No justice for fallen San Diego bicyclist, we’re all the same bike tribe, and greater inclusivity for all kinds of riders

February 24, 2022 / / Comments Off on No justice for fallen San Diego bicyclist, we’re all the same bike tribe, and greater inclusivity for all kinds of riders

I have to work fast to get a new post online every night.

But sometimes, the need for speed forces me to link to stories I haven’t had a chance to fully read.

That’s how I missed the heart of this piece by San Diego’s KPBS when I included a link to it earlier this week.

The story dealt with victims’ families too often feeling like they’ve been let down by the justice system when killer drivers get off with a slap on the wrist, if that.

But what I missed was the focus on the wife of fallen bicyclist Matt Keenan, who was killed by a wrong way driver while riding in Mission Valley last year.

The county district attorney’s office decided not to charge the driver with a felony, after she claimed she hit Keenan head-on because she’d thought she was on a one-way street.

Call it barely plausible deniability.

The driver told police she thought the street, Camino Del Rio South, was one-way, and that she never saw the cyclist coming.

Keenan does not buy those excuses. She asked the San Diego Police Department to search the driver’s phone records for evidence that she was distracted, but never heard back on that request.

“Something had to make (the driver) extremely distracted, and really, what that is shouldn’t be the issue,” Keenan said. “She was so distracted that she did not see my husband and his extremely bright lights. She never hit the brakes.”

One problem is that police have to get a search warrant to examine a driver’s phone, which requires probable cause to believe a crime took place.

In other words, before they can get a judge to agree to let them see a driver’s phone, they need evidence that the driver was using it.

A legal Catch 22.

The law should be changed to require implied consent, just as anyone with a driver’s license is assumed to have consented to a blood alcohol test if police suspect they’re under the influence.

Merely possessing a driver’s license should give police the right to examine a phone following a collision to see if it had been in use at the time of a crash.

Failure to turn over the phone should result in an automatic loss of license, combined with a presumption of use.

Only then will we see justice for victims of distracted drivers.

And maybe even stop them from doing it in the first place.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

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Peter Flax gets it.

But we already knew that, right?

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Together we ride, separately.

Join a virtual ride to mark International Women’s Day in two weeks.

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Hats off to Isla Bikes for going the extra mile to solve a problem of inclusivity no one else has addressed.

https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1496576082551599106

As long as we’re on the subject of inclusivity, meet Sister Shred, a legally blind Colorado woman who has never met a slope she wouldn’t carve on her mountain bike or snow bike.

And Bicycling profiles a man suffering from a rare degenerative disease, who vows to keep riding his recumbent tricycle until he no longer can. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

But only young, able-bodied people can ride bicycles, right?

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A before and after view of a formerly dangerous Toronto street shows the difference good infrastructure makes.

https://twitter.com/_dmoser/status/1496448502171324420?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496448502171324420%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogto.com%2Fcity%2F2022%2F02%2Fterrifying-comparison-toronto-bike-lanes-solving-dangerous-roads%2F

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That feeling when a YouTube TV series about recovering stolen bicycles is really just a cleverly disguised ad for Van Moof.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Sadly, bike lane opponents seem to be the same the world over, as an Irish mayor reports that supporters of a bikeway were “denigrated as crazy cyclists” who don’t work or pay taxes, while the real crazies were the opponents who called her with death threats.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Once again, someone riding a bicycle has shot out a Queens traffic cam, firing 16 shots at a red light camera to knock it out of commission.

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Local

Sixty-eight-year old Congresswoman and LA mayoral candidate Karen Bass is one of us, riding her bike along the Venice bike path to get a firsthand look at the area’s homeless problem.

No bias here. Hermosa Beach police report they busted a trio of teenaged ebike-riding taggers, even though their mode of transportation had nothing to do with the crime; they could have just as easily walked or ridden regular bicycles to the places they spray painted.

Metro Bike is teaming with the LACBC to offer a virtual bike safety class this Saturday.

 

State 

A handful of San Francisco bike riders formed a people-protected bike lane to protest the city’s continued inaction on Valencia Street, where bike lane-blocking drivers continue to put people on bicycles at risk.

 

National

Democrats in the Washington state legislature are proposing a 16-year Complete Streets plan to reimagine the state’s roadways, as traffic deaths climbed to a 16-year high last year.

Missouri is expanding bike and ebike access on service roads and multi-use trails managed by the state Department of Conservation. Although maybe someone should tell them that ebikes are bikes.

It has to be the epitome of NIMBYism to oppose a combination walkway and bikeway in front of Connecticut homes that don’t even have a damn sidewalk. Or want one.

Congratulations to a Charlotte NC website, which somehow managed to write a five point plan for bike safety, in which four of the points don’t mention wearing a bike helmet. Once again, don’t get me wrong. I always wear a helmet when I ride. But helmets should always be seen as the last resort when all else fails, not the first, last and too often only steps for bike safety.

A pair of South Carolina state legislators make the case for why the people of Charleston County deserve a roadway that’s safe for everyone, after a businessman and community leader was killed in a collision while walking along it.

 

International

Cycling News offers advice on how to upgrade your bike without breaking the bank.

Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a driver got just two and a half years for the drunken, high speed crash that killed a man riding a bike; he was driving at twice the legal alcohol limit even though it was the middle of the day. His victim was a father who founded a nonprofit to build a school and medical clinic in his native Zambia.

An 80-year old British man is on trial for fatally running down a bike-riding man in a dump truck; he also faces charges for failing to stop after the crash, and failing to give his name or the owner of the badly maintained vehicle. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive. And why the hell an 80-year old man was behind the wheel of a heavy duty truck in the first place, let alone one that wasn’t safe to drive.

Horses will now get the same protection as bicyclists and pedestrians under Britain’s newly revised Highway Code.

Italian cycling legend and three-time Grand Tour winner Gino Bartali is the star of a new animated movie for the kid set, focusing on his heroism saving Jews in WWII.

Bike riders in Kolkata, India turned out to welcome and ride along with a British cancer survivor riding a tandem over 12,000 miles through 28 countries, from the UK to Beijing

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Tips argues that, Chris Froome’s comments to the contrary, time trials run on road bikes aren’t really any safer than those using specialized time trial bikes.

A new report says the handlebar that snapped on Australian cyclist Alex Porter’s track bike at last year’s Tokyo Olympics wasn’t adequately inspected or tested, leading the country’s cycling authority to apologize.

Seven-time gold medal winning British cyclist Jason Kenny is calling it a career as the country’s most decorated Olympian.

 

Finally…

If you’re a convicted felon carrying a sawed-off shotgun and a flare gun engraved with a swastika on your bike, stop for the damn stop sign, already. Riding in the metaverse means you only have to worry about virtual drivers.

And it’s only ten days late for Valentines Day. Then again, there’s no expiration date on love.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Los Angeles finally lowers speed limits on some streets, and “woke” repeal of Seattle bike helmet mandate

February 23, 2022 / / Comments Off on Los Angeles finally lowers speed limits on some streets, and “woke” repeal of Seattle bike helmet mandate

It might be time to check snow conditions in the underworld.

For the first time in memory, if not ever, Los Angeles officials overruled drivers right feet for setting speed limits, slightly lowering limits on 177 miles of LA streets.

And reversing, if ever so slightly, the ever-climbing speed limits forced on them by the deadly 85th Percentile Law.

The move came in response to legislation sponsored by Burbank state Assemblymember Laura Friedman, which allows cities to drop speed limits no more than five mph.

Which isn’t the legislation we need to repeal the 85th Percentile Law. But it’s a start.

Now we just have another 6,323 miles of streets to go.

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They get it.

https://twitter.com/NACTO/status/1496190934572273666

Not everyone does, though.

Curmudgeonly conservative Seattle shock jock Jason Rantz appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to complain that it’s just one more example of “everything is racist.”

Rantz accuses a “woke” professor of using a small sample size to show the law disproportionately ticketed people of color, while suggesting that some of those ticketed were probably just homeless people on stolen bicycles, anyway.

Schmuck.

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She gets it, too.

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A reminder about Walk ‘n Rollers upcoming 10th Anniversary celebration next month.

The Culver City-based organization deserves a lot of credit for teaching kids how to walk and ride safely.

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This may just be the coolest 100-year old bike I’ve ever seen.

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GCN considers whether a British company’s move to ban bike helmets for its delivery riders is science, or just plain stupid.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. An Italian bike rider was fined the equivalent of $380 after he was nearly doored by a careless cop, because bicyclists aren’t required to wear a Covid mask in the country, but pedestrians are — which he became when he got off his bike to argue the point with the cop.

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Local

Glendale police busted three men for attempting to steal bicycles from an underground parking facility at the Americana at Brand shopping center.

Norwalk has dropped the final draft of its proposed bicycle master plan.

 

State 

Calbike comes out agains AB 371, which would effectively end bikeshare and e-scooter rentals by imposing an “unprecedented insurance requirement,” after killing a similar proposal two years ago.

PeopleForBikes announces the schedule and speakers for next month’s Bicycle Leadership Conference in Dana Point.

Business owners in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood continue to complain about lost business due to the removal of parking spaces for a protected bike lane on 30th Street, even though a nearby parking structure remains underutilized. Which suggests the real problem isn’t the bike lane, but drivers who are unwilling to pay for parking.

A Folsom letter writer says it’s time to allow bicycles on an 11-mile local trail, since mountain bikers outnumber equestrians in the area.

 

National

As if the company didn’t have enough problems these days, Peloton users were faced with a major service outage yesterday.

That’s more like it. Denver traffic engineers and planners took up a wheelchair-bound woman’s challenge to walk with her to see what her daily experience on the streets was really like.

Colorado is considering a bill to legalize the full Idaho Stop Law, which would allow bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and red lights like stop signs. The state currently has a confusing patchwork of local ordinances that allow riders to roll stops in one jurisdiction, while risking getting ticketed for the same thing in the next.

Bighearted students at an Iowa community college dug into their own pockets to buy a new bike for a cafeteria worker, after discovering his was worn out.

A Chicago chef feels vindicated after a jury awarded her over $212,000 for the dooring that left her seriously injured with a concussion, contusions and other injuries.

Get $900 off the provocatively named, Detroit-made Babymaker II ebike.

Bicycle Retailer says there’s still hope the dilapidated building that housed the Wright Brothers first bike shop could be saved, despite a Dayton, Ohio committee approving a permit to raze it.

Police in New York arrested an ambulance driver for the hit-and-run that killed a beloved teacher last year, while he was driving a Rolls-Royce that he may have rented; he also seriously injured a bike rider in another crash in 2017.

Kindhearted North Carolina sheriff’s deputies bought a nine-year old girl another bicycle, after one they bought for her following her involvement in a hostage situation was stolen.

There’s a special place in hell for an Alabama man who’s charged with sexually abusing a young child, two years after killing a bike rider in a collision.

 

International

Pink Bike examines why bike companies are changing hands like playing cards these days.

After discovering how essential bicycles are in Havana, a travel writer overcomes his childhood fears and learns to ride one to discover the other side of the Cuban city.

More on the move by Paris to install traffic cam-like noise sensors to detect and photograph loud vehicles in an effort to reduce noise levels, calling it a public health issue. Can we please have those here in Hollywood? Pretty please?

Aussie bicyclists are being urged to log their crashes and near misses on an app to provide data for researchers attempting to understand how and why collisions happen, and how to prevent them.

 

Competitive Cycling

About damn time. The 2022 Tour of Flanders will offer equal prize money to men and women, joining a worldwide movement to towards equal purses.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to use a stolen credit card to buy an $8,200 bike, don’t leave a paper trail stretching from New York to Pittsburgh and back. That feeling when a tree swallows your bike, and a myth grows along with it.

And I still want a damn Pashley Guv’nor, already.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Man riding commuter bike killed in Santa Ana collision; 2nd bike death on Santa Ana’s 1st Street in just 10 days

February 23, 2022 / / 2 comments

Something is seriously wrong in Santa Ana.

For the second time in just ten days, someone riding a bicycle has been killed in a collision, less than a mile apart.

According to the Orange County Register, a man riding south on North Figueroa Street was struck by a driver while crossing First Street, just east of Harbor Blvd, around 7 pm Monday evening.

County News TV reports the victim died at the scene. He has not been publicly identified at this time.

The driver of the minivan remained following the collision, and police do not suspect he was under the influence.

A street view shows a six lane roadway with a center turn lane on 1st, with the intersection controlled by just a stop sign on Figueroa.

Raw video provided by County News shows the van, with relatively minor front end damage, coming to a stop on 1st, with what appears to be a commuter bike sprawled in the roadway.

(I’m not embedding the video, because it shows blurred views of the victim’s body lying in the center lane near the bike, which is not something his family or friends need to see.)

The victim’s death can likely be blamed on the lack of a crossing signal or crosswalk at Figueroa, which should have provided a safer alternative to busy Harbor Blvd. But clearly didn’t.

This comes ten days after another bike rider was killed in a hit-and-run just six-tenths of a mile away at West First and South Newhope Streets. That victim has not yet been publicly identified, either.

Two deaths so close together, both in terms of time and distance, suggests serious problems on the deadly corridor.

This is at least the 16th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and already the fourth that I’m aware of in Orange County, which would usually have less than half that number so early in the year.

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

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , ,

Bike rider killed in horrific Arkansas hit-and-run, Bike Talk talks Healthy Streets LA initiate, and Taylor Yard Bridge opening off

February 22, 2022 / / 2 comments

Unbelievable.

In one of the most horrifying examples of traffic violence in recent memory, police in Fort Smith, Arkansas discovered a hit-and-run had taken place when someone found a severed leg lying in the street Saturday morning.

They found the rest of the 57-year old victim’s body in the back of a man’s pickup, where it had been since the driver had crashed into his bike around 12 hours earlier.

The driver claimed he didn’t know the victim’s body was there until he got home — and then apparently just went inside and left him there to die once he did.

Graphics by tomexploresla

Which presumably would have given the man plenty of time to sober up before the cops found the body in his truck.

And how anyone could do something like that without being drunk or stoned is beyond me.

The crash is reminiscent of the infamous 2014 case in which a hit-and-run driver drove home with a bike rider embedded in his windshield, and didn’t notice until he came back out the next morning.

Fortunately, that one had a happier ending.

Seriously, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough.

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Bike Talk talks with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider about the organization’s Healthy Streets LA initiative to force Los Angeles to build out the city’s mobility plan when streets get repaved.

That’s followed by a segment with Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss discussing the Idaho Stop Law, which allows bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and — at least in Idaho’s original version — treat red lights like stop signs.

A version of which was vetoed by California Governor Newsom last year.

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Remember what we said yesterday about the new Taylor Yard Bridge opening next month?

Yeah, not so much.

LA officials say the official opening has been cancelled. No reason or makeup date has been announced.

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British singer, songwriter and producer James Blunt is one of us.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A road-raging British driver walked without a single day behind bars for chasing down and ramming a bike rider who damaged his wing mirror; adding insult to injury, the driver was ordered to pay the equivalent of just $1,359 in compensation, despite totaling the victim’s $9,500 bicycle.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in London busted a sexual assault suspect who used a bikeshare bike in the attack, which allowed police to identify him from his credit card.

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Local

Momentum Magazine asks if Los Angeles can shake its anti-bicycling reputation, and seems to conclude, “maybe.”

On a similar note, a graduate student at Northwestern examines LA’s Vision Zero program, saying it brings both hope and skepticism to the city. Which most Los Angeles bike riders can relate to.

 

State 

No surprise here. San Diego’s KPBS says families of traffic violence victims often feel let down by the criminal justice system.

A 32-year old man was injured when he was struck by a driver in Santa Rosa after allegedly riding his bike through a red light while under the influence.

 

National

A Las Vegas optician may need his own eyes examined, after confessing that he was one of the bike riders charged by a bull captured on a viral video during the recent Rock Cobbler offroad race.

An Ohio mayor is oddly up in arms over a former rival’s donation of a $3,600 police bike to the local police department, as well as giving her late firefighter husband’s rescue gear to the fire department, calling them ethics violations; opponents call the ethics flap just an effort to keep her off the city council.

A paper in Worcester, Massachusetts marks Black History Month by tracing several key sites in the adopted hometown of legendary cyclist Major Taylor, as well as historic locations relating to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, among others.

After a 15-year old boy accidentally ride his bike off a bridge, a Massachusetts cop is credited with his rescue.

New York’s legislature is considering a package of bike and pedestrian safety bills that would give cities more control over speed limits, encourage them to build safer sidewalks and bike lanes, and require drivers to study more safety topics for their license test.

You know you have a problem when two people on bicycles are run down by hit-and-run drivers on the same stretch of a Florida street, the same time of day, just one mile and three days apart. Or when four people have been killed at the same Orlando intersection in four months, the latest victim was a 15-year old boy right-hooked while riding in a crosswalk.

 

International

Bike Radar’s podcast considers how to make this your best year yet on your bike. That’s easy. 1) Just ride, and 2) just ride more. And don’t take it so damn seriously.

Bike riders debate the relative merits of daytime running lights, after Road.cc reposts a 2015 article about their use.

A writer for Jalopnik says the “Freedom Convoy” that paralyzed Ottawa, Canada in recent weeks shows why cars and trucks should be banned from cities.

Canadian bicyclists are mourning the loss of longtime Toronto bike advocate Robert “Bicycle Bob” Silverman, who fought for bike lanes long before the city had any, and helped set it on its current bike-friendly course; Silverman passed away Sunday at age 88.

Good news on the bike theft front, as reports from more than 40 British police agencies indicate the crime fell over 11% last year.

A delivery rider in the UK says he’s never more than one crash away from financial disaster, after his earnings have dropped almost in half over the past few years.

A self-described die-hard Indian cyclist writes in defense of the humble bicycle, after the country’s prime minister cast aspersions on bikes in attacking another political party that uses one as its symbol; the head of that party calls the prime minister’s comments “an insult to the nation.”

 

Competitive Cycling

UCI may be ditching Red Bull for coverage of the Mountain Bike World Cup after this season, entering into exclusive negotiations with Discovery Sports.

Colombian cyclist Daniel Martínez calls injured countryman Egan Bernal a champion on and off the bike, as Martínez opens the European campaign with a third-place finish in the Volta ao Algarve.

Dutch pro Tom Dumoulin says he’s happy to be back on the WorldTour after walking away from the sport for several months last year.

 

Finally…

Go ahead and ride straight, even if the bike path isn’t. And sometimes you have to pedal upstream in life.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Settling for sharrows in Beverly Hills, Times columnist gets that crashes don’t just happen, and parking on the bike path

February 21, 2022 / / Comments Off on Settling for sharrows in Beverly Hills, Times columnist gets that crashes don’t just happen, and parking on the bike path

My apologies for Friday’s unexcused absence. 

I’m still battling the same health issues I’ve been dealing with since before Halloween. Most nights I battle through it; last week I couldn’t. 

But after seeing four different doctors since this all began, we’ve reached a clear consensus is that it’s definitely a) an inner ear problem, or b) not an inner ear problem. 

Maybe the next four specialists I’m supposed to see can figure it out. 

Meanwhile, have happy Presidents Day! Go out and buy a mattress or something. 

And go for a ride, already.

The Sharrows Are Bullshit t-shirt modeled by yours truly in today’s photo can be purchased from our friend Peter Flax.

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Good news and bad from the former Biking Black Hole.

The good news is Beverly Hills, which has made a major turnaround in recent years, will be implementing a “minimum grid bikeway network.”

The bad news is, it’s just going to be signs and sharrows. In other words, it’s the least they can do.

Literally.

Hopefully, this is just the first step as the city implements its Complete Streets plan, with its promises of pursuing “parallel, longer-range efforts to expand and upgrade cycling infrastructure.”

Let’s hope so.

On the other hand, until the paint is on the ground, we’re always just one election — or uprising by angry drivers and/or overly privileged home or business owners — from a change of heart.

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Maybe she’s starting to get it.

It was only a week ago that we criticized the Los Angeles Times’ Robin Abcarian for concluding that Vision Zero was a worthy, but impossible goal, so “why go out on a limb with a big, bold promise that is so obviously doomed to fail?”

But yesterday found her reconsidering use of the word “accident,” after reading author Jessie Singer’s new book There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster — Who Profits and Who Pays the Price.

Although the AP’s change of heart on the word should have tipped her off long before now.

She quotes Singer saying that in virtually every case, there is a cause — often more than one — leading up to the cause of any unfortunate event.

“Never focus on the last causal factor,” Singer told me. “The thing we screw up about ‘accidents’ is looking at the last person who made a mistake. Accidents have layered causality. When you look toward the question of preventing harm, there are just so many answers, so many ways we can throw a pillow between us and our mistakes.”

Abcarian seems to take that message to heart, concluding,

Almost every day, I drive past the intersection on Venice Boulevard and Shell Avenue close to where the actor Orson Bean was struck and killed by two cars as he crossed the four-lane street one dark evening two years ago. There’s a new bright crosswalk, warning lights and signs now where before there were none.

I used to think his death was an unfortunate accident. I’m starting to think of it as inevitable.

Meanwhile, Singer, author of There Are No Accidents, says it’s time to stop yelling at drivers, and start expecting the government to demand safer cars.

After the founding of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the 1960s, the organization began requiring safety improvements to protect the occupants of cars, from seat belts and collapsable steering wheels to air bags.

The result was a steady decline in traffic deaths, resulting in as many as 600,000 lives saved, Singer says.

Until now.

But progress began to reverse even before the coronavirus pandemic. Speeding on pandemic-empty streets only exacerbated the threats posed by heavier, more powerful SUVs. The crisis of traffic safety has been particularly acute for people on foot. While traffic fatalities rose 5 percent in the past decade, pedestrian deaths rose by nearly half. For people living in poverty, Black people, and Indigenous people, the likelihood of traffic death, inside and outside a car, is even more acute.

The European Union and Japan have not seen a concurrent crisis. In those jurisdictions, regulators protect people both inside and outside of a vehicle; vehicle-safety ratings take pedestrian risk into account. More than a decade ago, EU and Japanese regulators required that automakers redesign bumpers, hoods, and detection systems to reduce the likelihood of death on impact. Putting the onus of survivability on the automaker spurred the development of new technology, such as airbags that inflate outside the vehicle. Pedestrian fatalities fell by more than a third in a decade in Europe and have fallen by more than half since 2000 in Japan.

Meanwhile, The Nation makes that case that cars kill twice as many people as guns, and disproportionately affect people of color.

And why.

We also need to change our roads, which often plow through Black and low-income communities with the goal of making it easier to drive farther and faster. Replacing intersections with roundabouts could reduce crashes by more than 50 percent. We can hem in streets with curbs. Removing lanes, adding shoulders, bike paths, and speed bumps, and creating turn lanes would all decrease speeding and crashes.

On the other hand, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham seems to come out in favor of traffic deaths in the name of freedom.

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Mark your calendar for March 5th, when the Taylor Yard Bridge officially opens.

Thanks to Joe Linton for the heads-up.

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It’s bad enough we have to deal with people parking in bike lanes.

But this is taking it too far.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1494378341465395202

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This is what we could have in Los Angeles, if our ex-Climate Mayor and future ambassador to India had even a fraction of the courage and commitment shown by the his predecessor, the mayor of Paris.

https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1494326829305323521

And did I mention who else is following suit?

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Presenting the height of women’s bikewear fashion, circa 1897.

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I’m happy to say Trevor Noah is one of us.

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Your periodic reminder that this is not what bikes are for.

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This is who we share the road with.

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That feeling when what’s passing you on bike path isn’t a bicycle.

Let’s just hope there wasn’t someone inside.

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Former pro Ted King shares his experience on the annual 400-mile Coast Ride from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, including the invaluable direction finding advice to just keep the ocean on the right.

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The folks at GCN tackle the route of famed Paris-San Remo race.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A writer complains that a 17-year old boy riding an ebike “could have been traveling upward of 20 mph” when he was critically injured in a collision with a truck driver, using that to justify a call to put the brakes on ebikes. Then again, the teen could have been doing just 12 mph. Or 17. Or any other number he wants to pull out of his ass.

Boston bike riders support a pilot program for widening a bike lane over a key bridge, even as video shows vandals tossing the orange cones off it.

Road.cc asks why asking drivers not to pass bike riders too closely causes so much irrational anger.

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Local

Mark your calendar for March 19th, when Walk ‘n Rollers will mark ten years of making a difference for kids on our streets.

To the surprise of virtually no one who lives here, most people in Los Angeles like living here, though there is a lot of room for improvement.

A writer for City Watch calls out councilmember and mayoral candidate Joe Buscaino for what he calls the “ill-conceived notion” to outlaw sidewalk bike repair. Meanwhile, Buscaino’s turn to the right in the mayor’s race has been outflanked by even more conservative billionaire Rick Caruso.

 

State 

California Assemblymember Phil Ting is taking another crack at making it legal to cross the street, reintroducing a bill that would legalize jaywalking, which disproportionately affects people of color.

Also back for another round is a proposal in the legislature to legalize a pilot speed cam program, while another bill would require Leading Pedestrian Intervals at all stop lights statewide. Let’s make sure the law explicitly allows bicycles to use LPIs, too.

A proposal from San Diego’s mayor would shift infrastructure spending, including bikeways, to lower income areas.

Kern County’s long awaited lake-to-lake Kern River Bike Trail has finally become a reality, with a 36.3-mile pathway connecting Lake Ming with the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area.

 

National

A Streetsblog op-ed makes the case for why Vision Zero is a human rights issue for the deaf community and other disabled people.

A new add-on battery promises to double the range of your ebike.

Ford is examining replacing warning alerts with the sounds of simulated, in-car footsteps and bike bells to get the driver’s attention.

Bicycle Retailer examines the role volunteers play in helping Bike Index return stolen and missing bikes to their rightful owners.

Peloton workers say the company sent out rusted stationary bikes to customers as it struggled to keep up with demand.

Shaq says he once bought a new bike for a random kid at a bike shop. Although the kid was probably too young to know who the hell his giant benefactor was.

After nearly 30 years, Seattle’s King County has finally pulled the plug on its well-intentioned but misguided mandatory bike helmet law, after belatedly discovering that it unfairly targets the homeless and people of color; repeal of the law also removes a contested pretext for traffic stops.

European countries offer hard-hitting traffic safety messages; in the US, we’re more likely to get messages like this one from Austin, Texas that says Life is Valuable, Please Drive Safe. Which isn’t likely to get anyone to take their foot off the gas long enough to read it.

Hoboken NJ offers proof that Vision Zero really can work if cities make a commitment to it, with no traffic deaths for the past two years, and a 35% and 11% drop in collisions involving pedestrians and bike riders, respectively.

She gets it. A Virginia columnist decries news coverage that blames and dehumanizes victims of traffic violence.

Our sympathy to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which now has the fourth-worst traffic congestion in the US, behind only eternal leader Los Angeles, New York and Miami.

A new Florida law allows group rides to proceed through stop signs ten riders at a time. But only after coming to a complete stop first.

 

International

Momentum highlights beautiful bike trails in national parks around the world. Which you could visit on your very own amphibious ebike camper.

That’s more like it. A skyscraping Toronto condo tower is being targeted to the bicycling community, complete with a bike repair room, secure bike lockers and a dedicated bicycle elevator.

Road.cc remembers Southern England’s classic handmade steel-frame bike builders of the last century.

You’ve got to be kidding. A prolific thief was given a “final, final chance” after he was convicted of stealing the equivalent of $1369 worth of parts from a British bike shop, which he claimed was to buy his daughter a birthday present — despite a whopping 126 previous convictions. Must have been a damn good present, too.

This is why people keep dying on our roads. A judge could give a convicted drunk driver his license back after a ruptured Achilles heel left him unable to walk or ride a bicycle. So they want to put him back in a big, dangerous machine and give him another chance to kill someone, since he wasn’t successful the first time.

Life and lies are cheap in the UK, where a woman walked without a single day behind bars for fleeing the scene after running down a nine-year old boy on a bicycle, then lying to police investigators, claiming she hadn’t been in a wreck.

Life is cheap in the UK, part II. A 76-year old British man will spend two years behind bars for the impatient pass and head-on crash that killed a man riding a bike, who was reportedly doing everything right. But at least he’s been banned from driving for seven years, even though it should have been life.

Life is cheap in Ireland, too, where a drunk, hit-and-run driver got a lousy two and a half years for killing a man on a bicycle, after leaving him lying in a field to die alone.

Your next French e-cargo foldie could glow in the dark.

After India’s prime minister tried to link the Samajwadi Party, which uses a bicycle as its symbol, to a 2008 terrorist bombing, an Indian paper relates the history of bike bombs around the world.

Longtime Bollywood actor and producer Anil Kapoor is one of us.

Bicycling Australia tackles the eternal question of whether or not to shave your legs.

 

Competitive Cycling

After 13 years, retired pro Ruth Winder discovers that unbecoming a pro cyclist isn’t much easier that becoming one.

Egan Bernal gives a first-person account of the harrowing 38 mph crash that nearly left him paralyzed, as he shares his hope of a return to racing.

Belgian pro Wout Van Aert had a one word response to Chris Froome’s suggestion that specialized time trial bikes should be banned from pro cycling: “Bullshit.”

Cycling Tips examines legendary Black cyclist Major Taylor’s 1903 singlespeed Peugeot track bike, complete with wooden rims.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you get away with seven grand worth of meth because the cops didn’t have probable cause to stop your bicycle. When you’re such a jerk your mom gives away your new birthday bike before you can even ride it.

And when you leave your bikes at the beach just a tad too long.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Update: Bike rider killed in collision with Long Beach city employee; 5th SoCal bike death in just 8 days

February 18, 2022 / / One comment

The bad news just seems to keep coming these days.

Because for the fifth time in just over a week, someone has been killed riding a bicycle in Southern California.

This time in Long Beach, at the hands of a city employee.

According to the Long Beach Post, the victim was struck by a city worker, driving a city-owned pickup, when the man on the bike allegedly ran a stop sign at 17th Street and Oregon Ave around 7:40 Friday morning.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports the driver was headed south on Oregon, which would suggest the victim, who has not been identified, was traveling on 17th when he was struck in the middle of the intersection.

The crash was reportedly witnessed by another city employee, who remained at the scene with the driver. Police do not believe the driver was under the influence, speeding or driving distracted.

There’s no word on why the victim would have run the stop sign directly in front of an oncoming truck, which did not have a stop sign.

This is at least the 15th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, in what has been a very bloody start to the year.

Update: The victim has been identified as 22-year old Long Beach resident Ayomipo Lawal. 

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Ayomipo Lawal and his loved ones. 

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

37-year old man killed in Highland Park collision while riding a bike on the 110 Freeway

February 17, 2022 / / Comments Off on 37-year old man killed in Highland Park collision while riding a bike on the 110 Freeway

Once again, someone has been killed riding a bicycle on a Southern California freeway.

The Citizen app reported last night that a man had been killed when he was struck by a driver shortly after midnight at South Ave 60 and the offramp to the 110 Freeway in Highland Park, although video from the scene appeared to show the highway.

Now The Eastsider confirms that the collision actually occurred on the northbound 110 itself, otherwise known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway. The website places the crash in the traffic lanes of the freeway between LA’s Hermon and Highland Park neighborhoods, north of Avenue 60.

The victim, publicly identified only as a 37-year old man, died at the scene. The driver apparently remained at the scene following the crash.

There’s no explanation for why the victim was riding on the freeway, where bicycles are prohibited, as they are on all freeways in the Los Angeles area. Let alone why he would have been riding in the traffic lanes.

This is at least the 14th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County. It also appears to be the third in the City of Los Angeles.

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

 

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

Hit-and-run drivers critically injure bike riders in San Dimas and Carlsbad, LA begins process to lower some speed limits

February 17, 2022 / / One comment

Breaking news: The Citizen app is reporting that a man on a bicycle was killed by a driver in Highland Park. 

The crash occurred at South Ave 60 and the offramp to the 110 Freeway around 12:20 am. 

Hopefully we’ll get more news later. 

………

LA County Sheriff’s deputies are looking for the hit-and-run driver who severely injured a man on a bicycle in San Dimas late last month.

The 37-year old victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was riding along the curb on Fifth Street west of Eucla Ave around 6:30 pm on January 27, when he was run down from behind by the driver of a dark colored Dodge Ram pickup.

The driver briefly stopped a short distance away before driving off, leaving his victim bleeding in the street.

Investigators ask anyone who lives in the area to check their surveillance cameras for any video that might show the crash or the suspect.

Something sheriff’s investigators should have done themselves in the first few days, if not hours, following the crash, before any video would be deleted or recorded over.

But maybe they were, like, busy or something.

Anyone with information is urged to call San Dimas Traffic Detective Christopher Bronowicki at 909/859-2818.

The video is difficult to watch, so make sure you really want to see the crash and its aftermath before you click play, because you can’t unsee it once you do. 

………

A San Diego County family is looking for answers five days after a retired Los Angeles firefighter was found unconscious and badly injured next to his bike in the middle of El Camino Real in Carlsbad.

Seventy-four-year old John Burgan is in a coma in critical condition with internal injuries, as well as fractures all around his skull, face, ribs and right femur, after an apparent hit-and-run.

The location and condition of his undamaged bicycle suggest he may have been struck by the wing mirror of a driver’s vehicle while making his way to the left turn lane at Hosp Way.

Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Officer Adam Bentley at 760/931-2288 or email adam.bentley@carlsbadca.gov.

………

Finally, a little good news from LA City Hall.

Streetsblog is reporting that the City Council Transportation Committee has taken the unprecedented step of — wait for it — actually lowering speed limits in the City of Angels, in hopes of maybe making a fewer of them.

Angels, that is.

The city’s hands have long been tied by the deadly 85th Percentile Law, which worked in conjunction with speeding drivers to push limits ever higher, regardless of whether the new speeds were actually safe.

It took a new state law, sponsored by Burbank Assemblymember Laura Friedman, to reform, but not repeal, the 85th Percentile Law to allow the city to begin reducing speeds on city streets.

However, the committee’s action covers just 177 miles out of LA’s more than 6,500 miles of streets.

But it’s a start.

………

It looks like New Yorkers overwhelmingly support safer streets, and using automated traffic cams to do it.

Even if their efforts are hindered by the state legislature, which should sound familiar to anyone in California.

New Yorkers want these changes to make streets safe. An Emerson College poll found that 68% of city residents support lowering the speed limit to 20 mph, and 72% want the city to have authority to set its own speed limits. A Siena College poll found that 85% of New York City voters, including 84% of car-owners, support red light enforcement cameras. More than three-quarters of New York City voters, including just about the same share of car owners, support automated speed safety cameras.

Not only are the speed and red light cams popular, they’re also effective.

As one example of the consequences, consider New York City’s speed safety camera program, which is currently only permitted by Albany to operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday. In effect, Albany forces cameras to be off for more than half of the hours in any given week. Speed safety cameras are wildly effective: A 55% drop in all traffic fatalities and a 72%decline in speeding followed the launch of the program. Speed safety cameras also avoid racial biases that may be present in armed police stops and avoid risks of stops turning violent or deadly. However, in 2020, nearly 40% of people killed in fatal traffic crashes died in speed safety camera zones, but when the cameras were forced to be off. Speeding doesn’t sleep, but state law forces our speed safety cameras to get plenty of shut-eye.

Let’s hope California legislators are paying attention.

Not to mention the LA City Council, which cancelled the city’s red light camera program, for reasons that mostly boiled down to angry drivers who didn’t like getting tickets for breaking the law.

………

I wouldn’t count on plastic bollards to keep you safer. Even if these are better than the flimsy car-tickler plastic bendy posts.

https://twitter.com/gatodejazz/status/1494014664346259457

Personally, I consider anything marked by plastic bollards to be a separated bike lane, rather than a protected bike lane.

Because those little posts don’t protect anyone.

………

Burbank police will be offering bicycle registration next Wednesday afternoon.

And cookies, too.

………

A new movie documents a woman’s efforts to get back on her mountain bike after struggling with Crohn’s disease.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A Cincinnati op-ed calls bike lanes a “misappropriation of funds,” calling for the money to be spent fixing potholes rather than catering “to a small group of citizens that happen to bicycle.” Never mind that potholes are more dangerous for people on bikes than those safely ensconced in a couple tons of steel and glass.

You’ve got to be kidding. Residents of an Ontario, Canada city claim proposed bike lanes would violate Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person. Because the bike lanes will have to be built over their dead bodies, evidently.

………

Local

A Metro committee approved a five-year, $6.1 million contract for new keyless bike lockers at a number of Metro stations, replacing the much derided keyed lockers currently in use.

Bicycling rides through Malibu Creek State Park with volunteers from the National Park Service’s Mountain Bike Unit, which helps introduce kids to mountain biking while making the trails more inclusive. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

 

State 

PeopleForBikes released the schedule for next months 2022 Bicycle Leadership Conference in Dana Point.

Riverside County prosecutors rejected a hit-and-run charge against a man who killed a 62-year old bike rider outside of Hemet last week, as well as a charge of driving without a license, sending the case against Carlos Arturo Acosta back to the CHP for further investigation.

Three San Luis Obispo men pled guilty to killing a man riding a bicycle in a 2019 gang shooting.

San Francisco Strava artist Lenny Maughan marked the Year of the Tiger by using his bike to sketch the prowling cat atop the city map, riding 90 miles in four days to create the intricate artwork.

 

National

A Seattle website calls for the repeal of the county’s bike helmet mandate, saying it leads to biased enforcement against the homeless and people of color, while a local public radio station considers the hopefully soon to be repealed law.

The owners of a Dolores, Colorado bike shop do the right thing, applying for state historical funds to restore the 116-year old building they call home in the town of less than 900 people.

A new report shows Austin, Texas leads the nation in building bike lanes, with nearly 100% of the spending devoted to protected bike lanes. That compares with Los Angeles, where less than 40% of our already paltry efforts goes to protected lanes.

After Chicago bike riders complained about the removal of a bike lane, the city painted sharrows on the sidewalk and said “ride there.”

A Long Island legal columnist offers advice on what to do if you’re struck by a driver while riding your bike. Although he gets the order wrong; contacting your insurance company can wait until you preserve the evidence and get your ass to a doctor.

Sad news from New York, where an ebike rider died nearly a month after he was doored by a taxi passenger; naturally, the NYPD blamed the victim, allowing the driver and his passenger to go their merry way.

 

International

Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a man got a lousy 30 months for the drunken hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle, then tried to blame an innocent co-worker for the crash. Never mind that it was the third time in six years he’d been accused of DUI. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.

Popular BBC presenter Jeremy Vine was knocked unconscious when he hit a pothole while riding a Penny Farthing over the weekend, and was thrown over the handlebars; he was lucky to escape with just a black eye. And from that height, it’s long damn way down.

A 93-year old South African man got his stolen bike back after neighborhood watch members spotted a man walking it down the street; he was given the bike by his parents for his 21st birthday, and has ridden it for more than 70 years.

 

Competitive Cycling

Egan Bernal continues his recovery from a near-fatal training crash by riding a stationary bike for the first time since he was injured over three weeks ago in Colombia.

Belgian ‘cross star Toon Aerts professes his innocence after testing positive for a banned drug before his sixth place finish in the worlds. Although it’s kind of hard to explain why a healthy cyclist would have a breast cancer drug in his system if he wasn’t doping.

 

Finally…

How to ride a six-legged tandem. If you’re going to bust out a bike shop window to steal a $7,000 e-mountain bike, maybe try riding off instead of walking it down the street.

And maybe make sure the paint is dry first before riding through it.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

LA Times editorial calls for supporting Healthy Streets LA initiative, and Oxnard man arraigned in drunken bike death

February 16, 2022 / / Comments Off on LA Times editorial calls for supporting Healthy Streets LA initiative, and Oxnard man arraigned in drunken bike death

Nice to see a writer for the LA Times get behind a ballot measure safer, healthier streets.

Times Editorial Board member Kerry Cavanaugh penned an editorial published Tuesday in support of the Healthy Streets LA initiative, which we discussed here last week.

The measure would require Los Angeles to implement the ambitious, but long-forgotten, Mobility Plan 2035, building out bus and bike lanes, as well as pedestrian improvements, when city streets are repaved.

Here’s what Cavanaugh had to say about the plan, which advocates fought for years to create and pass.

But, as is so often the case in L.A., the implementation of the Mobility Plan has not matched its ambition.

Since its adoption, the city has only made bike, bus and pedestrian upgrades to 95 miles out of 3,137 miles identified in the plan — or 3% in a little more than six years. Time and again, city leaders have ignored or torpedoed bike and bus lanes outlined in the Mobility Plan. At this rate, it will take nearly 200 years — not 20 — to fulfill the plan’s vision.

As Cavanaugh points out, it’s crazy that it takes a ballot measure to force the city to do what it already agreed to do.

But that’s the city we live and ride in these days, where fear of angering anyone leads to paralysis among city leaders. Along with more and more community meetings, where the people who scream the loudest usually carry the day.

And it’s usually the people who fear and fight any kind of change who scream the loudest.

Again, here’s Cavanaugh.

The need for community engagement can’t be an excuse for doing nothing. There’s too much at stake. Last year nearly 300 people were killed in traffic collisions in Los Angeles, a roughly 20% increase over the two prior years. Nearly half of the people killed were pedestrians. Some 52% of Angelenos said that crossing the street in their neighborhood is dangerous, according to polling conducted for the Healthy Streets LA initiative.

As part of his Green New Deal sustainability plan — another aspirational document — Garcetti called for 50% of all trips in the city by 2035 to be made by walking, biking and taking transit. But that goal will be unreachable without the political will to prioritize the infrastructure and transit improvements that make it easier, safer and more pleasant for people to get around.

It’s ridiculous that we’re in this position.

But it’s sadly become clear over the last decade that we can’t count on city leaders to do what they already know has to be done. Yet clearly lack the courage and political will to do.

So we have to do it for them.

Click here to make arrangements to sign the petition, or volunteer to support the measure. 

………

Prosecutors have thrown the book at the accused drunk driver who killed a BMX rider in Oxnard Sunday night.

Twenty-seven year old Andres Morales pled not guilty yesterday to killing the victim, who has still not been publicly identified.

He faces charges of DUI causing injury or death, and driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08 percent, along with a single count of felony vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, combined with special enhancements for a serious felony and a crime involving great violence.

He remains in jail on $50,000 bond, which will be reviewed tomorrow.

Meanwhile, a Homeland man is expected to be arraigned today for killing 62-year old Hemet resident Glen Hysom as he rode a bike in unincorporated Winchester, just west of Hemet.

Thirty-eight-year old Carlos Arturo Acosta is expected to be charged with hit-and-run resulting in death, and driving on a suspended license.

He’s being held on $75,000 bail.

………

There’s always a shortage of bike lockers, even at the Metro stations that actually have them. And high demand for them at the stations that don’t.

………

You probably didn’t have this one on your 2022 bingo card — an Orlando, Florida bike cop in hot, but polite, pursuit of a very drunk woman riding a motorized suitcase.

Yes, a suitcase.

She faces up to ten years for spitting at the cops arresting her, damaging their patrol car, and taking a dump on the seat.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

You’ve got to be kidding. An English driver walked with a suspended sentence and a lousy 250 pound fine — the equivalent of just $339 — for intentionally ramming a bike rider who may have accidentally brushed the car’s wing mirror.

………

You might want to avoid the area around USC and the Coliseum this morning, unless you want to get caught up in the Ram’s victory parade.

………

Local

Streets For All reminds us about the virtual public meeting tomorrow to consider plans to convert the peak hour lanes on Santa Monica Blvd west of the 405 into bus and bike lanes.

Walk Bike Glendale alerts us to public meetings this week to fight a plan to settle for sharrows on La Crescenta Ave tomorrow, and on Saturday to create a 9.4-mile linear park along the Verdugo Wash.

The Monterey Park City Council will discuss an induced demand-inducing plan at today’s meeting to widen Garvey Ave from four lanes to a ridiculous six lanes. Exactly the opposite of what should be done to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians, and reduce motor vehicle use while California is literally burning. Thanks to Active SGV for the heads-up. 

Calabasas is nearing completion of a road widening project on Mulholland Highway, which appears to include a separated bikeway.

Shaun White is one of us, riding shirtless through the streets of Los Angeles after a fourth place finish in the Beijing Olympics.

 

State 

Four-time world mountain bike world champ Brian Lopes donated 50 Strider balance bikes and helmets to a Santa Ana elementary school through the All Kids Bike Kindergarten PE program, and worked with a couple dozen sixth graders to put them together.

Coronado cops are using bait bikes to bust bike thieves. But LA cops still don’t, and won’t for the foreseeable future over fears of being accused of entrapment.

Rialto police are accused of roughing up a 16-year old girl who was riding an illegal motorized bike; one cop was accused of grabbing her by the throat.

A man in his 20s was lucky to survive when his bike was clipped by a moving train as he rode across the tracks in Oxnard.

 

National

Bicycling says the fixation on bike helmets just shifts the blame to bike riders, and lets killer drivers off the hook. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available through Yahoo, so if the magazine blocks you, you’re on your own.

Forget a cycling computer. What you really need is contact lenses with a heads-up display.

Bike Portland’s podcast talks with Bike Index founder Bryan Hance about his work to bust a Mexican mountain bike theft ring operating out of Colorado.

A Nashville site says the city has a long way to go to get to zero traffic deaths. Which should sound familiar to anyone in Los Angeles. And most other American cities, for that matter.

New York’s new DOT commissioner is working to fortify half of the city’s bike lanes in his first 100 days, which are currently protected in name only by the usual flimsy white plastic, car-tickler bendy posts.

Just a year after revising Virginia law to require drivers to change lanes to pass bike riders, and remove the limitation on riding two abreast, the state senate is going backwards by approving a measure that would require people on bicycles to ride single file when being overtaken by someone in a car. The bill’s sponsor appeared to make up an incident to support it.

Dozens of Virginia runners turned out to honor a fellow runner who was killed in a collision while riding her bicycle last week.

 

International

A University of Toronto study confirms what you already knew. Over half of all drivers never look for bicyclists or pedestrians before making a right turn. Then again, some of them never look for us when we’re right in front of them, either.

You’ve got to be kidding, part two. An Aussie man wants permission to drive while he is accused of a hit-and-run that took the life of a 62-year old bike rider, despite having already shown he won’t stick around after a crash.

 

Competitive Cycling

VeloNews looks forward to the “48th edition of the much-anticipated Volta ao Algarve;” the five-stage race starts today in Portugal.

Cycling News looks at memorable cases of pro cyclists getting spanked for breaking the rules.

A bike lawyer says it could be gross negligence to route an offroad bike race across a field with an ill-tempered bull, but it doesn’t help that the four Rock Cobbler riders who ended up on the wrong end of the horns had signed a waiver.

 

Finally…

As if cars blocking bike lanes isn’t bad enough, now we have to deal with robots. Meet Sigrid, the fixie-riding cat.

And meet a parrot who can ride a bike and poop on command.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1493847380633870339

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

New bike lane appears on North Figueroa, 16-year old critical after SaMo hit-and-run, and upper Ballona Creek bike path closure

February 15, 2022 / / Comments Off on New bike lane appears on North Figueroa, 16-year old critical after SaMo hit-and-run, and upper Ballona Creek bike path closure

Maybe we should check the weather forecast.

Because hell appears to have frozen over.

Streetsblog reports that a new painted bike lane has been installed on a .8 mile section of North Figueroa in Cypress Park.

Which wouldn’t be major news, except it’s located in the 1st Council District, where Councilmember Gil Cedillo has worked to block bike lanes since taking office nine long years ago, while keeping North Figueroa one of the deadliest corridors in Los Angeles.

Cedillo has gone so far as to ask the council to remove all proposed bike lanes in CD1 from the city’s mobility plan, arguing that the people in his district don’t ride bikes. And evidently forgetting that many people in the immigrant-rich district rely on bikes as their primary, if not only, form of transportation.

It’s not clear why the councilmember, whose opposition to safety projects earned him the moniker Roadkill Gill, had an apparent change of heart.

One clue comes from LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney, who notes that the new bike lanes wouldn’t inconvenience the people in cars.

L.A. City Transportation Department (LADOT) spokesperson Colin Sweeney wrote that “StreetsLA recently completed resurfacing on Figueroa after which LADOT restriped the street to bring it up to current standards. In this instance, restriping created space to add a bike lane to the existing configuration without impacting other road users (no impact on parking or number of travel lanes).” North Figueroa was repaved between Pasadena Avenue and the 110 Freeway.

Although neighborhood advocate Felicia G. has another, equally plausible explanation.

………

Another day, another SoCal hit-and-run.

The Santa Monica Lookout reports a 16-year old girl is in critical condition, and a 29-year old man is behind bars following yet another hit-and-run collision.

The victim was injured around 2 a.m. Sunday, when Maximiliano Ramos Santiago allegedly slammed into her bike at Chelsea Ave and Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica.

Santiago was arrested at his home yesterday, and booked on charges of felony hit-and-run and driving without a license.

Which would have given him plenty of time to sober up, assuming he had been drinking, which is highly likely given the time of the crash.

Let’s hope she makes a full and fast recovery.

And that the driver who did this is held fully accountable for leaving a young woman bleeding in the street.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Santa Monica Police Investigator Evan Raleigh at 310/458-8954, or call the watch commander at 310/458-8426.

………

It looks like the upper section of the Ballona Creek bike path will be out of commission for the next four and a half months.

………

Local

A letter writer takes the LA Times’ Robin Abcarian to task for questioning the value of Vision Zero when, she said, eliminating traffic deaths is doomed to fail. Although that name of that letter writer seems sort of familiar.

 

State

Getting flowers by bike in San Diego.

Solano Beach has rejected a $10 million claim from the family of 75-year-old Allen Hunter II, who was killed by an alleged drunk driver while riding in a painted bike lane on Highway 101 in the city last summer; filing a formal claim is the first step before filing a lawsuit, and usually gets rejected pro forma.

A letter from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider argues that Rancho Mirage can, and should, make convert Highway 111 into a real street that meets the needs of all users, rather than just the ones in cars. Exactly the same arguments apply to PCH in Malibu, as well, which should be the city’s Main Street, instead of a sewer for pass-through drivers and their cars.

Residents of a San Mateo neighborhood overwhelming oppose plans for a bike lane network, preferring preserving street parking over the safety of people on bicycles; however, people in the rest of the city support the project.

Santa Rosa police are looking for a suspected bike thief who used a fraudulent ID and credit card as security to take a $7,000 mountain bike out for a test ride, and never came back.

 

National

Streetsblog invites you to vote on the worst kind of bicycle infrastructure; among the choices are Orange County favorite painted bike lanes next to high speed roadways, and sharrows, which only exist to help drivers improve their aim and thin the herd.

The New York Times says pedestrian fatalities are spiking, due in part to a surge in reckless driving. Although it’s possible that the jump in reckless driving might just have a tiny bit to do with carmakers ads showing that’s exactly how you’re supposed to drive their damn cars.

Electrek marked Valentines Day with a look at the best ebikes designed to carry two people.

A new $15 steerer tube cap promises to secure an Apple AirTag out of sight to locate your bike if its ever stolen.

Fast Company says Peloton should have seen it coming.

Writer Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Stranger In the Lifeboat is one of us, making a call for people in Detroit to donate their underused bicycles for people who can’t afford a car.

A new documentary follows seven Boston women who ride their bikes through the city at night.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Pennsylvania man is still riding at 90 years old, although the area’s hills mean he does most of his riding inside. Which makes him an ideal candidate for a ped-assist ebike to get back on the road. 

Police in Virginia are looking for a 74-year old diabetic man who went missing Sunday morning while riding his bike to a friend’s house around eight miles away; his daughter says he may be in the early stages of dementia.

 

International

Cycling Weekly says friends don’t let friends buy bikes that seem too good to be true. And probably are.

Thieves cleaned out a Welsh family’s entire collection of nearly $30,000 worth of mountain bikes.

Now you, too, can ride the legendary cobbles of Flanders.

 

Competitive Cycling

A trio of pro cyclists explain how they keep their relationships from going off the rails while living a bike-centered life. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

 

Finally…

If you can’t get it out, dissolve it. What it’s really like to be a pro cycling race photographer.

And I’ll take any excuse to see Sophia Loren on a bicycle, even if she is facing the wrong way.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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