Hit-and-run victim Virgilio Lemus Garcia died last month, 3 days after Santa Ana crash; 22nd fatal SoCal bike hit-and-run

November 11, 2019 / / One comment

Unfortunately, the press seldom follows up once the ambulance doors close. And it may take weeks before we find out what happened afterwards.

If ever.

That’s what happened with 60-year old Santa Ana resident Virgilio Lemus Garcia, after he was left lying in the street by a hit-and-run driver early in the morning on Sunday, October 13th.

According to KNBC-4, Santa Ana police responded to reports of a man with a bicycle lying in the street at 5:20 am, at the intersection of Main Street and Warner Avenue in Santa Ana.

According to a witness, Garcia was riding his bike on Warner Ave when he was run down by the driver of a blue Honda, who only stopped briefly before hitting the gas.

Other reports indicate Garcia was headed north on Main when he was struck by a driver going west on Warner.

He was hospitalized in grave condition with severe bleeding his brain and throughout his body.

Sadly, Garcia’s niece reported on Facebook the following Wednesday that he had passed away, and was buried last week.

Video from the scene shows his mangled mountain bike near the curb, and the same black cowboy hat he wore in photos lying in the street.

Police are looking for a mid-1990s dark blue Honda Civic sedan with likely front-end damage, including broken head lights and a possible shattered windshield.

They say alcohol may have played a role in the crash, but didn’t explain how.

Garcia death came a little more than two weeks before last week’s fatal Santa Ana hit-and-run, and roughly five and a half miles away.

Anyone with information is urged to call Santa Ana Police at 714/245-8208 or 714/245-8700.

This is at least the 65th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the tenth that I’m aware of in Orange County.

Twenty-two of those deaths have been the result of hit-and-runs, including ten of the 21 bike riders killed since September 3rd.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Virgilio Lemus Garcia and all his loved ones.

Thanks to Bill Sellin for the heads-up, and his help in tracking down this story.

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: More NTSB bike helmet fallout, OC bike rider dies after hit-and-run, and the wise really do ride bikes

November 11, 2019 / / 3 comments

Let’s start by wishing a happy Veterans Day to everyone who has served their country to help keep the rest of us safe.

Cycling Weekly considers how military training can make you a better bicyclist.

And hundreds of bike-riding military vets, many disabled, were expected to roll through Las Vegas this Veterans Day weekend as part of Project Hero to call attention to the problem of suicide among veterans.

Let’s hope that one day veterans will finally get the care they need to come all the way home.

Artwork by VintageBlue from Pixabay.

………

The fallout over the National Transportation Safety Board’s call for mandatory helmet laws continued over the weekend.

NACTO told the NTSB not so fast on calling for mandatory helmet laws, saying building safe places to ride a bike will keep people safer than making everyone wear a helmet; you can read their full statement here.

Sonoma’s Press Democrat begged to differ, however, saying requiring helmets for all bike riders of any age would save lives. Although more than a few studies have suggested the opposite is true.

An automotive website notes that not one state currently mandates all bicyclists have to wear helmets.

And bike riders aren’t sold on the idea, either.

………

Just learned that OC bike rider Virgil Lemus Garcia died last month, two days after being critically injured by a hit-and-run driver.

Unfortunately, there was no follow-up story in the news, and no coroner’s report since he died in the hospital.

We’ll post our story later today.

Thanks to Bill Sellin for the heads-up.

………

Don’t give drivers the bird.

Especially it’s on your handlebars.

https://twitter.com/Hoshikazu123/status/1192350304123015168

Clearly, any owl that rides a bike really is wise.

………

Cute video from pro stunt cyclist Cam McCaul, as he goes for a bike ride with his adorable daughters, and takes a spin around a bike park with his three-year old on his bike.

But thankfully saves the back flips for when he’s riding solo.

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When a bike gets too old to ride, you can still use it to hold your burger and beer.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

A Stanford student was the victim of a hate crime when a white woman pushed a woman of Asian descent off her bicycle, then stood over her on the street and called her an ethnic slur before walking away.

The owners of a Portland bikini coffee shop face charges after a road rage incident involving a group of bicyclists in front of their shop; after one of the riders didn’t take kindly to being yelled at, one the men got out of their car carrying a hammer, punched one man, then knocked a phone out of a woman’s hand before punching her out cold.

The New York Post claims that in four years, the city’s war on cars has claimed 6,100 parking spaces. On the other hand, it’s also claimed the live of 39 people riding bicycles over the same period. So which side is losing?

Yet another British man has been pushed off his bicycle by someone in a passing vehicle; this time the victim was a 72-year old grandfather.

Sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A man on a bicycle could face attempted murder charges for shooting two homeless people with a bow and arrow in the East Bay city of Richmond CA; the victims are in stable condition following surgery.

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Local

Michael over at CLR Effect questions whether officials on La Verne are just yanking our chains by failing to paint the promised bike lanes after Baseline Road was repaved, and restriped for every other purpose. Thanks to Erik Griswold for the link.

 

State

The former mayor of Encinitas wears her windshield bias on her sleeve, concluding that a road diet on the coast highway is a bad idea because only around 300 people in the city ride their bikes to work. So apparently, all those people who ride their bikes to school, for errands or shopping, or for recreation and exercise through the city don’t exist. Or maybe just don’t count in her book.

Horrible story from Mead Valley, where a woman was mauled by a pair of pit bulls as she walked her bicycle; police also found the badly decomposed body of the dogs’ owner when they checked their home.

Bad news from San Francisco, where a woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was collateral damage after another driver hit a car and swerved into her. Note to KRON-4 — yes, the vehicles stayed at the scene. But only because the people driving them did.

A Bay Area pedestrian advocacy group has started a Slow Our Streets campaign to call for reduced speed limits, speed bumps and better traffic enforcement to protect the lives of people walking or riding a bike.

This is who we share the roads with. A Marin County woman will face a handful of charges for killing a woman on a bicycle last year, after investigators presented evidence that she was drunk and possibly impaired by cannabis and a medication to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, and had been texting moments before the crash.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a man was killed when he was run down from behind by an SUV. Yet somehow, the city’s CBS station manages to get through the entire story without mentioning that the SUV may have had a driver.

 

National

Good advice. Bike Snob says don’t try to fix your bike when there’s nothing wrong with it.

A new study from BYU says yes, an ebike gives you a real workout, but it doesn’t feel like one.

Skip the recovery drink after your next ride, and just grab a cold one.

A New Mexico man looks back on earning ride patches in the early days of the League of American Wheelmen, long before the group changed its name to the League of American Bicyclists and transformed in to the advocacy group better known as the Bike League.

An Arkansas man is likely to go away for a very long time; in addition to a felony bike theft charge, he faces ten years for violating probation for burning down a barn, and another ten for not updating his registration as a sex offender after getting kicked out of a halfway house.

Wouldn’t a better term for an “interactive live mannequin” pedaling in the window of a Wisconsin bike shop be a person riding a stationary bike?

After Chicago suffers its third bicycling death of the year, the Chicago Tribune calls on the city’s drivers to start seeing people on bicycles.

A Illinois man has earned the title Bike Man by saving over 3,000 broken bikes from the junk heap and repairing them to give to people in need.

A new sculpture in Auburn NY will honor former slave and Underground Railroad founder Harriet Tubman with bicycles depicting different aspects of her life.

Evidently, public shaming motivates police departments, too. Streetsblog reports the NYPD was motivated to hold a reckless driver who crashed into a bike rider accountable, but only after they asked cops about a viral video showing the crash.

The carnage continues on the streets of New York, where 25-year old professional wrestler Matt Travis became the 28th person to be killed riding a bike in the city this year when he was struck by a dump truck driver making an illegal turn.

We already knew New Orleans Saints QB Teddy Bridgewater is one of us; now he’s thanking the people who unexpectedly fixed his bike so he didn’t have to walk to Sunday’s game.

 

International

The Financial Post considers how former Microsoft star J Allard developed the 529 Garage app, and worked with police in Vancouver to cut bike theft by 40% in four years.

Toronto’s Globe and Mail wants to know what Canadian officials are doing about distracted driving, calling it as dangerous as DUI was decades ago.

This is who we share the roads with, part two. Police in Ontario fined a semi driver $615 for weaving all over the road while he was watching TV behind the wheel.

A London cartoonist offers his view of bicycling in the city. I particularly like his take on the urban peloton and the reality of city cycling.

The New York Times takes a deep dive in the bicycling world of Copenhagen, where the only traffic congestion is on two wheels, and even the dead ride bikes.

A Ugandan-born man won Sweden’s 2019 Environmental Innovator of the Year Award for offering tours of Stockholm on Greek-made wooden bicycles.

While most of Europe is moving forward with creating bike lanes and space for people, Madrid is in retreat.

An Aussie teacher and mother of two has traded her car for a bicycle and pledged not to even set foot in a car for the next year.

 

Competitive Cycling

It was a close call for 52-year old Italian great Mario Cipollini, who was lucky to survive a major heart problem thanks to a five hour surgery; now he faces charges for pointing a gun at his ex-wife.

Another trans woman has been subjected to online harassment after winning a bike race; fixed-gear racer Evelyn Sifton said no one cared when she finished in 20th or 30th place, but only when she finally won one.

 

Finally…

Using a bicycle as an anchor to weigh down a body may not be its best use. Any bike cartoons that feature Santa Claus and a corgi can’t be all bad.

And James Bond is one of us. No, not that one. Not him, either. Nope, not that guy. Or the other guy, for that matter.

………

Thanks to Felicia G for being the first person to donate to this year’s BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, before it even started. 

The annual fund drive won’t officially launch until Thanksgiving, but the page is already active in case anyone else wants to get a head start on it. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Cars killing progress on CA climate goals, Flax debunks call for helmet laws, and what a bike thief looks like

November 8, 2019 / / 3 comments

As things stand now, California is likely to miss its climate goals.

By a century.

That’s according to a report from MIT Technology Review, which says that despite significant reductions in the energy sector, the state is making little or no progress in other areas.

They point the finger at rising auto emissions, as car ownership climbs while transit use declines.

Transportation emissions, the state’s largest source, have steadily risen since 2013, as the improving economy put more cars on the road and planes in the sky. Emissions from waste dumped into landfills have also been ticking up since the recovery took hold. Meanwhile, highly potent greenhouse gases from the aerosols, foams, and solvents used in refrigeration and air conditioning are rising sharply…

At the same time, overall car ownership rates are rising, public-transit use is falling, and consumers are still shifting toward gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. And the 92% of vehicles sold last year that weren’t EVs will, on average, still be on the roads more than a decade from now.

Accelerating the shift to cleaner vehicles is likely to require far stricter policies, far more generous subsidies, cheaper EVs, and a massive build-out of charging infrastructure. And even California’s efforts to boost the average fuel efficiency of cars sold in the state have been complicated by the Trump administration’s legal challenges.

And while San Francisco and San Diego have been making progress in building out bicycle networks to entice people out of their cars, it’s ground to a near halt in the state’s largest city.

Yes Los Angeles, we’re talking about you.

Maybe one day, the so-called progressives, environmentalists and other assorted climate activists at city hall will stop talking about the problem, and actually do something.

But sadly, that day is not today.

………

Bike scribe Peter Flax is up to his old tricks.

If you can call insightful writing and consistently hitting the nail on the head a trick.

Writing for Bicycling, Flax examines the extremely flawed recommendations from NTBS — the National Transportation Safety Board, which usually concerns itself with plane and train crashes — to reduce the climbing rate of bicycle deaths.

Starting, and nearly ending, with bike helmets and high viz.

And yet the top-line proposals from the NTSB largely shifted responsibility to solve this deadly crisis onto cyclists themselves. Two of the three key recommendations focused on the need for riders to wear helmets and be more conspicuous. (The third was about improving road design, which is awesome because poor cycling infrastructure is an actual cause of cycling fatalities.)

He goes on to sum up exactly what the agency failed to address that’s actually killing people on bicycles, in one brilliant paragraph.

Now let’s talk about all the important stuff that the NTSB report passed over to focus on helmets and high vis and scold renegade riders. Like the problem of distracted driving—where four in 10 motorists admit using social media (and one in 10 say they watch YouTube videos) on their phone when they’re on the road. Or the nation’s pernicious problem with speed limit violations, a widely tolerated illegal behavior that is a known killer. They could urge the auto industry and tech sectors to work together to solve these entirely fixable problems. They could ask out loud how or why many states still don’t have 3-foot safe-passing laws or regulations banning handheld phone use, and how or why these laws are rarely enforced in those that do. They could demand that American trucks and passenger cars match the far superior standards set in Europe and Japan to keep vulnerable road users safe—why don’t our garbage and box trucks have side guards to protect pedestrians and cyclists from the wheels, for instance? They could address an epidemic of fatal hit-and-run crashes and the shifting complexion of impaired driving and America’s love affair with 5,000-pound SUVs. Rather than scold naughty cyclists, agency researchers could have examined the carnage caused by negligent and reckless motorists—and offered commentary on what to do about it.

It’s today’s must read.

So go ahead and click the link. We’ll wait.

Meanwhile, here’s the full two hours and forty-eight minutes of the woefully misguided NTSB meeting.

Thanks to Mike Cane for forwarding the video.

Photo of the ghost bike for the still unidentified Hollywood hit-and-run victim by Healthy Activest via Instagram.

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This is what it looks like when someone steals a bike from a San Marcos CA garage.

Hopefully, that video shows enough of his face to bring the jerk to justice.

Meanwhile, after a Georgia woman chased down the thief stealing her bike and demanded it back, the bighearted victim is offering to give him a bike to help him get a fresh start.

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This is what a passenger-side dooring looks like. Toronto bike riders are justifiably outraged.

Twitter post

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We’ve mentioned Malaysia’s basikal lajaks several times in the past two years, ever since eight riders of the modified bikes were killed when a driver plowed into them.

This response to my tweet shows exactly what the bikes are, and how they’re ridden.

Twitter post

A website calls them a menace to society, but the nation’s sports minister says the riders can be redeemed and represent the county in international competitions with the proper training.

Thanks to kirin for the heads-up.

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The Los Angeles Handmade Bicycle Show takes place tomorrow…somewhere.

Maybe LA bikewear maker Swrve knows, since they plan to be there.

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Sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A New York man faces two counts of reckless endangerment for killing a 67-year old woman when he ran a red-light on his bicycle, and slammed into her as she walked in a crosswalk with the light; he faces charges from the same DA who routinely lets drivers off the hook. This is wrong in so many ways. So just…don’t.

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Local

Streetsblog talks with Michael Schneider, the founder of Streets for All, LA’s first, and only, political action group, aka PAC, dedicated to changing city hall to change the city’s streets; the group is meeting in Hollywood next Saturday to discuss pedestrianizing Hollywood Blvd.

KCBS-2 reports nearly a third of the Metro Bike bikeshare bikes get stolen or stripped for parts.

A USC op-ed says students should be discouraged from driving to campus. Or looking at it another way, the school should do more to encourage students to bike or walk to class.

Beverly Hills received a $90,000 traffic enforcement grant from the state, which will allow them to do bike and pedestrian safety crackdowns, among other things. Even if their police department doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being bike and pedestrian friendly.

 

State

The California Transportation Commission is holding a workshop in Sacramento this Tuesday to kickoff discussion of the 2021 Active Transportation Program. Thanks to Robert Leone for the tip.

Call it a good time for a good cause. San Diego’s annual 20-mile Bike for Boobs bike ride and dinner takes place tomorrow to raise funds for a local charity to help women experiencing financial difficulties due to breast cancer.

The Coachella Valley Bicycle Coalition held a ghost bike memorial for Raymundo “Ray-Ray” Jaime; sadly, the 30-year old hit-and-run victim left behind his wife and four-year old daughter, who will now grow up without a father.

Thousands Oaks has opened an expansion to the city’s bike park.

Santa Cruz has identified the bike rider who died after riding off a cliff as the owner of a Salinas bike shop.

This is who we share the roads with. Just hours after a Modesto man got out of jail on a DUI conviction for driving while stoned, he got drunk and drove again, killing a bike rider while driving with a BAC nearly two and a half times the legal limit; his trial was delayed five years when he was institutionalized for mental illness.

Lyft is returning their bikeshare ebikes to the streets of San Francisco; hopefully they won’t burst into flames this time. However, you won’t see them in London anytime soon.

 

National

An Omaha bike rider says bicyclists should have to pay the same fees drivers do and have to have a license to ride just like drivers do, saying he knows other cities require that. No, they don’t. I’m not aware of any city in the US that tests and licenses people on bicycles. Never mind that bike riders already pay more than our share.

Chicago bicyclists respond to the death of a woman killed by a dump truck driver by protesting along the bike lane she was riding in.

Now that’s more like it. Instead of warning bike riders when cars get too close, researchers at the University of Minnesota designed a system to warn drivers when they get too close to someone on a bike. Seriously, take my money, already.

A Minnesota advocate refutes common objections to riding a bicycle, calling it carbon-free transportation using the original two-stroke engine. 

An Indiana cycling club shows that yes, it is possible for a riding club to get involved in advocacy and help teach people how to drive around bicyclists. Just in case any LA-area clubs want to give it a shot. Thanks to Melissa for the link. 

Bicycle Retailer dives into the history of Ross Bicycles, calling it the Schwinn of New York.

Kindhearted New Jersey residents passed the hat to buy a new bike for a teenage boy after his was stolen.

New York’s non-helmet wearing mayor and failed presidential candidate is seriously considering making everyone else wear one.

Al Pacino is one of us; he worked as a bike messenger to support his sick mother before finding success on stage, then film. And yes, he still rides.

DC approves plans for a two-way, curb-protected bike lane even though it’s opposed by a neighborhood commission. And even though it means removing parking spaces.

As we noted before, New Orleans Saints backup QB Teddy Bridgewater is one of us. Even if he has to tweet for someone to drive his broken bike to the shop, because he refuses to get to his games any other way. Thanks to BikeLosFeliz for the link.

 

International

The co-founder of Lumos Helmet discusses how they’re creating what they consider the next generation of bike helmets to help bicyclists feel safer.

Once again, the Mounties got their man, busting an 18-year old man for being a bike-riding serial butt slapper.

Twenty-five Montreal bike riders will be allowed to ride a bike path across an otherwise closed bridge to try out various snow clearing methods, as long as they wear a special vest and sign a waiver.

London’s Daily Mail suggests giving your child a bike for Christmas, saying you never forget your first bike. Good advice, even if it is an ad for a British retailer.

A British military vet who lost three limbs in Afghanistan was lucky to survive when he had a blowout on his handcycle and slammed into a truck at 25 mph, shattering what’s left of his right leg.

A Belgian city has managed to cut car motor vehicle traffic by 12% at rush hour, and 40% on key bicycling routes — resulting in a 25% jump in bicycling rates.

Here’s one for my own bike bucket list — a beer hall bike tour along Germany’s Danube River.

 

Finally…

Your next Harley Davidson could have pedals. Forget the family SUV, your new kid hauler could have three wheels with child seats up front.

And UCLA parking meister Donald Shoup gets animated.

No, literally.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: $25,000 reward as hit-and-run epidemic claims another victim, and the war on bikes just keeps on going

November 7, 2019 / / 2 comments

One quick note.

A number of people have forwarded stories this week after they were already mentioned on here. 

So if you don’t see them here, that’s the reason why. 

But thank you all anyway.

I’d much rather get stories we’ve already discussed than risk missing out on some good ones we haven’t. 

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels.

………

The hit-and-run epidemic just keeps claiming more victims.

This time it’s a pedestrian in DTLA, who was run down by a speeding, red light-running driver who plowed right into him as he was crossing the street in a crosswalk.

Fortunately, the victim, a 27-year old man, survived.

As always, there is a standing reward for any hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.

https://twitter.com/LAPDCTD24/status/1192267851744169984

https://twitter.com/LAPDCTD24/status/1192268128291409920

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

A New York bike rider says he was chased onto a park path by a driver who intentionally tried to run him over and drove off with the bikeshare bike he had been riding. Then the cops took an hour and a half to get there — and refused to take the incident seriously once they did.

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Local

Santa Monica says over the past year, nearly half of the bikeshare and dockless scooter trips taken in the city replaced car trips.

 

State

California legislators are looking into what the state’s role should in in regulating micromobility and bikeshare. It would certainly help speed the growth of both if providers didn’t have to deal with a mishmash of regulations that vary drastically from one city to another.

The San Luis Obispo sheriff’s department is looking for unused or unloved bicycles that can be refurbished for their annual Christmas bike giveaway.

A writer for a Fresno college newspaper says the only downside to riding a bike is the risk of getting killed by a distracted driver.

Streetsblog says the problem isn’t that San Francisco isn’t working on street safety improvements, it’s that the improvements aren’t working.

More sad news from Santa Rosa, where a 79-year old man was killed when his bike was rear-ended by a 74-year old driver; he’s the second bike rider killed in the city in just two days.

Sacramento is planning to triple the amount of parking-protected bike lanes in the downtown area, up to 93 blocks from the current 29.

 

National

An investigative news site takes a dive into the state of bicycling in the US, and concludes it’s stuck in first gear. Or maybe we only have one gear over here.

Strava’s move to a new web-based platform makes their urban riding data more available to smaller cities.

A Canadian paper wonders whether Seattle’s dockless ebike system could represent the future of bikeshare systems.

A mistrial was called in the case of a 64-year old charged with killing a 75-year old bike rider while driving stoned, after he attempted to kill himself the first day he was scheduled to appear in court.

A pair of Idaho men decided they wanted to learn more about the environment around Yellowstone National Park, so they spent two weeks riding 1,200 miles in a loop around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

New laws in Oklahoma require a driver to move into the left lane to pass a bike rider, or give a three-foot passing distance on two lane roads; another allows bicyclists to ride through a red light after stopping if the light doesn’t change.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Michigan man plans to mark his 80th birthday by riding his bike across the US for the fifth time; he previously took the journey when he was 38, 50, 60 and 70.

This is who we share the roads with. A Rhode Island driver was still stoned and over two and a half times the legal alcohol limit several hours after running down two separate bike riders; one of his victims is still in a rehab facility over five weeks after the crash.

The New York Times provides a very belated obituary for the legendary Annie Kopchovsky, aka Annie Londonderry, who left her husband and three children behind in Boston to become, more or less, the first woman to ride a bicycle around the world in the 1890s.

New York’s incoming police commissioner likes the idea of mandating bike helmet use, though the city’s mayor is less sure, even though he called for that himself earlier this year. And even though he doesn’t wear one himself.

A Virginia business executive says lessons learned from bicycling will make you a better leader and colleague.

Charleston SC bike riders will soon get a standalone bike and pedestrian bridge over the Ashley River after the city received an $18.1 million federal grant.

 

International

Pink Bike rides and rates ten of the best handlebar-mounted bike lights, while British Cycling suggests grabbing a good one and going trail riding in the dark.

I want to be like him when I grow up, too. An 82-year old man is the first person in Britain known to have ridden his bike one million miles in his lifetime, and has the records to prove it; he still rides 25 miles every other day. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.

An Australian court was told a Dutch couple’s dreams were shattered when a stoned driver traveling at twice the speed limit in a stolen SUV slammed into the young woman as she rode her bike.

 

Competitive Cycling

American national road champ Ruth Winder nearly didn’t make it to this year’s race after developing an eating disorder that resulted in low energy availability and menstrual dysfunction.

American Peter Stetina is walking away from the WorldTour to focus on gravel racing and ultra-endurance mountain biking.

VeloNews says the great thing about the Amgen Tour of California was the way it allowed domestic riders to battle against the sports biggest stars.

Who needs the Tour of California when you’ve got brakeless, foot-dragging, single-speed racing on a short, flat dirt track, and sponsored by a distillery?

A Canadian woman broke her own record in a 24-hour time trial in Borrego Springs, California, covering 460 miles; the top men’s finisher managed 540 miles.

 

Finally…

At last, an ebike that doesn’t look like one. If you’re out to egg cop cars, maybe not wearing a mask would make the police less suspicious.

And nothing like riding nearly 600 miles in 24 hours without going anywhere.

Twitter post

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: Feds say wear a helmet or else, cross-country bike tourist killed, and bike parking on South Pas agenda tonight

November 6, 2019 / / One comment

A new report from the National Transportation Safety Board says the most common cause of bicycling fatalities is drivers passing people on bicycles.

Or rather, failing to.

That’s followed by “problems with parallel bike and vehicle lanes” — presumably meaning painted bike lanes — bicyclists failing to yield and bicyclists making a left turn.

Bearing in mind that those stats are based on police reports that can suffer from a severe case of windshield bias when it comes to assigning blame.

And the NTSB’s recommended solutions?

Protected bike lanes. Blindspot cams for SUVs. And mandatory bike helmet laws in every state.

Seriously.

Never mind that bike helmet laws have been shown to reduce bicycling rates at exactly the time we need to increase riding to fight climate change.

Or that requiring everyone to wear a helmet every time someone rides a bicycle is like addressing gun violence by requiring everyone to wear a bulletproof vest whenever they leave home.

Except bulletproof vests are a hell of a lot more effective than bike helmets, which are designed to protect against a fall off your bike — not an impact with a speeding SUV driver.

And as we’ve pointed out before, they do nothing to protect against injuries to any other part of the body.

https://twitter.com/Kenmcld/status/1191749183881043970

As we’ve said before, a bike helmet should always be considered a last line of defense when everything else fails.

Like better infrastructure, lower speed and safer motor vehicles.

Yet the board still approved the last-minute addition to their agenda, even though staff members had specifically recommended against it.

Mike Cane used screen grabs to capture much of the discussion leading up to the vote.

It should be stressed, however, that at this point, it’s just a recommendation for each of the 50 states. Although the NTSB’s recommendations have a habit of getting turned into laws.

Meanwhile, Washington lawmakers from both parties are finally talking about ways to reduce bicycling and pedestrian deaths.

Of course, talking is what they’re good at.

We’ll see if they can actually get anything passed in today’s highly divided Congress.

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Once again, a bike-riding visitor to this country will be going home in a coffin.

A 27-year old Korean man was killed in South Carolina on Monday when he was struck by a delivery truck driver.

He was riding down the East Coast before turning west, planning to arrive in Los Angeles in early January.

Now he’ll never get here. Or anywhere else.

Seriously, there’s something very wrong when someone can’t visit this country without risking their life.

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Active SGV reminds us that South Pasadena will consider bicycle parking at tonight’s City Council meeting.

And Megan Lynch reminds South Pasadena to consider the needs of disabled bicyclists.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1191916300253089792

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He gets it.

Bay Area State Senator Scott Weiner says fighting climate change means making it easier for people to cut back on driving.

Twitter post

Twitter post

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America’s oldest surviving veteran of the excruciating WWII Battle of Iwo Jima was one of us, still riding his three-wheeled bike two weeks before his death at  103.

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The crowdfunding page for dirt bike legend Micky Dymond has raised just under $24,000 of the $100,000 goal for his medical care, after suffered critical injuries going over the handlebars of his time trial bicycle.

There are a lot worse things you could do with your money.

Thanks to Steve S for the reminder.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

As one OC bike rider learned the hard way yesterday.

Twitter post

But sometimes its the people on bikes behaving badly.

San Diego police are looking for a man who beat another man senseless with a bicycle, or part of it, in a 7-11 parking lot.

………

Local

This is who we share the roads with. After a pedestrian was killed by a street racing, hit-and-run driver while crossing an LA street, dozens of people continued to drive past his body lying in the street without stopping to help.

Curbed’s Alissa Walker says the problem isn’t the new ride hailing management system at LAX, it’s the cars. And it won’t get better until the airport finally embraces mass transit. Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.

Metro approves funding for Rock the Boulevard, a $16.2 million Complete Streets makeover of Eagle Rock Blvd. Even if it will be awhile before we see any changes to the street.

Lime is launching a new hyperlocal ad campaign focusing exclusively on the LA market.

Hollywood Burbank Airport will try to cut its emissions, in part by encouraging employees to bike, carpool or use transit.

Culver City restaurant Hatchet Hall will honor noted LA chef and fallen bicyclist Joe Miller with a special dinner tomorrow night, with proceeds going to No Kid Hungry; the Michelin Star-winning chef died of a heart attack while riding in New York recently.

Santa Monica Next says a record jump in available parking spaces in Downtown Santa Monica presents a rare opportunity to reclaim the city’s streets.

Long Beach wants your input on the city’s Safe Streets Action Plan.

 

State

Instead of encouraging bicycle riders to use bike lights, or providing free lights to riders who don’t have any as other cities have done, San Luis Obispo police will be cracking down on lightless bicyclists with a pop-up checkpoint today, subjecting bike riders to a fine up to $200.

About damn time. San Francisco responds to another traffic death by declaring a state of emergency for pedestrian and bicyclist deaths. Now maybe Los Angeles can take the hint and actually do something about the deaths down here.

Heartbreaking news from Petaluma, where an bike rider who was killed two weeks ago in a crash with a semi driver was identified as an 89-year old man riding an adult tricycle. Anyone who can still ride at that age, on two wheels or three, deserves better.

More bad news comes from nearby Santa Rosa, where a bike rider was killed when he inexplicably crashed into the trailer of a flatbed truck he was riding next to yesterday, in a crash that doesn’t make any sense at all the way its described.

 

National

Depending on how they decide, and how broadly the justices rule, a case currently before the Supreme Court could make hit-and-runs easier to prosecute by ruling that police can assume the owner of a car is the person driving it.

A driving website makes a surprising case for getting rid of your car altogether. Trust me, I’m working on it.

A 70-year old woman is on a six-year quest to ride around and across the United States in the shape of a peace sign; so far, she’s logged over 40,000 miles through the US and Canada.

Outside says mountain bikes make great “self-sufficient adventuremobiles” for bikepacking trips.

Indoor cycling company Bkool has pulled the plug on their turbo trainers and exercise bikes, and will be focusing on the software side of their business.

Evidently, bicycling must be kosher, as the Jewish Journal picks up a story from Wired concluding that the vehicle of the future is a bicycle.

Speaking of the NTSB, the board concluded that the new software for Uber’s self-driving cars would have spotted a bike-riding Tempe AZ woman in time to avoid the crash that killed her.

Congratulations to Virginia’s Juli Briskman; the woman who gained fame by flipping off Trump’s motorcade while riding her bike just got elected to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, where she’ll oversee the president’s golf course.

A Florida state trooper is asked if drivers are allowed to use a bike lane to pass a stopped car. Short answer, no. Longer answer, hell no.

 

International

Your next Segway could be half mountain bike, half dirt bike, and all electric. Although it would be considered a motorcycle under California law, and require a motorcycle helmet and license.

Bike Radar offers advice on how to determine what kind of bike you need, based on how you plan to ride.

The Guardian’s Laura Laker rides a ped-assist ebike from one end of the UK to the other; she joined 800 other bicyclists on the ride, but was one of just two on ebikes.

More heartbreak, as a British man decides to end his life by turning off his ventilator, six years after he was paralyzed in a mountain biking crash.

One hundred Dublin bike riders held a die-in outside city hall to protest the dangers of riding in a city without adequate bicycling infrastructure, following the death of a local man riding his bike.

German students are learning about the Berlin Wall by riding their bikes alongside it, 40 years after it fell.

Ebikes are surging in popularity Down Under, even as a lack of safe bicycling infrastructure puts lives at risk. Just flip the globe over, and you could be talking about Los Angeles.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling looks at the five most badass American women crushing cycling right now.

Former Olympic champ Alexandre Vinokourov and fellow cyclist Alexandr Kolobnev have officially been cleared of fixing the 2010 Liege-Bastogne-Liege race, after prosecutors said they gave them the benefit of the doubt.

New Zealand cyclist George Bennett will be riding next year with three fewer ribs.

 

Finally…

Even world champs get their bikes stolen; teenage state champs, too. When you’re a registered offender riding your BMX with several outstanding warrants, maybe you should try leaving the meth and guns at home.

And nothing like posting your own anti-bike self-own.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: LA boots Uber bikes & scooters, Sarah Kate Levy kickoff party, and at least DTLA getting bike lanes

November 5, 2019 / / 2 comments

In a showdown of Old West proportions, Los Angeles has given Uber until high noon to get out of town.

Okay, Friday.

That’s because the company has balked on sharing dockless scooter and bikeshare usage data as required in their contract with the city.

And that’s usage, not user, data, the latter of which is supposedly kept hidden.

However, that ultimatum does not include their ride hailing service.

So feel free to keep those Uber gas guzzlers guzzling next week.

………

Bike and transit friendly Sarah Kate Levy is hosting a party to kick off the signature gathering phase of her campaign to unseat CD4 Councilmember David Ryu in Hollywood on this Saturday.

I’ll try to drop by to get my name on one, even if that means tearing my wife away from our so far unsuccessful search to replace the Corgi.

Because how can you replace an irreplaceable dog anyway?

………

Downtown Los Angeles is moving forward with bike lanes, even as the rest of the city stagnates.

https://twitter.com/LADOTlivable/status/1191503806929895424

Maybe if we could clone CD14 Councilmember José Huizar, the rest of us might finally see some, too.

Or at least him to teach the other councilmembers how it’s done.

………

Sometimes its the people on bikes behaving badly.

A prelim is under way for San Diego man accused of being the bike-riding serial killer who attacked a number of homeless people with knives and railroad spikes, and set two men on fire; he allegedly killed five people and injured ten more. Seriously, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for someone capable of that.

A New York man was caught on video riding his bike onto a sidewalk, pulling out a gun and opening fire on a group of people in broad daylight; his intended victims can be glad he seems to be a bad shot.

………

Local

A writer for Los Angeles Magazine questions whether eliminating parking minimums will be good for DTLA, and says it’s unlikely residents would see lower rents as a result.

Bike Mag profiles LA-based street artist turned mountain biker Caché.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg is one of us, going for a Santa Monica bike ride with the former Governator; she’s been traveling the US by train and in Schwarzenegger’s Tesla.

This is who we share the roads with. An entire Long Beach family was tragically wiped out by a 20-year old drunk driver who failed to navigate a turn on Halloween, and ended up on the sidewalk they were trick or treating on.

 

State

An Encinitas bike rider politely points out that yes, there are more than 400 bike riders in the city.

A new controversy erupted when the husband of the mayor of Encinitas was rejected for board membership on the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, allegedly because he supports protected bike lanes, rather than vehicular cycling.

A San Diego woman suffered a compound leg fracture when she was hit by a driver while riding her bike in the city’s Mira Mesa neighborhood.

Apparently, it takes awhile for news to move south, as the San Diego Union-Tribune is just now catching up with the story that e-scooters aren’t as green as you might think; they’re only three months behind their own sister publication and the rest of the country.

A Bakersfield bike rider is in critical condition after yet another hit-and-run by yet another heartless California driver.

San Francisco bike riders fan out to document 259 drivers violating bike lanes in an eight hour period — one third of them on a single nine-block stretch of Valencia Street.

 

National

HuffPost says Democrats have a baffling blind spot when it comes to cars, wondering why the 2020 candidates won’t mention motor vehicles’ contribution to greenhouse gasses.

Now you, too, can be a real superhero when you ride your very own Captain Marvel Schwinn fixie.

A Washington letter writer calls for banning skateboards everywhere but skate parks. And probably wants to ban those, too.

Colorado leaders are discovering that when it comes to ebikes, resistance is futile.

Police in Missoula MT are carrying bike lights in their patrol cars so they can give bike riders without them a free set — and a ticket. We tried to get LAPD to do that for years, but with a warning instead of a ticket. But couldn’t find a deep enough pocket to pay for them. 

Wichita, Kansas considers adding a bike valet program for a new minor league ballpark currently under constriction. Which the Dodgers should have done years ago. And the Kings. And the Galaxy. And the LAFC. And the Lakers. And the Clippers. And the Rams. And the San Diego Chargers of Los Angeles…

Dallas considers reducing a dangerous six-lane virtual highway down to a four-lane boulevard as part of the city’s Complete Streets program. Hopefully they’ll get a little less backlash than Los Angeles officials did on the Venice Blvd road diet.

A Cleveland letter writer says there are good reasons why bicyclists might ride in a narrow roadway, rather than a nearby path.

A Boston paper says whoa, whoa, let’s not go too fast on installing bike lanes, despite arguments that they could be good for local businesses; right now, the city has a whopping 68 miles of bike lanes on its 880 miles of streets.

The New York Daily News applauds a new law requiring the city to update its street master plan every five years — and include an actual connected bike lane network.

 

International

Actor Henry Golding is one of us, at least on the big screen.

A London family is happy to get their bicycle built for three back after someone took it several weeks ago; a couple of local residents turned down a reward for finding it.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 85-year old English great-grandfather now holds seven age-group world records, after adding two more to his portfolio.

A Guardian podcast considers why more and more pedestrians are getting killed on our streets, and whether Silicon Valley really has the answers.

A BBC TV series makes the case that bicycles are the most popular form of transportation on the planet. And the most efficient, too.

A new Irish bike light automatically adjust brightness to road conditions, senses nearby traffic to switch to flasher mode when cars are nearby, and records that data to crowdsource a map of cycling conditions.

If you build it, they will come. Paris saw a 54% jump in bicycling rates in just one year after investing in new bikeways and bikeshare.

When you’re a high-ranking Delhi official, and can’t drive because of the city’s even and odd traffic days, just ride your bicycle.

Authorities in Kuala Lumpur threatened to use a law intended to assure parents supervise their children to prosecute those whose kids are ride basikal lajak, bicycles illegally modified with no brakes and chopped handlebars that allow riders to take the “superman” position. Note to Malay Mail — removing the frame might make a bike just a tad difficult to ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling says it may not be traditional road racing, but something new and interesting could rise from the ashes of the Amgen Tour of California.

 

Finally…

If you really want to sell your “well-established premium bike shop,” it might help to mention where it is. First there is a bike lane, then there is not bike lane, then there is.

And no, the middle of a sidewalk isn’t the right place to park your scooter. A bike lane isn’t, either.

 

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