The driver was reportedly traveling east on Wooley at a high rate of speed when he swerved onto the shoulder and slammed into the victim.
The bike rider, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene.
The 27-year old driver remained at the scene and was booked for vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, as well as felony DUI. He was being held on $50,000 bond.
Anyone with information is urged to call Oxnard Police Officer Manuel Perez at 805/385-7750 or email manuel.perez@oxnardpd.org.
This is at least the 13th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the first that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
The hit-and-run epidemic show no sign of stopping.
The same day a Santa Ana bike rider was murdered by a driver who fled the scene, leaving his or her innocent victim to die in the street, another bicyclist was lucky to survive being run down by a hit-and-run driver on the Ventura County section of Southern California’s killer highway.
Or maybe calling PCH a serial killer highway is more accurate.
Here’s a brief press release from the victim’s family.
Santa Barbara family seeks answers and witnesses in PCH hit-and-run
On Saturday, February 12 at 11:10 a.m., Santa Barbara resident Jeff Sczechowski (seh-CHOW-ski) was struck from behind and thrown into a parked vehicle while riding his black mountain bike on the shoulder of the northbound side of the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). This was just north of the Sycamore Canyon State Park entrance across from the Thornhill Broome Beach Campground that is south of the large sand hill on the inland side of the PCH. He was wearing a white helmet and grey and yellow cycling clothing. The victim was transported by ambulance to the Ventura County Medical Center, where he is hospitalized and receiving care. He has sustained significant injuries to his back, leg, and arms. Jeff, a chemical engineering PhD, manages a research center in the UCSB Department of Physics. He is also an avid cyclist and bonsai tree artist. Jeff, his wife, and their children ask anyone who may have been involved in or witnessed the event to please contact Ventura California Highway Patrol Officer Bowen at 805-662-2640.
Shamefully, fully half of the 12 people killed riding bicycles in Southern California this year have been the victims of hit-and-run drivers.
Yes, 50 percent.
There is simply no excuse.
Not for the heartless cowards who lack the basic human decency to stick around after a crash. Or for those in elected office who lack the courage to do anything about it.
The project would have added 4.75 miles of offroad trails along a pair of channels, where they would have had zero impact on traffic and the surrounding community. And provided much needed safe routes through the beachside city, which is already one of the most dangerous places to ride a bike in Orange County.
Instead, the responses from local residents were apparently so bad that local officials decided not to do the right thing, and killed the project instead.
Never mind the current dangers faced by bike riders and pedestrians in the city. Or the desperate need to get people out of their cars, at a time when Orange County is already a year-round fire zone.
And never mind that access to a safe bikeway increases local property values.
There’s simply no rational reason to oppose a project like this, let alone cancel it.
But they did anyway.
Thanks to Eric Eberwein for the tip.
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Say goodbye to the green bollards on Del Amo Blvd in Long Beach, and hello to a new curb-protected bike lane.
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The Davis Bike Counter wasn’t just removed. It was killed by an errant driver.
No bias here, either. An Indian protected bike lane was removed after drivers were “inconvenienced” by the lane reduction to make room for it, never mind that bike riders were inconvenienced by the drivers parking in it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
San Francisco ripped out a protected bike lane due to a construction zone, temporarily replacing it with a painted bike lane, despite being on a street where three people have been killed in three years. Never mind that removing the protected lane will make the city liable for any injuries that happen as a result.
Utah’s law cutting the blood alcohol level required for DUI to .05, from the .08 allowed the other 49 states, is showing demonstrable benefits, with drunk driving deaths and crashes dropping 20% in the state since the law went into effect.
A cautionary story from Charleston, South Carolina, where police are reopening a crash investigation after a man died two months after he was hit by a driver, despite being released from the hospital the same day with an apparent misdiagnosis of just minor injuries.
Retired Irish pro Nicholas Roche has been warned not to ride in the mountains south of Dublin, while he’s filming the British version of Dancing With the Stars in the city, because thieves are known to knock riders off their bikes, then toss them in their van and drive off while the rider is still sprawled in the roadway.
The Italian movie The Pantini Affair should be coming to the US, after Capital Motion Picture Group picked up the North American rights to the 2020 film about the last five years in the life of legendary cyclist Marco Pantani.
February 13, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bicyclist killed in Santa Ana hit-and-run; half of all SoCal bike victims this year killed by hit-and-run drivers
Once again, someone riding a bicycle has been killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
Despite the efforts of first responders, the victim, who was has not been publicly identified, died at the scene.
Police believe the victim was riding east in the bike lane on West First when the driver of a red Kia sedan ran them down from behind, then fled the scene.
Unfortunately, there’s no further description of the car or the driver. But whoever did it should face a murder charge for making a deliberate choice to leave an innocent victim to die in the street.
Anyone with information is urged to call Santa Ana Police Investigator Bao at 714/245-8223.
This is at least the 12th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third that I’m aware of in Orange County.
Half of those SoCal victims have been killed by drivers who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterwards.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his or her loved ones.
February 12, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: 62-year old bike rider killed by hit-and-run driver near Hemet Thursday night; fifth fatal SoCal bicycling hit-and-run this year
Yet another Southern California bike rider has been murdered by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
My News LA is reporting that a 62-year old Hemet man was killed when the driver of an SUV slammed into his bicycle, with enough force to hurl the victim from the point of impact and shatter the man’s bike.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene before first responder could arrive.
The driver reportedly sped away from the scene. Police later arrested 38-year old Hemet resident Carlos Arturo Acosta, who is being held on $75,000 bond.
Investigators don’t believe drugs or alcohol played a roll, even though Acosta currently has an open DUI charge. And despite having four hours to sober up before he was taken into custody, if he was under the influence.
Video from the scene, which I am not embedding due to its graphic nature, shows the victim’s bicycle shattered into a dozen or more barely recognizable pieces, suggesting he was hit at a high rate of speed.
February 11, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Metro picks cars over bikes in NoHo, Flax says bicyclists really are entitled, and bus/bike lanes proposed for SaMo Blvd
Happy International Winter Bike to Work Day!
Even if it goes completely unnoticed here in Southern California, where we don’t have to worry about chipping the ice and snow off our bikes.
Let alone ourselves at the end of a sunny winter’s ride.
The massive project, which sits right next to the connecting point for the Burbank-Chandler and Orange Line multi-use paths, will erase a popular bike path connecting to the pathways. And replace it with a convoluted series of bike lanes that will encourage bicyclists to dangerously break the law by riding against traffic.
Here’s what Linton has to say.
Currently cyclists – including me and my daughter – heading from NoHo Station toward Burbank utilize the existing bus plaza sidewalk (which is going away) to get to Metro’s bike path (which is going away) that runs along the north side of Chandler Boulevard between Fair Avenue and Vineland Avenue.
LADOT expects eastbound bicyclists to go out of their way to cross four to five lanes of traffic on Chandler, then to make an uncomfortable left turn onto Vineland (where lots of drivers are turning right) to get to the Burbank-Chandler path. Cyclists will likely choose to salmon-ride against traffic in the westbound bike lane (or on the sidewalk), because that will be more direct and faster. (Similarly ridiculous circulation is shown on Chandler west of Lankershim. LADOT somehow expects cyclists to cross to the north side of Chandler at the station, then cross Chandler again in 500 feet to go to a median bikeway on the south side of Chandler.)
To make matters worse, the bike path is due to be replaced by, you guessed it, a parking garage.
And not just any parking garage, but a concrete behemoth with spaces for 3,300 drivers and their vehicles. Which would suggest that Metro has given up on getting Angelenos out of their cars, even as the world is literally burning.
It also suggests that Metro believes bike riders have a place on the road, but only if we don’t inconvenience all those important people in cars in any way.
Here’s Linton again.
Why wasn’t this path, a big active transportation priority, part of Metro’s site requirements? It sure looks like bike circulation was a non-priority – an afterthought – something to be half-assedly shoehorned in after cars took up lots of space.
(And, frankly, this is how Metro treats stations, bikeways, and transit-oriented development. With no public notice or input, Metro yanked an approved bikeway from its Rosa Parks Station revamp, while allowing drivers to speed through the middle of the station complex. The Expo Line bike path has an awful, dangerous gap at Culver City Station where cyclists are dumped out to onto busy streets just before they reach the station. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Nobody bikes to these stations anyway” because Metro makes them inhospitable to bicycling.)…
The project really should be re-worked to include a continuous bike path from Vineland to at least Tujunga Avenue. Ideally the path would bridge over Lankershim and Vineland. That continuous path was shown in renderings circulated in 2016. If Metro and (Councilmember Paul) Krekorian are serious about passing a habitable climate along to the next generation, this feature should be put back in.
We’ll look forward to future public meetings when we’ll have the chance to offer some very negative feedback.
In the meantime, maybe it’s time to tell Krekorian, who singlehandedly canceled shovel-ready plans for a lane reduction and bike lanes on Lankershim Blvd, he needs to do better.
Except he says our primary entitlement is the right to get home alive.
And he’s got the t-shirt to prove it.
Here’s how it gets deployed. Someone sees a rider pedaling in the street and perhaps even gets delayed 15 seconds, and so cyclists are entitled. Or maybe 17 parking spaces were reapportioned to make room for a bike lane, and so cyclists are entitled. Or someone makes the quite novel observation that bike riders don’t pay registration fees or taxes on the gasoline they don’t use. Or somebody sees a rider roll through a stop sign or maybe filter past gridlocked traffic with a smile on their face. You all know the chorus: Cyclists are entitled.
Of course this is total rubbish. The people who do all this moaning about cyclists are drivers who are oblivious to all the obscene entitlements that they enjoy. We are talking about trillions of dollars and decades of subsidies. We are talking about hundreds of millions of free parking spaces. We are talking about the most lurid fantasies of the petroleum and automotive industries being transmogrified into policy. Motorists have been lavished with VIP privileges for so long that they don’t even perceive them.
In order to reclaim that misused term, Flax says we need a bill of rights, including,
Cyclists are entitled to get home alive
Cyclists are entitled to safe places to ride
Cyclists are entitled to travel to work, schools, and local businesses just like everyone else
Cyclists are entitled to legal protections
Cyclists are entitles to have lawmakers, police departments, and the judicial system acknowledge and protect people who ride bikes
Cyclists are entitled to ride on the road
Like anything Flax writes, it’s a good piece. And more than worth a few minutes of your time.
And reminiscent of this Cyclists’ Bill of Rights we mentioned earlier this week, which nearly became law in Los Angeles, before it didn’t.
A Florida lawyer with a keen sense of the obvious says the recent drawbridge accident that killed a 79-year old woman walking her bike across the span should never have happened.
Great news, as two-time Grand Tour winner Egan Bernal is back on his feet — literally — after suffering critical injuries when he slammed into a poorly parked bus while training in his native Colombia.
February 10, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Candidate list for June primary, Times’ Abcarian says Vision Zero “impossible,” and PCH claims another victim
The goal is worthy, but why go out on a limb with a big, bold promise that is so obviously doomed to fail?
In Australia, at least, they call the effort “Toward Zero,” which seems more realistic…
As long as there is traffic, there will be traffic tragedy, especially in a car-centric city like ours, where you cannot drive an inch without seeing distracted drivers holding phones. How many times have you been stuck behind a car at a red light that doesn’t move when the light turns green because the driver in front is poking at a screen? At least while they aren’t moving, they aren’t killing anyone.
The obvious problem with that attitude is the question of just how many deaths are acceptable as the cost of just getting from here to there.
Graphic by tomexploresla
And if that number is anything other than zero, which of your loved ones are you willing to sacrifice to the motor vehicle gods?
Which makes it clear that one is the only acceptable answer.
Abcarian’s right that we may not get there today. But it’s up to all of us to do everything we can to make sure we get there tomorrow.
To her credit, she does identify one of the biggest problems with Vision Zero, with each of the city’s 15 councilmembers free to implement their own vision of how to end traffic deaths, or the lack thereof.
As well as the lack of alignment between the city and county, with Los Angeles aiming for 2025 — just three years from now — while the county aims to end traffic deaths a decade later.
Never mind the other 87 cities that call LA County home.
But the solution to that is to coordinate, not forget it. Then give the city and county transportation agencies the power to override individual councilmembers and supervisors to do what needs to be done to save lives.
Which also serves to shield our elected officials from blame by angry drivers, which is what some of them really care about, anyway.
And while we’re at it, someone please tell Ms. Abcarian the difference between a crash and an accident.
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Southern California’s serial killer highway has claimed yet another victim.
Twitter post
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Pass the word, teens can grab a quick Benjamin from Walk ‘n Rollers for customizing a bicycle.
Twitter post
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Remember, you always need a truck or SUV to go to the hardware store.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Someone in newly bike friendly San Diego clearly doesn’t get it, ruling that no action is necessary for a traffic signal clearly designed to thin the herd by encouraging drivers to turn left through a bike lane while bike riders still have the green. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.
There’s a special place in hell for the couple who flipped off a bike-riding Florida boy as they passed him in their car, then whipped a U-turn and threatened him with a gun when he responded in kind, before proceeding to pistol whip and slap him repeatedly; they were arrested after the boy managed to record video of the couple, along with their car and license plate.
Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman takes a hard look at mayoral candidate and current Councilmember Joe Buscaino’s motion to crack down on bike chop shops, which could also catch legitimate bike repair in its wide net. Including if you decide to fix your own bicycle outside on a sunny day, if it’s too broadly written.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai is one of us, riding with a group to check out a new beachfront bike path. And yes, I included that one just so I could use his full title.
