My apologies.
I’m continuing to have problems with my diabetes as I get used to being on insulin before my doctor adjusts the dosage.
Tonight that meant a blood sugar spike that knocked me out most of the night, accompanied by a neuropathy flareup that’s kept me in pain when I’m not passed out.
Fun times.
So I’m throwing in the towel, and giving up on today’s post. I’ll do my best to be back bright and early Thursday to catch up on what we missed.
This is who we share the road with.
A nice three day weekend with my wife was, if not ruined, at least darkened by a road raging woman who nearly ran us down making a left turn as we crossed the street, less than a block from our home.
She somehow took offense when I objected to the way my wife, dog and I nearly became roadkill, screaming that it was our fault because we hadn’t been paying attention.
Which was true for the dog, anyway.
Never mind that a) we had the right-of-way, b) she started her turn after we were already crossing the street, and c) she neglected to use her turn signal, which might have tipped us off.
But in her mind, we were 100% at fault.
Just another reminder that cars can turn people into monsters.
And that we’ll never have safe streets until our elected leaders have the courage and political will to actually do something about it.
Ebike photo by Alex from Pexels.
………
Calbike updated the latest outlines of California’s long-delayed ebike rebate program, which is currently slated to begin sometime in the second quarter of this year.
Which means no sooner than April.
- To qualify, participants can make no more than 300% of the federal poverty level (FPL).
- The base incentive will be $1,000.
- Participants can get an additional $750 toward the purchase of a cargo bike or adaptive bike.
- People whose income is below 225% of FPL or who live in a disadvantaged community can qualify for an additional $250, so the maximum incentive amount is $2,000.
- Incentives can be applied toward sales tax, as well as the purchase price.
- Incentives will be applied at the point of sale.
- All three classes of e-bikes can qualify for incentives.
- Used bikes will not be eligible.
- Incentives can be used to buy e-bikes from local bike shops or online retailers with a business location in California.
- Adaptive bikes can include tricycles. CARB plans to keep the definition of adaptive e-bikes as broad as possible.
As far as I can tell, it looks like the Federal Poverty Limits are calculated using the adjusted gross income on your latest tax return, with certain items added back in.
………
The San Diego Bike Coalition is calling for bike riders to turn out for Friday’s sentencing of the wrong-way driver who killed Matt Keenan in September, 2021.
Keenan was riding his bike to the movies in Mission Valley when the driver, who hasn’t been publicly named, let alone shamed, rounded a corner on the wrong side of the road and hit him head-on.
His confessed killer is copping a plea to misdemeanor Vehicular Manslaughter with Gross Negligence, with a three-year license suspension and not one day behind bars.
Let me repeat.
A lousy license suspension — not even revocation — and no jail time at all. For needlessly killing another human being, while likely driving distracted.
According to the organization, Keenan’s wife Laura has become one of the leading voices for safer streets in the nearly year and a half since his death, and deserves the support of the entire bicycling community in calling for the judge to add additional penalties, like community service and probation, at the sentencing hearing.
If you can’t attend the hearing, they recommend emailing the judge.
Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.
………
Thousands of apparently very confused yet virulent protesters turned out in Oxford, England to protest Low Traffic Neighborhoods, aka LTNs, as well as plans for 15-minute cities.
According to the BBC, the protestors based their LTN complaints on the difficulties they could pose for motorists who could be unable to drive directly through the city. Not to mention some major climate change denial, as well as baseless claims that it would result in a “climate lockdown,” with residents required to stay at home to protect the environment.
Meanwhile, 15-minute city proposals were bizarrely accused of being a front for a dystopian concentration camp-like lockdown, with gates locking residents inside their zone, allowed to leave just 100 days a year. Along with the creation of an Orwellian surveillance state to enforce climate goals.
Not to mention that Neo-Nazis turned out in support of the protests. Or maybe were behind it.
Consider, for instance, this speech by a 12-year old anti-Greta Thuneburg, which has been circulating in rightwing circles for the past few days. Even if it, like the rest of the opposition, is based almost entirely on baseless conspiracy theories.
https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD/status/1627050833706905600
And none of which actually have a damn thing to do with it, of course.
A 15-minute city simply means that everything you need for daily life should be located within 15 minutes of your home — preferably by walking, biking or taking transit.
Meanwhile, LTNs are simply designed to discourage driving through a neighborhood, to increase the safety and livability of the community.
Neither one is intended to force anyone out of their cars. And they certainly have nothing to do with a dystopian surveillance state.
Here’s how British bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid debunks the conspiracies in under a minute.
………
Call this ad the anti-anti-15-minute city ad, asking if we can put a man on the moon, why can’t a kid safely ride a bike?
Then again, we haven’t set foot on the moon in over 50 years, either.
………
A new French traffic safety campaign calls out the dangers of toxic masculinity behind the wheel.
Unfortunately for us monolingual types, though, it’s in French.
………
The legendary Nina Simone was one of us.
………
No bias here. A 79-year old Missouri man is dead because a driver’s van struck the victim’s bike. Not, say, the driver. Because apparently, the van somehow did it all on its own.
No bias here, either. A Florida letter writer says bicyclists are a danger to themselves and others on the road because it’s a fact that we can’t keep up with traffic flow, and it’s our fault drivers get mad about it because we shouldn’t be there into first place. Then again, it’s also a fact that people on bikes are often faster than congested traffic. And we’re not responsible for how drivers, or anyone else, reacts.
Life is cheap in the UK, where the courts let a 25-year old man walk with a 12-month sentence for wanton and furious biking, with all 12 months suspended; he was skitching and popping wheelies just moments before running down a 13-year old kid while blowing through a red light. Thanks to Marcello Calicchio for the link.
………
Streets For All is asking for your support for a motion at today’s City Council PLUM Committee meeting to end automatic street widening when new construction takes place, which results in those odd mid-block wide spots that too often get blamed on us.
Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC is participating in the annual Climate Ride for the first time, and is looking for volunteers to ride with them, as well as sponsors for the riders.
SoCal Cycling discusses how to get back into bicycling after a long layoff. Kind of like the one I’ve gone through with one diabetes-related health problem after another, which has resulted in a bike that’s virtually unrideable at this point. And a rider who can’t either.
Unbelievable. Metro’s board Planning and Programming Committee rejected calls for pedestrian crosswalk improvements in Pasadena, as part of a package of multimodal projects using leftover funds from the cancelled 710 Freeway extension; advocates hope the full board will overturn the decision this week. Apparently they’ve forgotten the urgent need to improve walkability and bikeability in the face of a climate emergency.
This is who we share the road with. A group of pedestrians waiting for lunch outside a Sawtelle Blvd restaurant became collateral damage when two drivers collided and one careened into the crowd, sending four people to the hospital, including a 23-year old woman in critical condition.
Streets For All calls out Caltrans for misrepresenting 1,600 miles of Complete Streets, most of which are anything but. And asks you to comment on it.
San Diego’s Park Blvd will be getting dedicated bus lanes and buffered bike lanes through Balboa Park, which has proven deadly for bike and e-scooter riders in recent years. Thanks again to Phillip Young.
Woodland Hills Magazine highlights the area’s best bike riding views.
A San Francisco TV station reports East Bay bike riders are showing solidarity in the face of violent dooring attacks by teenagers in an apparent stolen car; shamefully, Oakland cops say they’re too busy to do anything about it.
Apparently having nothing better to do, the CHP is investigating several instances of juvenile bike riders on the Bay Bridge.
A Utah man pled guilty to reduced charges for killing one man and injuring another when he crashed into their bikes last July; he was on parole for multiple felonies and had amphetamine, meth, codeine and morphine in his system at the time of the crash. Not to mention belonging to a Nazi criminal gang.
Life is cheap in Texas, where a bus driver walked without a day behind bars for killing a bike rider on the UT campus in 2019; the 44-year old woman got seven years probation and 250 hours of community service, while her victim got death.
Minneapolis is staring down a more than a quarter of a million settlement for the forcible arrest of a man riding a bicycle during the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, even though the bike rider “was peacefully and lawfully exercising his constitutional right to protest.”
No bias here, either. The Ohio legislature is proposing a ban on center lane bike lanes in cities of 300,000 population, after Cleveland business owners complained they wouldn’t be able to make left turns or unload their trucks.
Tragic news from Pennsylvania, where a 75-year old man was killed when a cop responding to a traffic call rammed his bicycle from behind, while traveling without his lights or siren on; meanwhile, a woman standing in a New York bike lane was killed when she was collateral damage in a crash between a cop and another driver.
Bizarre story from South Carolina, where a John Doe was finally identified as a South Carolina man after his family reported him missing, three months after he was killed riding his bike without ID. Yet another reminder to always carry ID with you when you ride.
A New Orleans TV station says the city’s bikeshare system is the best way to get around during today’s Mardi Gras celebrations.
National Geographic says gravel cycling is the next big trend.
CNN highlights ten of the world’s best cities to explore by bicycle; unfortunately, San Francisco is the only US city on the list. And needless to say, Los Angeles isn’t. Thanks to Steve Fujinaka for the tip.
Canadian F1 driver Lance Stoll is one of us; the driver for Aston Martin will miss next month’s Bahrain Grand Prix after suffering an injury in a “minor” bike crash.
You’ve got to be kidding. Bath, England NIMBYs argue that new green bike parking hangers will threaten the city’s Unesco World Heritage status. Because evidently, all those cars and their parking lots must have been there since Roman times.
Police in the UK are facing justified criticism for advising a pair of bike riders “be aware,” “keep space” and “expect to wait” after they were struck by drivers, with no suggestions for drivers to not hit people, on bikes or otherwise.
British Channel 5 news anchor Dan Walker is one of us, after he had to miss his broadcast after he was struck by a driver while riding his bike to the strain station.
Hit-and-run drivers in the UK could soon face of fines up to the equivalent of $1,200 for not stopping after hitting a cat. Which is more than many drivers get for killing someone on a bicycle.
Cycling Weekly says bicycling is growing in some parts of the Middle East, despite poor infrastructure and police harassment, while being banned in other places.
Things are looking up for bike shops in Vietnam, as more Vietnamese commuters are opting for riding a bicycle.
He gets it. A Philippine professor says riding a bike is a basic human right, and he intends to keep doing it for the rest of his life.
Cyclist looks at the hard road ridden by newly crowned Esteban Chaves, who became Colombia’s national champ for the first time at the ripe old age of 33.
A 20-year old British bike rider says forget hi-viz, after his back and bike were both broken when he was struck by a driver, despite wearing a kit he says couldn’t have been brighter.
British cyclist Tom Pidcock shows off his bike handling skills at the Volta ao Algarve’s time trial on Sunday.
https://twitter.com/writebikerepeat/status/1627332215435657216
Sad news from the Netherlands, where Dutch cyclist Amy Pieters suffered a setback in her recovery from a near fatal 2021 bike crash, although she continues to ride an adaptive bike, despite suffering epileptic seizures.
Hear, hear! Kenyan-born Chris Froome says he has high hopes for African cycling.
Foster a pet, get a discount on your next bike. Probably not the best idea to hit a cop who stops you for riding without a light.
And no more free bikes for Indian school kids.
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
More on the tragic death of Dr. Michael Mammone.
Mammone was murdered two weeks ago by a man suffering from mental illness, who first ran the emergency room physician down with his car on SoCal’s killer highway as he waited at a Dana Point traffic light on his mountain bike, then got out of his car and stabbed the injured bike rider to death.
Mammone was remembered at a memorial service at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach yesterday as someone who devoted his life to helping others, and always seemed calm and collected, even in the face of crisis.
His sister described him as the life of the party, calling him “intelligent, funny, adventurous, curious, easy to be with, loved card games and genuinely cared about everyone.”
Mammone leaves behind his wife and two sons; the couple was about to celebrate their 30 years of marriage with a trip to Italy.
His death was just a needless waste of a precious human life, all because his killer was allowed to fall through the cracks of America’s failed system for treating the mentally ill.
And because Vanroy Evan Smith was allowed to keep driving, despite his apparently untreated paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Photo of ghost bike for Dr. Michael Mammones by Walt Arrrrr.
………
Ted Faber sends photographic proof the Jackson Street gate to the Ballona Creek Bike Path is now open.
………
Streets For All is clearly not a fan of flimsy plastic bollards, even when they look chunky.
………
This is the first feeder ride I’m aware of for next weekend’s San Fernando Valley CicLAvia.
https://twitter.com/CicLAvia/status/1626358787429879810
Thanks to Ravener for the heads-up.
………
The Bike League will host a webinar next month on how to write a strongly worded letter to the local paper.
………
A London website comes to the defense of bike-riding British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine, saying the country’s Highway Code is on his side, after he was unfairly criticized for a near collision when he was left hooked by a driver cutting across a protected bike lane.
After a Washington state bike rider was the victim of a hit-and-run driver, sheriff’s deputies discovered he was struck while he was loading stolen merchandise onto his bicycle.
………
They get it. LA’s new 45,000-square-foot, 1,600 seat Bellwether nightclub and concert hall will come complete with guarded rooftop bicycle parking.
A 19-year old mountain biker was helicoptered out from Mandeville Canyon, after suffering a “substantial” leg injury.
More on Liam Garner, the LA teenager who recently became the youngest person to bike from Alaska to the tip of Argentina, despite tearing off his right ear going over his handlebars along the way.
Spectrum News 1 highlights five SoCal bike paths, from Ventura’s Rincon Bike Trail to the Mount Rubidoux Trail in Riverside, and down to San Diego’s Bayshore Bikeway.
Orange County advocates are calling for greater investments in public bus operations, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, despite the country transportation authority’s insistence on flushing $2 billion on an induced demand inducing project on the 405 Freeway.
Carlsbad cops teamed with city staffers to talk with elementary and middle school parents about traffic safety, as part of the state of emergency the city declared to fight a rise in bike-related injuries.
They get it, too. Santa Cruz is moving forward with a long-delayed bike lane project on Soquel Drive, calling them buffered bike lanes with flex posts. Unlike Los Angeles, which insists on calling them protected bike lanes, even though the flimsy plastic posts won’t stop anything.
People For Bikes says local governments now have unprecedented access to billions of dollars for safe, connected bike networks and trails, thanks to a variety of federal government programs.
A new book relates the author’s journey by bike, along with two friends, following Harriet Tubman’s road to freedom on the Underground Railroad; he was inspired to take the trip because one of his ancestors was a ship’s captain in the Atlantic slave trade.
Linus has recalled their Cesta 500 ebike due to risk of a cracked front fork, posing a crash risk.
Seattle is beginning work on a new bikeway connecting Capital Hill with the iconic Pike Place Market; the work is being overseen by former LA Bureau of Streets Services head Greg Spotts, now director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.
A San Antonio, Texas bike rider used his skills as an urban planner to develop his own cohesive bike map, showing how to comfortably ride between disconnected bike lanes and paths.
Two men are dead in Garland, Texas, after a bike shop worker was murdered before the store opened, then a police SWAT team found the 58-year old suspect dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound; it turned out both victims were employees of the shop.
Grunge remembers Orville and Wilbur Wright’s younger sister Katherine, who kept their Ohio bike shop running while they were learning to fly.
Kindhearted Kentucky organizations pitched in to buy a new adaptive trike for an eight-year-old boy with a previously unheard of medical condition. The look on the kid’s face when he was given the bike is priceless.
A small Rhode Island community doesn’t want visitors to leave their dockless bikes behind, announcing plans to impound any bikeshare bikes or e-scooters that spill over the city limit from nearby Providence.
Residents of New York’s upscale Upper West Side are opposing plans for an outdoor ebike hub for food delivery workers, arguing it will increase congestion and block access to the nearby subway. Apparently confusing bicycles, which relieve congestion, with the cars that cause it.
A reminder that bike-riding women face risks that most men don’t, as a Florida woman was lucky to escape when a man attempted to force her into his van as she rode her bike.
There’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the Florida man who attacked a passing bike rider, knocking him off his bicycle while hurling antisemitic comments, apparently enraged because the victim was speaking Hebrew on his phone as he rode.
Bike Radar wants to teach you to bunny hop in five simple jumps.
Off-Road.cc explains everything you need to know to start mountain biking.
Vancouver’s Critical Mass will return at the end of the month after a three-month hiatus, to protest a decision to rip out a bike lane through the city’s Stanley Park so angry drivers can more easily use it as a cut-through route.
A Sikh woman in Ontario developed her own bike helmet so her sons could safely ride their bikes, with a special space on top to accommodate the faith’s traditional hair topknot.
Residents of Cardiff, Wales are mourning the death of a bike shop owner who ran his shop for more than 65 years — despite being told 20 years ago that he had just two weeks to live when doctors discovered cancer during an operation.
A new study from MIT concludes that most stolen bikes remain in the local area, where they are resold and remain part of the local bike fleet. At least in Amsterdam, anyway. Thanks to Tim Rutt for the link.
Japanese bicycle component maker Shimano had a record year in 2022, topping their previous best sales year by over 16% despite a slowing down of the pandemic bike boom.
Philippine bike riders and pedestrians continue to protest plans to convert a protected bike lane in Manilla to sharrows.
Two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogacar added another double to his resume, winning the first two stages of the Vuelta a Andalucia.
The BBC remembers trailblazing women’s cyclist Eileen Sheridan, who died this week at 99-years old; she still holds five of the 21 records she set during her career.
Now you, too, can ride the famed Mont Ventoux and other French mountains with the legendary Jan Ullrich, for the low, low price of 20,000 euros — that’s $21,270 for those of us on this side of the Atlantic. As usual, you can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.
Bad enough to return home to find someone burglarizing it, worse when they escape on your own bicycle. That feeling when you intend to set the bike world on its head by inventing the e-cargo bike, which is already a thing.
And your next bike tires could be made from your last bike tires.
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
This is who we share the road with.
An off-duty LA County Sheriff’s deputy has been charged with murder for the high-speed crash that killed a 12-year old boy in South Gate in 2021.
Twenty-eight-year old Ricardo Castro was allegedly driving at up to 90 mph in a school zone when he T-boned the car carrying Isaiah Rodriguez and his sister.
………
ActiveSGV is proposing a return to a carfree Pasadena Freeway to mark the 20th anniversary of ArroyoFest.
The proposal would open a six-mile section of the 110 Freeway to bicyclists, skaters and pedestrians for just four hours on Sunday, October 29th.
The first ArroyoFest in 2003 also closed the freeway to cars, opening it up to bicyclists and walkers for a few short hours.
The freeway follows the route of the 1899 California Cycleway. Unfortunately, however. only two miles of the elevated wooden bikeway were built before financial problems halted construction, and cars ultimately claimed the roadway.
………
New protected bike lanes are appearing in LA’s Lake Balboa neighborhood, and painted bike lanes are coming to Fountain Ave in East Hollywood.
https://twitter.com/CD6LACity/status/1625923721176453121
Thanks to Ravener for the tip.
………
Entitled Cycling posts video of a typical ride, just in case you wonder why our roads aren’t safe for people on two wheels.
Or any other living things, for that matter.
………
A short film looks at the volunteer heroes who maintain LA’s mountain bike trails.
………
The late Raquel Welch was one of us.
………
More on the random dooring attacks on Bay Area bike riders, as East Bay bicyclists say they’re frightened by drivers literally using their cars as weapons to assault innocent people; Streetsblog says Bay Area district attorneys are complicit in the anti-bike attacks for failing to prosecute dangerous and deadly drivers.
No bias here. A New York State senator is proposing laws requiring all bicycles to be registered, plated and insured, in an apparent attempt to keep people from riding them.
Once again, someone has boobytrapped a British singletrack trail by stringing a rusty wire between two trees, injuring a mountain biker who was thrown over his handlebars after crashing into it.
A California bicyclist learns the hard way not to talk back to a cop, after an entire group ride is pulled over for going through a traffic signal.
A fake bike cop was busted in Florida after he bumped a woman’s car, then tried to confiscate it claiming she used the wrong turn signal; he was arrested after the woman flagged down a real sheriff’s deputy who was driving by.
An Aussie father is justifiably complaining about a hit-and-run bicyclist who slammed into his 14-year old step-son, calling the ebike rider a coward for riding off and leaving the boy with “not insignificant” injuries.
………
The Los Angeles Times looks at Tuesday’s BikeLA report on the conditions and commonalities in last year’s 26 LA County bicycling deaths, including deadly corridors surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Figueroa Street, and a four-block stretch of Figueroa between 3rd and 7th in DTLA. You can read it on Yahoo if the paper blocks you.
No surprise here, as road rage continues to climb in the City of Angels, with nearly 870 incidents last year, nearly a third involving a gun.
The bicycling component of the 45th annual LA Chinatown Firecracker Run will roll through Pasadena this Saturday on a 40-mile route through the city and back.
Nonprofit news site Santa Monica Next makes a comeback, with an announcement that Santa Monica Spoke is hosting a Kidical Mass ride this Saturday.
Streetsblog says the El Monte Metro Bike Hub will be closed for most of this year after a driver slammed into it last September.
About damn time. A proposal in the state legislature would require Caltrans to appoint a Bicycle Czar “to serve as the department’s chief advisor on all issues related to bicycle transportation, safety, and infrastructure.”
The owner of San Diego’s Happy EBIKES argues that kids should be required to take a safety course and pass a test before they’re allowed to ride an ebike, a sentiment that was echoed by the head of the city’s nonprofit ebike loan-to-own program.
In yet another example of officials keeping dangerous drivers on the road until its too late, Streetsblog examines why states require insurance companies to cover drivers in an assigned risk pool when their driving record is so bad no company will insure them, rather than just taking their licenses away. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Walkable Cities author Jeff Speck argues it may be time for a class action suit against transportation officials responsible for road design guidelines they know will lead to people getting killed in car crashes.
A Next City podcast examines how five US cities built 335 miles of bike lanes in just two years. Hint: Los Angeles was not one of them.
Four British “lads” bikepack Great Divide Mountain Bike Route between Jasper, Alberta, Canada, and Antelope Wells, New Mexico, completing the more than 3,000-mile trail in 29 days.
Tragic news from Las Vegas, where a bike rider died five months after allegedly turning left in front of an oncoming driver. Yet the death won’t be counted in traffic statistics because it came after the state’s 30-day reporting limit. Although you’d think after five months, they could at least identify the sex of the victim.
Jackson, Wyoming considers ebikes, buses and parking meters to alleviate congestion, after a study shows it would case billions of dollars to widen a highway, while causing environmental concerns for the local ecology and wildlife. Never mind that induced demand applies to roads in Rocky Mountain resorts, too.
Residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts argued against putting a proposal to remove a bike lane on the city ballot, and “revert back to a design that did not support a walkable, shoppable, or livable district.”
No surprise here, as New York courts order a psychiatric evaluation for the driver who plowed his U-Haul truck down a Queens sidewalk and bike lanes, injuring seven people, including at least three bicycle delivery riders, while killing one.
New York firefighters blame a massive Brooklyn blaze that left a woman in critical condition on a 50 ebike batteries stored inside a makeshift ebike repair shop.
A 56-year old man was charged with murder in the 1985 cold case death of a 13-year old West Virginia boy, whose body was dumped in a shallow grave after he was killed in a dispute over a stolen bicycle; the suspect was 18 at the time of the killing.
The New Statesman examines how the concept of the 15-minute city morphed into a rightwing conspiracy theory, with some people somehow convinced a walkable, bikeable city is nothing but an open-air prison dystopia in disguise.
Bike Radar offers advice on what you should and shouldn’t spend money on to begin bicycling on a budget.
A Canadian court has ordered a new trial for an alleged drunk driver who was acquitted of killing a ten-year old Halifax girl as she rode her bicycle.
No bias here. Britain’s Daily Mail naturally blames the victim after video shows British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine nearly crashing his bike getting left hooked by a driver.
No bias here, either. Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organization ruled the Mail on Sunday didn’t breach ethics rules by publishing a composite photo of bike riders running a red light outside Buckingham Palace, under the headline Red Light Rats. Even though the road was actually closed to cars, and cops waved them through the intersection.
Nearly half of all British drivers admitted speeding on country roads in a recent survey. And the rest lied.
It’s not usual for a bike rider to be called a hero, but saint is another matter. A Spanish man could be considered for sainthood for his role in attempting to stop terrorists in Britain’s London Bridge attack, when he got off his bike to defend others with his skateboard; the Pope recently changed the rules to allow sainthood for someone who lays down their life for others.
An Indian website says bicycling can help clean the air in Delhi, but bike riders are 40 times more likely than motorists to die on city streets.
A new safety campaign founded by Australian pro Rachel Neylan encourages bike riders to use bright running lights day and night; the campaign has been endorsed by two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar, and former women’s world champ Elisa Balsamo. I found close calls and close passes dropped considerably when I started riding with at least two bright headlights and two to three bright taillights, day or night.
If you want to watch this year’s Tour de France — or any of the five that follow — you’ll have to subscribe to Peacock.
Why buy a Pinarello when you can just buy Pinarello — and for the low, low price of just $268 million? There are countless smart ways to use a bicycle, but throwing it at a cop isn’t one of them.
And try not to let your beagle steal your bagel while you bike.
https://www.tiktok.com/@gappie_the_beagle/video/7194800318549445894?embed_source=121331973%2C71011723%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_blank&refer=embed&referer_url=www.newsweek.com%2Flaughter-beagle-steals-owners-bagel-mid-bike-ride-1781364&referer_video_id=7194800318549445894
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
Let’s start with a couple of well-deserved thank yous.
First up, thanks to Kurt G for his generous donation to help keep all the best bike news coming your way every day. Donations of any amount are always welcome and deeply appreciated.
Next, let’s all give Pocrass & De Los Reyes a round of thanks for renewing their title sponsorship of this site for another year.
The Century City law firm was our first sponsor, and their support for the past ten years has made this site possible.
Photo of deadly East Anaheim Street from advocacy group BikeLA; the Long Beach street is one of several cited by the group as areas of concern in the report on LA County bicycling deaths below.
………
Maybe LA area safety organizations are finally getting serious about fighting the effects of traffic violence.
Just weeks after the die-in at Los Angeles City Hall, and the release of a report from Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, detailing LA’s record rate of traffic deaths in 2022, BikeLA released their own report on the 26 bicyclists killed on LA County streets last year.
A press release from the group, formerly known as the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, or LACBC, describes the findings of the report this way.
Most notably, the report identifies four factors that were prevalent in the vast majority of collisions. These design elements include high speed limits, excessive travel lanes, missing bike lane infrastructure, and poor street lighting. With 81% of collisions involving two or more of these factors, it suggests that infrastructure deficiencies are the main culprit behind the dangerous conditions on the county’s roads.
The report also considers the geographic distribution of each collision and found that 61% of last year’s bicycle fatalities took place in heavily concentrated low-income, Black and Latinx neighborhoods. Tragically, many crashes were also concentrated along heavily-traveled corridors without quality bike infrastructure including Anaheim Street in Long Beach and Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.
As an organization committed to creating safe, enjoyable, and vibrant communities for cyclists, BikeLA recommends several solutions including reducing speed limits, embracing road diets, and expanding cyclist education programs. Taken together, these solutions can help governments across the county recommit to their vision for zero traffic fatalities.
A chart complied by the group demonstrates the distribution of traffic deaths in LA County; Los Angeles is responsible for over half of the deaths, despite having less than half of the county’s population.
It’s also worth noting the report’s conclusion that 85% of LA County’s bicycling deaths occurred where there are no bike lanes or other bicycling infrastructure.
Although that could have a lot to do with LA’s failure to build out the bike plan, and the slow pace of bike lane construction everywhere but Long Beach and Santa Monica.
It’s worth investing the time to take a deep dive into the report, to gain an understanding of how and why people continue to die on our streets.
You can learn more about each of the bicycling deaths in LA County, and the rest of Southern California, by clicking here.
Full disclosure: I was a board member of what was then the LACBC for over five years, and continue to be a member of the organization.
Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.
………
Bay Area media coverage of the spate of dooring attacks is snowballing.
A Berkeley site says at least two people riding bicycles were targeted in the the city in recent days, as the count rises to 20 attempts to intentionally door victims in three Bay Area cities, with nine victims struck.
According to the East Bay Bike Party, the assailants used four different cars, including one that was confirmed to have been stolen.
“In several attacks,” the group said in a statement, “a driver sped alongside people riding bikes and a passenger on the right side of the car opened their door to hit the bike riders at speed. In at least two incidents the driver also drove directly into a bike rider rather than using the side door.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl0EdZtnY1M
An Oakland website adds more to the story, citing work by a team of volunteers to scour social media looking for more information on the attacks.
First, the group says that the four cars the suspects were driving were likely either Hyundai or Kia models, which have been recently targeted for theft due to a security loophole that has gone viral on TikTok. The EB Bike Party found that Ta’Liyah Hands, an Oakland resident, had her 2018 Silver Hyundai Elantra stolen in the Laurel Districtaround noon Friday. The car, confirmed by its license plate, was seen later that day in a video attempting to collide with bicyclists headed to the Bike East Bay Party. Several witnesses told the Oaklandside the cars the drivers used to attack them matched these models.
The group was also able to determine that the suspects were young, possibly teenagers. Several of the victims the Oaklandside spoke to for this story agreed, saying they heard laughter from the car’s occupants as they swerved at bicyclists. Most or all of the suspects were also male.
Meanwhile, the Oakland police department was unable to comment due to an ongoing cyber attack that prevented officials from accessing police files, and kept bicyclists from filing police reports.
………
That’s more like it.
The Welsh government has canceled all roadbuilding projects over environmental and safety concerns.
Any future road projects must pass strict criteria requiring that they don’t increase carbon emissions, can’t increase the number of cars on the road or lead to higher speeds and emissions, and can’t have a negative impact on the environment.
Which pretty much means no new roads will be built in the country.
Period.
………
No surprise here.
The accused killer of Dr. Michael Mammone in Dana Point two weeks ago had the criminal proceedings against him temporarily suspended Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Daily News is reporting that the case against Vanroy Evan Smith will be delayed until he has a competency hearing next week.
Smith told a reporter for the Orange County Register that he was both God and Jesus Christ. Which somehow seems unlikely, raising doubts about his competency to stand trial.
He could be committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment until he is competent to face trial, which could come in a few months, or may never happen.
Meanwhile, a memorial for Dr. Mammone will be held at the Festival of Arts grounds tomorrow at 11 am; mourners were asked to make donations to Wounded Warrior Project, the Laguna Beach Food Pantry or The LA Mission in lieu of flowers.
………
The candidates in the special election to replace former LA City Councilmember Nury Martinez in CD6 will take part in a candidate forum tonight.
………
British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine demonstrates a driver performing a left hook across a bikeway, the UK’s equivalent of our right hook.
………
A Virginia public radio station asks if bicycles should be required to stop at intersections. Which is not the same as asking whether bike riders should be allowed to treat stop signs as yields, as new bill in the state legislature proposes.
………
LA city officials broke ground on two new mini-parks along the existing Chandler walk/bike path in North Hollywood, as well as adding new trees and lighting along the pathway, and improving two access points.
LAist offers a primer on how LA’s neighborhood councils work, and how you can join one.
BikeLA, formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle County Bicycle Coalition, will host its first bike ride of the year in Griffith Park on Saturday, February 25th. Thanks to Ravener for the link.
A new bill in the state legislature would direct the state’s Mineta Transportation Institute to study ebikes, although it’s unclear just what information legislators are looking for.
It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that American motor vehicles are getting too big for their parking spaces.
Yahoo asks if ebikes are the unsung secret to curbing climate change. Short answer, probably.
Outside considers what kind of mountain bike you should buy this year. Which somehow assumes that you can, should, and want to buy one at all.
A new Utah state legislator is proposing a bill that would require drivers to change lanes to pass a bike rider, if there’s room to do so; the bill is personal for him, after he lost his own father when he was run down by a careless teenage driver while riding his bike. The bill is similar to a new California law that took effect this year.
Sad news from my Colorado hometown, where the county coroner’s office has identified the first of two bike riders killed there this week as an 81-year old man; police investigators are blaming him for running a stop sign, which seems unlikely at his age.
The Adventure Cycling Association calls out a five-mile section of US Highway 93 directly west of Whitefish, Montana as a particular area of safety concern due to crumbling shoulders and heavy traffic moving at high speeds.
Advocacy group BikeTexas is angling for a stop as yelled bill in the state legislature, as well as allowing ebikes in state parks.
A Streetsblog op-ed says the new and improved bike and pedestrian pathways on New York’s George Washington Bridge still aren’t good enough; a 1933 design called for cantilevered, 15-foot wide paths on both sides of the bridge.
The New York Times says bicycle delivery workers bore the brunt of Monday’s vehicular attack on Brooklyn sidewalks; a Chinese immigrant delivering food by bike was killed, and another man is lingering in a medically induced coma. Meanwhile, the New York Post says the accused killer suffered a mental health crisis set off by “seeing” an invisible objet coming directly at him.
No surprise here, as a majority of residents in Charlottesville, Virginia say they’d like to walk, bike or take transit more often, if they just felt safe on the roads. Which is pretty much what the residents of virtually every American city would say.
A New Orleans bike club uses a fleet of eight tandem bikes to allow blind bike riders to experience the city in a new way.
The man accused of stabbing a bicycle-riding Florida couple to death during last year’s Daytona Bike Week has been found incompetent to stand trial; Jean Macean will be committed to a state facility until he understands the legal process and the case against him.
Porsche appears to be diving head-first into the ebike market by acquiring all of e-bikemaker Greyp, a subsidiary of Croatian supercar maker Rimac.
Mirroring the Aussie case we mentioned yesterday, an Ottawa, Canada man is on trial for killing his neighbor in a dispute over an alleged stolen bicycle. As we’ve said many times before, no bike is worth taking a life, let alone sacrificing your own.
A Montreal driver was caught on video traveling an entire block in a protected bike lane.
The CEO of foldie maker Brompton blames Brexit for the problem besetting British bikemakers.
The rich get richer. Paris plans to build another 30 miles of bike lanes connecting the city center to Olympic venues in time for next year’s Summer Olympics.
A Philippine community is delaying plans to convert a protected bike lane into sharrows, in response to a massive protest by bike riders.
Cycling Weekly profiles 22-year old British cyclist Harrison Wood, who’s set to make his WorldTour debut for French team Cofidis, after overcoming a brain bleed and broken collarbone suffered in a crash at the Course de la Paix.
Sad news from the UK, where record-setting bicyclist Eileen Sheridan has died at the age of 99. She rode the full nearly 900-mile length of Britain in less than two and a half days, a record that stood for 36 years.
Cyclist remembers how Fausto Coppi became the first rider to win the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year, in his rookie year of 1949.
Your next car could be an e-trike. Now you, too, can move your entire household by bike.
And that feeling when your new bike parking looks artistic, but pretty damn useless.
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
No bias here.
A man riding a bicycle on Southern California’s killer highway in Long Beach was killed by the driver of a semi-truck, who kept going after the crash.
So naturally, police blamed the victim, and absolved the driver for failing to stop.
The member-supported Long Beach Post is reporting that the victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was riding his bike east on PCH at Harbor Drive when police say he “collided” with a semi traveling in the same direction around 9:18 this morning.
He died at the scene.
The LBPD’s description of the crash is based on security cam video that apparently depicted the impact, although they don’t clarify whether the victim rear-ended the truck or somehow backed into it.
Or maybe, just maybe, the driver passed too closely, in violation of California’s three-foot passing law, as well as the new requirement to change lanes when possible to pass a bike rider, and somehow sideswiped the victim, or cause him to fall under it.
We may never know.
The cops were also quick to absolve the driver of any responsibility to stop after the crash, saying he or she may not have known it happened.
Because apparently, drivers aren’t required to be aware of what happens with their massive vehicles, or any damage or deaths they may cause.
Let’s hope they clarify things at some point.
A street view shows a four lane highway with center turn lane, and right turn lanes in each direction.
This is at least the eighth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
Three of those deaths appear to be hit-and-runs.
Update: Long Beach police have clarified that the victim apparently fell off his bike and was struck by the truck driver.
Which doesn’t explain why the driver passed close enough to hit him if he fell beside the truck, or why the driver wouldn’t be aware he’d hit someone.
It’s also possible that a too-close pass could have been what caused the victim to fall.
Anyone with information is urged to call LBPD Collision Investigation Detail Detectives Kevin Johansen or Joseph Johnson 562/570-7355.
Update 2: The victim was identified as 59-year-old homeless Long Beach resident Kevin Evans, who was on his way to volunteer with the nonprofit Care Closet Long Beach when he was killed.
The Long Beach Post describes him as someone who was always willing to help others, despite his own situation.
More than 20 years ago, Evans grew tired of the stresses of having to pay a mortgage and utilities, so he decided to leave that behind to pursue a “camping” lifestyle, his friends said.
Eventually, with the support of Care Closet Long Beach, Evans was able to use his experiences to help others, especially homeless residents, going through tough situations, Given said.
He died just three days short of his 60th birthday.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Thanks to Psmith for the heads-up.
