Morning Links: Possible Olin cover-up, USC students launch Nutlock, and the other cyclist from my hometown

August 7, 2014 / / 5 comments

The LA Times updates the lack of action in the Milt Olin case, killed by an LA County Sheriff’s Deputy while riding on Mulholland Highway last December.

The story offers one bit of new information, reporting that an initial examination of the driver’s cell phone showed no activity at the time of the crash, while phone records later showed he had texted six times in the minutes leading up to it.

Which suggests that the texts may have been erased from the phone in an attempt to cover it up — or that someone may have ignored evidence on the phone pointing to his guilt.

Meanwhile, Salon is the first national news source to pick up the story, noting that texting while driving is illegal in California. But they fail to note the exemption for on-duty emergency workers, which could explain why the DA’s office can’t seem to find anything to charge him with.

This one was forwarded from multiple sources, so thanks to everyone who sent it for the heads-up; thanks to Hwy 39 for the Salon link.

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USC students unveil an innovative new wheel lock to help prevent wheel theft and eliminate the need to lock them in addition to the frame. Security is enhanced by plans to create multiple key designs to prevent thieves from simply buying a set to unlock the wheels.

After just two days, their Kickstarter campaign has already raised over $10,000 towards the $15,000 goal. A pledge of just $25 dollars will get you a pair of Nutlocks of your very own.

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The other famous cyclist from my hometown, Teejay van Garderen, will defend his USA Pro Challenge title later this month. Former next big thing pro cyclist Joe Dombrowski has vascular surgery to try and get his leg strength back.

And Peter Sagan may not be headed to Tinkoff-Saxo after all. Update: Yes, he is.

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Local

The LACBC invites you to attend Hot August Bikes at Hollywood’s Amoeba Records on Sunday, the 17th.

London Bridge may not be falling down, but the Riverside Figueroa Bridge is. Or being dismantled, anyway.

No irony here, as Beverly Hills promotes heart health while fighting bike lanes and discouraging bike riding in the city.

Santa Monica gets $4.4 million to improves streets and implement their Bike Action Plan.

Proposed Glendale Green Streets could include bike lanes. And a smart OpEd in the Glendale News-Press patiently explains why motorists are a bigger danger than cyclists.

 

State

Measuring traffic flow by automotive throughput — aka Level of Service — is now officially a thing of the past in California.

BikeSD makes a public call for the resignation of the chair of the city’s Uptown Planners group.

A 73-year old San Diego cyclist suffers major head trauma in a head-on collision with another rider.

Mobile bike repair service comes to San Diego.

BART hopes new signs will keep bike riders from breaking the rules.

 

National

The problem with Share the Road campaigns.

If you want to get cyclists off the sidewalk, build bike lanes.

Wearing headphones when you ride may not be smart, but it’s safer than driving with the windows rolled up.

East Texas cyclists start a safety campaign reminding drivers that bike riders are people, too.

A reminder that a new bike path isn’t any good if it’s not maintained, like this one in New Jersey.

A former American Gladiator allegedly flattens a pedestrian while riding in New York’s Central Park.

To protect and serve (pizza). Baltimore bike cops go above and beyond by delivering pizza to a seriously injured cyclist after she’s released from the hospital; link via Bicycling magazine.

The Baltimore airport opens a 12.5 mile bike path, complete with bike share to entertain waiting passengers and employees.

Kill a bike rider in Florida, and lose your license for a whopping six months.

 

International

A Vancouver motorist drives down a protected bike lane, then right crosses a cyclist after leaving it.

Evidently, a unanimous vote of Toronto’s city council doesn’t mean any more than it does here, as they voted for a separated bike lane that never gets built. Sort of like bike lanes on Lankershim, Westwood and North Figueroa.

A London grocery truck gets outfitted with 360-degree cameras in an effort to protect bike riders.

Caught on video: A London bike rider captures a first-person view of a cut-off collision; fortunately, he survived the brutal impact.

Lovely Bicycle meditates on a ghost bike for a 16-year old Irish rider.

A new Chinese bike helmet promises to be a combination turn signal and mood ring for your head.

 

Finally…

After a six-year old Portland girl posts a sign shaming the thieves that stole her dad’s bikes, the publicity helps get them back. After repeatedly giving a Texas man with Asperger’s Syndrome a ride to work, local police pitch in to buy him a bicycle; now that’s class.

And Austrian police tell a naked bike rider to put her damn clothes on, already.

 

Category: Legal Cases, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Daughter of LAPD Sgt. accepts plea in death of Gardena cyclist Jesse Dotson

August 6, 2014 / / 5 comments

Despite her best efforts, the killer of a Gardena bike rider was unable to avoid justice after all.

Although her semi-successfult attempt to flee the scene may have spared her from a more severe penalty.

Twenty-three-year old Vanessa Marie Yanez was reportedly driving home when she collided with 60-year old postal worker Jesse Dotson as he was riding into work on Gardena’s El Segundo Blvd in June of last year. Yanez fled the scene, leaving Dotson bleeding in the street; he died in a local hospital a few days later.

The daughter of a veteran LAPD sergeant, Yanez reported the car stolen to the Huntington Park police the next day. However, an alert HPPD officer put two-and-two together after seeing news reports of the collision, and contacted Gardena police to report Yanez as a suspect.

Her car was found, complete with shattered windshield, still at the home she shared with her father, less than a mile from the scene of the collision. KNBC-4 later reported she told police she had been drinking before the wreck; if true, fleeing the scene would have given her time to sober up before her arrest.

She was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, perjury, filing a false police report and felony hit-and-run.

Gardena police initially said her father, Sgt. Arturo Yanez, could face charges if it was shown that he had knowledge of his daughter’s actions or was involved in the attempted cover-up. No such charges were ever filed, though, even though it’s hard to understand how such an experienced officer would be unaware of what was happening under his own roof.

There were also reports that he could face an internal investigation with the LAPD; however, such investigations are considered personnel matters, and the results are unlikely to ever be made public.

Today, the LA District Attorney’s office announced (pdf) that Vanessa Yanez had changed her plea to no contest on three counts — a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident, felony perjury, and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. She is expected to be sentenced to two years in state prison on September 25th.

The sentence seems light under the circumstances, suggesting she accepted a plea deal in exchange for a lighter sentence, as usually happens in traffic cases.

However, light sentences do little to stem the epidemic of hit-and-runs. And her sentence would have undoubtedly been much stiffer if it could have been shown that she was under the influence when she hit Dotson.

Which is just one more reason why the penalty for hit-and-run should be stiffened to match the penalties for drunk driving and remove the incentive for intoxicated drivers to flee the scene.

Correction: This story initially said Yanez had pled guilty; it has been amended to reflect her actual plea of no contest.

 

Category: Bikes & the Law, Hit-and-Run, Legal Cases / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: KABC talks with Laura Weintraub; great video and photos from Brentwood Grand Prix

August 6, 2014 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: KABC talks with Laura Weintraub; great video and photos from Brentwood Grand Prix

After dealing with breaking news for the last couple days, we’ve got a lot to catch up on. So let’s get right to it.

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KABC-7 talks with former bike-hater Laura Weintraub in the wake of yesterday’s new video calling for greater understanding and a détente between cyclists and drivers.

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A panel discussion at the new Levi’s pop-up store in DTLA this Thursday will consider making LA a more livable city.

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LA’s own former national crit champ Rasaan Bahati narrates his on-bike video of the last laps of Sunday’s Brentwood Grand Prix, while Echelon Design offers some incredible photos of the race.

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Sounds like fun. FAME FEST promises a street-long bike fest and scavenger hunt along famed Melrose Avenue this Sunday.

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England’s Montague Bikes is offering you a chance to win a 7-speed folding road bike.

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Local

Despite earlier bike and sidewalk-free design recommendations, current projections favor bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the redesigned Glendale-Hyperion Bridge.

A new road diet and bike lanes finally goes in on Figueroa St. But on south, not Gil Cedillo’s needlessly controversial north, Fig.

The Times’ Steve Lopez asks why an 86-year old cyclist can’t get the dangerous alley behind her home fixed.

CicLAvia begins outreach for October’s ride through Boyle Heights.

A HuffPo writer points out the perils of biking in New York and LA.

Santa Monica Spoke invites you to the Grand Opening of a new Dutch and folding bike shop.

Damien Newton asks if SaMo is ready for Vision Zero; ready or not, every city and state must resolve to eliminate traffic deaths.

Walk Bike Glendale responds to an anti-bike OpEd in the local paper.

 

State

A reminder that women face risks on the road that most male riders don’t, as a San Diego woman is assaulted while riding home from a bar.

A north San Diego area cyclist chases down the hit-and-run driver who ran down his wife.

A Sacramento man is arrested after attempting to stone a bike rider.

Cyclists enjoy a bike tour of historic sites in Napa.

Ten great NorCal bike rides.

 

National

Funding for bicycling and pedestrian projects will continue at current levels under the new Federal transportation budget. That’s the good news and the bad.

Are drivers and cyclists really natural enemies?

Caught on video: A extremely close call with a motorcyclist offers a reminder to always look behind you — and signal — before turning across a traffic lane. And a bike rider reminds us never to tailgate after crashing into a backhoe.

A Massachusetts man loses 200 pounds through cyclocross racing.

A Florida rider fights for his right to take the lane, but unlike California, local state law may not support him.

 

International

Popular young rider Peter Sagan jumps ship, while Tour de France champ Vincenzo Nibali sets his sights on the world championships.

Caught on video: This is why you need a bike cam, as a UK driver faces multiple charges for fleeing the scene after hitting a cam-equipped cyclist head-on.

London buses will test two new systems to alert drivers to cyclists in their path.

A globe-trotting American cyclist may be buried in Russia after no one comes forward to claim his body.

Don’t spit on other road users, no matter how mad you might get. Just don’t.

 

Finally…

An upstate New York man learns the hard way why it’s unwise to confront an ax-murderer wannabe over a $100 stolen bike. A New Jersey writer apologizes for berating the kid who stole his bike.

And if you’re a convicted felon illegally carrying a rifle and shotgun on your handlebars, don’t crash into a damn power pole, already.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , ,

A new video — and change of heart — from the formerly bike-hating former reserve Santa Paula police officer

August 5, 2014 / / 22 comments

Now she gets it.

Maybe you remember a couple weeks ago when the internet blew up over a bike-hating video from a woman who was quickly identified as a reserve Santa Paula police officer.

Even though, as it turned out, Laura Weintraub was only peripherally associated with the department, helping out around the office a few hours a week. She was never a patrol officer, and never in a position to enforce the law, fairly or otherwise.

And the bike-friendly department she barely worked for got an undeserved black eye based on the comments of someone who should have known better.

It wasn’t like the anger we all felt wasn’t justified.

Weintraub’s failed attempt at humor fell into a long list of shock jocks, newspaper columnists, comedians, online commenters and just plain anti-social jerks who can’t seem to understand that bike riders have as much a right to the road as they do.

And that we’re all just people trying to get from here to there in one piece.

They somehow seem to think the idea of running us over or off the road is outrageously funny. And fail to grasp the concept that a simple tap that would be nothing more than a fender bender between cars could result in serious injury — or worse — if it was with a cyclist, instead.

I was as outraged as anyone.

Yet somehow felt that in our anger, we were missing out on a teachable moment. One that could allow us to reach out to the Santa Paula police, and maybe even drivers like Weintraub herself, to educate them on our rights and how to drive safely around us. And why.

Turns out, a lot of people read that piece.

Including Laura Weintraub.

So I was surprised when I opened my inbox a few days later to find an email from the alleged bike hater herself, asking if we could talk.

When we spoke on the phone a few days later, I found a very caring and contrite young woman who realized she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. And had listened to the angry comments directed her way, and truly got just how and why she was so wrong, and why we were all so upset with her.

A typical motorist, she had never seen us from anything other than a windshield perspective, unaware of our right to the road and the dangers we face on a daily basis from drivers just like her.

She’d never put herself in our position, literally or figuratively, she said.

But she wanted to.

So I agreed to meet with her, and take her on a ride through the relatively quiet streets of Santa Monica and Venice, unwilling to throw a neophyte rider into the deep end on more challenging streets.

Even that brief tour through tame traffic scared her. But somehow, she held her own, remembering the riding tips she’d gotten from me, as well as cycling instructor Stanley Appleman the day before.

She also picked my brain in an attempt to truly understand the dangers we face, and what we can do to make peace on the roads with people like her.

Or at least, like the way she’d been a few weeks before.

She’s changed. She truly gets it.

She’s doing her best to make amends. Not to improve her badly tarnished reputation, but to fix the mistake she made.

And talk to the people out there who might have found the humor in her previously video, and explain to them and other like-minded drivers that we’re all just people, on two wheels or four.

But don’t take my word for it.

Take a look at her latest video, and decide for yourself.

And let’s stop the death threats. Against her or anyone else, no matter how deserved you think they may be.

Just like her earlier video, it’s not funny.

And never appropriate.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Best of, Bicycle Safety, Car vs Bike / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Update: 40-something cyclist killed in DTLA; second rider to die on Alameda Street in the last six months

August 4, 2014 / / 12 comments

More bad news, this time from Downtown Los Angeles.

According to a press release from the LAPD, the victim, identified only as a man in his early 40s, was hit and killed by a flatbed tractor trailer on Alameda just south of 20th Street at 1:10 pm Monday.

The police report says the cyclist was riding with traffic on southbound Alameda Street when he was sideswiped by the driver; he fell into the roadway, where he was run over by the truck’s rear wheels.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The driver remained at the scene and was cooperating with investigators; he was not suspected of being under the influence. Several vehicles initially stopped at the scene, but the drivers did not remain to talk to police.

According to Carlos Morales of the Eastside Bike Club, witnesses said the victim, who was riding a cruiser bike, was hugging the curb when the driver attempted to squeeze past in the same lane.

And clearly, failed.

Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Central Traffic Division Detectives at 213/833-3713 or Detective Felix Padilla at 213/486-0753. You can also call the Central Traffic Division Watch Commander at 213/486-8344.

This is the 57th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 23rd in Los Angeles County. It’s also the eighth bike death in the City of Los Angeles since the first of the year, and the second cycling fatality on Alameda Street since February of this year.

Update: The Long Beach Post has identified the victim as 42-year old Long Beach resident Jarone Bartee; thanks to Danny Gamboa for the link. 

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jarone Bartee and his family. 

Thanks to Carlos Morales of the Eastside Bike Club for the heads-up.

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

Bike rider killed in Orange; OC bike deaths match total for all of last year

August 4, 2014 / / 2 comments

Bad news from Orange County, with very few details.

According to the Orange County Coroner’s office, a male bike rider was hit by a car at the intersection of N Glassell Street and E Chestnut Ave in the City of Orange last Friday morning.

The collision occurred at 8:36 am; he was transported to UCI Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.

No other details are available at this time. The Coroner’s report doesn’t give an age or city of residence for the victim, which suggests they haven’t been able to identify him yet — another reminder to always carry ID whenever you ride.

This is the 56th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th in Orange County, which matches the total in the county for all of last year.

And it’s the second cycling fatality in the City of Orange this year, following the death of Joseph Robinson on Santiago Canyon Road in February.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones. 

Thanks to James Johnson of the Johnson Attorneys Group for the heads-up.

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