January 22, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Die-in on the steps of LA City Hall Saturday to mark 337 traffic deaths in Los Angeles last year — including 24 bicyclists
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Note: I’ve lost track of who created the image up there on the left, along with the Spanish-language version below. So if anyone knows, hit me up.
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Let’s start with Saturday’s die-in at Los Angeles City Hall to protest our ever-rising rates of traffic violence.
As I mentioned last week, I have another commitment that morning I can’t get out of, so I won’t be able to make it this year. But if you have the morning free, I urge you to attend, and add your voice and body to demand safer streets in the City of Angeles.
I’ll let Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, take it from here. And give it a close read, because there’s a lot of vital information there about just how bad things are on our streets.
Dying-In LA 2024:
Advocates Needed For A Die-In At City Hall, January 27th, 9 am.
Sign up here https://mobilize.us/s/0JnZmq to join Streets Are For Everyone,Streets For All, Street Racing Kills, Santa Monica Spoke, and many more to demand that our elected officials prioritize safer streets in 2024. Why? 2023 was a grim year for traffic fatalities, and we need to let City Hall know we have the political will to continue fighting for safe streets. That means starting the year strong by building our movement through community organizing.
2023 was a rough year for Los Angeles. 330 victims died from traffic violence in the city, marking a 9% increase over 2022 and a 14% increase since 2021. This is the highest number of traffic fatalities in over 20 years. In addition to that disheartening number, there were increases in injuries and fatalities across multiple categories, including:
176 pedestrians killed in 2023 – a 15% increase since 2022 and a 35% increase since 2021.
24 cyclists killed in 2023 – a 20% increase since 2022 and a 41% increase since 2021.
29 people killed in DUI-related car crashes in 2023 – a 32% increase since 2022 and a 38% increase since 2021.
105 people killed in hit-and-run crashes in 2023 – a 30% increase since 2022 and a 38% increase since 2021.
The surge in these statistics can be attributed to various factors, including:
Faster, quieter, and larger vehicles are killing more pedestrians.
There is a sharp increase in the use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs (both legal and illegal) while driving.
Distracted driving in various forms – cell phones being one of the largest sources but also an increase in the prevalence of smart “infotainment” systems in cars. (Instead of using tactile touch for basic functions like adjusting the radio station or temperature, drivers often fiddle with screens, diverting their attention from the road.)
A decrease in the enforcement of driving laws for various reasons (worth its own article) results in more people driving recklessly, knowing they are less likely to get caught.
While there is no single solution to all these issues, the fact remains that too many of our elected officials continue to ignore this worsening public health crisis.
Join us for a crucial call to action as we unite in this collective effort. Real change only occurs when we amplify our voices and make them resoundingly heard.
Date: Saturday, 27 Jan 2024
Location: Steps of Los Angeles City Hall, 232 N. Spring Street
Set-up Time: 9:30 AM (Coffee will be provided)
Press Conference: 10 AM to 10:45 AM
Volunteers needed: 330 people are required for part of the die-in visual – one for each person who lost their life in 2023. Please feel free to bring bicycles and skateboards. Volunteers are also needed to stand behind the speakers, holding handmade protest signs demanding safer streets.
Parking: You should ride, walk, or take Metro Line B (exit Civic Center/Grand Park Station) to City Hall as parking is limited.
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Unfortunately, as bad as those numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story.
Anyone want to bet on whether they’ll make it to the three year mark?
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Residents of Coventry, England express concerns that a new bike lane will make bicyclists sitting ducks when drivers back into their driveways in front of bikes doing 30 mph — vastly overestimating the speed of most bike riders, while underestimating drivers ability to check their damn mirrors. Unless maybe their real objection is just having a bike lane on “their” street.
A British coroner says a 41-year old driver was “selfish beyond comprehension” when he killed a 15-year old boy riding a bike, while rushing to meet a woman from a dating app after downing three beers and two glasses of wine.
A “keen” Kiwi/Aussie bicyclist offers advice on winter bike riding in frigid South Korea. Which probably translates to wherever you ride outside of Southern California this winter. And I’ll take “keen” over “avid” any day.
January 19, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA Times endorses Healthy Streets LA initiative in March vote, and SCAG to study turning highways into boulevards
Frustrated by the lack of political will and bureaucracy, street safety advocates collected enough signatures to put Healthy Streets LA, or Measure HLA, on the March ballot. The initiative would force the city to carry out the improvements in the Mobility Plan. Any time city departments repave at least one-eighth of a mile of street, they would have to add the improvements outlined in the plan, whether bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian enhancements or fixes to ease vehicle traffic.
This makes sense. When city crews have to repaint the lines when repaving a street, why not restripe the roads according to the Mobility Plan at the same time? Yet in a city as large as Los Angeles, making this a smooth process is not always easy. The multiple departments responsible for street paving, engineering and transportation safety struggle to coordinate and have missed opportunities to install Mobility Plan projects. The mandate of Measure HLA would, ideally, prompt City Hall to better organize street work programs and make Mobility Plan improvements a part of routine road maintenance.
The paper concludes their editorial this way.
Measure HLA has broad support among neighborhood councils, environmental, labor and business groups. Their members understand that Los Angeles needs to evolve into a city that is safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and, yes, even motorists. The plan recognizes that Angelenos will still drive — it includes 80 miles of streets that are prioritized for vehicle travel and projects that help drivers maintain safe, consistent speeds and reliable travel times.
The rising number of traffic deaths is a preventable tragedy. Voters have the power to make Los Angeles’ streets safer. Vote yes on Measure HLA.
No bias here. Underground hip-hop artist Gorilla Nems, aka Travis Doyle, took out his anger on New York’s Complete Street transformation over the past decade or so, telling a podcast host “Fuck bike lanes…this ain’t Copenhagen,” while instructing his followers to ignore walk signals and just cross the street anytime they want, after looking both ways.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The Metro board delayed a vote to award Metro Bike management to Lyft, after ride hail drivers and delivery riders teamed with bikeshare workers to protest the proposed contract. But you’ll have to subscribe the Daily News or find a way around the paper’s draconian paywall if you want to read about it.
Police in Huntington Beach are using bait bikes to bust bike thieves. Something the LAPD still won’t do over fears they’ll be accused of entrapment.
They get it, sort of. A Simi Valley paper says safety is a two-way street, but drivers shoulder most of the responsibility to look out for vulnerable bike riders. Although they should go to cliche jail for trotting out the tired two-way street metaphor.
The future of the Tour of Britain, the Women’s Tour and other British races could be in doubt because the organizer of the races entered liquidation proceedings, after losing their license to conduct the races over an unpaid fee totaling the equivalent of over $884,000.
January 19, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 58-year old man struck and killed by two drivers on Crenshaw Blvd in South LA; one driver fled the scene
Now they’re ganging up on us.
A man was killed trying to cross Crenshaw Blvd on his bicycle Wednesday night when he was struck by two drivers in rapid succession — one of whom fled the scene.
He was flung into the air, and was struck by a speeding driver, also heading north on Crenshaw, after hitting the pavement.
The first driver had the basic human decency to remain at the scene and attempt to aid the victim.
The second one didn’t.
The victim, identified only as a 59-year old man, died at the scene.
The story notes that he was crossing outside of a marked crosswalk, even though there is no requirement, or even an expectation, for people on bicycles to use one.
Police are looking for the driver of what witnesses described only as a sedan, which would likely have some front end damage. That doesn’t exactly give them a lot to go on.
As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD South Traffic Detective Ryan Moreno at 323/421-2500, or the South Traffic Watch Commander at 323/421-2577 or 1-877/527-3247.
This is at least the third bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the first in the City of Los Angeles.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
January 18, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 77-year old man critical after Burbank hit-and-run, scooter injuries triple in just 5 years, and making NYC more car-friendly
He was reportedly riding south on the east sidewalk, on the northbound side of Clybourn, and was struck by the driver of an eastbound black sedan as he attempted to cross Oxnard.
As we’ve pointed out before, sidewalks are bidirectional, and there is no right direction on a sidewalk or crosswalk, painted or otherwise.
Anyone with further information is urged to contact Burbank Police investigators at 818/238-3103.
With the rise in riding comes a tangential, and substantial, increase in scooter injuries. According to new UCLA-led research, scooter injuries nearly tripled across the United States from 2016 to 2020, along with a similar increase in severe injuries requiring orthopedic and plastic surgery over the same period. The study, published January 9 in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Surgeons, compared national trends in scooter and bicycle industries as well as the implications of these injuries on the healthcare industry…
Scooter-related injuries led to major operative interventions 56% of the time, compared to 48% for bike-related injuries. Scooter riders were also shown to have higher odds of experiencing long bone fractures and paralysis than bicycle-related injuries. Both groups were similarly likely to suffer traumatic brain injuries.
However, the study did not differentiate between e-scooters and regular scooters.
It also doesn’t appear to take into account the rapid growth in e-scooter usage over that same period, which could easily equal or exceed the rise in injury rates.
⬩ Every year, thousands of pedestrians (drivers on the way to their cars) are injured or killed at crosswalks. We must remove all crosswalks before anyone else gets hurt.
⬩ Take out the two bad traffic lights under the green one.
⬩ Why do bicycles (slow cars with no windows) have entire lanes dedicated to them? What’s next? Lanes for skipping rope? Hopscotch lanes? Lanes dedicated to pugs with GoPros riding skateboards? Sounds a little silly to me.
It’s well worth the few minutes it takes to read the whole thing, although some items are very Gotham-centric.
Until you realize that it’s not that different than what you hear from some of the entirely serious motoring groups.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
After a Canadian woman was injured by a speeding driver while on a charity ride around Lake Ontario, her insurance company filed suit — not against the driver, who was convicted of killing another victim in the crash, but against the group organizing the ride and her own father, who founded it.
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Local
The Malibu Times reports that PCH isn’t the only deadly roadway in and around the coastal city, as the area’s popular canyon roadways cause increasing concern. As anyone who has ever encountered a speeding driver taking a wide turn on a canyon road can attest.
Congratulations to Pasadena, as PeopleForBikes ranked the city’s Union Street Complete Streets project as the 6th best new bike lane in the US; Santa Monica’s 17th Street project was rated 16th. Needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t make the list.
The Press Democrat says the area where a San Jose woman was killed crashing into a fallen tree after failing to negotiate a curve on her bike is known for deadly crashes.
Despite receiving just 1.5 inches of snow, New York bike riders faced treacherous commutes after officials failed to clear snow and ice from the city’s bridges. Which also puts a lie to the common myths that no one will ride a bike in the winter, or in bad weather.
In 2022, a year in which 312 people died in Los Angeles traffic—more than half, 159, pedestrians—the city council in California’s largest city took up a measure that would have required the city to put new traffic safety features in place whenever it repaved a street.
Perhaps not surprisingly, 2022’s traffic fatality numbers, the worst in 20 years, only got even worse in 2023. That year, 330 human beings lost their lives in L.A. traffic, according to police statistics (the numbers did not yet include the final week of 2023). Now, in 2024, the measure, known as “Healthy Streets L.A.,” will get another chance, and this time the verdict will be up to Los Angeles voters.
The city approved the innovative Mobility Plan in 2015 to improve safety while providing safe and efficient alternatives to driving.
Then promptly put it on the shelf and forgot all about it; only a tiny fraction of the plan has been built out in the more than eight years since.
In that time, traffic congestion has only gotten worse in Los Angeles, and our streets even deadlier.
But now you can force the city to do what the city council didn’t have sufficient courage and political will to do, simply by casting your vote for Healthy Streets LA in the March 5th election.
And help make our streets safer and more inviting for all of us.
Crazy stat from @healthystreetla – in 2022, more pedestrians died on Vermont Avenue than in the state of Vermont.
Los Angeles is the most dangerous city for pedestrians in the United States! https://t.co/uKpuo0SwZl
Grossman, the co-founder of the Grossman Burn Center, is accused of killing 8-year old Jacob Iskander, and his 11-year old brother Mark as they crossed the street more than three years ago.
The married woman was allegedly having an affair with former Dodger Scott Erickson, and was zig-zagging Erickson’s car as they raced to a nearby home after drinking in a local restaurant.
Neither car stopped after Grossman allegedly slammed into the two boys as they crossed the street with their family, while riding a scooter and skateboard.
According to the Los Angeles Times,
“The speed was insane,” (Nancy Iskander) said of the two SUVs. “They were zigzagging with each other as if they were playing or racing.
“They didn’t stop before the intersection. They didn’t stop at the intersection. They didn’t stop when an 11-year-old was on the hood of the car. … Nobody stopped,” Iskander testified.
In fact, Grossman continued nearly half mile after the collision that killed the boys.
The details of the crash are horrific, justifying the charges.
Grossman, 60, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death in connection with the fatal Sept. 29, 2020 collision. The murder counts are somewhat unprecedented as Grossman was not charged with driving under the influence, which is typically used to prove gross negligence in vehicular fatalities…
Jurors will probably hear from former L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Apodaca, who specializes in traffic crashes. During the preliminary hearing, he testified that he calculated Grossman was driving 71.7 mph when she struck the boys and that the car computer showed 73 mph. Under cross-examination, he said the older child, Mark, was struck by the vehicle and thrown 254 feet, the farthest he has known a human to be tossed in a crash.
Another deputy, Rafael Mejia, testified he had found Grossman a third of a mile away from the crash, stopped at the curb and saying she didn’t know why her airbag had been triggered.
Everyone is presumed innocent until they’re convicted, even overly entitled accused killers.
Let’s just hope her money doesn’t buy an undeserved acquittal.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A columnist for the London Times wrote about a new study showing bike commuters enjoy better mental health, before devolving into a nearly deranged anti-bicyclist rant about “a mass of angry, intolerant, semi-psychotic Strava men.”
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Local
No news is good news, right?
State
Former Caltrans deputy director for planning and modal programs Jeanie Ward-Waller is back working with Calbike as a consultant; Ward-Waller worked for the bike advocacy group prior to being hired by Caltrans, before she was fired by the agency after blowing the whistle on a Sacramento highway project.
Santa Barbara is the latest California city to approve a Vision Zero plan; the city intends to focus on bike riders and pedestrians in an effort to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. But as we’ve learned from painful experience, any Vision Zero is only as good as the commitment of city officials to actually implement it.
A Clovis man pled not guilty to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for crashing his $170,000 sports car head-on into a 51-year old Fresno college instructor and mother of five as she rode her bicycle, after he allegedly failed to negotiate a curve and crossed onto the wrong side of the road while speeding.
Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Cambodia has opened a new bike bridge to make it easier to visit the legendary Angkor Takeo Temple by bicycle.
Thirty-two-year old Olympic gold medalist track cyclist Melissa Hoskins was remembered by family, friends and teammates at her funeral in her hometown of Perth, Australia yesterday; her husband, pro cyclist Rohan Dennis, faces charges for allegedly running over her after she fell from the hood of his pickup as she tried to open the door.
January 16, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Riding a bike to cure Blue Monday, results from LA’s Universal Basic Mobility pilot, and we’re #1 in hit-and-run
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Today is officially Blue Monday, a term coined by a British shrink to mark the “convergence of post-holiday blues, cold weather, and the realization that New Year’s resolutions might be more challenging than anticipated,” that accumulate around the third Monday in January.
And forget the Prozac. A new study from the University of Edinburgh found that commuting by bicycle can improve mental health, and that people who bike to work are less likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
LADOT and LA Metro teamed to give a “mobility wallet” to 1,000 lower-income South Los Angeles residents — a reloadable debit card providing $150 per month to spend on almost any form of transportation.
The key word is “almost.”
The catch? Funds can be used to take the bus, ride the train, rent a shared e-scooter, take micro-transit, rent a car-share, take an Uber or Lyft, or even purchase an e-bike — but they can’t be spent on the cost of owning or operating a car.
After the first six months of the one-year program, which ends in April, the biggest surprise has been the reliance on ride-hailing services.
According to data from the first six months of the program, the majority of estimated trips taken have been on public transportation (40,087 trips out of 67,379). The majority of the funds (about $500,000) have gone to ride-hailing or taxi services like Uber and Lyft, for about 26,000 trips at an average cost of $20.
You could buy a pretty nice bicycle for $1,800 for the full year.
But then you’d have to find a safe place to ride it, which isn’t always easy in Los Angeles. Especially in South LA.
I won’t be able to make it this time due to yet another medical appointment, as my doctors work to keep my own body from trying to kill me.
So make plans to be there in my place, and demand that city officials hear us and actually do something to halt traffic violence, instead of the usual endless talks and studies.
Or just ignoring the problem, which is what they do best.
A road raging London driver was taken away in handcuffs following an escalating dispute that ended with him knocking another man off his bicycle, throwing his bike away, and running over a passing bike rider who stopped to help.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The Los Angeles Times says don’t bet on AI reducing traffic congestion on California roads, despite Caltrans request for Artificial Intelligence companies to pitch AI products to cut congestion and improve safety, noting that nothing short of a global pandemic has had an effect on our traffic. So maybe the solution is providing safe and efficient alternatives to driving, instead.
While we continue to wait for California’s moribund ebike voucher program to launch, the small southwestern Colorado town of Durango is tripling the funding for its ebike voucher program, with $150,000 earmarked for the town of less than 20,000 people.
A new study suggests that Toronto police data captures only a small fraction of bicycling injuries, with police reports registering only eight percent of bicycling injuries compared to hospital and ER records over a five year period. The same would probably hold true for any large city, Los Angeles included.
I want to ne like her when I grow up, too. A Toronto woman is still riding at 77, after 56 years on a bike; despite the toll of age and a recent injury, she still feels more comfortable riding a bicycle in rush hour traffic than walking or driving.
Canadians are ditching their cars for bicycles, even in the cold of winter. Yet we’re somehow supposed to believe that Angelenos won’t bike to work in our much balmier climate.
The Guardianremembers London’s Lycra lads circa 1987, bike messengers who “were fast, brightly dressed, sometimes earned decent money and rarely obeyed the Highway Code.”
January 15, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 40-year old bike rider Alex Zavala died two months after October hit-and-run; 20th fatal SoCal bike hit-and-run last year
The page said Alex Zavala had died weeks after he was the victim of a hit-and-run while riding his bicycle.
But there were no details. No date for the crash, no location, no word on whether there was an arrest in the case.
It turns out that was because his family has no idea what happened or where.
According to a story from La Opinion, Zavala worked at a bicycle warehouse — likely meaning a bike co-op — and rode his bike everywhere, even spurning the car his mom bought for him.
But when Zavala didn’t come home one October night, his family searched for him everywhere, before eventually finding him lying in a coma in the intensive care unit of Los Angeles General Medical Center, suffering from head injuries, a broken his hip and missing his left eye.
His brother had to identify him, because he had come to the hospital with no identification.
It took a month for Alex Zavala to regain consciousness after the crash — then was somehow discharged despite bizarre ranting and speaking incoherently.
Then his mother came home from work one day in late December to find Zavala convulsing and bleeding from the ear; he died from a brain hemorrhage on December 20th.
If that was the end of it, that would be bad enough.
But the tragedy has been compounded because his family can’t conduct a funeral or bury Alex Zavala because they haven’t been able to get a death certificate, because the Medical Examiner’s office says they’re too backed up.
But I’m sure they’ll get around to it eventually.
To make matters even worse, the crowdfunding account was hacked, leaving Alex Zavala’s mother $25,000 in debt for his funeral expenses and burial plot.
A new crowdfunding campaign currently stands at a little more than $7,000 of the modest $8,500 goal. If you have a few extra bucks lying around, I can’t think of a better cause.
This was at least the 74th bicycling fatality in Southern California last year, and the 34th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it may or may not have occurred in the City of Los Angeles.
At least 20 of those SoCal deaths have been at the hands of hit-and-run drivers.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Alex Zavala and all his loved ones.
The victim, described only as an adult man, was trapped under the vehicle when paramedics arrived; he died after being taken to a local hospital.
The driver was arrested for driving under the influence. There’s no word on their identity, or whether they are suspected of being drunk or on some other intoxicant.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Hemet Police Department at 951/765-2400, and ask for Traffic Officer N. Reineke or Corporal C. Nicot, reference report #2024-00245, or email nreineke@hemetca.gov or cnicot@hemetca.gov.
This is at least the second bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first that I’m aware of in Riverside County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
The driver fled following the crash. The suspect vehicle was described as red Dodge Ram pickup truck; there’s no description of the driver at this time.
This is the first confirmed bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
It’s also the first fatal hit-and-run of the year.
Let’s hope the local media reports the next one, since they didn’t this time.
Unfortunately, as bad as those numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story.
