September 2, 2016 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: 20-year old bike rider killed in Inglewood hit-and-run
Not again.
Just hours after news broke of a fatal hit-and-run on PCH Monday night, word comes that another bicyclist was murdered by a heartless hit-and-run driver in Inglewood just hours later.
No other information is available at this time, and no details were provided on the driver or the vehicle involved.
A street view shows a divided four lane street on Crenshaw, while 109th is a narrow residential street that enters on a T-intersection controlled by a red light.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Inglewood Police Department at 310/412-5211.
There’s no excuse, ever, for leaving another human being to die in the street. If the driver is found, he or she should face a 2nd degree murder charge, along with a permanent loss of driving privileges.
This is the 56th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and 23rd in Los Angeles County this year.
Update: KNBC-4 reports a burning van was found nearby with damage consistent with hitting a bicyclist, suggesting the driver had set it on fire to coverup the crime.
The youngest of three sons, McGee had just celebrated his 20th birthday six days before he was killed.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for William McGee and all his loved ones.
Yet another bike rider has been murdered by a heartless driver who didn’t have the basic human decency to stop.
KCBS-2 reports the victim was struck by the driver of a white Jeep around 11 pm on PCH at Sunset Blvd. However, they add that it was near Temescal Canyon, suggesting that the wreck occurred somewhere in between the two streets.
No information is currently available about the victim, who died at the scene.
The driver fled following the crash, with the front bumper hanging off the vehicle.
No other details are available at this time.
According to SWITRS data, the brief section of PCH through Los Angeles remains one of the most dangerous areas of the coast highway, with 158 bicycle-involved crashes in the last 12 years, second only to Long Beach. Malibu is third with 128.
The section of PCH that runs through Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Malibu has been the site of nine bicycling fatalities in that time, including this one, making it one of the deadliest roads for cyclists in Southern California. At least three of those deaths have been the result of hit-and-runs.
Malibu is currently working on safety improvements to PCH through the city, while Caltrans has promised to eventually widen PCH to provide shoulders through the section where this crash presumably occurred.
This is the 55th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 22nd in Los Angeles County; it’s also the seventh in the City of Los Angeles.
Note: An earlier version of this story contained the wrong total for bicycling fatalities in Los Angeles County this year; it has been corrected to reflect the accurate total.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his or her loved ones.
Thanks to Brian Nilsen for the heads-up. And thanks to Ed Ryder for the stats on PCH.
City Lab writes the problem with Vision Zero is the need for increased enforcement while communities of color are already reeling from it; the story cites the LACBC’s Tamika Butler as an example of being stopped for driving while black.
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Local
Cycling in the South Bay’s Seth Davidson says, despite their protestations, Palos Verdes NIMBYs don’t give a rat’s ass about the safety of cyclists. But they’re welcome to prove him wrong by attending the free Cycling Savvy course next month.
CiclaValley goes riding in the Sierras and hangs out with Justin Timberlake. Best wishes to his mom; good to know she’s going to be okay.
State
More Coronado madness, as a woman is revolted by the idea of a bike/ped path on the Coronado Bridge, and expects little kids to hold their line when biking to school.
A Petaluma man donates 23 bicycles to help victims of the recent Clayton fire in Lake County.
Chico police recover four suspected stolen bikes from homeless camps; two that had been reported stolen were returned to their owners on the spot, while the others were booked as unclaimed property. Always report a stolen bike to the police; one of their biggest complaints is the number of bikes that can’t be returned to their owners because they were ever reported stolen.
Bad news struck close to home at the Denver Post, as a reporter with the paper was killed by a suspected drunk driver while riding or walking her bike in a crosswalk.
A 99-year old member of the Bicycling Hall of Fame passed away in a Chicago suburb last week, five years after her last ride, and 87 years after she bought her first bicycle.
The NYPD blames a salmon cyclist for a fatal collision, even though the driver was speeding. Yes the cyclist was in the wrong, but the driver should share the blame; if he hadn’t been speeding it’s possible he could have avoided the crash or the victim might have survived the impact.
International
Sales of MIPS helmets are booming; they’re designed to reduce the risk of concussion and rotational injuries in a crash.
A bike-riding writer for London’s Evening Standard wonders why bicyclists make some drivers boil with rage. Good question; I suspect we’re just easy targets for people who are already pissed off.
Horrifying assault in the UK, as a gang of bike-riding teenage hooligans beat a Polish immigrant to death after hearing him speak in his native tongue. This is the legacy of all the hate spilled in the recent Brexit campaign.
News just broke today that a man died last week following a Palm Springs collision.
According to the Desert Sun, 48-year old Cathedral City resident Arthur Abilene was hit by a pickup at 12 am on Wednesday, August 23rd.
He was reportedly riding against traffic in the southbound lane of Crossley Road when he entered the intersection at Ramon Road against the red light, and was struck by the eastbound truck.
He was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center, where he passed away at 11:15 Friday night.
The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with police, and is not suspected of being under the influence; investigators say he was traveling around the 40 mph speed limit.
This tragedy highlights the dangers of riding against traffic, as drivers don’t anticipate riders coming from the wrong direction, and have less time to stop to avoid a collision.
Abilene’s death comes just three months after Clay Charles Triolo was killed by a hit-and-run driver just yards away on Ramon Road.
This is the 54th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth in Riverside County. That compares with 47 deaths in SoCal this time last year, and four in Riverside County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Arthur Abilene and his loved ones.
September 1, 2016 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: SD Nobel Prize winner dies on Oregon bike path, homeless bicyclist shot by Santa Ana police dies
He won the prize in 2008 for his work in identifying a green fluorescent protein found in jellyfish that could be used as a biological marker to help illuminate diseases such as cancer and HIV.
No word on how he died, or if he was biking at the time.
Richard Gene Swihart was riding his bicycle near the Santa Ana Civic Center on August 1st when police tried to stop him and he began struggling with the officers. Swihart was shot after allegedly attempting to grab an officer’s gun.
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This is why people continue to die on our streets.
A Cincinnati woman gets 13 years for the hit-and-run death of a popular cyclist; at the time of her arrest, she had ten drugs in her system, a bra full of prescription pills, and a purse filled with syringes and a tourniquet. And was driving on a suspended license, with two previous convictions for driving while suspended. Ohio Bike Lawyer Steve Magas, a friend of this site, questions whether justice was done by the harsh sentence, even though he represented the victim’s family in the case.
Both of these drivers had already shown themselves unable, or unwilling, to get sober and obey the law, and therefore unfit to drive. Yet they were on the roads anyway.
It’s clear that innocent victims will keep dying until authorities finally start to give a damn. And find a way to keep people like this from ever getting behind the wheel.
West Hollywood’s WeHo Pedals bikeshare is now officially a go, though virtually all of the docking stations are centered on the Santa Monica Blvd corridor, ignoring the popular Sunset Strip and other parts of the city.
A self-described longtime San Diego cyclist says he hasn’t seen any increase in bicycling, and the city should stop stealing traffic lanes and parking spaces from those poor, oppressed drivers. He also complains about how awful downtown is to drive in, and how expensive it is to park, never seeming to grasp the obvious solution to both of those problems.
The Denver bike cop who was nearly killed when he was struck by an out-of-control driver finally return to work after nearly 21 months; the driver who hit him was convicted of lying about suffering from seizures on his driver’s license application.
The driver responsible for the drug-fueled Kalamazoo massacre has been found competent to stand trial; he faces up to life in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.
It’s true, bike riders really do run red lights. DC’s red light camera’s caught 1,557 cyclists running reds over a 16 month period — compared to over 60,000 drivers. So who are the real scofflaws?
Great Britain’s successful Olympic cycling team says the best way to honor them is for the government to invest heavily in creating a legacy of everyday bike riding.
Caught on video: If you’re looking for the definition of a punishment pass, this is it.
It took 14 years to reach a settlement in a case where a road raging driver ran over a then-four-year old girl she rode in a bike trailer pulled by her father. Shockingly, the murderous driver got just two years, despite revving over 200 yards in reverse to asault his victims.
Then again, it’s not just drivers; a bike rider in the UK was punched by a pedestrian in a seemingly random assault; surprisingly, the attacker chose not to hang around until the police to arrived.
A press release from the Azusa Police Department says the driver doesn’t even know when he hit the cyclist, telling the police it happened at an unknown time and location, sometime between Saturday night and Monday morning.
The driver reportedly said the victim’s friends laughed about it, and that he drove off after talking with the rider he hit, who also left the scene. Which seems improbable, given the major damage to his windshield, suggesting a significant impact.
Never mind that someone would have to be pretty wasted to crash into someone and not even know when it happened, let alone where.
Police don’t know if a crime actually occurred, but are asking anyone with information to call the Azusa Police Department at 626/812-3200.
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This is who we share the roads with.
Bike commuter weshigh was the victim of not one, but two dangerous passes from the same driver — the last one just a foot away, in clear violation of California’s three foot passing law.
And adding insult to injury, the driver yelled at him to “get a car, bitch!” when he caught up to him at a red light.
A better solution would be if the driver wasn’t allowed to use one anymore.
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Congratulations to the LACBC’s Tamika Butler on her well-deserved award from the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals for 2016 Professional of the Year – Nonprofit Sector.
“Los Angeles and the entire region are really important right now, not just to the many people that live there but as a national example,” Roberts explained. “What is in the city’s Mobility Plan demonstrates where our nation needs to go, where active transportation is not an after-thought, but a core strategy…LACBC and Tamika are part of writing that important story.”
Then there’s this from another committee member.
“Tamika has challenged the pedestrian and bicycle professional community to grapple with the ways that privilege and structural inequality are embedded in our transportation system and our profession,” wrote Sarah Fine, a member of the APBP awards committee and a planner with the City of Oakland. “We’re all better for it.”
The Hollywood Reporter offers a detailed look at the terrifying attack on a Beverly Hills surgeon, which started when three people in Venice claimed he damaged a bicycle and demanded $150 on the spot.
That’s more like it. An Oregon man gets six years and loses his driver’s license for life for killing a teenage bike rider while visibly drunk. Any conviction for killing another human being while driving should result in the automatic loss of license. Period.
The Detroit News writes about fallen cyclist Karen McKeachie, saying the champion triathlete died doing what she loved. Seriously, if anyone says that about me, I’ll come back and haunt them and their descendants for all eternity.
A Pennsylvania man says he shouldn’t have been driving after using heroin, cocaine and marijuana before getting behind the wheel; unfortunately, it came a little too late for the bicyclist he killed.
Buried in the 3,721 page records of Hillary Clinton’s schedules at the State Department is news that she dedicated a basement shower for employees who wanted to bike or run to work.
Caught on video too: Celebrity is clearly no protection from road raging drivers, as a BBC presenter suffers the wrath of a driver who assaults him and threatens to knock him out for the crime of riding his bike outside the door zone.
Aussie cyclists call for repealing the country’s mandatory bike helmet law, while physicians warn the rate of head injuries could go up. Of course, the only way to find out is repeal, or at least suspend, the law and study the outcome.
A Beijing blog list 16 things that need banning more than the just banned e-scooters, including cyclists who ignore road regulations, and elderly riders who kick their legs over their bikes without looking first to see if other riders are passing.
