramp to the 405 Freeway, around 1:20 pm on Thursday, August 1st, when police say he suddenly turned to the left, crashing his bike into the passenger door and mirror of a massive Chevy Suburban SUV.
He fell to the ground, striking his head, and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died on Thursday.
The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.
Morris was not wearing a helmet. Which is worth noting this time, since he apparently died of a head injury; however, we don’t know how fast the SUV was going, or whether the crash would have been survivable with or without one.
Although another possible explanation for how the collision unfolded is that Morris was forced to ride across a dangerous slip lane designed for high speeds, with no bike infrastructure or safety accommodations of any kind. And was sideswiped by the driver, who either didn’t see him or was trying to get around his bike as Morris tried to make his way across.
Something that could be supported by damage to the Suburban’s passenger-side mirror, which would have likely hit Morris first if the driver struck him, rather than the other way around.
The question is whether there were independent witnesses to the crash, or any video evidence, or if investigators simply took the driver’s word for it, since Morris may have been unable to give his version of events.
Anyone with information is urged to call Irvine Police detectives at 949/724-7024.
This is at least the 34th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in Orange County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Scott Andrew Morris and all his loved ones.
August 21, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Guest Post: Take a brief SAFE survey to influence the future of California traffic safety
I received the following email from Sonia Garfinkel of Streets Are For Everyone, asking to share a brief survey about California traffic laws.
Since I’m still working with one hand, I asked if I could share her letter in the form of a guest post.
So please take just a few moments to compete this important survey, and help influence the future safety on our streets.
My name’s Sonia, and I’m pleased to be writing a guest post for this great community and readership. My organization, Streets Are For Everyone (known as SAFE), works to improve the quality of life for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers alike by reducing traffic fatalities to zero. SAFE is conducting a research project focused on California drivers’ knowledge of driving laws, and we need your responses! We will use the response data to guide SAFE-sponsored legislation that will require the California DMV to provide updated education on existing and new driving laws. In order for this survey to be equitable and representative, we need to collect data from as many communities as possible.
That’s where you come in! We would love for you totake our 5-minute survey on California driving laws. We would also appreciate it if you could share our survey to your networks via social media, email, or any other method. We have created a social media toolkit to make it easier to share the survey.Thank you for your responses, and your help!
They all died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics. They were identified only as a 30-year old white man and a 38-year old woman man who had been on the motorcycle, and a 57-year old Black man riding the bicycle.
Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on how the crash occurred.
Anyone with information as urged to call the Victorville Police Department at 760/241-2911, or call anonymously at 800/782-7463.
This is at least the 33rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the just the second that I’m aware this year in San Bernardino County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for all the victims and their loved ones.
I was hoping to post one last time before my shoulder surgery. But my surgery time was move up several hours, which means I should be sleeping already if I’m going to make it on time.
I’ll be out for most, if not all, of the month. But we should have a number of guest posts between now and then, so keep checking back. Or better yet, sign up for the email list over there on the right to ensure you won’t miss anything.
Stay safe out there, and ride with a smile on your face. And I’ll see you again in a few weeks.
August 6, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bicyclists framed for bear’s murder in Central Park, and El Segundo bike rider critically injured by driver fleeing cops
Clearly, I’m still having trouble keeping this site online.
I’m told the problem is outdated and incompatible apps bringing it down, so maybe that’s something I can work on one-handed when I’m out following my surgery. Keep your fingers crossed that I get this post up and you get to read it before it goes down again.
Because that seems to be a thing right now.
I hope to be back again tomorrow before I go under the knife.
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Just 147 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
But he ran out of time before he had to catch a flight. So rather than let a good dead bear go to waste, he took it to New York’s Central Park and dumped it next to a bicycle, staging the scene to make it look like a bike rider had killed the bear and run away afterwards.
Never mind that a crash with a bicycle is highly unlikely to kill even the barest of a bear. Which, as I recall, was what I wrote at the time, as the media ran wild with the story of the heartless killer bike rider who ran away rather than face the consequences for killing a cute, cuddly walking teddy bear.
This at a time when the media was whipping up a frenzy over New York’s expanding bicycle network, which eventually proved to be a boon to businesses and property values.
As well as reports of reckless, scofflaw bike riders crashing into joggers in Central Park and pedestrians everywhere, in which the person on two wheels inevitably received the full blame for the actions of both parties.
That was the environment in which Kennedy the Younger played his joke, leading to a police investigation that went nowhere.
Evidently, forensics don’t work on bear carcasses, since the cops couldn’t seem to figure out that the fatal injuries caused by a motor vehicle couldn’t have been caused by a lightweight bicycle.
However, it’s likely that Kennedy’s belated confession wasn’t just an effort to cleanse his soul and lighten the bear burden on his conscience.
Rather, he was apparently trying to get ahead of a rumored unflattering story in the New Yorker that would have pointed the finger at the formerly feckless scion of the Kennedy clan for the bear’s demise.
Or at least why its final resting place was next to a Central Park roadway rather than out in the woods.
The driver was fleeing from a traffic stop by members of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s gang and narcotics team when he slammed into the man riding a bicycle at Center Street and Mariposa Ave around 3 pm.
As usual, there’s no word on the victim’s current condition.
Police found the driver’s car nearby after he escaped on foot.
A new re-wilding project in Wales is being funded by the same mountain bikers usually accused of destroying nature, not restoring it. Thanks again to Megan Lynch.
Hong Kong bicycling deaths tripled over the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year — and already top the six riders killed in all of 2023. Although that’s just a quarter of the 24 bike riders killed in Los Angeles last year, even though Hong Kong has twice the population.
Aussie cyclist Rohan Dennis will face trial on charges of causing death by dangerous driving and driving without due care in the death of his his wife and fellow Olympic cyclist Melissa Hoskins.
August 3, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Breaking news: Man riding bicycle killed in Hyde Park hit-and-run; 12th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year
Yet another Southern California bike rider has been killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
He was identified only as a man in his 40s. His killer was apparently nowhere to be found.
Unfortunately, there’s no word at this time just how the crash happened, or any description of the driver or suspect vehicle. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
This is at least the 32nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth that I’m aware this year in Los Angeles County; it’s also just the fifth in the City of Los Angeles — at least that we know about.
Twelve of those SoCal deaths have been the victims of heartless cowards who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterward.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
On the other hand, I can understand the need to lash out at someone, after something like that.
Which leaves us with a lot to catch up on. So let’s see how much we can get to before I have to pack it in for the night.
And it’s a sad commentary that I’m looking forward to shoulder surgery next week just so I can get a couple good hours of sleep.
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Photo shows former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signing the city’s soon-forgotten Vision Zero plan behind his massive outdoor desk, courtesy of Streetsblog.
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Just 151 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
In fact, it’s most likely to be noticed as nothing more than just a blip in their busy schedules, if they notice at all.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Maybe we should replace the current city seal with one bearing the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. Although, now that I think about it, trained monkeys could probably do a better job building a safer city.
The site also reports that drivers in Los Angeles continue to flee from fatal crashes in ever-rising numbers, with 62 hit-and-run deaths in the the just first six months of this year alone — more than double the total of two last pre-pandemic years, with 28 in 2018, and 29 in 2019.
Which would equate to roughly 10 to 12 deaths from traffic violence in a city of LA’s size, with nearly four million people.
And that’s a hell of a lot fewer than we’re likely to endure this year.
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This is who we share the road with.
A commenter at a Glendale City Council meeting freely admits that he thinks his time is more important than the life of someone riding a bicycle, and will gladly speed to cut you off.
Maybe someone should have cut him off.
Here’s the guy from the Glendale council meeting who bragged about threatening cyclists with his car. “I will cut you off…and I’m not afraid to say it in front of a police officer…my time is more important to me than you riding your bike.” pic.twitter.com/nCxiRQlvoy
And topping this week’s Tour de Road Rage, two men in Highland, California pulled out guns and shot each other to death — in front of one victim’s kids, no less — after one man clipped the other driver’s car mirror while lane splitting on his motorcycle.
Which is all probably fair warning before you lose your top the next time a driver cuts you off or passes too close, because they may be armed and dangerous.
Then again, they’re already driving a multi-ton lethal weapon, anyway.
Gravel Bike California marks this weekend’s Tour de Big Bear with a series of single-track jewels guided by local host and Dirty Bear organizer Robin Brown.
A large part of the problem seems to come from issues with the program’s administrator, a program known as Pedal Ahead. It was selected under raised eyebrows by CARB back in 2022 and tasked with managing the program. However, (Streetsblog’s Melanie) Curr) insinuates that personal connections between a former CARB board member and the founder of Pedal Ahead may have led to its application being granted extra weight despite proposing a significantly different incentive program than that envisioned by the state…
But a slew of complicated issues still needed to be solved, ranging from how the vouchers would be distributed to what types of e-bikes would be eligible and whether online retailers would be allowed to participate, just to name a few.
Over a year was spent trying to work out answers to these questions and many more, often complicated by rethinking earlier decisions and creating new project proposals.
All in favor of just scrapping the damn thing and starting over say “aye!”
After a good criminal investigation or two, that is.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Bend, Oregon family discovered the hard way that the law isn’t always clear-cut when it comes to ebikes, after a middle school student suffered a fractured collarbone and elbow when she was struck by a 17-year old boy riding one — and the cops said there’s nothing they could do.
Researchers from UC Santa Barbara will use a $480,000 Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant to train AI to design a bicycle and wayfinding network for Santa Barbara County, while San Jose will get a similar, if considerably smaller, grant from Toyota to use AI to improve traffic safety. Never mind that we’re talking about the same advanced tech that draws people with three legs, thinks some Nazi soldiers were Black, and suggests shows Netflix couldn’t pay you to watch. Or maybe that’s just me.
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Chicago has now installed a spacious curb-protected bike lane on a deadly street where drivers killed two teenagers riding bikes in separate crashes recently, and is in the process of building a nearby neighborhood greenway.
Except the Ventura County medical examiner said it was just an “oopsie.”
You know, big harm, no foul.
While this site was down for the last few days, news broke that the victim was killed, and several other people injured in a separate collision, when they were struck by the robber as he tried to escape the cops in an SUV shortly after 4 pm.
There’s no word at this time on just how the crash occurred.
Toliver continued without stopping until he crashed into another car, injuring a number of people in that car, and was arrested at gunpoint along with another man.
Fortunately, none of those victims were seriously injured.
Toliver was booked on suspicion of armed robbery, as well as evasion of law enforcement and second-degree murder.
However, the murder charge was dropped after the medical examiner inexplicably ruled Pierret’s death an accident, explaining that traffic deaths are usually considered accidents “unless there is some unusual circumstance.”
Apparently, killing someone while evading police after robbing someone is perfectly normal in Ventura County.
Instead, Toliver was charged with two counts of second degree robbery, evading an officer causing death, fleeing the scene of an accident aausing death, grand theft of a firearm, and assault with a semi-automatic firearm, along with a whopping 21 special allegations.
Just 155 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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I’m still looking for more volunteers to write guest posts or fill in for me for a few days while I’m out next month following shoulder surgery. We’ve already had a few people volunteer, but we could use more; just email me at the address on the About BikinginLA page, which I really need to update.
And if I haven’t gotten back to you yet, don’t worry, I will.
The road will also get speed bumps and new traffic signs to slow endemic speeding. Although key to the success of the $1.4 million project is whether there will be anything to prevent drivers from using the buffer — or worse, the bike path — to simply go around them.
Thirty-seven-year old Jairo Martinez was allegedly speeding and under the influence when he slammed into Jelmert while passing another car, with enough force to scatter bits of his shattered bicycle across the nearby hillside.
San Diego celebrated the official opening of the long-awaited 2.3-mile Pershing Bikeway through Balboa Park on Saturday, which includes a fully separated two-way bike lane and pedestrian path, along with a new 75-foot bridge over Florida Canyon creek
A new GCN video says we’ve all be brainwashed by a 100-year old “carspiracy,” suggesting we’ll never see the world the same way again after watching it.
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 often anti-bike New York Post calls a citywide trade-in program to ensure delivery riders are on safer bikes with non-flammable batteries the mayor’s ebike boondoggle. Although she does have a point that the companies they work for should be on the hook for paying for it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
He gets it. A writer for Utah’s Cycling Westcalls cars America’s biggest death cult. Which is hard to argue with when drivers kill around 40,000 Americans every year.
The battle over curbside parking is once again rearing its ugly head in Denver, as business owners fret over the loss of 200 parking spaces to install a protected bike lane in the Sloane’s Lake neighborhood. Even though studies have repeatedly shown similar projects have often resulted in increase in business activity, or at least no net loss.
France’s Loana Lecompte was lucky to escape without serious injuries when she went over her handlebars and landed headfirst on rocks on the side of the trial during a technical part of the course, briefly losing consciousness as the medics rushed in and cameras cut away.
He notes that it’s natural to grieve, and we don’t all do it in the same way. But wonders whether it’s healthy to be reminded of these tragedies every time you pass by, and questions who wants to see something like that, anyway?
But that’s the point.
None of us want to see that. But we all need to be reminded what happened there.
Because a ghost bike is more than just a memorial. It’s a reminder to everyone who sees it about the fragility of human life, and the need to drive in a way that respects that.
A ghost bike is a searing reminder to respect the safety of people on bicycles, and to take your damn foot off the gas, for once.
Personally, I hate the damn things. I hope we never have to install another one.
But I will support ghost bikes until they’re not needed any more. And the last person killed riding a bike on our streets really is the last one.
Evidently, substandard is the new standard. At least in El Segundo.
.@elsegundocity finished resurfacing & bike lane striping on Douglas St in the $6M El Segundo Blvd Imprvmt Project.
The Class II bike lanes seemed narrow, so @ljwalsh18 measured them. Guess what? They are 6” too narrow overall & 3.5” too narrow on paved width per Caltrans manual pic.twitter.com/w1HbcwDAaH
— South Bay Forward (@southbayforward) July 25, 2024
Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Melanie Curry has taken an in-depth look at the program. Or at least as in-depth as possible, given the closed-door decision making process, obtuse public pronouncements and obvious obfuscation.
I would have used another word starting with H instead of heck. And even that would be an effort to censure my own thoughts on the subject.
Curry writes that the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, has continually promised that the the program, which is currently funded at $30 million after the state legislature sweetened the pot, will launch “soon.”
Sometimes that’s sometime in the next quarter, or the one after that. But every time, their self-imposed deadline has come and gone, with barely a dime laid out.
The soft launch that we’ve heard virtually nothing about has funded just 77 vouchers, mostly in the San Diego area, according to Curry. But no dollar amounts have been announced.
And if San Diego rings a bell, it’s because that’s where program administrator Pedal Ahead is located. And where Pedal Ahead and its CEO are reportedly being investigated amid accusations of mixing public and private funds.
As Curry explains,
And now, two recent articles in the San Diego Union Tribune say that the program’s administrator is “under investigation” by multiple agencies for various improprieties, and is being sued by one of its employees who says he wasn’t paid for work he did, and that the nonprofit mixed public money and private business.
When CARB announced that they had chosen Pedal Ahead as administrator for the program in 2022, advocates were quietly but frantically worried that a big mistake had been made. Rumors swirled about Pedal Ahead’s founder, Ed Clancy, and questions were raised about his personal connections to former CARB board member Nathan Fletcher, who helped Clancy launch his organization, Rider Safety Visibility (RSV), of which Pedal Ahead is a part.
But no one would go on record with their concerns, and CARB staff insisted that (former CARB board member, California Assembly Member and current San Diego County Supervisor Nathan) Fletcher had zero influence over the decision. They chose Pedal Ahead, they said, because of the organization’s experience with e-bikes.
Nope. Nothing to see there.
Never mind the apparent conflict of interest that led to Pedal Ahead’s selection, despite an application that wasn’t exactly on point, to be kind.
Rider Safety Visibility turned in an application that implied it would recreate the program it was running in San Diego. But that program was not at all like the state’s plan. That is, the Pedal Ahead program run by RSV is a “loan-to-own” program wherein income-qualified people are given e-bikes, which they could keep after a certain period of time as long as they fulfilled certain requirements, like riding at least 35 miles a week and bringing them in regularly to be checked (and to have their mileage checked on Strava units included on the bike).
The statewide plan, in contrast, would give money to people to buy their own e-bikes.
Nothing to see there, either.
So let’s be honest.
At this point, it’s obvious that the California ebike voucher program is just one massive clusterfuck, with no public openness or accountability.
And it’s long past time for the California Attorney General’s office to audit the program, and open a criminal investigation if it’s warranted.
Because I highly suspect it is.
So if anyone wants to pass this on to them, I’m fine with that.
Thanks to Ellectrek for the heads-up. And to Melanie Curry for her reporting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A road raging, hit-and-run driver was arrested in Ventura County after plowing into a bicyclist riding at the back of a group on LA’s Mandeville Canyon Road; he’s then seen honking and yelling at the bike riders filming him as he plows through a gate, before engaging in a brief police chase and crashing once again in Malibu.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Florida man has been busted on hit-and-run charges after crashing his speeding ebike into a man playing soccer on the beach, then fleeing the scene. Yet another reminder that you have as much responsibility to stop after a crash as a driver does. Even though they too often don’t.
For what seems like the first time in recorded history, a cop in North Platte, Nebraska offers safety advice for bicyclists that doesn’t once mention wearing a helmet. Although I’m not sure about the requirement to have a front bike light “that protrudes up to 500 feet,” which seems just a tad excessive. And dangerous.
Forget cycling. British bike hero Chris Boardman, who won the men’s individual pursuit at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, wants to own a Sussex football club. That’s soccer to those of us on this side of the pond.
