May 9, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Mother of five dies after she’s taken off life-support, 10 days after collision while bicycling in Lincoln Heights
Too often, we never learn what happens after someone riding a bicycle is taken to the hospital.
If we ever hear about it in the first place.
That’s what nearly happened late last month, when a woman died days after she was struck by a driver while riding her bike in Lincoln Heights.
Make that a young mother, who leaves five young kids behind.
The first clue came with a post on Nextdoor, which Michael Shifflett forwarded to me this morning.
Unfortunately, there was no confirmation about the crash, let alone her death. And searching the LA County coroner’s office turned up nothing.
Because they misspelled her name.
According to information Shifflett was able to gather speaking with witnesses and members of her family, 31-year old Adriana Rodriguez, otherwise known as Fishy, was hit by a driver’s car at N. San Fernando Road and Humboldt Street on April 18th.
She was hospitalized for ten days afterwards, and died April 28th after being taken off life-support.
Let’s see if we can boost that a little for those kids who will now grow up without a mother.
And yes, I gave, too.
This is at least the 25th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s the third I know of in the City of LA.
It’s also a reminder that too many stories like this never make the news. And we’ll never know how many other victim of traffic violence we may not have heard about.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Adriana Rodriguez and all her family.
Thanks to Michael Schifflett and Chris By Bike for the heads-up.
May 7, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Tres shock! LA misses safest bike city list, famed ped superhero at UCLA, and San Diego builds bike lane laps around LA
But while Los Angeles continues to rest on its non-laurels as America’s worst bike city, Glendale is installing a new curb protected lane on Los Feliz.
The LACBC is offering a discount for their virtual bike challenge taking place this month.
Here’s what they have to say.
Inviting you to join us in June at LACBC’s new virtual LA Rivers Challenge: Ride, Walk or Run LA’s Historic Waterways! A flexible and fun way to ride, walk or run our beautiful L.A. County waterways, at your own pace on days, routes and mileage of your choice. Suggested routes will be posted on the LARiversChallenge.com website.
Please use this special Friends & Family code “FRIEND5” to register at LARiversChallenge.com and receive a cool neck gaiter/mask, coaching/encouragement emails, routes and information about the historic L.A. County waterways. Bonus Fun: An optional personalized fundraising webpage can be set up where riders can share progress on their ride(s) online and also raise money to support LACBC’s year-round advocacy on behalf of active transportation in L.A. County. Rewards and prizes can be earned for meeting fundraising goals too!
Thank you.
The 2021 LA River Challenge – Good for You and Good for LA! For more information and to register for the L.A. Rivers Challenge, visit LARiversChallenge.com.
Twitter: Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (@LACBC)
Instagram: @lacbc
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Bicycling author Richard Fox is back with the latest update to his comprehensive guide to SoCal bike routes.
I’m happy to announce the release of the 3rd Edition of my guidebook “enCYCLEpedia Southern California – The Best Easy Scenic Bike Rides.” It contains 200+ scenic ride options at SoCal’s beaches, deserts, mountains, wine country, harbors, & historic city centers from San Diego to Cambria to Palm Springs, perfect for casual cyclists who enjoy beautiful scenery while avoiding car traffic and major hill climbs. The pandemic bike boom created many new casual cyclists who bought up 2017’s 2nd Edition a year earlier than anticipated. I revisited many of the rides with a Class I ebike, and added notes on how they impact rides, and where to rent or buy them near the rides. The book’s info was updated, more detail was added to many of the maps, and several new rides were added, including an option for a La La Land Griffith Park adventure on closed roads that was too hilly without an ebike for the casual cyclist before. Other new fabulous rides were added for all in Irvine and Lake Perris, and options in other areas with new infrastructure like Santa Barbara and San Diego. The Coachella Valley, where I spent much of the pandemic lockdown cycling and working on the book update, ended up with a ton of new info and routes, including incorporation of the new CV Link regional path, now in various stages of construction. enCYCLEpedia.net contains additional rides, downloadable maps, features and updates for book owners. The price of this edition is going up because of higher production costs in the USA vs Asia, but has started on Amazon at a lower price, available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1638485380.
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The Oklahoma legislature has sent a bill legalizing the Idaho Stop to the governor for his signature.
And for a change, it’s the full version, allowing bike riders to treat red lights like stop signs, and treat stop signs as yields.
Twitter post
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This.
Twitter post
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Somehow we missed this one last month, as Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss offers a tutorial on how to politely shred on your fixie.
A bike-riding man suffered serious, but non-life-threatening injuries when he was hit by two drivers in San Diego’s Old Town neighborhood in the midst of Wednesday’s Cinco de Mayo celebrations; he was left crossed by a driver trying to make a three-point turn, then hit by another when he was knocked off his bicycle.
Nice gesture from the Chowchilla bicycling community, which turned out in force to accompany the body of a 45-year old man killed in a hit-and-run; the driver faces a murder charge after telling police he wanted to kill someone. Sadly, the disabled man, who rode a bike as his only form of transportation, had the misfortune of crossing the alleged killer’s path.
Now that’s more like it. A Michigan man could spend up to 80 years behind bars for the reckless, hit-and-run deaths of two women riding their bikes; he’ll have to serve a minimum of 18 years before he’s eligible for parole, and pay $250,000 restitution. None of which will bring either of the victims back, though.
The former model who starred in David Bowie’s China Girl video is now a Kiwi restaurant manager who’s fighting a new protected bike lane, arguing that it will block her deliveries and no one will use it, anyway. Never mind that the first photo in the story shows a delivery driver unloading his truck next to the bike lane directly behind her.
Once again, a bike rider is a hero. Grateful Aussie parents are looking for the man who jumped off his bike and leapt into a chilly lake without hesitation to rescue a three-year old boy, who accidentally rode his scooter into a Canberra lake; he then slipped away quietly after saving the boy’s life. No truth to the rumor that he left a silver bullet behind. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
May 6, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on California slightly less dangerous for bike riders, Bonin runs for return to city council, and sabotage on a Scottish bike trail
The report uses additional data points to scramble the rankings prepared by The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).
Top 10 Riskiest States for Bicyclists
Delaware (#2 on FARS* per capita report)
South Carolina (#4 on FARS)
Florida (#1 on FARS)
Louisiana (#3 on FARS)
New Mexico (#5 on FARS)
Oklahoma (#9 on FARS)
Mississippi (Not in the FARS top 10)
West Virginia (Not in the FARS top 10)
Arizona (#7 on FARS)
California (#6 on FARS)
Top 10 Safest States for Bicyclists
Massachusetts (#1 on FARS per capita report)
New York (Not in the FARS top 10)
Illinois (#7 on FARS)
Pennsylvania (#4 on FARS)
Utah (#8 on FARS)
Tennessee (#2 on FARS)
Minnesota (Not in the FARS top 10)
Missouri (#5 on FARS)
Arkansas (#3 on FARS)
Washington (Not in the FARS top 10)
Which means we have just slightly less work to do to make our streets safe and inviting for everyone.
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Councilmember Mike Bonin is tossing his hat in the ring for a third and final term representing coastal Los Angeles on the council.
Twitter post
One of LA’s most progressive councilmembers, Bonin, who used to bike commute to city hall when he was the top aide to Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, has been one of the leading bike supporters on the council in recent years.
Which isn’t saying much.
But it was Bonin who was behind the simultaneous rollout of three much-needed lane reductions and bike lanes in Playa del Rey in 2017.
Supporters of Eagle Rock’s Beautiful Boulevard plan are asking you to reach out to Councilmember Kevin de León, and urge him to join County Supervisor Hilda Solis and other local leaders in supporting the plan to re-envision Colorado Blvd when a new Bus Rapid Transit line goes in.
Credit the CHP with calling on drivers to operate their vehicles safely around people on bicycles — and not considering bike helmets the beginning and end of bicycle safety. Although the idea of shared responsibility on the streets doesn’t exactly hold true when comparing a two-ton semi-ballistic weapon with a few hundred pounds of flesh and bone. Or less.
’70s alto sax legend Sonny Simmons was down and out in San Francisco, busking on the streets for spare change, when a local jazz promoter happened by on his bicycle and revived his career with a sold-out gig opening for Branford Marsalis; Simmons died last month, six years after a fall left him partially paralyzed and ended his playing career. If he’d been in a car, he probably never would have heard Simmons, and that career revival might never have come.
About damn time. A Colorado man has been arrested for 1st degree murder following the disappearance of wife last year, who set out on a Mother’s Day bike ride and was never seen again; countless searches have failed to discover her body.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went for a bike ride with the mayor of Stourbridge on the eve of the country’s local elections, with both looking surprisingly unsteady on their bikeshare bikes. Especially since London’s bikeshare system was popularly known as Boris Bikes when the experienced bike rider was mayor of the city.
Cycling legend Gino Bartali was honored with a Roman Catholic service on he 21st anniversary of his death; the Italian rider helped save over 800 Jews from the Nazis by smuggling papers in the frame of his bike during WWII.
Hyderabad, India’s bicycle mayor is leading a group of volunteers fighting the country’s horrific Covid-19 crisis by using their bikes to deliver badly needed medicines to the elderly, as well as searching for oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, ventilators and plasma donors.
NPR offers a heartbreaking and infuriating storyabout the racist history of LA’s 10 Freeway, and the prosperous, tight knit Black neighborhood that was destroyed to build it.
Unfortunately, I can’t embed the audio. But take a few minutes to listen to it, or at least read the transcript.
Because it makes painfully clear just how much we’ve sacrificed on the altar of the automobile.
And it’s a story that was repeated in virtually every major city in the US, where it’s almost always communities of color that pay the price.
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This is the cost of traffic violence.
A Minneapolis woman wrote a heartbreaking Twitter thread about the death of her husband when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike home from work.
Twitter post
Then there’s this.
Twitter post
And it’s not just her. Virtually anyone who’s lost someone like that will recognize themselves in her words.
So take a moment to click on that top tweet, and read the whole thread.
Then do whatever you can to to make sure it never happens to anyone else.
Meanwhile, in a powerful piece for The Atlantic, an Atlanta writer says despite what we may believe, we can’t control what happens on the road. And uses his personal experiences behind the wheel to explain why we should all be more afraid of driving.
If you can read it without catch in your throat and a tear in your eye, you’re a stronger person than I am.
Longer answer, unlike motor vehicles, bicycles cause no harm to the environment and our cities, and pose little risk to the people around them. So maybe we’d all be better off if cars aspired to be more like bicycles.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
Streets For Allasks for your support for AB 53, which would weaken the deadly 85th Percentile Law by allowing cities to lower speed limits on streets with high injury and fatality rates, and ensure they won’t have to raise speed limits in order to enforce them.
A Turlock man faces charges of hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter for fleeing the scene after running down a 50-year old bike-riding man, who died after he was removed from life support; the coward behind the wheel was captured after crashing his truck trying to escape from witnesses who tried to stop him.
A 36-year old man was sentenced to 15 years to life after pleading guilty to murder for the drunk driving crash that killed a Modesto police officer riding his bicycle, while driving at four times the legal alcohol limit; he had a previous DUI conviction from 2014 that legally justified the murder charge.
An allegedly drunk 24-year old Texas woman and the bar that helped her get that way face a $20 million lawsuit for the death of a mother of two, who was killed when the driver jumped a curb and slammed into the victim’s bicycle. Sadiy, lawsuits like that are prohibited under California law, which states that a bar or host can’t be held responsible for the actions of people who got drunk there.
Baltimore attorney Barry Glazer successfully bid the equivalent of over $61,000 for Princess Diana’s “shame” bike so he could display it to call attention to “the British Royal Family’s basic racist roots” and colonial past. It was dubbed the “shame” bike after the royal household informed her it was not a suitable form of transport for a future member of the Royal Family. Which should have tipped her off right then to run like hell while she still could.
This, too, is the cost of traffic violence. A viola soloist who played with the Paris National Opera for 36 years was killed when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike. At least we can assume there was a driver, since the story doesn’t mention one. Or a car, for that matter.
Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin’s Jumbo-Visma team is unsure whether he will ever return to the sport, after walking away last year due to stress and not being sure whether he even wanted to keep riding.
May 5, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Man killed riding bicycle near center divider on the Pomona Freeway in South El Monte; 7th LA County death this year
Once again, someone has been killed riding a bicycle in the traffic lanes of a major SoCal freeway.
And once again, it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.
Not surprisingly, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
A collision with one vehicle at highway speeds is not likely to be survivable, let alone multiple vehicles.
As in the other cases where bike riders have been killed while riding on a freeway, no explanation was given for what the hell he was doing there.
Just to be clear, while it is legal to ride a bicycle on some limited access highways where there is no alternative bicycle route, there are few, if any, places in the Los Angeles area where it is allowed.
And it is never smart to ride a bike to the left of the fog line, or right limit line, on any urban freeway.
This is at least the 24th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
May 4, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on This is who we share the road with, the world’s coolest book bike, and Braves pitchers brave DC streets on bicycles
This is who we share the road with.
Inglewood faces a more than $300,000 lawsuit from the City of Los Angeles for a crash allegedly caused by the city’s mayor that left an LAPD motorcycle officer with an undisclosed permanent disability — even though LA rejected the officer’s injury claim.
More details on the Chicago man charged with attempted murder for intentionally driving his car over a median to attack a group of people enjoying a birthday picnic, after allegedly becoming enraged over “yuppies on the boulevard” and their dogs, then brandished a knife until he was disarmed by a passing grandmother. Yes, you read that right.
New York police continue to waffle on the crash that killed a delivery rider, before the driver went on to slam into a pair of parked cars and an outdoor dining area, alternating between calling it road rage and writing it off as a medical episode. Or maybe they think irrational anger behind the wheel is just a medical condition.
Berkeley bike cops busted an armed felony suspect who led police on a chase after allegedly ramming his car into another vehicle. Although calling the city’s bike cops the Bike Force makes them sound like Trump’s Space Force on two wheels.
He gets it, sort of. A Staten Island writer says everyone breaks the law, whether in cars, on bikes or on foot, scooters or mopeds. And says the solution is to just obey the rules and be safer out there. Although a much better solution is to design roads so breaking the rules doesn’t result in broken bodies. Which is the whole premise behind Vision Zero.
Here’s another one to add to your bike bucket list, with a 150-mile bike trail that loops around Britain’s Cornwall Coast opening this fall, taking you past “spectacular coastal scenery,” old industrial works and bronze age monuments. Not to mention the westernmost and southernmost points of mainland Britain, and the home turf of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.
