The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding on westbound Highway 126 east of Main Street in Piru when he was struck by a driver just after 5:45 am.
After an on-scene investigation took place, CHP officials determined the bicyclist may have been riding in the traffic lanes and the driver of a Nissan Sentra was unable to avoid colliding with the bicyclist, according to a CHP news release. The driver sustained minor injuries.
Never mind that bicyclists have as much right to be in the roadway as motorists do. Or that the traffic lane is exactly where they’re supposed to ride.
According to California law, while bike riders are allowed to ride on the shoulder, they’re neither required or expected to. And nothing to the right of the fog line is legally considered part of the roadway.
In addition, CVC 21202(a)(4) clearly states if the traffic lane is too narrow safely share — which includes most right hand lanes in Southern California — the rider may use the full lane.
(3) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes) that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge, subject to the provisions of Section 21656. For purposes of this section, a “substandard width lane” is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.
Then there’s statement from the CHP that the driver was unable to avoid the collision.
So let’s be clear.
Unless the victim was riding without lights or reflectors in the early morning darkness, the driver should have been able to see him. But if he wasn’t, the CHP would undoubtedly have mentioned that.
And if the driver had his headlights on, which would be legally required at that hour, he would have been able to see him anyway — unless he was driving too fast for his headlights, which is a violation of California’s Basic Speed Law.
“No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.”
The key word there in this case is visibility, which includes darkness.
So unless the victim was riding against traffic — which again, the CHP would have mentioned — the question remains why the driver couldn’t see a grown man on a bicycle directly in front of his or her car?
And why is the CHP once again blaming a victim for his own death?
Because we all deserve to know.
Anyone with information is urged to call the CHP at 805/553-0800.
This is at least the 52nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
Tom Justice kept just two twenties from his first several robberies, dumping the rest in the trash or where homeless people could find it.
He eventually spent 11 years behind bars after stealing a total of $129,338 from 26 banks in Illinois and Southern California, making his escape on a bespoke racing bike.
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Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Aurelio Jose Barrera was one of us.
After he retired from the LA Times, Barrera rode his bike every morning to deliver excess fruit from neighbors’ trees to feed homeless men and women.
He won the award for a groundbreaking series of black and white photos that personalized LA’s long-overlooked Latino community back in the 1980s, when the paper didn’t think it was worth covering.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Just horrible. Two people are dead in Las Vegas after a passenger leaned out the window of a moving car to push a woman off her bike, then fell out of the car himself. The woman was killed when she hit her head on the asphalt, and the man who needlessly took her life died when he hit his head on a street light after skidding 150 feet along the roadway. The driver could face a well-deserved murder charge.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A New York bike rider apparently didn’t take too kindly to a pro-Trump rally blocking the Brooklyn Bridge.
Twitter post
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Local
Despite a pandemic-induced shutdown, CicLAvia celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this month. I was there for the first one on 10-10-10, and witnessed the inception of CicLAvia as an LACBC board member when few people thought it could really happen in auto-centric Los Angeles. Myself included.
A Ventura man faces attempted murder charges for a series of attacks on homeless people; a bystander suffered minor injuries when the attacker ran him down with his car as he tried to follow the suspect on his bike.
More bad news, as a bike rider was killed in a Eureka collision. Note to Redheaded Blackbelt — maybe don’t include a photo showing the victim’s tarp-covered body next time. No one needs to see that shit.
No bias here. London’s Daily Mail says popup bike lanes installed during the pandemic are being ripped out after “paralyzing cities” with gridlock. Never mind that the whole point of popup lanes is that they are temporary, but can be converted to permanent lanes if they prove successful, and removed if they don’t.
Oasis star Liam Gallagher is one of us now, riding a bike through the streets of London after doctors tell him to stop jogging.
October 23, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Hit-and-run driver busted behind bars for killing South LA father, LA considers civilian traffic cops, and Bike the Vote!
They didn’t have to look far to find one hit-and-run driver.
Fortunately, his two children were uninjured, aside from the trauma of seeing their father killed in front of their eyes.
When LAPD officers searched for Iscaya, however, they found he was already being held by sheriff’s deputies on $2.2 million bail, charged with multiple counts including murder.
Maybe they should just add another murder count while they’re at it.
Unfortunately, felony hit-and-run resulting in death would only add a maximum of four years to whatever he gets if he’s convicted on the other charges.
Los Angeles could soon be the home of the nation’s largest ebike factory; privately owed ROKiT MADE plans to open next year to build “best-in-class e-Bike models across all price points in each market segment,” in a plant designed to accommodate up to 2,000 workers.
A Kansas driver had his wrist slap sentence tossed out on appeal, after the court ruled the judge has exceeded her discretion by reducing his ten-year sentence for second-degree murder by over eight years; the court ordered him resentenced for running down a man with his car following a dispute.
The Cedar City, Utah edition of the Belgian Waffle Ride was the first gravel race to roll as the nation slowly continues a premature wakeup from Covid-19; VeloNews looks at the precautions that were taken to help keep everyone safe.
October 21, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Streetsblog honors BikinginLA sponsor; cars get bigger, stronger & deadlier; and Paris to eliminate half of parking spaces
The festivities kick off this evening with a free Game Show on Zoom hosted by Streetsblog LA founder Damien Newton and Jim Pocrass, who is being honored with the 2020 Streetsie Patron’s Award.
That’s followed on Saturday with Ask Me Anything with LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl; Streetsblog wants to know what you’d like to ask her when she appears on the website’s Zoom party.
It all culminates next Tuesday with the 2020 Streetsie Award Dinner on Zoom.
October 20, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Ped superhero Peatónito studies LA Vision Zero fail; Slow Streets win at LA Council, and bike rider busted for Metro murder
I’ve never been one for the whole superhero genre, preferring to find heroes in real life.
But I make an exception for Mexico City’s caped protector of pedestrians, the legendary Peatónito.
Nowadays it feels like we can all use a hero or shero. So we’re happy to introduce Peatónito! He comes to us from Mexico City, where he began his masked work saving lives and slowing traffic. And Peatónito has traveled beyond, from NYC to Los Angeles, fighting against the crime of poorly designed streets & sidewalks and reckless driving through creative public demonstrations and street theater.
This summer, Los Angeles Walks partnered with the crime fighter as we trained future generations of peatónitos and organized for safe street changes. He finished his training at UCLA’s Institute of Transportaiton Studies, where he penned a pedestrian manifesto (or his graduate capstone paper) titled The Pedestrian Battle of Los Angeles: How to Empower Communities to Plan and Implement Pedestrian Road Safety Infrastructure.
• Walking in a non-white census tract increases the probability of being killed or severely injured by a motor vehicle in Los Angeles (Figure 1). Black people are only 8% of the population, but 20% of all pedestrian fatalities. Meanwhile, median income, vulnerable age (children and older adults), and the number of cars in a household do not have a statistically significant relationship with pedestrian road safety.
• City council members are responsive to residents’ demands and threats opposing pedestrian-focused traffic safety. Even when other city agencies and LADOT support these improvements, the city council has more power over deciding the outcome of road safety infrastructure plans. Consequently, there is a need to balance this power dynamic.
• Affluent, car-oriented residents tend to have stronger influence over council members, who prioritize their concerns over those of underserved people. This power dynamic in LA permits small groups of noisy stakeholders to hijack a conversation; they manipulate the narrative to make it seem convenient for everyone. It is vital to give more power to the people that fight for safe streets, whose voices
“The pedestrian is nobody in this city, he has been forgotten by authorities and our own citizenry. The curious and paradoxical thing is that we are all pedestrians at some moment. As such, we have forgotten ourselves.” – Peatónito
Here’s how Los Angeles Walks succinctly sums up Peatónito’s recommendations.
• The City must recommit and strengthen the Vision Zero program, a city-wide initiative to reduce traffic fatalities to ZERO by 2025.
• The City budget should adequately fund and staff all of Vision Zero’s goals, including the Dignity Infused Community Engagement (DICE) project.
• The state should get rid of the 85th percentile rule, a state rule that requires speed to be set at the average of ongoing traffic, which has led to what many call “speed creep.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Let’s hope he sticks around. LA pedestrians — and bike riders — could really use our own superhero.
Meanwhile, it’s nice to see a community organization pressing the candidates for LA’s 10th Council District about their stands on active transportation.
Twitter post
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Looks like The New Yorker is catching up on the city’s coronavirus bike boom.
Twitter post
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Toronto letter writer complains that few of the city’s bike riders wear helmets, despite a mandatory helmet law. Although the headline writer deserves to get their knuckles rapped for saying “Bike lanes are only good if cyclists wear a helmet,” which is factually incorrect, and has nothing to do with what the writer wrote.
The race moto rider Julian Alaphilippe crashed into in the Tour of Flanders says he can’t help feeling guilty about the crash. Although the people who really deserve the blame are the ones who allow motorcycles near cyclists in the peloton to begin with.
