Apparently unable to escape the auto-centric 20th Century, Councilmember Gil Cedillo abandons plans for a Great Street on North Figueroa in favor of more parking, in an apparent attempt to kill long-planned bike lanes for reasons known only to him.
Incycle stores will host toy drives in San Dimas, Pasadena, Chino and Rancho Cucamonga through Saturday.
State
San Diego’s repeatedly delayed bike share program will finally roll out in January; no, they really mean it this time.
The LA Times continues their recent look at bicycling issues with a great article pointing out the need for real data to support the growth in bicycling and bike infrastructure.
But the simple fact is, LA has long fallen down in tracking who rides, where they ride and what happens when they do.
And the result is that council members like Gil Cedillo, Paul Koretz and Tom LaBonge can halt vital bike projects because there’s no data to prove them wrong.
The LACBC has tried to step in to provide stats on bicycling in the city and on select streets. But it should be the city’s responsibility, and only the city has the resources to capture vital data throughout the city.
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Lots of great bike events are coming up in the next few days.
And mark your calendar for the Love Your Hood Ride in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, sponsored by Bikesanas del Valle, CICLE, Pacoima Beautiful and Metro.
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Local
A Santa Monica columnist says bike lanes are to blame for the city’s traffic congestion; silly me, I thought it was all those cars. And never mind that SaMo traffic sucked long before the city even thought about welcoming bikes in an attempt to provide an alternative to, if not reduce, that congestion.
A new state legislator from the Bay Area says California cyclists should throw away our red rear lights and reflectors, and use a flashing white rear light instead. Evidently, so drivers would have no idea whether we’re coming or going.
A Marin County columnist insists that bike advocacy in the area has been set back by a) a road raging cyclist and b) a speeding bike rider who crashed into two kids on a bike path. If the same standard were applied to motorists, no one would ever be allowed to drive again.
Huh? A Louisiana parish lowers the speed limit on a 17-mile recreational trail because an 83-year old woman was killed by a bike rider four years earlier and over 2,000 mile away.
And a new Aussie study says kids are seven times more likely to need brain surgery if they suffer a head injury while not wearing a helmet — especially they’re in a motor vehicle. So where’s the call for mandatory car helmets for kids?
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Thanks to Jeffrey Fylling and Vanessa Gray for their generous donations to help support this site.
The key to improving bike safety is understanding how and why collisions occur.
Which has been almost impossible to figure out here in Los Angeles, where no one was keeping track of such vital statistics until recently. Let alone analyzing them.
Now long-time LA bike advocate Dennis Hindman has dug through data compiled by the Los Angeles Police Department to uncover the causes of collisions — at least as determined by LAPD traffic investigators — with surprising results.
And makes the commonsense suggestion bicycling infrastructure should be installed first where cyclists ride, and collisions occur. At least until we have a fully built-out bicycling network.
I’m sharing the results of Hindman’s investigation, with his permission.
It’s a must read for anyone who cares about bike safety, and ensuring that everyone who goes out on a bike ride comes back home in one piece.
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The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data results from 2007 through 2013 have a doubling of commuting by bicycle from 0.6% to 1.2%. Los Angeles Police Department reported 1,335 bicycle collisions in 2007 and 2,413 in 2013. That’s a 81% increase. Although the bicycle collisions have significantly increased, the rate of collisions per total number of bicycle riders has no doubt fallen.
I did a totaling of type of collisions in the first 100 pages (about 500 collisions) of the 484 page 2013 bicycle collision report that mentions each collisions individually and found the reported collision type or primary factor in the collisions to be:
220 broadside
110 wrong side (usually got hit by driver turning right)
146 Right of Way auto
70 stop sign
40 improper turn
48 sideswipe
30 head on
22 rear end
10 improper turn
8 too close
5 improper driving
10 lane change
29 unsafe speed (usually unclear when that refers to bicycle or motor vehicle)
I haven’t seen anything in the report that mentions hitting a parked car door. There are several reports about hitting a parked vehicle though. I’ll try to figure out how many times that occurred in the total. Its much less frequent than getting broadsided.
Right of Way auto and broadside I assume would mean a bicycle running a stop sign or running a red light and a motor vehicle that had the right-of-way hitting the bicycle. I have yet to see a collision report state ROW bicycle, although it occasionally mentions ROW pedestrian.
The report does mention collisions when a motor vehicle was making a right-turn as a bicycle was going straight. I’ll try to see how frequently that occurred in relation to all types of collisions. This also seems to be a small proportion compared to the number of broadsides.
A Los Angeles Department of Transportation bikeway traffic engineer recently stated that they do not do treatments for bicycles at intersections. The bike lanes are striped where there are no crossing points for motor vehicles such as driveways, freeway on and off ramps, and cross street intersections.
The MIT Media Lab made a great looking map of all the LAPD reported bicycle collisions for 2012:
When I look at that map it seems to me that the bulk of the LADOT resources for bicycling should be concentrated in the areas of the city where the bicycle collisions are densely packed together. That’s also where the most bicycling occurs. If there are few staff members and a very small budget, then why try to install bicycle improvements across the whole city at once. That dilutes the effect by spreading out the improvements so much that they don’t connect into a network of any sort and the quality of the infrastructure won’t be as good because the emphasis is on quantity.
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Hindman followed-up with a brief email providing a little additional information and clarification.
When I mentioned 70 crashes involving a stop sign it should be stop sign or traffic signal. I’m getting better at understanding the abbreviations in the crash data and hopefully I can tabulate the primary collisions factors and collisions types for 2013. I counted 16 bicycle fatalities for 2013.* One pedestrian was killed by a bicycle rider in 2007 and in 2012, but none in 2013. Both of these pedestrians were in their 80’s.
Spot checking the MIT Media Lab results of 54 bicycle crashes for Van Nuys Blvd I noticed that any time the LAPD bicycle crash data mentions Van Nuys as the primary or secondary street it was counted by MIT as a crash on Van Nuys Blvd. I have to assume that all the street crashes mentioned were totaled the same way.
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*Editor’s note: My records show 18 bicycling fatalities in the City of Los Angeles in 2013. The discrepancy may be due to one rider killed in a train collision, and another who was walking his bike when he was hit by a car; it’s possible neither was classified as a bike collision in the LAPD stats. Two of the cyclists killed in 2013 died as a result of doorings.
And TJ Knight forwards KCBS-2’s report on the day, featuring his astute and too cute for words daughter around the 1-minute-plus mark.
I’m told turnout may have been a little lighter than previous events, due perhaps to the demands of the holiday season or distance from transit stations. The latter should be improved when the planned Leimert Park station opens on the upcoming Crenshaw Line in a few years.
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Local
The Daily News looks at Sunday’s memorial ride for Milt Olin, just one of many fallen riders who should still be with us.
Anaheim opens a new state-of-the-art, bike friendly transportation center. Now if they can just provide bike riders with safe, bike friendly routes to get there.
Santa Cruz County considers guidelines to protect cyclists, pedestrians and disabled travelers during road construction projects, something that seems to be universally ignored here in LA, both city and county.
Now here’s a unique argument. Bike cops at Colorado State University are accused of violating the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure by stopping cyclists riding without lights or through dismount zones. Although it would seem both are readily apparent without conducting an illegal search.
My Colorado hometown hosts a Winter Bike to Work Day on Wednesday. Seriously, is there any reason we shouldn’t do that right here in sunny LA?
International
A British man suffers a serious injury falling from his bike. So naturally, local officials suggest banning bikes from the town center. I wonder that they’d do if someone tripped.
A Brit bike rider is convicted of dangerous cycling for walking his dog while he rode. The cop, who apparently doesn’t get out much, claims he’d never seen anything like it.
Copenhagenize offers daily updates on Viking Biking, proving that it really is possible to ride all winter, even in less tropic climes. Thanks to my bike riding and formerly Iditarod sled dog racing brother Eric for the heads-up.
Evidently, life is cheap Down Under, where fatally dooring an e-bike rider is only worth a lousy $1,200 fine — just under $1000 US.
Finally…
Apparently, Norwegian cyclists wear top hats instead of helmets. A Dubai website doesn’t get the joke that Bono was dressed in Hassidic attire when he had his Central Park bike accident, blaming the clothes he wasn’t actually wearing for actually causing the wreck.
Check back a little later today for a guest post featuring some amazing bike collision stats courtesy of longtime LA bike wonk and advocate Dennis Hindman.
Not too surprisingly, the department’s union agues for the need for deputies to keep using their computers while they drive, rather than rely on the radios police officers have used with relative safety for decades.
South LA merchants wonder if CicLAvia would ruin business for the day; experience shows that businesses that reach out to participants thrive, while those who don’t, don’t.
Unfortunately, the Times gets it wrong; CicLAvia is not a bike festival, as they suggest, but an open streets event that welcomes anyone without a motor. On the other hand, KABC-7 gets it right, and has the video to prove it.
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Local
Glendale will hold a workshop on Thursday to discuss where to put a bridge connecting Griffith Park and the LA River bike path with the east side of the river.
A bike rider is critically injured in a fall while riding with a group of cyclists on a mountain road above Altadena; he was airlifted to Pasadena for treatment.
CICLE’s next adult bicycling class is scheduled for Sunday, January 18th; that might make the perfect holiday gift for the bike-curious person on your list.
State
Two San Francisco cops are convicted of stealing $30,000 from a drug dealer. But it’s okay, one of them planned to use his share to buy a bike.
The mother of a Boise girl killed while riding her bike in a crosswalk files suit against the local police department for blaming the victim, rather than the operator of the big dangerous machine.
Nice. A new Colorado bike path runs along a reconstructed highway, allowing cyclists to ride 18 miles car-free from Boulder to the Denver area.
Bono wasn’t dressed as a Hassidic Jew when he had his New York bike accident after all; turns out band mate The Edge was just pulling our collective leg.
International
Lance says he and his teammates had to cheat if they wanted to compete with other doping teams. Problem is, given the pervasiveness of cheating during the doping era, he’s probably right. And we all believe it’s over, right?
The Militant Angeleno offers his must read guide to the South LA CicLAvia route; seriously, no one knows LA’s history and significant cultural sites better. No, really, click on the damn link, already.
And the new Silverlake Shinola hosts a neighborhood block party to celebrate its Grand Opening just as CicLAvia comes to a close; Angel City Brewery will be there to aid your post ride recovery.
Do I really need to mention that the first ad blames bike riders for getting themselves killed — even though none of the 11 cyclists killed in the city this year died as a result of running a stop sign?
Calbike comes up with an aggressive agenda for next year, including requiring insurance companies to pay for collisions drivers cause, even if they aren’t directly involved.
The OC Weekly misinterprets the Newport Beach safety crackdown as targeting bad bicyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists, even though the plan is to target all violations that endanger vulnerable users, whoever commits them.
At least we only have to worry about LA drivers. Rome’s bike-riding mayor may have to start taking a limo to the office after his life is threatened by mobsters.
An auto-centric Aussie coroner responds to the death of a cyclist by saying bikes should be banned from the motorway he was riding on, rather than suggesting motorists could conceivably drive more safely.
LACBC Open House
Thursday, December 4, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
LACBC Headquarters, 1st & Mezzanine floors – 634 S. Spring St., DTLA
FREE for LACBC Members, $10 General Admission
RSVP here
Please join us tomorrow evening to celebrate 2014 and look forward to 2015! You’ll have the opportunity to:
learn more about our programs, campaigns, and local chapters,
bid adieu to our fearless leader and executive director Jennifer Klausner,
honor some special folks who have made a difference in the local bike community,
KPCC’s Sharon McNary offers a great first person look at Danny Gamboa and the Ghost Bike Foundation, responsible for memorializing fallen riders throughout Southern California.
The LACBC reports the discussion over bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd in the Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills has been continued to the January 6th city council meeting; Ryan Snyder Associates offers an idea of what the street could look like if local officials get their shit together.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has hired Noah Budnick, Deputy Director and Chief Policy Officer of New York’s Transportation Alternatives as their new Executive Director. Meanwhile, the LACBC is currently interviewing candidates for their opening, and expects to announce their choice before the month is over.
Now you can show allegiance to your favorite baseball team while riding your roadie to the stadium. Although that might give supporters of opposing teams one more reason to run you off the road.
A Reno man is finally headed home after circling the globe by bike five times from five directions.
A Denver bike cop monitoring a protest march is in critical condition after he was hit by a car; three other officers were injured.
No bias here. A Minneapolis paper credits the bike lobby with pressuring city officials; after all, it couldn’t just be bike riding city residents contacting the people elected to represent them.
Bono is recovering in Dublin after going over his handlebars in Central Park last month; U2 band mate The Edge says no one recognized him following the wreck because he was dressed like a Hassidic Jew.
Not surprising. An American expat working in the Netherlands admits to impatience riding her bike behind slow moving tourists.
Finally…
Now that’s more like it, as a bike riding California high school football player not only survived a head-on collision, he totaled the car. If you’re riding your bike with a BAC over twice the legal limit, don’t crash into a road construction sign.
Amen, brother. An LA Times Opinion piece says too many police officers see the world from a windshield perspective. And that all cops should spend time on a bike — and all drivers, for that matter.
Now that’s progress. Even though Santa Monica bike ridership is through the roof, bike collisions are down below 2011 levels.
A Hawthorne rider must have done something to royally piss off the local cops, as they throw the book at him — including citations for riding too far from the curb, public intoxication, resisting a peace officer and not having a light on his bike. At 11:30 am.
Glendale Assembly Member Mike Gatto reintroduces a bill to create Amber Alert-style notices for serious hit-and-runs, despite Governor Brown’s veto of the same bill this year.
A Zambian bike rider is sentenced to six months hard labor for recklessly causing the death of another bicyclist in a head-on bike-on-bike collision. But since when is 53-years old an advanced age?
It may be the last gasp for much-needed bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd in the Biking Black Hole.
The LACBC calls on everyone to attend today’s Beverly Hill’s City Council study session on the proposed bike lanes, or if you can’t make it, email councilmembers in support of the bike lanes largely unsupported by the council.
As usual, Better Bike provides an in-depth analysis of both the roadway and city politics, saying it looks like the fix is in. And not in a good way.
I wonder if the city can be sued for failing to consider the needs of all road users as required by Federal law and the state’s requirement for Complete Streets (pdf). Especially if state and/or Federal funds will be used in the planned reconstruction of the streets.
Now that’s one Kickstarter I’d pitch in for.
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Local
A 27-year old bike rider was shot to death in South Los Angeles early Monday morning. Do we even need to mention what an incredible waste of human life that is?
A writer for City Watch says a less car-dependent Los Angeles is a fantasy. Then again, he’s probably right if we ignore alternatives and focus strictly on driving, even if the cars are driverless.
A passer-by — or driver-by in this case — comes upon a Cypress bike collision, and is told the rider survived only because he or she wore a helmet — without noting what injuries the victim did or didn’t suffer, and whether a helmet could have actually made a difference. And never mind the inappropriate photo of a happy, helmet-clad kid.
A new book looks at the history of Bicycles in American Highway Planning from 1969 to 1991, when an emphasis on motor vehicles marginalized bike infrastructure and set bicycling back 40 years.
Bike friendly Portland encourages people to ride to the airport; if that was a viable option here, maybe we wouldn’t have such disastrous traffic tie-ups every holiday. We can dream, can’t we?
Nice. A non-profit organization founded by a Seattle man has given over 2,000 bicycles to survivors of human trafficking around the world.
Cherokee Schill, the Kentucky cyclist arrested for riding her bike in the traffic lane, has filed to run for Lt. Governor of the seemingly bicycling-challenged state.
International
We have met the enemy, and he is us. Brit bike scribe Carlton Reid illustrates how our paved roads — and yes, the cars on them — were begot by bicyclists.
Must have thin skinned police in Italy, as the cops who conducted the possibly flawed investigation into the death of cycling legend Marco Pantani threaten to sue the press for besmirching their reputations.
You already knew hit-and-runs were a problem for cyclists.
But maybe none of us realized just how bad it’s become.
According to the LA Times, overall injury and fatal hit-and-run rates have actually declined since 2000. Except for those involving bike riders, which have increased a whopping 42% since then.
It’s easy to lay blame for the increase on a rising rate of bicycling over the same period, which has grown 61% since the turn of the century, according to a recent report from the League of American Bicyclists. But the fact that overall rates have gone down while bike-involved hit-and-runs have gone up just raises the question of why so many drivers think it’s okay to leave a bike rider bleeding in the street.
Then again, maybe it’s just that a collision with a bike rider is less likely to leave the driver’s car too damaged to flee than a wreck with another motor vehicle.
Regardless of the reason, nothing will change until the law is changed to make the penalties for hit-and-run greater than the potential reward for running away.
And that won’t happen until someone can get it through our out-of-touch governor’s head that hit-and-run is a serious — and deadly — problem.
Especially for those of us who aren’t protected by a couple tons of glass and steel.
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The Times piece also notes that an overwhelming 80% of all hit-and-runs go unsolved. And only half of the cases that do get solved result in a conviction.
In other words, drivers have a 90% chance of getting away with it if they hit the gas instead of the brake after a collision. No wonder hit-and-run remains at epidemic proportions.
In addition, the story profiles some of the victims of fleeing drivers — at least, the ones still able to tell their own story, including Paul Livingston, whose story was told here last June.
There’s a great interactive map, as well, that drives home the obscene number of bike-involved hit-and-runs every year, and where you need to be on the lookout for fleeing drivers. Including Long Beach, Santa Monica, DTLA, Van Nuys and North Hollywood — in other words, the places where you’re most likely to find people on bikes.
Police had reportedly ordered Clinton Alford to stop while he was riding his bike on the sidewalk along Avalon Blvd, but he kept going because he says they failed to identify themselves as police officers. Then he ran when someone grabbed his bike from behind, which lead to the alleged beating.
Based on the description of events, though, the police appeared to lack probable cause to make the stop, since sidewalk riding is legal in Los Angeles. Which makes everything that followed, including alleged evidence of drug possession and accusations of resisting arrest, inadmissible in court.
Never mind that filing charges would stand in the way of reaching a settlement with the city over the beating.
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Unbelievable. A Paso Robles cyclist is dead and her riding partner severely injured because the jerk behind the wheel dropped his effing cell phone and bent down to pick it up. Then had to swerve to avoid the stopped car ahead of him, slamming into the riders in the process.
Never mind that using a hand-held phone while driving is illegal in California.
Or that taking your eyes off the road to pick it up is idiotic.
Santa Monica sees a dramatic increase in bicycling since 2000, nearly six times the national growth in cycling. And yes, this story is where I got that stat about the 61% increase in bike riding nationwide.
The Eastside Bike Club is hosting a family-friendly Slow ES Cool — Cypress Park Ride to explore some of LA’s and the San Gabriel Valley’s beautiful sites and diverse eateries on Saturday, December 13th.
A San Bernardino man is the victim of a bike-by shooting; he’ll survive, but may have trouble walking for awhile.
Evidently, they’re just a bunch of old softies, as a group of Hell’s Angels — yes, the notorious motorcycle gang — buy up all the bikes at a Fresno Walmart and donate them for needy kids. And not for the first time.
An Ottawa paper goes for major click bait, asking their readers whether an idiot on a bike or a moron behind the wheel is worse. How about the idiot editor who approved the piece?
London’s mayor Boris considers holding open streets events in the city after seeing similar events in Jakarta. If he thinks that’s impressive, we should invite him to Sunday’s CicLAvia.
An American man and his 12-year old son tour Amsterdam by bike, including the Red Light District.
Caught on video: A Polish rider participating in a bikejoring competition — racing with dogs pulling her bike — is tackled by, not 10 Lords a Leaping, but a leaping herd of deer.
