Nothing like marking the holidays with yet another fatal hit-and-run.
Even if officials are unlikely to call it that.
According to the Whittier Daily News, 64-year old Whittier resident Alfred Tiscareno Jr. was riding west on Whittier Blvd when he was struck by a driver near the onramp to the 605 Freeway in unincorporated LA County near Whittier, around 6:50 Monday evening.
He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
There’s no explanation for how the crash occurred; hopefully, more details will be available after the holiday.
And even though he he failed to stop and render aid, as required by law — or presumably, even call 911 to report the crash — he probably never will be.
Especially since Bhakta is not believed to have been under the influence, which too often seems to be the only thing that matters.
The crash is still under investigation; anyone with information is urged to call CHP Officer G. De Luna at 562/868-0503.
December 24, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Thanks for a successful fund drive, a perfect Peloton Wife sendup, and wide bike lanes on Forest Lawn
While we fell a little short of last year’s total, you helped set a new record for the most donations with 57.
So please accept my personal and heartfelt gratitude for each and every donation, regardless of size; $5 from someone struggling to give means every bit as much as a larger donation from someone more comfortable.
Your generosity will help fund this site for the next few months, while ensuring I can pay for the medications I need to keep working, and keep riding.
As usual, I’ll be taking off between the holidays to rest and recharge from the stress and carnage on our streets — unless there’s breaking news, of course.
So ride safely and defensively, and have a warm and happy holiday season. And we’ll see you back here after New Years.
………
LA journalist Alissa Walker nails it with her response to the recent Peloton Wife ad, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Our fund drive may be over, but LA Streetsblog’s isn’t. And deserves your support, too. They were my university when I got started in advocacy, and taught me much of what I know about equity and Complete Streets.
The NYPD is belatedly cracking down on truck drivers, after four of the six pedestrians killed in collisions over a 48 hour period last week were killed in collisions with trucks. But if the victims had been riding bicycles, they’d be cracking down on the people on two wheels, instead.
Even though the US and Britain can’t even decide if she has diplomatic immunity.
Anne Sacoolas allegedly fled the scene after crashing into the 19-year old motorcyclist while driving on the wrong side of the road. Then promised to cooperate with investigators before fleeing the country under cover of darkness, claiming diplomatic immunity.
And has refused to return to the UK to face charges, despite still more promises to do so.
In other words, using her questionable immunity to avoid taking responsibility for killing a young man. And making her no better than any other hit-and-run driver.
Needless to say, our president has tried to turn the whole mess into a particularly messy episode of reality TV.
And written the whole thing off by saying “American drivers often get confused because motorists in Britain drive on the left side of the road.”
Thanks to John M, Tim Z, Robert L, Risers Music, John H, Anne K and Brian N for their very generous donations. In fact, we’ve already set a new record for the greatest number of donations, and we’re just a few hundred dollars short of our goal for this year.
So don’t let this last day — and the Corgi’s last days as this site’s official spokesdog — pass by unnoticed.
Wolfpack Hustle’s Don Ward, aka Roadblock, talks with vegan dietician, LA bike scene OG and founder of the famed Feel My Legs, I’m a Racer hillclimb Matt Ruscigno, as well as CD14 city council candidate Cyndi Otteson on this week’s Bike Talk podcast.
A new book tells the horrifying story of a Hawaiian woman who was apparently intentionally run down while riding her bike in 1991, then raped, beaten and murdered. Nearly a decade later, two men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison, though some still believe they’re innocent.
A coroner in the UK questions whether posted speed limits should apply to bicyclists, after a 79-year old man was killed when he stepped in front of a bike rider doing 38 in a 30 mph zone. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, absolutely. It’s up to you to ride safely when pedestrians are around. And your responsibility if you if you don’t.
December 20, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Bike journalist Frank Berto dead at 90, BMC bike recall, and Pasadena hit-and-run vic needs your help
Just four days left in the 5th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! Donate today via PayPal, or with Zelle to ted @ bikinginla.com.
The bikes have been recalled for a possibly defective fork steerer tube that can fracture during use.
Definitely not a good thing.
………
A 9th grade Pasadena hit-and-run victim and his family need your help.
Angel Lopez, a 9th grade Pasadena student was struck by a hit & run driver while riding his bicycle on Nov 14, 2019. He's recovering in the hospital, but it's hurting his family financially. Please help Angel and his family during this difficult time. https://t.co/M29ZPhOsnqpic.twitter.com/zLAFqCAOuE
— Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition (@PasadenaCSC) December 20, 2019
If you still haven’t given to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, give me a little less, and send some of it his way.
It may not be a sleigh ride, but maybe a slow ride along the river will do.
Our friends @LARiverCEE are hosting the last Elysian Valley Slow Ride of the year! When: Saturday Dec 21, 2019 Time: Meet up at 10:00 am Where: La Colombe at the entrance to the path (Newell St at the LA River Path). For info & to RSVP: https://t.co/wLPkgZ07LI#bikeLApic.twitter.com/kfep2gPUDx
So don’t put it off any more. Donate today to help keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
Not to mention the occasional corgi pics as we say goodbye to our late, great fund drive spokesdog.
My heartfelt thanks to Gabrielle M and David S, and everyone else who shared their hard earned funds this year, for their generous contributions to help keep this fund drive going strong in its final days.
That new protected bike lane can’t come soon enough for a North Park bike shop, which lost an estimated $10,000 worth of bikes when it was burglarized for the second time this year.
Trump’s tariffs will mean higher prices for bikes this holiday season, but you can bypass the tariffs by ordering directly from a foreign site. Which kind of defeats the purpose of tariffs, doesn’t it?
Bike lawyer Bob Mionske is back with advice on what to do if you’re hit by an Uber or Lyft driver. My take — make sure whoever hits you has a passenger onboard or is on the way to pick one up, since liability coverage increases ten fold.
That’s right. Just five days left to show your support for SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy. Along with the late Corgi’s last days as spokesdog for this site.
A member of San Diego’s Mobility Board questions if the city is doing more harm than good by removing 430 parking spaces to make room for protected bike lanes in the North Park neighborhood. Short answer, no.
Nice story. When someone stole a bike belonging to a high school student in Half Moon Bay, he soon spotted someone riding it and confronted the thief, but decided to let him keep it because the other kid probably needed it more that he did. When the local sheriff’s department heard about it, they found an abandoned bike, refurbished it and gave it to him as a reward for his selfless act.
National
Unbelievable. Omaha, Nebraska ripped out a bike corral after the bike shop it fronted closed down, preferring to regain one lousy car parking space instead of parking for a dozen bicycles; bike riders tried to halt the removal by rushing to lock their bikes to the racks, but the city took them out anyway.
A somewhat strange New Hampshire letter writer says only give your wife a Peloton bike if you’re a man’s man; otherwise, be a girly man and go to a jewelry store.
A three-year old girl from the UK born with a severe birth defect is now walking and riding a bike, after doctors had given her zero chance of ever walking.
Life is cheap — and grossly unfair — in Australia, where a 20-year old Iranian refugee got just 10 months in a youth facility for falling asleep at the wheel and killing a 49-year old father riding his bike to work; his short sentence means he won’t be deported. His victim’s family won’t be so lucky; after losing their husband and father, they face deportation because they were in the country on his employment visa.
And if you’re using a distinctive pink and purple kid’s bike as your getaway vehicle following an armed robbery, you probably don’t want to ride it back past the scene of the crime a few minutes later.
This is at least the 75th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in San Bernardino County.
Update: The Victor Valley News has identified the victim as 50-year old Hesperia resident Armando Salinas.
The paper reports he was killed in a hit-and-run by the driver of a pickup traveling south on Seventh. Paramedics found his body lying in the southbound lane just below Cactus Street.
Anyone with information is urged to call Deputy D. Whitson or Deputy D. Caudle at the Hesperia Sheriff’s station at 760/947-1500.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the Armando Salinas and all his loved ones.
December 18, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Two charged with Rancho Mirage street racing death, Peloton Wife gets a part, and someone stole an ELF
It’s the last six days of the 5th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! Donate today via PayPal, or with Zelle to ted @ bikinginla.com.
That’s going to be hard to sell. And harder still to break into parts at the local bike chop shop.
But at least an ELF is appropriate for this time of year.
………
A London woman gets well-deserved revenge on an obnoxious van driver who harasses her — sexually and otherwise — and repeatedly reaches through his window to touch her as she’s on her bike.
I can’t bring myself to endorse violence or vandalism. But only a jury of obnoxious assholes like him would ever convict her.
Gothamisttells the stories of New York’s fallen bike riders, where 28 people have lost their lives simply for riding a bicycle, compared to just ten last year. Go ahead, tell me again how distracted drivers and massive SUVs aren’t making the streets more dangerous for everyone. Except the people in them.
Streetsblog complains that New York police caught the driver who allegedly fled the scene after killing professional wrestler Matt Travis as he rode his bike in Harlem earlier this year, but only charged him with minor traffic infractions.
You, too, could be the next editor of Road.cc and work in lovely Bath, England. Seriously, I loved that town, even if it was overrun with tourists. Like me.
Nice piece from Bicycling on American Shannon Galpin, who’s ready to move on to her next chapter after surviving blot clots in her brain, and the collapse of the Afghan women’s cycling team she helped found and fund.
Clearly, the best way to remove course tape in a ‘cross race is let someone else run into it — sets you free while taking taking out the competition. Without stopping, no less.
He also found a report on the Citizen app showed police investigating a fatal collision at Barrington and Exposition around the same time.
Various reports suggested the victim may have been homeless, but there was no official confirmation of the death or any description of a possible victim.
However, another post by the woman who first reported the crash post again to say she’d spoken with residents of a nearby homeless camp, who confirmed that a homeless man named Craig was killed in the collision.
Separately none of these were enough to confirm the death. But together, they confirm that a 68-year old homeless man named Craig Feldman died when he was struck by a driver’s vehicle that Monday night.
What’s missing is any word on how the crash occurred, or why. Or whether any action was taken against the driver.
Sadly, there was no mention of this crash in the local media.
Then again, the death of a homeless person seldom makes the news. Yet no life should be less important than any other; no death shouldn’t matter.
Hopefully we can find out more soon.
And hopefully, Craig Feldman will be remembered as more than just a name on the medical examiner’s website.
This is at least the 74th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 33rd that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; Feldman’s death is also the 17th in the City of Los Angeles since the first of the year.
And the seventh SoCal bike death in less than ten days.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Craig Feldman and all his loved ones.
Thanks to Howard Valai for his help in tracking down the information for this post.
Saw this at my neighborhood Ralph’s — Kroger for those of you in the rest of the country.
And wondered just how an older or disabled person was supposed to get through there, even though the bike rider used this rack exactly as intended.
Never mind that it’s almost as secure as tying your bike to a tree; it would take a thief with bolt cutters just a few seconds to snap that rack and make off with the bike.
More proof life is cheap in the UK, where a driver walked with a suspended sentence for killing a bike rider despite reducing his speed to 30 mph, after playing the Universal Get Out of Jail Free card and claiming the sun was in his eyes. Even though another driver dropped his speed to 5 mph under the same circumstances, and somehow managed not to kill anyone.
What happens when you kill a beloved community icon with your car?
Probably nothing.
The Whittier Daily News reports that 61-year old Whittier resident Danny Martin, well known for waving at strangers from the seat of his three-wheeled bike, was killed in a collision early Monday morning.
According to the paper, Martin was riding to a Bible study class when he was struck by a driver while crossing the 16500 block of Whittier Boulevard.
Although Martin’s mangled bike would seem to belie that. It’s hard to imagine how that kind of damage could occur without excessive speed.
He also left his usual bike helmet at home, wearing a Christmas hat in its place.
A former motocross racer, Danny Martin was severely injured testing a new motorbike at Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert in 1981, spending a full year in a coma. When he finally awoke, he was paralyzed and told he would never walk again.
Yet after a year of physical therapy, he regained the ability to get around on his own, and learned how to ride an adult tricycle.
He never quit, spending the better part of the past four decades riding around Whittier with an American Flag flying high above his trike, and signs praising God attached to it after becoming deeply religious during his recovery.
A ride will be held in his honor this Sunday. Let’s hope it gets a big turnout, with lots of flags flying high over the bikes, and friendly waves for everyone around.
Because Whittier is going to be a much poorer place going forward.
