They all died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics. They were identified only as a 30-year old white man and a 38-year old woman man who had been on the motorcycle, and a 57-year old Black man riding the bicycle.
Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on how the crash occurred.
Anyone with information as urged to call the Victorville Police Department at 760/241-2911, or call anonymously at 800/782-7463.
This is at least the 33rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the just the second that I’m aware this year in San Bernardino County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for all the victims and their loved ones.
I was hoping to post one last time before my shoulder surgery. But my surgery time was move up several hours, which means I should be sleeping already if I’m going to make it on time.
I’ll be out for most, if not all, of the month. But we should have a number of guest posts between now and then, so keep checking back. Or better yet, sign up for the email list over there on the right to ensure you won’t miss anything.
Stay safe out there, and ride with a smile on your face. And I’ll see you again in a few weeks.
August 6, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bicyclists framed for bear’s murder in Central Park, and El Segundo bike rider critically injured by driver fleeing cops
Clearly, I’m still having trouble keeping this site online.
I’m told the problem is outdated and incompatible apps bringing it down, so maybe that’s something I can work on one-handed when I’m out following my surgery. Keep your fingers crossed that I get this post up and you get to read it before it goes down again.
Because that seems to be a thing right now.
I hope to be back again tomorrow before I go under the knife.
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Just 147 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
But he ran out of time before he had to catch a flight. So rather than let a good dead bear go to waste, he took it to New York’s Central Park and dumped it next to a bicycle, staging the scene to make it look like a bike rider had killed the bear and run away afterwards.
Never mind that a crash with a bicycle is highly unlikely to kill even the barest of a bear. Which, as I recall, was what I wrote at the time, as the media ran wild with the story of the heartless killer bike rider who ran away rather than face the consequences for killing a cute, cuddly walking teddy bear.
This at a time when the media was whipping up a frenzy over New York’s expanding bicycle network, which eventually proved to be a boon to businesses and property values.
As well as reports of reckless, scofflaw bike riders crashing into joggers in Central Park and pedestrians everywhere, in which the person on two wheels inevitably received the full blame for the actions of both parties.
That was the environment in which Kennedy the Younger played his joke, leading to a police investigation that went nowhere.
Evidently, forensics don’t work on bear carcasses, since the cops couldn’t seem to figure out that the fatal injuries caused by a motor vehicle couldn’t have been caused by a lightweight bicycle.
However, it’s likely that Kennedy’s belated confession wasn’t just an effort to cleanse his soul and lighten the bear burden on his conscience.
Rather, he was apparently trying to get ahead of a rumored unflattering story in the New Yorker that would have pointed the finger at the formerly feckless scion of the Kennedy clan for the bear’s demise.
Or at least why its final resting place was next to a Central Park roadway rather than out in the woods.
The driver was fleeing from a traffic stop by members of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s gang and narcotics team when he slammed into the man riding a bicycle at Center Street and Mariposa Ave around 3 pm.
As usual, there’s no word on the victim’s current condition.
Police found the driver’s car nearby after he escaped on foot.
A new re-wilding project in Wales is being funded by the same mountain bikers usually accused of destroying nature, not restoring it. Thanks again to Megan Lynch.
Hong Kong bicycling deaths tripled over the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year — and already top the six riders killed in all of 2023. Although that’s just a quarter of the 24 bike riders killed in Los Angeles last year, even though Hong Kong has twice the population.
Aussie cyclist Rohan Dennis will face trial on charges of causing death by dangerous driving and driving without due care in the death of his his wife and fellow Olympic cyclist Melissa Hoskins.
August 3, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Breaking news: Man riding bicycle killed in Hyde Park hit-and-run; 12th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year
Yet another Southern California bike rider has been killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
He was identified only as a man in his 40s. His killer was apparently nowhere to be found.
Unfortunately, there’s no word at this time just how the crash happened, or any description of the driver or suspect vehicle. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
This is at least the 32nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth that I’m aware this year in Los Angeles County; it’s also just the fifth in the City of Los Angeles — at least that we know about.
Twelve of those SoCal deaths have been the victims of heartless cowards who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterward.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
On the other hand, I can understand the need to lash out at someone, after something like that.
Which leaves us with a lot to catch up on. So let’s see how much we can get to before I have to pack it in for the night.
And it’s a sad commentary that I’m looking forward to shoulder surgery next week just so I can get a couple good hours of sleep.
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Photo shows former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signing the city’s soon-forgotten Vision Zero plan behind his massive outdoor desk, courtesy of Streetsblog.
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Just 151 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
In fact, it’s most likely to be noticed as nothing more than just a blip in their busy schedules, if they notice at all.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Maybe we should replace the current city seal with one bearing the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. Although, now that I think about it, trained monkeys could probably do a better job building a safer city.
The site also reports that drivers in Los Angeles continue to flee from fatal crashes in ever-rising numbers, with 62 hit-and-run deaths in the the just first six months of this year alone — more than double the total of two last pre-pandemic years, with 28 in 2018, and 29 in 2019.
Which would equate to roughly 10 to 12 deaths from traffic violence in a city of LA’s size, with nearly four million people.
And that’s a hell of a lot fewer than we’re likely to endure this year.
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This is who we share the road with.
A commenter at a Glendale City Council meeting freely admits that he thinks his time is more important than the life of someone riding a bicycle, and will gladly speed to cut you off.
And topping this week’s Tour de Road Rage, two men in Highland, California pulled out guns and shot each other to death — in front of one victim’s kids, no less — after one man clipped the other driver’s car mirror while lane splitting on his motorcycle.
Which is all probably fair warning before you lose your top the next time a driver cuts you off or passes too close, because they may be armed and dangerous.
Then again, they’re already driving a multi-ton lethal weapon, anyway.
Gravel Bike California marks this weekend’s Tour de Big Bear with a series of single-track jewels guided by local host and Dirty Bear organizer Robin Brown.
A large part of the problem seems to come from issues with the program’s administrator, a program known as Pedal Ahead. It was selected under raised eyebrows by CARB back in 2022 and tasked with managing the program. However, (Streetsblog’s Melanie) Curr) insinuates that personal connections between a former CARB board member and the founder of Pedal Ahead may have led to its application being granted extra weight despite proposing a significantly different incentive program than that envisioned by the state…
But a slew of complicated issues still needed to be solved, ranging from how the vouchers would be distributed to what types of e-bikes would be eligible and whether online retailers would be allowed to participate, just to name a few.
Over a year was spent trying to work out answers to these questions and many more, often complicated by rethinking earlier decisions and creating new project proposals.
All in favor of just scrapping the damn thing and starting over say “aye!”
After a good criminal investigation or two, that is.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Bend, Oregon family discovered the hard way that the law isn’t always clear-cut when it comes to ebikes, after a middle school student suffered a fractured collarbone and elbow when she was struck by a 17-year old boy riding one — and the cops said there’s nothing they could do.
Researchers from UC Santa Barbara will use a $480,000 Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant to train AI to design a bicycle and wayfinding network for Santa Barbara County, while San Jose will get a similar, if considerably smaller, grant from Toyota to use AI to improve traffic safety. Never mind that we’re talking about the same advanced tech that draws people with three legs, thinks some Nazi soldiers were Black, and suggests shows Netflix couldn’t pay you to watch. Or maybe that’s just me.
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Chicago has now installed a spacious curb-protected bike lane on a deadly street where drivers killed two teenagers riding bikes in separate crashes recently, and is in the process of building a nearby neighborhood greenway.
Except the Ventura County medical examiner said it was just an “oopsie.”
You know, big harm, no foul.
While this site was down for the last few days, news broke that the victim was killed, and several other people injured in a separate collision, when they were struck by the robber as he tried to escape the cops in an SUV shortly after 4 pm.
There’s no word at this time on just how the crash occurred.
Toliver continued without stopping until he crashed into another car, injuring a number of people in that car, and was arrested at gunpoint along with another man.
Fortunately, none of those victims were seriously injured.
Toliver was booked on suspicion of armed robbery, as well as evasion of law enforcement and second-degree murder.
However, the murder charge was dropped after the medical examiner inexplicably ruled Pierret’s death an accident, explaining that traffic deaths are usually considered accidents “unless there is some unusual circumstance.”
Apparently, killing someone while evading police after robbing someone is perfectly normal in Ventura County.
Instead, Toliver was charged with two counts of second degree robbery, evading an officer causing death, fleeing the scene of an accident aausing death, grand theft of a firearm, and assault with a semi-automatic firearm, along with a whopping 21 special allegations.
