We knew we wouldn’t make it through the holidays without some bad news.
It’s just surprising it came from sparsely populated Imperial County.
According to the Calexico Chronicle, a man riding a motorized bicycle was killed in a collision north of Imperial, California Wednesday evening.
The victim, identified as 57-year old Brawley resident Raymond Rosenbaum was riding north on Highway 86 south of Ralph Road when he was struck by the driver of a large Ford pickup around 5:20 pm.
Imperial police attempted to revive Rosenbaum after finding him lying near the left lane of the four lane divided highway, however, he died at the scene.
The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators. There’s no word yet on how the crash may have happened.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Imperial Police Department at 760/355-4327.
This is at least the 72nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 1st that I’m aware of in Imperial County; this is also the first reported bicycling death in the county since 2019.
There have been reports of at least two other deaths in this week in the Los Angeles area that remain unconfirmed.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Raymond Rosenbaum and his loved ones.
Just three short days to open your heart and wallet, and show your support for SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy.
So thanks to Kurt G and Michael M for their generous donations to keep all the best bike news coming your way every day.
Now it’s up to you.
We’ve got a long way to go to catch up to last year’s record-setting fund drive — let alone once again top the previous year’s total for the 9th year in a row.
It’ll be a stretch, but we can do it with your help.
As always, we’ll be taking the coming week between the holidays off, so I can have my annual pre-scheduled emotional collapse after making it through another year.
Okay, I’m joking. Sort of.
So please accept my best wishes for warm and wonderful holidays, whatever and however you celebrate. And a heathy, happy and prosperous year to come.
Just be careful riding over the next ten days, when the number of drunks on the road will increase exponentially, and frenzied shoppers and celebrants will be looking for anyone but you.
I want to see you back here bright and early January 2nd.
As expected, the California Air Resources Board once again missed their own self-appointed deadline begin operations this fall — in fact, all their self-appointed deadlines for two years running.
Talk about a failure to launch.
Instead, thousands of low-income Californians have continued to burn fossil fuels and clog our roads, when they could have switched to cleaner, more efficient ebikes instead — defeating the entire purpose of the program, which was the first in the nation when it passed the state legislature.
And now could end up being one of the last to launch before they finally get it going.
Reason 2: There is little effort to follow the official plans, no constant funding to build bicycle lanes, and too much bicycle infrastructure is built to serve new commercial projects, rather than meet actual need
Reason 3: City proposals to construct new, buffered bicycle lanes on wide boulevards often meet organized resistance by people who don’t want to lose parking or traffic lanes
Reason 4: Too many proposals for new bikes lanes come from local boosters to build stand-alone bicycle lanes so nearby real estate projects can reduce costly parking requirements
I’d say the problem is more a lack of political will among elected leaders, who listen only to the loudest voices, combined with flushing too much money down the induced-demand toilet that could go to reducing the demand for cars.
But it’s worth taking his thoughts into consideration when we consider how to fight for safer, more complete and livable streets
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Um, okay. A Greeley, Colorado man got drunk and followed another man on his bike, while somehow swinging a 25-pound propane tank. Something tell me there’s more to this story. And chances are, we’ll never find out what it is, dammit.
A man in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood had to seek medical attention after he was struck in the eye with a hard boiled egg hurled by a member of a bike “gang.” Although the story never actually uses the word bicycle, so the perp could have been a motorbike rider.
More on the moron who fled the scene after running down two bicyclists riding on Colorado’s Lookout Mountain while running another rider off the road, leaving one man in the ICU with major injuries; the story makes it sound like two Mustang drivers may have been racing, without actually saying that. A crowdfunding campaign for the most seriously injured victim has raised over $41,000 of the $50,000 goal. You know, in case you have any extra money left over after donating to this site.
Illinois bicyclists are pondering their next move, after the state Supreme Court made them all second-class citizens by absurdly ruling that bikes are merely “permitted” on the streets without bike infrastructure, but not the intended users.
Maybe there really is a war on cars, as The Guardian says European cities are turning on the car by adopting varied approaches to reducing traffic congestion and pollution; Paris has joined London in having more bicycles than cars during rush hour.
Writing about Monday’s performative press conference to announce a lousy $4.2 million in safety work for the 21 miles of PCH that snakes along the Pacific Coast — which works out to just $200,000 a mile — they almost immediately called the announcement into question.
While there is a process each project will have to undergo, “this is not a ‘business as usual’ approach,” Omishakin said as cars whizzed past.
After several deadly pedestrian crashes that roiled Malibu and sparked calls for change, business as usual won’t be enough, transportation activists said. Damian Kevitt, founder of Streets Are for Everyone, told The Times the “design of PCH through Malibu is simply and clearly deadly.”
“It needs to be a transformed from a highway where people can do 60 to 80 to even 100 mph through residential [areas] and businesses, with families and cyclists, unprotected, just a couple feet away,” Kevitt said.
Hopefully, Caltrans can demonstrate a little more urgency than the $34.6 million project currently underway to sync red lights along the highway, presumably to make speeding drivers stop for red while the typically non-existent non-speeding drivers on the highway will see greens.
The project was approved seven years ago, but because the highway is under California Department of Transportation jurisdiction, it had to be reviewed by the state.
“The Caltrans review process, while undoubtedly necessary for ensuring regulatory compliance and safety standards, proved to be more cumbersome than anticipated,” said Matt Myerhoff, Malibu’s public information officer.
Gee, you think?
Although red lights are typically synced to smooth traffic flow, rather than control speeds.
Meanwhile, Caltrans pledged to study PCH to determine if it can be designated as a safety corridor, in which fines for speeding can be doubled.
But f the mounting death toll on the highway isn’t prima facie proof of the problem, I don’t know what yet another study will accomplish. Then again, you could quadruple the fines, and it won’t matter if the drivers don’t get caught.
Which points to the sheer stupidity of California’s speed cam pilot program only being allowed in Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach, along with three NorCal cities, while completely ignoring the state’s deadliest corridors.
But still.
Members of Seetoo’s Fix PCH Action Team, including Kevitt, say the seven years it took Caltrans to allow Malibu to begin the signal synchronization project “doesn’t indicate that Caltrans is prioritizing safety at all.”
Collecting and studying the data could mean “years and years more delay before they even decide if they can slow down this highway that is known to be deadly,” Kevitt said.
Chris Wizner, another action team member, told The Times he wondered how many more deaths it would take for Caltrans to slow down PCH.
That’s easy.
The formula has always been N+1.
It will take one more death than we’ve already suffered, no matter how many there have already been.
………
A Santa Barbara cop takes a turn at demonstrating he knows nothing about riding in a peloton, without saying it, as a group of Santa Barbara bicyclists got delayed tickets in the mail for following one another too closely, after one rider went down and took several other riders down with him.
Twitter post
Here’s the full text of the tweet.
Insult to injury rant: Group ride Santa Barbara to Ventura & back Nov. 21, a cyclist in the peloton front crashed & took down several of us. EMTs came & took me for a brain scan. I’m fine. Cop pretended to help me as he asked my name etc.
I just got a ticket for “following too close”. In a peloton. Seriously. $235 or contest it in court.
I’m tempted on principle. Would love to confront this cop & ask why he didn’t give me the ticket then & there (others also got tickets in the mail). He probably knows we would have pitched a fit.
Disgraceful. I’m lying there on the ground in paid, bloody & nauseous & this MF cop is writing me up for a traffic violation. No wonder people don’t trust the police. “Protect & Serve”. Bullshit.
Okay, maybe I know why this one slipped under the radar.
Regardless, the UPU asked children to write on the following topic:
“Imagine you are a super hero and your mission is to make all roads around the world safer for children. Write a letter to someone explaining which super powers you would need to achieve your mission.”
The winner, a 13-year old girl from Kenya, requests a simple super power — the ability to write posters that will make drivers slow down, because children are the most helpless road users.
Amen.
………
Thanks to Megan Lynch for forwarding the following video, which includes these key points:
Soul-crushing car traffic makes the Yosemite experience very frustrating
That frustration gets unloaded on retail workers there
You should definitely ride a bike in Yosemite
But don’t leave anything on your bike because even in Yosemite thieves will strip it to the frame
No bias here. A New York councilmember calls for mandatory licensing and registration of ebikes, rhetorically asking “How many actual ebikes do you see stopping at a red light or observing traffic laws?” Just wait until someone tells him about cars and their drivers, which are already registered and licensed, and regularly break traffic laws anyway.
A local San Francisco website says sales data doesn’t back up claims from merchants along Valencia Street that the new centerline bike lane has killed their business, showing just a 6% drop in retail sales during construction of the bike lanes. Although to be fair, a 6% drop can mean the difference between profit and loss for some businesses, but it’s a far cry from what they claimed.
More on the bizarre ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court that says cities aren’t liable for injuries to bike riders due to bad pavement because streets without bike lanes aren’t intended for bicycles.
Inmates in a New Hampshire county jail are learning to repair bicycles, working towards their master bike technician certification while serving their time. Which should provide a nice incentive to commit another crime if they get released before earning their certification.
A Long Island woman faces a host of charges, including 2nd degree assault and disabling an Interlock device, for speeding through a parking lot where a triathlon was being held and slamming into a competitor riding his bike, leaving the victim with a traumatic brain injury and cervical spine fracture.
International
Toronto’s paramedic’s union said a controversial protected bike lane cost an ambulance crew 30 seconds getting through an intersection because drivers couldn’t get out of their way. Maybe someone should tell them those little car-tickler plastic posts are designed to bend, so you can drive right over them.
December 20, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 66-year old man killed riding bicycle in Apple Valley collision; 2nd fatal San Bernardino County bike crash in two days
More bad news, just in time for the holidays.
The Victor Valley News Group is reporting that a man was killed riding his bicycle in Apple Valley Tuesday evening.
Although judging from the headline, they seem as concerned with the effect on traffic as the loss of a human life.
The victim, identified as 66-year old Apple Valley resident Gerald Duncan, was crossing Navajo Road north of Ottawa Road when he was struck by the driver of a southbound pickup around 5:48 pm.
He died at the scene.
The driver reportedly stopped after the crash, and cooperated with investigators.
Police appeared to blame Duncan for his dark clothing, rather than the 50 mph speed limit shown in the photo right next to his mangled bike. Or the single street light on the far side of the intersection.
Anyone with any information is urged to call San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy G. Dominguez or Deputy T. Arlotti at 760/240-7400, or Sheriff’s Dispatch at 760/956-5001.
This is at least the 71st bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 11th that I’m aware of in San Bernardino County.
