For the first seven months of this year, it was one of the safest places to ride a bicycle in Southern California, with just four deaths.
Even though just one is one too many.
Yet the county has doubled that total in just the last ten days, with the latest death coming yesterday in Carlsbad, where the victim was collateral damage in a police chase.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, died at the scene, while both the 28-year old motorcyclist and his passenger, a 22-year old woman, were hospitalized with serious injuries.
There’s no word on when or where the pursuit started, or how fast the motorcyclist was going at the time of the crash.
However, it raises inevitable questions about the wisdom of police chases that place innocent people at risk, and whether a parks cop was properly trained in how to conduct a chase.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Investigator Adam Bentley at 442/339-5559.
This is at least the 58th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
It’s also the 4th bicycling death in the county in the last ten days, and the second in Carlsbad.
Catcott was reportedly moving from the bike lane to a turn lane when he was run down by the fleeing motorcyclist, and succumbed to blunt force trauma.
The paper reports Carlsbad Police referred questions to State Parks officials, who said there “is no new information to share with the public” ten days after the crash.
Not that they’re trying to cover their collective ass or anything.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for the Brad Allen Catcott and all his loved ones.
August 15, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Contact LA city council to support Healthy Streets LA, and CA bill would give up to $5,000 tax credit for carfree households
The council has 20 days to decide whether to adopt the proposal as written or place it on the ballot for the 2024 election.
Or they could adopt their own ordinance, which could include similar language to the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal, but could be change at any time, for any reason, unlike the the ballot measure which would require a vote of the people to modify or repeal.
Last month, we turned in more than 100,000 signatures from residents in every single council district in Los Angeles — the people demanded safer streets, protected bike lanes, and dedicated bus lanes. Yesterday, the City Clerk certified our petition.
Now, it goes to City Council. The City Council has 20 days to decide to adopt our measure as an ordinance, or send it to the ballot to let the voters decide. We already know what voters want. That’s why we need your help to get the city council to adopt us as an ordinance within the next two weeks.
One of the most exciting bills in CA: SB 457. The bill would give households tax credits for *not* having cars. A two-adult household with no cars would get a $5,000 tax credit. If they had one car, they’d get $2,500. Two cars, $0.https://t.co/nyPp1np8nLhttps://t.co/e75RUiHXCp
It could do as much as anything to help get people out of their cars.
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This is who we share the road with.
A New Hampshire truck driver plowed head-on into a group of motorcyclists, killing seven people; a jury let him walk without a day behind bars, though he may be deported to his native Ukraine. Just in case you wondered why people keep dying on our streets. And my apologies to whoever sent this to me; I’m afraid I lost track of it over the weekend.
Too many Angelenos learn about our deadly streets the hard way.
#WATCH: "It opened my eyes about the streets of LA," says the sister of a hit-and-run victim from the corner where her brother was killed. Family of Jammie Wilson want a stronger commitment to #VisionZero. pic.twitter.com/6G4ZxUV9U1
Not Just Bikes considers the bakfiets as a car. replacement.
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French illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé created over one hundred covers for The New Yorker, including many bicycling themed illustrations.
Jean-Jacques Sempé, France’s most celebrated cartoonist, has died aged 89. He did many New Yorker covers, including this one from 1983. pic.twitter.com/01LGG6VsSb
No bias here. A Louisville KY TV station reports, apparently seriously, that a salmon cyclist crashed her bike into the front of a police patrol car, rather than the cops hitting her with their car. That’s like saying “Please accept my apologies for hitting your fist with my nose.”
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Los Angeles Times readers address the recent article about the Healthy Streets LA initiative qualifying for the ballot with surprisingly less vitriol than expected, though one insisted on trotting out the old “this is not Amsterdam” bromide, combined with the myth that its too hot to ride to work in a suit here. Especially since so many Angelenos have ditched their suits post pandemic.
Bike shops couldn’t keep up during the pandemic bike boom, and ended up ordering bikes that weren’t delivered until the after the boom crested; now they’re overflowing with bikes they can’t sell. For some reason, this story wasn’t blocked by the Wall Street Journal’s paywall, though your results may vary.
A 34-year old Edinburgh man with terminal motor neurone disease completed a mountainous, 20 hour, 265-mile fundraising ride; in the four years since his diagnosis, he’s raised the equivalent of $181,000 to fight the disease, with another $60,000 pledged for this ride.
Nice story from Gabon, where a teacher got tired of watching her students walk for miles to get to school, so she started a company making bamboo bicycles; she already has over 5,000 orders.
He says that Angelenos — or at least his readers — have had it with speeding drivers in the wake of last week’s crash that killed five people, as well as an unborn baby just two weeks from full term.
They want more enforcement, stiffer penalties for offenders and better street design, and they want to know why — even as we move toward electric vehicles to save the planet — the auto industry produces gas-guzzling behemoths that easily go twice the highest speed limits, and why the media culture celebrates velocity.
While he addresses safety concerns throughout the city, what especially stands out is a group of Angelino Heights residents who are fighting to stop filming for the latest movie in the Fast & Furious franchise, over fears it will encourage still more dangerously aggressive drivers to seek out the neighborhood.
“We will not stand for them filming here,” says a letter that was emailed to City Hall, arguing that the moviemakers “do nothing to dissuade their macho fans from endangering people’s lives on public streets in Los Angeles…”
“I am sick and tired of these knucklehead street racers speeding and doing doughnuts in our neighborhood,” said Echo Park resident Alan Lee, who lives near a market featured in one of the “Fast & Furious” movies. The market draws speeders and stunt drivers, Lee said, and he saw one lose control and plow into a neighbor’s car.
Michele McKinnon said tenants in her Echo Park apartment building complain of stunt driving and the smell of burned rubber, a familiar scent on weekend evenings. The “Fast & Furious” franchise has made billions glorifying “deadly street racing,” McKinnon said in an email to city officials, promising to disrupt filming “all day and night” in honor of those who have lost their lives to reckless driving.
Speed Racer wannabe see, Speed Racer wanna be do.
Lopez also isn’t afraid to take state legislators to task for failing to earn their pay.
Some legislators have tried to do something, but several bills to control speeding have failed. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that whereas national Republican lawmakers have failed to support sensible gun control proposals despite the ongoing firearm carnage, the Democrats who dominate the California Legislature have been missing in action when it comes to cracking down on drivers who use vehicles as weapons.
Amen, brother.
Still, there’s good news on the legislative front, as we’ll see in the next section.
and 3 bills by @laurafriedman43 PASSED: AB 2097 – eliminate parking requirements near transit AB 2438 – align state transportation funding with greenhouse gas reduction goals AB 1919 – make cycling safer and easier
The Biden administration released the first round of funding for federal RAISE grants — Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity — which were formerly known as BUILD grants, which were themselves formerly known as TIGER grants, releasing roughly $2.2 billion to fund 166 initiatives in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
A Florida state attorney — the equivalent of a DA — has rescinded a policy put in place by her predecessor to address the problem of police stops that disproportionately targeted Black people, aka Biking While Black.
Police in Graz, Austria are cracking down on drunk bicyclists, after residents respond to drunk driving laws by taking to their bikes. I still say that’s counterproductive; I’d much rather see a drunk on a bike than in a car, where they could do far more harm.
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, died at the scene after being knocked onto the sidewalk.
There’s no word on whether the 69-year-old woman behind the wheel swerved into the bike lane, or if the victim left the bike lane for some reason. However, police don’t believe drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash.
The driver was hospitalized for non-life threatening medical care, though it was unclear if she was injured in the crash or was treated for some sort of health condition.
Anyone with information is urged to call Escondido Police Officer Pete McCollough at 760/839-4930.
This is at least the 56th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for the victim and all his loved ones.
August 11, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Healthy Streets LA ballot measure qualifies for ballot, moves to city council; and Paris moves to be 100% bikeable
Correction: I got a couple things wrong in the following piece.
First off, the Healthy Streets LA initiative has qualified for the 2024 ballot, not this fall as I originally wrote.
Second, my sloppy wording implied that the city council had the option of changing the wording on the initiative, but they don’t. They have the option of adopting the initiative as written, or adopting their own ordinance based on the initiative.
Or as an alternative, the city council could skip the whole hassle of campaigning for the next two years, and adopt the measure outright, which is what Streets For All is pushing for.
We got our council file # today! (22-0910)
If you live in the City of LA, here’s how you can help: 1/ submit comment to the council file 2/ email your Councilmember 3/ show up to the full council vote late August (date TBD)
The measure would simply require that the city implement the already approved mobility plan whenever streets in the plan get resurfaced, whether repaved or coated with a slurry seal.
The council can adopt the plan outright, adopt their own alternative version based on the plan, or vote to place it on the ballot.
Some people, including longtime leading pedestrian advocate Jessica Meaney, have called for the city to adopt the alternative version including a plan for implementation with a focus on equity.
The problem with that is that it could be amended or revoked by a simple vote of the city council at any time, for any reason. So if the next Gil Cedillo or Paul Koretz decided they didn’t want bike lanes in their district, they could easily have them removed.
Adopting the proposal outright would give it the force of law, and would require a vote of the people in order to modify it. And nothing prevents the city council from approving both the Healthy Streets LA proposal, as well as the council’s version, with a focus on equity in the resurfacing schedule, to govern how it will be rolled out.
Which would be the best of all possible worlds, and what Streets For All is recommending.
Meanwhile, the LA Times looked at the ballot measure, and the willingness of city officials and the public to make real changes to the streets to increase safety and livability.
In the city where the car is king, activists are pushing to claim strips of the biggest boulevards for bicyclists and walkers.
Their fight has played out at Griffith Park, where streets were recently closed after a cyclist was killed. It spilled out along the steps of City Hall where advocates staged a die-in. And now, it could make its way to the ballot box in a vote that will test traffic-weary Angelenos’ willingness to put themselves on a so-called road diet to make streets safer and the air cleaner.
But what jumps out from the story is a comment from a board member from NIMBY advocacy group Fix The City.
“If you take away vehicle lanes, you are creating congestion,” said Mike Eveloff, a board member of the nonprofit Fix The City. The group successfully sued Los Angeles over its mobility plan, mandating that an extensive outreach plan accompany new projects for 10 years. “This will result in even more lawsuits against the city. There are no costs disclosed. This represents a ‘hidden’ tax.”
Eveloff said he once loved to cycle but not anymore. “The infrastructure is incompatible with cars, bikes and pedestrians sharing the same space.”
He clearly doesn’t recognize the irony of that statement.
Because that same lack of safe infrastructure keeps many people from riding their bikes or walking to the market. And the fixes the Fix The City group opposes are exactly what would allow him to ride a bike once again.
Who knows, he might even like it.
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This is what Los Angeles could be doing.
Paris has invested the equivalent of 154 million dollars to transform itself from a typically auto-centric, car-choked city to one where both residents and visitors can choose to get anywhere in the city on two wheels.
The city is increasing its investment to $258 million to build 621 miles of bike lanes and 186 miles of cycle tracks, along with 30,000 bike racks, with 1,000 spaces reserved for cargo bikes, and 40,000 new secure bicycle parking spaces.
They’re also planning for 8,400 ebike charging stations.
This is the sort of wholesale transportation changes we were promised with the adoption of LA’s mobility plan, before we were all told it was merely “aspirational.”
And forgettable, evidently.
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Robert Downey Jr. is one of us, as he makes a sepia toned call for more bike lanes.
Every 1M spent on bike lanes creates 18 more jobs than the same amount for regular auto centric roads…lets “self-propel” our planets future….#bikelanesrockpic.twitter.com/HmW96JbE5J
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The widow of a man murdered by a bike-riding man while their family was on vacation in Myrtle Beach SC is demanding the death penalty or life in prison for his killer; the victim was shot eight times after agreeing to give the down-and-out stranger a ride
Speaking of Silicon Valley tech firms, Ralph Nader urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, to recall Tesla’s full self-driving technology, calling it “one of the most dangerous and irresponsible actions by a car company in decades.”
August 11, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 42-year old man killed riding ebike against traffic in Huntington Beach, 70-year old driver arrested for DUI
Once again, Southern California’s killer highway has claimed a life.
But this time, the victim was at least partly at fault for riding salmon — even though he was struck by an allegedly stoned driver.
According to the Daily Pilot, 42-year old Huntington Beach resident Timothy John Briley was killed when he was struck by a driver while riding an ebike against traffic in Huntington Beach Tuesday evening.
He was taken to a local hospital, where he died 40 minutes later.
Front remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators; she was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence at 7:40 pm.
There are no bike lanes or other bike infrastructure on PCH north of Admiralty, and no word on whether Briley was riding in the parking lane or traffic lanes.
There’s also no word on why he was riding against traffic, although some people mistakenly believe they’re safer facing oncoming traffic. However, the reality is just the opposite.
Anyone with information is urged to call Huntington Beach traffic investigator Jeremy Rounds at 714/536-5670.
This is at least the 55th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 11th that I’m aware of in Orange County.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for Timothy John Briley and all his loved ones.
Thirteen previous crashes, including a 2020 crash that totaled both vehicles. And yet she was somehow allowed to keep driving, despite demonstrating a clear inability to do so safely.
Either that, or she was plagued by some of the worst luck in the history of driving.
Linton was formally charged with six counts of murder — one for each victim — along with five counts of vehicular homicide. The unborn child of the pregnant woman killed in the crash accounts for the discrepancy; the death of the eight-and-a-half month unborn baby is eligible for a murder charge, but not vehicular homicide.
LA County DA George Gascón concluded her prior crash record indicated she was aware of the risks of driving in a dangerous manner, making her eligible for the murder charges.
Linton faces up to life behind bars upon conviction. She’s currently being held without bail after the previous $9 million bond was revoked.
Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the heads-up.
Police investigators are trying to determine if drugs or alcohol played a role in the fiery crash.
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I once made the mistake of telling a bikemaker I didn’t see a market for ebikes, because I assumed everyone would want the exercise and health benefits of a standard bike.
So this is a snapshot of just who is taking up ebikes.
You know, the market I somehow couldn’t picture.
What does research say about e-bikes?
– younger & part-time working women with kids is the fastest growing user group – retirees are the largest user group & use e-bike for recreation – the second largest e-bike user group are middle-aged full-time workers who use it to commute https://t.co/B1H7kUJMa6
BIKE RECOVERY: "I got extremely lucky. Someone found my bike dumped in front of their home. The homeowners called me after checking Bike Index and seeing my bike listed stolen. I am so grateful to have my bike back." @iamspecialized@stolenbikessfopic.twitter.com/B7XPsNjtVb
BIKE RECOVERY: "I am so happy that my bike is recovered after just one day! I don't know what to say, but I just want to say thank you for all the help and great favor!" @RadPowerBikes@stolenbikesseapic.twitter.com/5GT7i8dQr9
So if anything happens to your bike, you’ll have all the information you need to add your bike to Bike Index’ nationwide database of stolen bikes. And increase your chances of getting it back, wherever its found.
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Streets For All is hosting their latest virtual happy hour this evening.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A new San Francisco group demanding the reopening of JFK Drive through Golden Gate Park to cars has issued their full set of demands, including parking on every street, no parking-protected bike lanes, and no bike lanes replacing parking.
An Irish road and cyclocross racer is back to riding just two weeks after he suffered four broken ribs and two broken vertebrae, as well as a partially collapsed lung, when someone sabotaged a mountain bike trail with a rope strung across the path; Seán Nolan warns that its only a matter of time before someone gets killed.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 922 passed the state Assembly with almost unanimous support; the bill expedited bike, pedestrian, light rail, and rapid bus projects by exempting them from the California Environmental Quality Act, aka CEQA. It now goes back to the Senate for a final vote before going to the governor’s desk for a signature.
Santa Barbara’s Parks and Recreation Commission approved the removal of 34 trees to build a bike path on the city’s Modoc Road, which will require moving the roadway 12 feet so the path won’t go through sensitive wildlife habitat near Arroyo Burro Creek; the project is less controversial than another one along Modoc Road in Santa Barbara County, which will require removing 40 to 61 trees.
The woman accused of killing two men participating in a Michigan Make-A-Wish fundraising ride while driving under the influence is due back in court for a prelim next week; the crash left nine kids without their fathers.
August 9, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 35-year old woman riding ebike dies after collision with SUV driver in Carlsbad; her 16-month old daughter unhurt
Because of last night’s breaking news, there will be no Morning Links today.
We’ll be back tomorrow to catch up on anything we missed.
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Three crashes. Three deaths. Three counties. Two hit-and-runs.
All in less than 20 hours.
A horrible weekend for the bicycling community finally concluded with the last of three innocent victims, who died simply because they rode their bicycles on Southern California streets.
She was taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, and died the next afternoon. Her child appeared to be unhurt, but was taken to the hospital as a precaution.
At least the driver stuck around this time, unlike the other two crashes.
The 42-year old woman reportedly cooperated with police investigators, who don’t believe drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash.
Unfortunately, there’s no word on how the crash may have occurred. A street view doesn’t offer any help, showing a pair of two-lane residential streets, controlled with a four-way stop.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Corporal Matt Bowen at 442/339-2282.
This is at least the 54th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for Christine Embree and all her loved ones.
August 9, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 53-year old La Habra man riding bike killed in Sunday hit-and-run; teenaged boy and father arrested next day
Three crashes. Three deaths. Three counties. Two hit-and-runs.
All in less than 20 hours.
A horrible weekend for the bicycling community continued with the second of three innocent victims, who died just because they rode their bicycles on Southern California streets.
According to the La Habra police department, a male bicyclist was found lying in the roadway in the 500 block of West La Habra Boulevard around 4:43 pm Sunday.
The victim, identified only as a 53-year old La Habra resident, was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.
Police described the suspect vehicle as an extended cab Chevrolet Silverado pickup, white with stock rims and a construction rack in the truck bed, with damage to the center grill, hood and driver’s side headlight.
The 17-year old La Habra boy was booked on charges of felony hit-and-run and possession of a stolen vehicle, while his father, 35-year old La Habra resident Mario Popsuc, was arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle, and aiding and abetting in the collision.
Anyone with information is urged to call La Habra police at 562/383-4305.
This is at least the 53rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the tenth that I’m aware of in Orange County.
Eighteen of those deaths have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for the victim and all his loved ones.
