No time of the crash, or any other information is available at this time.
There are two intersections for De Soto and Burbank, as the street jumps a block north before continuing; no word yet on exactly which one the crash occurred on. However, there appears to be bike lanes on either side of De Soto.
Hopefully we’ll have more information soon.
This is the 13th bicycling fatality I’m aware of in Southern California, and the sixth in Los Angeles County. It’s also the fifth in the City of Los Angeles.
A ghost bike will be installed at 9 pm tonight.
Update: According to a source with the LAPD, the crash took place at the south intersection, directly in front of Kaiser Medical Center, as Montero was crossing De Soto headed east, where the crosswalk would be if one was painted.
The driver reportedly shifted to the right lane, and accelerated through the intersection as soon as the light changed, catching Montero before he could get across the street.
No information yet on who may be at fault or any possible charges.
Update 2: The Los Angeles Daily News says the crash occurred around 11:40 am Sunday. He died about an hour later after being taken to a local hospital.
Police are investigating the timing of the traffic light, as well as the speed of the driver.
Montero was riding with a friend, who was unharmed.
Photos from GoFundMe page
Photo by Steve
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Sebastian Montero and all his family and friends.
Thanks to Steve and Zachary Rynew for the heads-up.
April 2, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: LADOT’s new focus on “transportation happiness,” and LA BAC meets tomorrow in Hollywood
LADOT chief and NACTO president Seleta Reynolds explains how Los Angeles is adapting urban mobility for the digital age — including an emphasis on transportation happiness.
To achieve that, she says,
We are currently drafting a Mobility Bill of Rights to identify core principles like reliability, safety, comfort, equity, transparency, and community that should be the foundation of services we provide or allow to serve Los Angeles. Each of these principles has a set of key performance indicators that we will baseline with Angelenos in order to guide improvements to existing service, like taxis and transit, and help us to regulate new services as they come into the city.
Of course, if the city really wants to increase transportation happiness, they’d place a greater emphasis on bike riding and safer streets, since bike riders are the happiest commuters.
Today’s photo show a new bike box next to Hollywood High School.
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The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee will meet this Tuesday at the Hollywood City Hall.
Bike riders offered warning about the dangers of self-driving cars before Uber decamped for Arizona to avoid regulation restrictions in California — and before Elaine Herzberg was killed as she walked her bike across a Tempe street.
Bike rentals have begun for the year in Yosemite. Although someone should tell NBC Bay Area to hire a decent proof reader; pretty sure they meant rentable, not rentalable.
March 30, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Upcoming bike events, bike stolen from Fontana victim, and violently anti-bike cops in San Leandro
Let’s start with some upcoming events we haven’t mentioned yet.
A number of Los Angeles-area legislative districts are holding special elections on Tuesday; Bike the Vote LA has rated the candidates in each district.
And then some lowlife scum stole her bicycle before police could collect it as evidence.
Let’s hope it was just a mistake, and someone took the bike to hold it until it could be picked up.
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This one really pisses me off.
Police in bike-unfriendly San Leandro are allegedly confiscating kids’ bicycles for traffic infractions, under the pretext that they might be stolen. And reportedly dooring teenage bike riders on purpose, and holding unarmed children at gunpoint.
To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the law that allows police to confiscate bicycles based on nothing more than a supposition. Which is no different than impounding a driver’s car simply because he looks suspicious, with nothing to back it up.
Meanwhile, intentionally dooring a bike rider not only violates the vehicle code, it’s assault with a deadly weapon and an illegal use of force.
And don’t even get me started on pulling a weapon on nonviolent children for the crime of simply riding a bicycle.
Let’s hope this story results in a fleet of lawyers descending on the town.
And whoever is responsible for these outrageous policies finding new work as an unarmed security guard at the local mall.
Thanks to Frank Lehnerz for the heads-up.
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Long Beach Bike Ambassador Tony Cruz offers basic advice on how to ride a bike safely. Although there could have been a mention of road position beside merely riding outside the door zone.
Ebikes really are pulling people out of their cars; 28% of people surveyed purchased their ebikes to reduce their reliance on cars, while 76% of ebike trips would have otherwise been made by car.
Canadian musician Rich Aucion is on a 15-city tour of the US, riding from gig to gig by bike in what will eventually be a coast-to-coast ride to raise funds for a mental health organization.
Philadelphia’s bike-hating columnist inexplicably says flipping bike lanes from the right to the left side on two one way streets is equivalent to flipping the bird to local residents. And compares the city’s bike advocacy group to the NRA.
A disabled polio survivor from Nepal visits Brunei, the 68th country he’s visited on his round-the-world bike tour. Yet another reminder that bikes offer increased mobility for people with disabilities.
And if you’re caught on video trying to steal a bike, come up with a better excuse than alleging that the owner asked you to bust the lock and bring it to him.
Even though that means ignoring the concerns of everyone who wants to live on a quieter, calmer street. Or doesn’t want to get run down by those same drivers.
Which marks yet another victory, albeit hopefully a temporary one, for the people behind the driver activist group Keep LA Moving, which organized the resistance to the bike lane.
As well as opposition to the recently shelved Temple Street road diet, and the failed road diets in Playa del Rey.
So far, only the Mar Vista Great Streets Project on Venice Blvd has survived their traffic safety denier onslaught.
Let’s hope Pasadena can do a better job of communicating the benefits of such projects than LADOT has up to this point. And that the Orange Grove project will come back more successfully at a later date.
Because right now, the people in the black hats and two-ton vehicles are winning.
As Matthew T. Hall, San Diego Union-Tribune editorial director, lamented on Twitter about the kits, “What kind of world are we leaving our children?”
Well, for one, apparently one where folks Spin’s age, edging toward 60 and above, think the appearance of bicycles in certain communities amounts to some apocalyptic hellscape of two-wheeling insurgents intent on demolishing mankind as we know it…
Never mind that not everyone can afford to buy a bike, nor the notion that perhaps a significant portion of the bikes that appear in Little Italy—or Mission Hills or Point Loma for that matter—might have actually brought someone to your popular neighborhood. Seems like short-sighted economics to drive that kind of business away…
Is it a perfect system? Hell no, but what is? But for this curmudgeon who this week turned 59, the bikes have offered—at a reasonable price—an opportunity to regain some semblance of a connection with my city and, by some miracle, my youth.
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Horrifying video of a head-on collision as a driver turned directly into a bike rider waiting at a red light.
Needless to say, the driver claims she never saw him. Which should be seen as a confession rather than an excuse.
Note: This video shows exactly what it looks like to get hit head-on from the rider’s perspective. So consider that before deciding if you really want to hit play.
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Bloomberg reports that Uber disconnected the collision avoidance system that comes standard in the Volvo SUV that stuck and killed Elaine Herzberg while she was crossing the street in Tempe Arizona, relying on their own failed self-driving technology instead.
An American Idol contestant is teaming with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and a Nashville bike/walk advocacy group to discourage texting while driving, two years after he was run down by a distracted driver while riding his bike.
A Canadian mountie won’t face charges after investigators conclude there isn’t enough evidence to prove he ran over a fleeing bike theft suspect, even though he probably did.
A new study shows one in four drivers in Australia’s Queensland state pass bicyclists too closely. Which should sound familiar to most bike riders just about anywhere else.
Now he reports the city has begun pouring new concrete to patch the crumbling stretch of concrete that took him down.
As usual, despite years of complaints, they only got around to it after it was too late. And after being embarrassed with a front page story.
But at least it should help prevent the next one.
Photos by Patrick Pascal.
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More fallout from the crash of a self-driving Uber car that killed an Arizona woman as she walked her bike across an overly wide street.
Arizona’s governor has suspended testing of self-driving cars in the state, after previously welcoming them with open arms when California installed safety restrictions on them.
Speaking of the LA River bike path, it’s about to be shut down once again, this time for construction of a long-planned bike and pedestrian bridge connecting Atwater Village and Griffith Park.
San Diego’s Little Italy Association is scooping up dockless bikeshare bikes, and depositing them outside the business district. Which is strange, because these are the same people who fought planned bike lanes, insisting that all their customers come by cars. Thanks to Frank Lehnerz for the heads-up.
The mayor of Hamilton, Quebec learned about the need for safer streets the hard way, nearly getting hit by a car just seconds into a ride to promote the city’s bike infrastructure.
A Kiwi sociologist says the bikelash over the new bikeways stems from “a sort of initial adjustment stress” from people who are unable to handle the change to the street.
March 27, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Save money by biking in the nation’s second most expensive city, and bikelash in the Rose City
Although I’m told that the opposition is being guided by the people behind anti-traffic safety group Keep LA Moving, which has apparently set its sights on halting any lane reduction plan in the greater LA area.
The Pew Charitable Trust looks at the possible spread of the Idaho Stop Law, which was considered in a number of states this year — including California, where it failed in part thanks to opposition from AAA, which seems to have confused the solution with the problem.
Canada’s Cycling Magazine offers advice on what to do, and not to do, when taking your bike to a mechanic this spring. I’ve said it before; treat a good wrench like your best friend, because for your bike, he — or she — is.
The Guardian offers advice on what to do if your bike hits a pothole. Which is good advice here, too. Especially the part about hiring a lawyer if you’re going to take on city hall.
Life is cheap in the UK, where a driver gets off with just eight months for plowing through traffic lights and into a bike rider while driving with five times the legal level of a cocaine derivative in his system. Seriously, who knew there was a legal level of coke for getting behind the wheel?
Clearly, hit-and-run isn’t just an American problem. Although apparently in the UK, it’s considered hit-and-run if you leave the scene after hitting an animal, unless it’s a cat.
