August 19, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: 67-year old grandfather killed riding bike in Fullerton hit-and-run; 19th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year
Yet another heartless coward has left an innocent victim to die in the street.
Just because the victim was riding his bike to work, like he did every morning.
He was thrown into a planter on the north side of the street, suffering significant injuries; his bicycle was found a short distance away.
He was taken to a local trauma center, where he was pronounced dead. Family members identified the victim as Elfego Andrade.
A witness followed a green 1999 Ford F-250 pickup that was missing a tire and traveling on the rim, though it wasn’t clear if the driver was responsible for the hit-and-run.
Andrade was described as a great-grandfather, who had just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. He was riding his bike to his job in Fullerton when he was killed.
“He was a very happy man with the most humble heart. He was hard working and always did what he could for his family,” the fundraising page read. “We are heart broken for our believed husband, father, grandfather, father in law to leave us too soon.”
At the time of this writing, the crowdfunding campaign to help defray funeral expenses has raised just over $900 of the $15,000 goal.
Anyone with information is urged to call Fullerton Police Accident Investigator J. Manes at 714/738-6812 or email joshua.manes@fullertonpd.org.
This is at least the 59th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the twelfth that I’m aware of in Orange County.
There’s no word on whether Ocampo was in fact driving the F-250 pickup followed by the witness.
It’s possible that Ocampo did the right thing, heeding calls to turn himself in. Or he may have simply given himself enough time to sober up before taking responsibility for his actions.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for Elfego Andrade and all his loved ones.
Early NHTSA estimates show 9,560 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes through the end of March, a seven percent increase over last year, which saw the highest number of traffic deaths in 16 years.
In other words, we are going the wrong way, at an ever-increasing pace.
There’s a wide range of likely reasons, ranging from speeding and distracted drivers to trucks and SUVs with high, flat grills designed to kill.
None of which are beyond our ability to solve today.
We only need to get enough people to care enough about the lives of innocent victims to demand change.
One of the studies, from 2021, estimates 8,131 pedestrians between 2000 and 2019 could have survived if they were struck by sedans instead of SUVs or trucks.
Another study, published in the Journal of Safety Research in June, found that while SUVs and trucks made up just 26.1 per cent of pedestrian and cyclist collisions, they accounted for 44.1 per cent of fatalities. That study also suggested that because of their larger size, SUVs and trucks are more likely to hit vulnerable road users in the chest or head than a sedan.
Maybe they could write a few letters to US officials while they’re at it.
As part of the story, he looks back to the magazine’s groundbreaking Cycling Deaths project, which attempted to document every bicycling traffic death in 2020, recording nearly 700 fatalities.
In most of the stories we gathered information on, there were no consequences for the driver or even scrutiny of their behavior. Law enforcement rarely issued a ticket to drivers who killed cyclists. Criminal charges for the crash itself were even less common, often occurring only when a driver was intoxicated. It was hard not to read through each case and wonder: Is that the way things should be? Does driving that results in someone’s death cross the legal threshold for punishment that infrequently?
It’s very hard to find comprehensive data on penalties issued after car crashes, but among the safe-streets advocates and legal experts I talked to, it’s generally taken as a matter of course that people who kill cyclists while driving—even recklessly, even illegally—are rarely held legally accountable for their actions. The big picture, those observers say, is that drivers are offered a kind of impunity that doesn’t exist in just about any other situation where a human kills another human. “The judicial system is applying laws in a way that results in widespread injustice to victims of traffic violence,” says Gregory Shill, a law professor at the University of Iowa. “I would go beyond courts—a common root of all this is that we have a high social acceptance of traffic deaths.”
As the story points out, drivers should automatically lose their license if they kill another person, but seldom do.
As Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt put it, a drivers license is too easy to get, and too hard to lose.
If I had my way, killer drivers would be sentenced to work-release, required to serve in emergency rooms and morgues during the day to tend to the victims of traffic violence, before returning to their cells at night.
Although the courts would probably consider that cruel and unusual punishment to subject them to that kind of emotional and psychological torment.
Unlike, say, their victims and their loved ones, who have to suffer that pain for the rest of their lives.
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This is who we share the city with, unfortunately.
Maybe they’re care more if it was 58. Or 59.
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Time’s running out to score a great deal on a vintage bike, and support a good cause in the process.
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Yes, your morning commute can be green, and actually make you happy.
Even in chilly Minnesota.
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Remember this the next time you have to lock your bike up to a banged-up wheel-bender rack.
GCN wants to help you improve your average speed on your bike.
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Our German correspondent Ralph Durham forwards a photo of race walkers at the European Championships in Munich, where he’s working as a volunteer.
And points out that even they have to cope with race motos. Although the slower pace probably means they pose less risk to the racers.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
That’s more like it. An Idaho driver has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars, with three years fixed, for chasing bike-riding kids through a public park with his pickup, then running over one boy’s bike after he jumped off. But it’s okay, because he’s really, really sorry. No, really.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
More than 2,100 Denver residents have received ebike rebate vouchers up to $1,700 since the program began in April; most putting their ebikes to good use, with around half riding them on a daily basis. On the other hand, California’s fully funded ebike rebate program remains in limbo, apparently awaiting a chilly day in hell.
TMZ offers more information on the death of Ironman triathlete and Norristown PA cop Brian Kozera, who allegedly ran a stop sign on his bike and crashed into the side of a pickup, before being run over by the truck’s rear wheels. As always, the question is whether there were any independent witnesses to the crash, or if investigators are relying on the word of the driver.
For nearly two decades, we’ve been supposed to pretend Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis never won the Tour de France. Now we’re supposed to pretend Nairo Quintana didn’t have a top ten finish in the Tour last year, after UCI stripped him of 6th place for using the prohibited painkiller tramadol; Quintana denies ever using it, of course.
In case you missed it yesterday, NPR offers a good look at gravel racing, and the sport’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Thanks to Lionel Mares for the reminder.
Let’s start with a new op-ed taking Metro to task for continuing to flush tens of billions of dollars down the highway toilet.
Writing in the LA Times, Streets For All founder Michael Schneider argues that the county transportation agency’s highway construction plans more than negate any climate change improvements from new transit lines, while only serving to make traffic worse.
Hello, induced demand.
Climate change impact is measured in two ways: vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. For the billions that we will spend on new bus and rail service, as well as active transportation improvements, Metro estimates in a study it just published that by 2047 we will reduce vehicle miles traveled by 9.7 billion, resulting in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.7 million metric tons of CO2. These massive reductions would result in much cleaner air for us all, and go a long way toward meeting our climate goals.
However, just as Metro is spending tens of billions building rail and bus projects, it also plans to spend billions adding 363 miles of new highways and arterials. According to Metro’s own calculations based on state standards, this will increase vehicle miles traveled by up to 36.8 billion, and emit an additional 10.1 million metric tons of CO2.
Yes, you read that right — we are spending tens of billions of dollars to make climate change and traffic worse. The expansion of highways will do far more harm than the expansion of mass transit will avert.
Never mind that the money being wasted on highway expansion could be put to better use building bus and bike networks, as well as speeding the completion of the upcoming K Line (Crenshaw Line) to connect with the B Line (aka Red Line) at Hollywood & Highland.
That would create Metro’s first viable connector line, with connections to the B Line, D Line (Purple), E Line (Expo), and the C Line (Green), as well as connecting to LAX.
As Schneider says, it’s long past time Metro stopped sabotaging their climate-friendly projects, and instead spend the money we give them on projects that will reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions.
Wasting more money on highway projects is exactly what we don’t need now.
That’s followed by Munster, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium, before we get to the usual suspects in Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, Johannesburg, South Africa checks in as the worst city to ride a bike.
Not surprisingly, no American city made the top ten. You have to go all the way down to #39 to find San Francisco, followed by Portland at #41.
Los Angeles checks in at a deservedly low #57 out of 100 cities worldwide.
The only real question is why we ranked that high.
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The plot thickens, as both CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman and Finish the Ride, tease a big announcement on the future of Griffith Park this Friday.
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Nice. USA Cycling is looking to fast track entree to track cycling for kids from marginalized communities that have traditionally been ignored by cycling.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
An Oregon driver is charged with 2nd degree murder for intentionally backing his truck into a man on a bicycle following an argument between the two men, pinning the other man against a wall.
West Hollywood looks forward to Sunday’s CicLAvia—Meet the Hollywoods, which travels down Hollywood Blvd, Highland Ave and Santa Monica Blvd, and invites attendees to stick around afterwards for a free concert with M&M The Afro-Persian Experience at Plummer Park.
San Francisco has put plans for congestion pricing on hold until traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, LA’s proposed congestion pricing plan is apparently being studied to death.
A traffic safety organization in the Netherlands teamed with a bike advocacy group to call for a ban on ebike performance kits, which can double the allowed speed controls; a spokesperson says “If you install one on the electric bike, you are simply a racing monster.”
Competitive Cycling
Seven-time Grand Tour winner Chris Froome says he’s fully recovered from Covid, and ready to roll in Friday’s Vuelta a España, where he’ll co-lead the Israel-Premier Tech team with Michael Woods.
August 16, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on City Watch writer gets Healthy Streets LA all wrong, NACTO says change unfair bike laws, and CNN calls bike boom bust
He also missed the part where it said the ballot initiative would require building out the Mobility Plan 2035 — including bus only lanes — instead assuming that it’s all about bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.
The initiatives backer, software entrepreneur Michael Schneider leads the organization “Streets for All.” Schneider seems impatient with the the City of Los Angeles’ execution of the city’s current plans on mobility and bicycles, and City Council President Nury Martinez’s own counterproposal for bicycles and pedestrians.
The Times only mentions bike lanes in the initiative with no mention of bus only lanes. Schneider calls his initiative a “nuclear option.” Playing with weapons is never to be taken lightly, particularly nuclear ones, and his initiative will not lead the city, and the region, in the fight to reduce carbon gases needed to mitigate the climate emergency we now live in. The initiative seems more for the bicycle riders for ride for recreation, and does not take into account transportation for getting to work, shopping, eating, entertainment and other activities of urban dwellers…
If vehicle lanes are to be removed and replaced when the roads are repaved, as in the initiative, the replacements must be bus only lanes, not bicycle lanes, or both.
Oddly, that’s exactly what the initiative calls for. Which he would know if he had actually looked into it, rather than firing off a knee-jerk reaction to a single news article.
He goes on to make a case for why bike lanes aren’t practical to combat climate change in Southern California — including that he is now a “Medicare approved senior citizen,” as if his particular status extends to the entire populace at large. Or that there aren’t other older people who ride on a daily basis.
Then there’s this.
Reasons for riding a bicycle. It would seem riding a bicycle in Los Angeles is mainly recreational. From the United States Census Bureau: “Los Angeles had 1.0 percent of commuters bike to work, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today in a new brief focused on biking and walking to work. Nationally, 0.6 percent of workers commute by bike.” LINK.
Bike advocates have argued for years that the Census Bureau’s figure is a dramatic undercount that misses people who use multi-modal commutes and part-time bike commuters, as well as many immigrants and homeless people who use bicycles as their sole form of transportation.
It also doesn’t count people who ride their bikes to school or shopping, or any other utilitarian uses that doesn’t involve riding to work five days a week.
And of course, he has to trot out the tired bromide that this is not Amsterdam, failing to recognize that Amsterdam was every bit as auto-centric as Los Angeles just a few short decades ago.
Not to mention arguing that it’s too hot to ride a bike in Los Angeles, and no one wants to get sweaty on the way to work. Even though LA has one of the nation’s most temperate climates much of the year, making it far more ideal for bike riding than many other cities with higher riderships, Amsterdam included.
And forgetting that it’s possible to ride without breaking a sweat, especially on an ebike, or to freshen up once you get to work.
Although give him credit for noting that automotive exhaust isn’t healthy for people on bicycles. Even though that’s a better argument for demanding non-polluting cars than discouraging bike use.
Despite his assertions, no one is arguing that bikes should take precedent over transit systems.
That’s not what the mobility plan calls for, and not what the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure is about.
It doesn’t help anyone to go off half-cocked, and misrepresent what this ballot measure is about, and what it does, without taking the simple step of clicking on the damn link find out what it really is.
The group argues that red light and stop sign laws, and equipment laws like bike bell or helmet requirements, are too often used to target people of color, including in New York and Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, they argue that ticketing bicyclists for sidewalk riding or riding salmon is more an indication of inadequate infrastructure than bad bike behavior.
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On the other hand, CNN doesn’t get it.
The cable network reports that the bicycling boom has gone bust, as indoor cycling firms like Peloton and Soul Cycle are facing layoffs, while bike shops are burdened with too much inventory.
Yet bicycling rates remain at near-historic highs in many cities, which suggests bike sales may have slowed simply because a) some bike shops may have over-ordered during the recent inventory shortages, b) many people already have the bikes they need.
Although whether they have all the bikes the want is another matter.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. After a 70-year old Massachusetts man was killed in a dooring, the local press blames him for crashing into the open car door. Just to be clear, dooring is almost always the driver’s or passenger’s fault, because the law requires that a car door can only be opened when it’s safe to do so.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The NYPD is looking for three drivers and a bike rider responsible for a weekend hit-and-run rampage that killed one pedestrian and injured five other people, including a 44-year old man who suffered a critical head injury when he was struck by a man on a bicycle, who fled the scene. Just a reminder that bicyclists have the same obligation to stop following a crash that drivers do.
More heartbreaking news, this time from Pennsylvania, where an off-duty Montgomery County cop was killed when he allegedly swerved his bicycle into the path of an oncoming driver. Norristown Police Cpl. Brian R. Kozera had overcome a rare form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma to compete in six Ironman triathlons, and was scheduled to compete in Kona in October. Thanks to Mike Bike for the heads-up.
For the first seven months of this year, it was one of the safest places to ride a bicycle in Southern California, with just four deaths.
Even though just one is one too many.
Yet the county has doubled that total in just the last ten days, with the latest death coming yesterday in Carlsbad, where the victim was collateral damage in a police chase.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene, while both the 28-year old motorcyclist and his passenger, a 22-year old woman, were hospitalized with serious injuries.
There’s no word on when or where the pursuit started, or how fast the motorcyclist was going at the time of the crash.
However, it raises inevitable questions about the wisdom of police chases that place innocent people at risk, and whether a parks cop was properly trained in how to conduct a chase.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Investigator Adam Bentley at 442/339-5559.
This is at least the 58th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
It’s also the 4th bicycling death in the county in the last ten days, and the second in Carlsbad.
Catcott was reportedly moving from the bike lane to a turn lane when he was run down by the fleeing motorcyclist, and succumbed to blunt force trauma.
The paper reports Carlsbad Police referred questions to State Parks officials, who said there “is no new information to share with the public” ten days after the crash.
Not that they’re trying to cover their collective ass or anything.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for the Brad Allen Catcott and all his loved ones.
August 15, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Contact LA city council to support Healthy Streets LA, and CA bill would give up to $5,000 tax credit for carfree households
The council has 20 days to decide whether to adopt the proposal as written or place it on the ballot for the 2024 election.
Or they could adopt their own ordinance, which could include similar language to the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal, but could be change at any time, for any reason, unlike the the ballot measure which would require a vote of the people to modify or repeal.
Last month, we turned in more than 100,000 signatures from residents in every single council district in Los Angeles — the people demanded safer streets, protected bike lanes, and dedicated bus lanes. Yesterday, the City Clerk certified our petition.
Now, it goes to City Council. The City Council has 20 days to decide to adopt our measure as an ordinance, or send it to the ballot to let the voters decide. We already know what voters want. That’s why we need your help to get the city council to adopt us as an ordinance within the next two weeks.
It could do as much as anything to help get people out of their cars.
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This is who we share the road with.
A New Hampshire truck driver plowed head-on into a group of motorcyclists, killing seven people; a jury let him walk without a day behind bars, though he may be deported to his native Ukraine. Just in case you wondered why people keep dying on our streets. And my apologies to whoever sent this to me; I’m afraid I lost track of it over the weekend.
No bias here. A Louisville KY TV station reports, apparently seriously, that a salmon cyclist crashed her bike into the front of a police patrol car, rather than the cops hitting her with their car. That’s like saying “Please accept my apologies for hitting your fist with my nose.”
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Los Angeles Times readers address the recent article about the Healthy Streets LA initiative qualifying for the ballot with surprisingly less vitriol than expected, though one insisted on trotting out the old “this is not Amsterdam” bromide, combined with the myth that its too hot to ride to work in a suit here. Especially since so many Angelenos have ditched their suits post pandemic.
Bike shops couldn’t keep up during the pandemic bike boom, and ended up ordering bikes that weren’t delivered until the after the boom crested; now they’re overflowing with bikes they can’t sell. For some reason, this story wasn’t blocked by the Wall Street Journal’s paywall, though your results may vary.
A 34-year old Edinburgh man with terminal motor neurone disease completed a mountainous, 20 hour, 265-mile fundraising ride; in the four years since his diagnosis, he’s raised the equivalent of $181,000 to fight the disease, with another $60,000 pledged for this ride.
Nice story from Gabon, where a teacher got tired of watching her students walk for miles to get to school, so she started a company making bamboo bicycles; she already has over 5,000 orders.
