November 7, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bike lanes slowing fire trucks is an urban myth, celebrate SciFi author Octavia Butler tomorrow & give Egan his damn bike back
Day 311 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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It was a quiet bike news day yesterday, so let’s get right to it.
Today’s photo: If they can drive an ambulance on the old beach bike path pre-widening, they can drive a fire truck on or near a bike lane.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Singaporean driver was shocked and appalled to see a pair of teens drafting a semi on a bicycle and an ebike without the “proper gear,” as if a few ounces of plastic and foam would somehow offer protection if they went under a multi-ton tractor trailer. Look, we’ve all seen that scene from Breaking Away, but seriously, it’s not a good idea, with or without a helmet.
A 55-year old man was hospitalized with a compound fracture of his tibia/fibula and a fractured femur after he was struck by a driver while riding his bicycle in Pacific Beach Wednesday night; police said he continued straight at an intersection instead of making the required right turn, riding into the path of a driver on the cross street.
A Santa Cruz man learned he had multiple myeloma, a difficult to treat form of blood cancer, after suffering an apparent rib fracture on a marathon bike ride; 14-years later, he’s back to riding his bike after a being in remission for three years thanks to a cutting edge therapy.
National
Bike Magazine recommends their picks for the year’s best bike computers. Although the best bike computer is the one you’ve already got — after you throw it as far as you can so you can just enjoy riding without one.
Talk about not getting it. A Newton, Massachusetts resident and self-described bike rider complains that new raised bike lanes around a sharp curve make the road more dangerous, because it narrows the roadway on a dangerous corner. Except that forces drivers to slow down, which is kinda the point.
You’ve got to be kidding. An English man claims he had no idea he struck and killed a man riding a bicycle as he was backing up across the roadway to make a U-turn, insisting he thought he hit a stick — even though he never bothered to stop to see what shattered his rear window before driving away. You know, like any normal person would.
Life is cheap in Singapore, where a truck driver got eight months behind bars after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention for killing a woman who was riding an ebike in a crosswalk, after blaming the victim for not looking for traffic first, before crossing. But at least he lost his driver’s license for eight years.
Day 310 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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We won.
More or less, anyway.
Less than a week after we joined with other organizations in an urgent call for support — although this is only an organization if you count the corgi — the Malibu Planning Commission voted 4 – 1 to approve desperately needed safety improvements on PCH.
Although there were changes that watered down the project to get commissioners on board.
Caltrans decreased the number of new streetlights from 42 to 27.
City planning staff will inspect and ensure the lights are compliant with the city’s Dark Sky Ordinance.
Caltrans reduced the total length of new or upgraded bike lanes from 15 to 10 miles.
Caltrans must engage with first responders and Pepperdine University about a sidewalk it plans to build between John Tyler Road and Malibu Canyon Road to clear any concerns over emergency access to campus.
Notice that the bike lanes have been cut by a third. So apparently, the goal is now to only cull a few people on Malibu’s share of SoCal’s killer highway, instead of actually eliminating traffic deaths, or anything.
Approval of the project was needed this month, or Caltrans would have shifted funding for the $73 million project somewhere else, likely never to return.
Although LAist makes clear that some aggrieved person could still try to throw a wrench in the works. And there’s no shortage of aggrieved people in the ‘Bu.
Appeals timeline starts: According to the city, an “aggrieved person” has 10 days after approval to file an appeal of a Coastal Development Permit, like the one the commission extended to the Caltrans project. If the project is appealed, the matter will go before Malibu’s City Council.
The mountain bikers tried using their bikes to shield them from the big cat and yelling to frighten it off.
You can see from the video how well that worked.
Growing up in Colorado, where cougar encounters are far more common, we were taught to make yourself look as big as possible while maintaining eye contract and yelling while you slowly move away. Holding your bike or backpack up to make yourself appear larger could help.
But whatever you do, don’t run. Because that can trigger an attack response.
Experts say the young cat was probably just curious, rather than hungry. But just be careful and keep your eyes open if you’re riding in the area.
Or better yet, maybe ride somewhere else for the next few weeks.
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It looks like Calbike is finally starting to fight back over the ill-conceived cancellation of the California Ebike Incentive Program, calling on followers to write their representatives.
The state’s response to a wildly popular e-bike program? Cancel it and put the money towards cars.
CARB just pulled the plug on the E-Bike Incentive Project, folding what’s left of the funding into Clean Cars 4 All, a car trade-in program. Instead of helping people replace car trips, the state is rewarding people who already own one. It’s a telling political moment that mistakes “cleaner cars” for real progress.
This isn’t what climate leadership looks like. Over one hundred thousand Californians lined up for a modest voucher that would help them drive less, save money, and move freely. Ending that opportunity now ignores that clear demand and walks back hard-won progress.
Our state leaders can’t afford to shrug this off. It’s time to create a permanent fund for e-bikes — a real mobility solution, not another subsidy for car dependence. Contact your reps now.
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Streets For All is calling on Metro to spend just a tiny fraction of the $600 million it spends building freeways to fully fund CicLAvia.
Tell Metro to fully fund CicLAvia
Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee is currently reviewing Open Streets applications for Cycles 6 & 7 (2026 – 2028), but their own guidelines“include funding only for open and slow streets aligned with the major events 2026 and 2028,” leaving little or no support for local community Open Streets events in between.
CicLAvia is Los Angeles County’s largest recurring Open Streets program, drawing an average of 50,000 participants per event. These events transform city streets into safe, car-free spaces that promote public health, community connection, and environmental benefits:
Nearly 50% of first-time attendees said they would have otherwise stayed home or been sedentary.
A Preventive Medicine study found CicLAvia delivers measurable public-health benefits.
Harmful air pollution (PM 2.5) drops by almost 50% along the route on event days, and by 12% in surrounding neighborhoods.
Yet while event costs continue to rise, Metro’s Open Streets funding has not kept pace. Concentrating funds only around major international events undermines proven, community-based programs that already advance Metro’s mission of improving mobility, public health, and sustainability. Metro invests more than $600 million annually in freeway projects. We urge the agency to fully fund monthly CicLAvias, modest investments with outsized returns for public health, clean air, and community well-being.
A 69-year old Las Vegas man faces charges after he told police he killed a 77-year old man riding a bicycle after using marijuana and drinking an “unknown quantity of beers” before the crash; officers described him as “belligerently impaired” after the crash, and before he was taken away in an ambulance.
Voters in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown lived up to their reputation, approving plans to replace the former college football stadium with a shiny new bike park. And yes, that was the same stadium where I used to smuggle bourbon and rum inside my Sousaphone for the marching band.
Although it would have been nice to see Karen Bass on that bikeshare bike. Even if, as Steven put it in an email to me, Bass “would have had a prepared, pothole free, debris free, inconvenience free, (What? Stop at red lights????) route with a large security entourage.”
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
November 5, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Better bikeability in Whittier and Pomona, Utah puts 95% of residents near paved paths, and bike lanes reduce near-misses
Day 309 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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If you’re reading this, it means I managed to finish today’s post, despite spending all day dealing with a broken pipe under the bathroom sink, which dumped 50 years worth of accumulated inky goo over everything in the cabinet beneath it.
Good times.
It also means the icky gunk probably wasn’t toxic.
And if you’re not reading it, why the hell am I writing this?
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It looks like things are getting better in the far reaches of Los Angeles County.
First up is a press release from County Supervisor Janice Hahn, touting the approval of an 8.4-mile, $27 million Complete Streets project in South Whittier, expected to be finished just in time for the ’28 Olympics.
Los Angeles, CA – Today, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to approve the South Whittier Community Bikeway Access Improvements project, which will bring a total of 8.4 miles of bike lanes as well as street improvements to unincorporated South Whittier, with sections adjoining the cities of Santa Fe Springs and La Mirada. The project will bring bike lanes to within one mile of the Metrolink’s Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs Station.
“We are not only adding bike lanes—we are repairing and expanding sidewalks for pedestrians, adding trees, and improving signage to make our community safer and more accessible for everyone. This project is a major investment in a better quality of life for South Whittier and its neighbors,” said Supervisor Hahn, whose district includes the area. “I’m proud that we’re now a big step closer to making this vision a reality.”
Current view and rendering of improvements to Leffingwell Rd.
The South Whittier Community Bikeway Access Improvements project will install 4.6 miles of Class II bike lanes and 3.8 miles of Class III bike routes, without loss of travel lanes or parking. Additionally, the project will provide pavement resurfacing, installing wayfinding signage, construction of bulb-outs, reconstruction of curbs and gutters, sidewalks, and curb ramps, landscaping medians, removal and replanting of trees, replacing streetlights, and upgrading traffic signals with pedestrian push buttons with audio and vibration devices.
Work is expected to begin next July and be completed by January 2028, with an estimated total cost of $27 million. Funding sources include County road funds, Metro grants, as well as federal funds. Additionally, the City of La Mirada will contribute $67,000 and the City of Santa Fe Springs another $18,000.
Next comes this item from Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, who observes that Pomona is becoming bike friendly, “going above and beyond the basic minimums for safer streets, including bikeability, walkability, accessibility, and transit improvements.”
In the last half-dozen years, the city of Pomona has stepped up efforts toward safer, more multimodal streets. As new light rail arrives, the city is working to calm traffic, and to improve bikeability, walkability, and accessibility.
With about 150,000 residents, Pomona is the 7th most populous city among the 88 cities in L.A. County. More than two-thirds of Pomona residents are Latino; the city is also home to a longstanding Black community. Incomes vary in different neighborhoods, but a significant portion of the Pomona population is working class.
And yes, Pomona is in Los Angeles County, even if many Angelenos west of the 605 might assume otherwise.
It’s a good read, and shows what can be done when city officials actually care enough to make the necessary changes to improve safety.
It also might be worth putting your bike on the A Line and exploring the city yourself.
Comparing it to an Interstate Highway system, Governor Spencer Cox said the “Utah Trail Network,” 500 miles of which already exist, would put a safe bikeway within one mile of 95% of the state’s population.
According to Singletracks,
The trail system has been in the works since legislation passed in 2023, allocating up to 5% of revenues from six different taxes to the project, not to exceed $45 million per year. In effect, the project has been funded to the tune of $45 million per year indefinitely…
“The goal is to connect the entire state of Utah with a network of paved trails. The goal is to help people have transportation options so they can choose to walk, bike, or scoot to their destinations without having to get in a car,” Stephanie Tomlin, Trails Division director at UDOT, told ABC4.
There is currently no plan for anything like this here in California.
The closest we have is the California Coastal Trail, which proposes connecting existing bike paths along the Pacific coast from Oregon to Mexico. Which is great for bike touring or casual coastal rides, but does little for bike commuters, or anyone anywhere else in the state.
One of the study’s senior authors, Nicola Christie, said cycling near misses were often “overlooked” in official statistics as they sometimes go unreported. Calling them “crucial indicators of road safety,” the professor explained that the findings “show that most near misses happen on roads without cycling infrastructure, and that junctions are particularly hazardous.”
“One of the benefits of using helmet-mounted cameras and voice-activated reporting as we did in this study is that they offer an easy and effective way to gather data on cycling safety, which can be used to evaluate the impact of infrastructure changes and safety campaigns,” she explained.
“This research adds to the growing evidence that cycling infrastructure helps protect cyclists and that Transport for London’s action plan to improve cycling safety is paying off.”
Just more evidence that even painted bike lanes can improve safety.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A self-entitled street vigilante was released from a Florida jail, following a viral incident where she got out of her Bentley to confront a bunch of ebike-riding kids for popping wheelies — probably on electric motorbikes, rather than ped-assist ebikes — even though they obeyed her demand to “get off the road” by moving to a nearby bike path, then snatched a phone out of one kid’s hand and threatened to throw it into a canal, before driving off on the bike path. Although it sounds like the judge in this case might be just a tad biased.
A Canadian law professor advocates for the Idaho Stop Law, arguing that requiring bike riders to obey the same laws as motorists creates a false sense of equivalency. Maybe California can finally get an Idaho Stop, aka Stop as Yield, once Gavin Newsom’s veto pen leaves office next year.
Calbike Executive Director Kendra Ramsey says she knew as early as the middle of last month that the state Ebike Incentive Program was going down the toilet.
But Kendra Ramsey, the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike), said she was told in mid-October that CARB would shift the program’s remaining funds to Clean Cars 4 All, a similar incentive program for electric vehicles.
While she said she felt the conversation was meant to be private, she expected it would be followed by a more formal announcement from the agency.
“That direct communication from CARB never came,” Ramsey told KQED.
I hate to criticize Calbike, which does a lot of good working for safer streets and the rights of California bicyclists.
But shouldn’t that have been a hair-on-fire moment for Ramsey to get word out while we still had a chance to fight this deeply misguided decision?
We don’t know what conversations have taken place behind the scenes. However, throughout the long and twisted history of this program, it has seemed like Calbike wasn’t pushing CARB hard enough to fund and operate the voucher program.
Instead, at least publicly, they have offered a mild response to CARB’s many fuckups.
There comes a time when you have to set your hair on fire to call attention to a problem, and force a response to address it. It seems like that moment never came for Calbike.
The leader of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wasn’t thrilled with CARB killing the ebike voucher program, either.
“Such a popular program shouldn’t be ended,” said Christopher White, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “It should be operated well and fully funded because it promises to transform the mobility habits of tens of thousands of Californians to be more sustainable, far safer, [and it’s] far less expensive for the individuals to operate their new vehicles.
Like many transit advocate groups, he said he only found out about the shift in program funds from CalBike.
“It definitely gives the sense that CARB knows that this is the wrong direction to be moving in, to keep it so quiet,” he said.
In one of his TikTok videos/campaign ads, Zohran Mamdani (suit, tie, no helmet) unlocks a Citi Bike from an Upper East Side dock as someone off in the distance yells “Communist!”
Without missing a beat he replies, “It’s pronounced cyclist!”
In an electoral campaign defined by Mamdani—his youth, that he’s a Muslim, his views toward Israel, and his affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America—many have missed that Mamdani might become the first New York City Mayor to be a real cyclist, the first Citi Bike Mayor.
Whether or not you agree with his politics, it would be nice to have someone who actually rides a bike, let alone bikeshare, leading America’s largest city.
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Speaking of which, it looks like we won’t get to see LA’s mayor ride a bike after all, after the Dodgers pulled out a semi-miraculous win in the World Series.
Which means Chow will have to ride five miles wearing a Dodgers jersey.
It would have almost been worth it to see the Blue Jays successfully close out the final game just to see Bass on a bike for the first time since she was elected mayor.
Pasadena is preparing an update to the city’s bicycle laws, defining what an ebike is to conform with California law, while removing an outdated bicycle licensing requirement that is now illegal under state law.
No surprise here. After a 35-year old driver was charged for the October 22nd hit-and-run that seriously injured a 12-year old El Cajon boy riding a bicycle, it turned out that he had two open charges for evading the police, as well as a failure to appear on one of the charges; family member had encouraged him to turn himself in after spotting blood on his car, but he refused until police caught up with him.
No justice in Fargo, North Dakota, where a killer driver walked without a day behind bars for running over a 61-year old university nanoscience engineer as he rode a bicycle earlier this year.
November 3, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on More on CARB’s quiet murder of scandal-plagued CA Ebike Incentives, and Metro forgets HLA bike lanes on Sunset busway
Day 307 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Okay, so the Dodgers won, after nearly giving me and everyone in Los Angeles a heart attack.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I credit a lifetime of bicycling for maintaining a steady pulse rate throughout the game. How anyone else in this city managed to survive, I have no idea.
And if you’re heading to the victory parade today, for Kershaw’s sake, take Metro.
Or better yet, ride your bike. Just be careful where you lock it up, and how, to make sure it’s still there when the parade it over.
Meanwhile, today’s photo is a reminder of the total disaster we all endured trying to apply for ebike vouchers earlier this year.
After getting a typically non-responsive response from the California Air Resources Board about CARB’s co-opting of the remaining $18 million in ebike voucher funding, McDonald, who has closely followed the story from its very messy beginning to its inglorious end, wrote this.
The state air board did not respond to follow-up questions about the flawed administration of the e-bike program or two investigations into Pedal Ahead, the San Diego nonprofit selected to manage the effort whose website is now suspended…
The San Diego Union-Tribune first reported in June 2024 that the SANDAG e-bike initiative was troubled. Agency officials had begun investigating Pedal Ahead early last year for failing to comply with terms of the grant it had been awarded two years earlier.
At the same time, the Union-Tribune reported, CARB was conducting its own review into Pedal Ahead’s management, and criminal investigators at the California Department of Justice were scrutinizing the San Diego nonprofit.
Yet nothing in CARB’s statement took any responsibility for the failed administration of the program. Or for selecting a highly questionable administrator for the program.
Pedal Ahead founder Edward Clancy was deeply involved in an investigation into an alleged bribery scandal involving foreign money donated to San Diego-area politicians by agreeing to wear a wire for the FBI. However, he was not charged with any wrongdoing himself.
Then again, people who co-operate with investigations in order to land bigger fish often aren’t. Just ask Los Angeles “City Staffer B.”
Again, according to McDonald,
But in his leadership of Pedal Ahead, publicly filed tax returns and Clancy’s own comments raised questions about how the organization accounted for the millions of dollars it received from government contracts.
The nonprofit’s revenue and expenses reported on federal tax returns did not always match publicly announced contracts. Clancy told the Union-Tribune that $1 million Pedal Ahead collected was in a bank despite not being included in declared revenue.
“Funding is in a money market account, per contract requirement to yield interest that goes back into the program,” he said in a 2024 email. “To date, there is additional approximate $34,000 earned.”
Finally, writing in a very deadpan, journalistic voice, McDonald concluded,
General accepted accounting principles do not allow nonprofits to withhold revenue or spending from their public tax filings.
Which is putting it mildly.
Yet no one at CARB has ever taken responsibility for orchestrating this massive shitshow, instead sweeping it under the rug by co-opting the funding and just shutting the whole damn thing down.
Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has anyone ever asked them to.
Full disclosure, McDonald reached out to me for a comment on Friday, but I didn’t see his email until after Friday’s game, and I apparently responded too late for his deadline.
But this is what I would have said.
This is an extremely car-centric decision that defeats the entire purpose of Ebike Voucher Program, which was to provide viable alternatives to driving to reduce pollution and traffic congestion. The fact is, there is no such thing as a clean car; even an entirely electric car has to get power somewhere, and still contributes to particulate pollution from brake and tire wear. This also discriminates against older and disabled people who can no longer drive and need a viable transportation option. Simply put, there is nothing good about this extremely short-sighted decision.
In retrospect, I may have sounded a tad miffed. When I intended sound miffed as hell.
I have repeatedly called for an investigation into this program. But if anyone has actually looked into it — whether the legislature that approved it, the governor’s office, or the state attorney general — not one word has leaked to the public.
Instead, everyone seems to have simply gone along with CARB’s attempt to quietly kill the whole program, and hope no one noticed.
According to a little noticed item in last week’s Metro Community Relations Newsletter, the agency is planning to build bus lanes on the busy boulevard, while once again ignoring bike lanes called for in the Mobility Plan.
Get involved and hear about the changes coming to Sunset Bl—virtually!
Metro is planning improvements to make travel along Sunset Bl faster and more reliable. The project will improve a 4.3-mile stretch from Vermont Av to Havenhurst Dr by adding bus priority lanes for Metro Line 2 on weekdays during peak hours. Each day, about 20,000 riders travel this segment, and the priority lanes will make their trips faster and more reliable. In addition, the project will benefit over 111,000 residents and nearly 60,000 jobs located within a 10-minute walk of the corridor. Join us for a virtual community meeting on Wednesday, November 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. to learn more about the Sunset Bl Bus Priority Lanes Project. You can participate online using this link(Meeting ID: 815 9457 3537) or by phone at 213.338.8477. Visit the project website to learn more: metro.net/sunsetbl.
The project runs 4.3 miles along Sunset, threading through West Hollywood, Hollywood and East Hollywood, while the Mobility Plan calls for four miles of painted, unprotected bike lanes along the corridor, in addition to bus lanes and pedestrian enhancements.
So let’s all applaud Metro for taking the long-overdue step of building bus lanes on Sunset. But maybe we could gently nudge them towards keeping the city’s bike lane promises, too.
Speaking of which, Joe Linton, who seems to be everywhere these days, reminds us about that virtual meeting to discuss the project on the 12th of this month.
Bluesky post
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Cambridge, England letter writer complained about an election mailer that said “Your vote can save lives,” arguing that bike safety isn’t the only issue facing the city, and two of the three recent bicycling deaths shouldn’t count because they happened on streets with shiny new bike lanes.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Bicyclists in Mérida, Yucatán are fighting to keep protective planters on a bike lane, despite calls for their removal from local businesses, who argue they interfere with tour buses and reduce street parking. In other words, kind of like anywhere else.
Sad news from France, where the oldest living Olympic gold medalist died at age 101; cyclist Charles Coste won gold in team pursuit in the 1948 London Olympics, and served as a torchbearer 76 years later at last year’s Paris Games.
Choose Life Over Delay — tell the Planning Commission to Approve the Plan
On Monday, November 3, the Malibu Planning Commission will hold its final hearing to decide whether to approve the Caltrans PCH Safety Project — a $55 million once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild and make PCH safer for everyone. Based on the last meeting, they are not likely to approve the plans unless people express strong support for the plans.
You can view that meeting here. The presentation, public comment, and debate start at 38:10 and continue for a couple of hours.
This plan would repave and reconstruct the western end of PCH from Cross Creek Rd to the Ventura County line while adding long-overdue safety improvements like:
15 miles of new or upgraded bike lanes
6,956 linear feet of new sidewalks in high pedestrian zones, including in front of Pepperdine University
42 new dark-sky compliant light poles
The installation of 19 new guardrails
22 new or upgraded curb ramps
Three new retaining walls
Two realigned intersections
A vehicle pull-out for law enforcement use
Median reconstruction at various locations
Associated roadway improvements along Pacific Coast Highway within the Public Right-of-Way between the Ventura County line and Serra Road
There are additional safety improvements that can and should be made after this. They will require additional funding and much more work to secure approval from agencies like the California Coastal Commission. The items above are changes that can be easily implemented with the funds immediately available.
If the Planning Commission fails to approve the project, the funding will vanish. The road will not be repaved, the safety upgrades will not happen, and Malibu will lose its only realistic chance to prevent more deaths on the western end of PCH for years or even decades.
This is not just another meeting — it’s a moral choice between action and inaction. Every year of delay means more preventable crashes, more empty chairs at dinner tables, and more families devastated by the same road we all depend on.
What We’re Asking You to Do:
Email the Malibu Planning Commission today and tell them to approve the Caltrans PCH Safety Plan. Ask them to prioritize lives over delays — to say YES to rebuilding PCH safely, responsibly, and collaboratively. We can continue to refine the details, but we cannot afford to lose the funding and start from zero.
Please also show up to the Planning Commission Meeting on Monday, 3 Nov, starting at 6:30 at Malibu City Hall. This is the link to the agenda.
This is Malibu’s last real chance to fix the western end of PCH.
Not mentioned is that failure to approve the plan means the money will be reallocated to other projects, somewhere else in the state. Which will set back desperately needed safety improvements on SoCal’s killer highway years, if not decades.
The Malibu Planning Commission doesn’t want to hear from me, since I haven’t set foot or wheel on PCH or in Malibu for years.
California’s DUI enforcement system is broken. The toll can be counted in bodies.
Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California have shot up by more than 50% in the past decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal estimates show. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions. Thousands more are injured. Again and again, repeat DUI offenders cause the crashes…
We found that California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment. Here, drivers generally can’t be charged with a felony until their fourth DUI within 10 years, unless they injure someone. In some states, a second DUI can be a felony…
California also gives repeat drunk drivers their licenses back faster than other states. Here, you typically lose your license for three years after your third DUI, compared to eight years in New Jersey, 15 years in Nebraska and a permanent revocation in Connecticut. We found drivers with as many as six DUIs who were able to get a license in California.
Many drivers stay on the road for years even when the state does take their license — racking up tickets and even additional DUIs — with few consequences until they eventually kill.
Seriously, read it now. We’ll wait for you.
Back already?
Maybe you caught the part where they said “drunk vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent felony,” but DUI causing “great bodily injury” is. So breaking someone’s leg while driving under the influence can result in more jail time than killing someone.
Go figure.
Or that some California drivers have somehow remained on the road with up to 16 DUIs, until some innocent person pays the price. Or far too often, more than one.
And that arrests have dropped in half over the past 20 years, even as loosened cannabis laws and ready access to pharmaceuticals — legal and otherwise — mean more people than ever are likely driving under the influence of something.
This isn’t just theoretical for me.
One of my best childhood friends was killed by a drunk driver our senior year of high school. He was a state tennis champ deciding between a college scholarship and going pro when a woman somehow jumped a 50-foot median with guard rails on either side, and hit his car head-on, killing him and a passenger.
She walked away without a scratch. Or any jail time.
The same with my cousin, a rodeo queen killed when her father made a sudden turn, throwing her out of the back seat, then ran over her when he went back to get her.
So yeah, it’s personal.
And don’t even get me started on all the many victims of drunk and drugged drivers I’ve had to write about here over the last two decades.
Yes, this state just approved a law extending the ability of judges to order DUI drivers to install an interlock device. But that won’t do a damn thing to stop someone from getting behind the wheel stoned out of their mind.
It’s long past time California got serious about drunk and drugged drivers, even if that means taking their cars away and not just their licenses. Or building a new effing prison to hold them all if we have to.
I’ll be happy to chip in to help pay for it, if it means a few more people will make it back home at the end of every day.
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More on yesterday’s story about the California Air Resources Board stabbing the bicycle community in the back by quietly stabbing the California Ebike Incentive Program in the front when no one was looking.
Despite demand for e-bike vouchers being so high that it crashed the website each time the state opened the lottery, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted at their last meeting to end the statewide program it oversaw, rolling the remaining $17 million of the original $30 million allocated by the legislature into its “Clean Cars 4 All” Program.
The concept of California E-Bike Incentive Project began had so much promise but was plagued with scandal and incompetence to such a level that one prospective applicant told Streetsblog last April, “If they were actively trying to sabotage the program, what would they do differently than this?”
Regardless of the intent, the effect is the same. The April application portal was the last time the program gave out certificates.
He adds that the most surprising thing is how quietly the program slunk out — or was tossed out — the back door, with no official announcement, no press release, and no mention on the program’s website.
There’s more. A lot more, in fact.
It’s all worth a read.
But what occurred to me yesterday is that this could leave CARB exposed to a lawsuit for age discrimination and violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Because by transferring the funds to a green car program, they are favoring people capable of driving over those who can no longer drive due to age and/or illness, and needed an ebike to provide greater mobility.
Could it win?
I have no idea. I’m not a lawyer, and have no expertise in ADA or age discrimination law.
But if someone needs a plaintiff, I know where they can look.
That’s more like it. A 27-year old Bakersfield man was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run crash that killed a 30-year old woman riding a bicycle in 2022, despite turning himself in a few days later after sobering up. As lax as California’s DUI laws are, the state-s hit-and-run statutes are even worse, providing an incentive for drivers to flee if they’ve had a few.
A Florida op-ed writer argues that greater enforcement against bike riders and pedestrians is exactly what’s needed to improve traffic safety. Because we’re the real danger, apparently, not the people in the big, dangerous machines.
