Tag Archive for bicycling

US 2022 bicycling deaths jumped 13%, the best bike cities put people first, and ’tis the season for the best holiday bike deals

December 2, 2024 / / No comments
Just 29 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

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It’s that time of year again!

Your support helps keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

So take a few minutes, and give to the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive today!

Thanks to Richard N, Michael L, the M’s, Cary N, Arthur B, Grace P, Loraine L and Ben Fulton for their generous support over the first three days of the fund drive. 

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No surprise here, unfortunately.

It probably won’t come as a shock to anyone who’s been paying attention that bicycling deaths are continuing to rise in the US, despite a recent decline in deaths from traffic violence.

Cycling West reports the latest figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, shows bicycling deaths were up 13% in 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Injuries were up 11% for the same year.

That comes at European bicycling deaths have remained flat since 2010, while deaths in the UK have declined.

Meanwhile, an op-ed from a University of Colorado professor argues that America’s traffic death epidemic is a public health emergency, and it’s about damn time the Surgeon General treated it like one.

Okay, I may have added a little emphasis to that last line.

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A new report from Resonance Consultancy ranks the world’s best cities for bicyclists, questionably putting London first, followed by New York and Paris, as Momentum says what they all have in common is putting people ahead of cars.

Although Amsterdam and Copenhagen would like to have a word. As would New York bike riders, albeit for a far different reason.

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‘Tis the season.

Forbes offers the year’s 12 best gifts for bicyclists — including the word’s fastest ebike, which is really just an 80 mph electric motorcycle.

CNET considers the 26 best ebike and scooter deals.

Velo offers the best Cyber Monday deals for roadies and gravel bicyclists.

And Road.cc recommends the best Christmas gifts for the “fastidious fussy” bicyclist in your life.

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

An Ontario man contemplates provincial leader Doug Ford’s decision to rip out bike lanes over the objections of city leaders, as he sits in the ER waiting for treatment after a driver cut him off at a stop sign as he riding his bike; a Toronto website terms it “the war on bike lanes.”

No bias here. The Daily Mail is shocked and outraged to discover that Scotland’s government paid active travel nonprofit Sustrans an “eye-watering £97.9 million for 2024, which works out at £268,300 every single day of the year” — or the equivalent of $122 million — to deliver “anti-car measures” like bike lanes and narrower, aka safer, roads and junctions.

No bias here, either. A 16-year old English boy was killed in a collision with a bus driver when drivers illegally blocked the bike lane he was riding in, but the coroner blamed the victim for riding on the sidewalk and being distracted by his earbuds.

British authorities identified a young mother killed by a hit-and-run driver who intentionally rammed off the road the ebike she was sharing with another man; he survived, but reportedly had one leg amputated below the knee.

Irish gravel cyclists taking part in an offroad race had to dive into a ditch for safety when a van driver allegedly drove directly at them, while shouting “watch this!”

Seriously? The New York Times, which should certainly know better, shows its windshield bias, arguing that the recent road rage death of a bike rider intentionally run down by a hit-and-run driver in Paris lays bare the divide over the city’s “war on cars.”

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

A New York man was injured when a bikeshare rider hit his bicycle head-on while riding on the wrong side of the bike path.

London’s Telegraph complains that a record number of people were killed or injured in crashes with bicyclists, with 19 people killed by bicyclists in the UK over the past seven years. Meanwhile, a whopping 86 times that many were killed by British drivers in 2023 alone.

A Singaporean man parked his bicycle in front of a public bus to keep it from moving after getting into a dispute with the driver, blocking the bus as he continued to argue.

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It’s now 347 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

Dozens of people joined a Saturday memorial ride for 16-year old Jonathan Flores, the bike rider murdered by a road raging hit-and-run driver outside BMO Stadium November 22nd.

 

State

Bad news from San Diego, where multiple sites are reporting that a 17-year old boy suffered a brain embolism and multiple fractures when he was left-hooked by a Mercedes driver while riding an ebike in the city’s Bay Park neighborhood. Even though the bike he was riding was really more of an electric off-road motorbike.

Riverside County officials rescued an injured mountain biker from a Lake Perris bike trail northwest of Lakeview Hotsprings on Wednesday, using a helicopter to hoist the rider to safety.

An op-ed from a UC Santa Barbara professor calls out the dangers bike riders face in the city, from right hooks and clueless pedestrians to uneven railroad tracks.

 

National

The founder of North Dakota-based Strider Bikes says he built a $30 million company, but worries about leaving too much money to his sons. I can suggest a good place for it. 

Well, no shit. Denver’s Westword says the city needs to commit to building the safe bike lanes they promised. Then again, so can Los Angeles.

A Chicago website recommends new biking books to serve up armchair adventures. Personally, I’d suggest Peter Flax’s Live to Ride, a beautifully written and illustrated tome that Amazon calls an “ode to cycling from one of the world’s most respected cycling journalists,” which sounds about right to me. 

 

International

Momentum recommends the ten best bike bicycling movies to watch over the holidays. Although any such list that doesn’t include Breaking Away is suspect in my book. 

Cycling Weekly says the Specialized Align MIPS bike helmet is one of the safest on the market, despite retailing for the equivalent of just $35.

Edmonton, Alberta tries to keep people riding through the winter by offering free studded bike tires. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

A London anti-crime activist complains that his bicycle was stolen from outside Scotland Yard, in plan view of security cameras, yet the cops didn’t do anything to find it — even though he gave them the location thanks to an Air Tag.

Residents of London’s exclusive Kensington neighborhood complain that too many dockless ebike bikes are littering the sidewalks.

A British website recommends the 200-mile North Yorkshire Moors Ramble, a mixed-terrain pathway called the most beautiful bike route in the country.

The UK’s new Secretary of State for Transport is one of us, after the previous secretary resigned over reports she’d been convicted of fraud a decade ago.

Velo highlights the best custom bicycles from this year’s Bespoked Dresden bike show.

Police in Tokyo are confronting the low rate of helmet use head-on, working with the Muji brand to develop stylish and safe bike helmets.

 

Competitive Cycling

Sad news from South Africa, where Willie Englebrecht, one of the country’s all-time great cyclists, died at age 62.

More sad news, this time from Belgium, where a young student and amateur cyclist died from a sudden illness on his 19th birthday, just one day after being told he had the flu.

America’s only remaining Tour de France winner says someone should give today’s ultra-thing cyclists a sandwich, as teams place too much emphasis on weight. And yes, I may have rephrased that one a tad, too. 

Velo examines the retirement class of ’24, which includes “national icons, forgotten super-talents, and a grand tour warhorse.”

 

Finally…

Who needs a police bike when you can commandeer a kid’s bicycle to chase down a fleeing suspect on a scooter? Who needs comedians in cars when you’ve got talk on a tandem?

And if you leave your coffee on top of your car, just hope Phil Gaiman is riding by.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

US traffic deaths down but California deaths up, and worldwide bicycling rates flat but up significantly over 2019

November 27, 2024 / / Comments Off on US traffic deaths down but California deaths up, and worldwide bicycling rates flat but up significantly over 2019
Just 33 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

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We’ll be taking the next couple days off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and what used to be known as the day after Thanksgiving — better known these days as Black Friday. 

Which means you can spend your time haunting the malls and online retailers in search of the best bargains. Or you can get out on your bike and just be thankful for awhile. 

I know which one I’d choose. 

As always, we’ll be around in case of breaking news over the weekend — hopefully including an arrest in the road-rage murder of 16-year old bike rider Jonathan Flores. 

And come back on Friday, when we’ll kick off the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, so you can watch me grovel and beg for just a small part of your hard-earned funds to help keep this site going for awhile longer, and maintain the corgi kibble fund. 

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At last, a little good news.

After years or rising rates, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, is reporting that early estimates show traffic fatalities actually declined in the US over the first six months of this year, including pedestrian deaths.

According to the NHTSA,

As compared to the first half of 2023, fatalities in key subcategories in 2024 decreased:

  • 12% during out-of-state travel
  • 9% in ejected passengers
  • 8% on urban interstates
  • 7% in passenger vehicle occupants less than 10 years old
  • 7% in unrestrained occupants of passenger vehicles
  • 7% in passengers
  • 6% in passenger vehicle rollover crashes
  • 6% in passenger vehicle occupants
  • 6% in speeding-related crashes
  • 5% in rural or urban collector roads/local roads
  • 5% involving roadway departure crashes
  • 4% at night
  • 4% during weekends
  • 3% in pedestrians

On the other hand, traffic deaths in California were up slightly over this time last year, climbing a statistically insignificant 0.03%. Although if your loved ones were part of the 0.03%, it’s not so insignificant at all.

Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on bicycling deaths this year.

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A bicycling website asks if the rate of bicycling around the world is rising or stagnating.

Short answer, yes.

A new report from Eco-Counter, a French company founded just to count bicyclists and pedestrians across every continent, shows that bicycling traffic trends in 14 countries declined 1% last year, compared to 2022.

But that still represents an 11% jump over 2019.

And the news is good here in the US, especially when it comes to bike commuting.

For example, in the US, bicycle volumes went up by 1.7% between 2023 and 2022. Whereas counts on recreational bike facilities decreased by 2.1% during this period, counts on commuter paths increased by 6.9%. Bicycle usage is reverting to pre-pandemic profiles, meaning more weekday riding to work and school and less leisure activity.

Which suggests that if we really want bike commuting rates to grow, we need to invest in safe, convenient routes to major employment centers, rather than focusing on recreational paths.

Maybe someone can give LADOT the memo.

Meanwhile, this is what we could have. But don’t.

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Our friends to the south are raising funds for safe routes to schools this holiday season.

https://twitter.com/sdbikecoalition/status/1861584562788409398

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It’s now 343 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

The LA city council has finally voted to stop forcing most developers to needlessly widen streets in front of their projects, which UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville called “probably the dumbest regulation” he has ever encountered; the brief street widenings were often incorrectly blamed on nonexistent plans for future bike lanes.

Westside Today offers more on Metro’s efforts to claw back $435,000 it awarded to fund the successful MOVE Culver City street safety project, after the city’s idiotic decision to rip out the protected bike lanes Metro helped pay for.

An e-scooter rider led South Pasadena police on a moderate speed pursuit, reportedly running multiple red lights at speeds up to 35 mph, which was what got their attention in the first place; the suspect was found carrying a replica handgun and an illegal butterfly knife

 

State

Plans for the permanent closure of San Francisco’s Great Highway are still in the concept state, but the early news is more bike lanes, and less parking.

A Sacramento op-ed explains why the city is converting the downtown area to two-way streets, noting that 100% of fatalities resulting from cars crashing into people occurred on one-way streets.

 

National

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes a look at the protected bike lanes and bike/walking paths in a pair of Southern Oregon cities.

A Florida bicyclist and triathlete offers her tips on how to stay safe on the road, but really doesn’t say much, except know and follow the rules for where you live. Which you already do, right?

 

International

Road.cc recommends splurge-worthing presents for bicyclists, for when money is no object. Most of which really aren’t that expensive. Key word: most.

Your prayers for an off-road Brompton have been answered at last.

Good news from Vancouver, where a 15-year old girl is emerging from a coma over a month after she was severely injured in a mountain biking crash, although she faces a very long road to recovery; a crowdfunding campaign to help defray her medical expenses has raised over $71,000 of the $75,000 goal.

Things are looking up on the ‘crash not accident’ front in the UK, where most police departments are now using “incident,” rather than the a-word.

Dockless ebike providers could face fines in London for “willful obstruction” of sidewalks due to “problematic” bike parking. Even though it’s usually their users who dump bikes everywhere but where they’re supposed to be.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling site considers seven wonders of bicycling infrastructure. None of which are in Los Angeles. Or North America, for that matter.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks back at the year’s “record-breaking and heartbreaking” pro cycling season.

The latest battle in pro cycling doesn’t involve people on bicycles, but people arguing about them, as Jonathan Vaughters, head of the EF Education-EasyPost team, blasted “fat cats who have never raced so much as a child’s tricycle” after the director of the Tour de France blamed recent crashes on riders “going too fast.”

Happy 146th birthday to the legendary Major Taylor.

 

Finally…

Maybe Bicycle Face is a thing, after all. When you’re fleeing your 13th arrest, at least do it on a bicycle.

And who says you can’t carry 330 pounds of flagstone on a bike?

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

Oh, and fuck Black Friday. And Putin. 

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

Cars — plural — seized in road rage murder of teen bike rider, and 21 bicyclists dead in LA this year as hit-and-runs rise

November 26, 2024 / / Comments Off on Cars — plural — seized in road rage murder of teen bike rider, and 21 bicyclists dead in LA this year as hit-and-runs rise
Just 34 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But so far, no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

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Let’s start with an update on yesterday’s lead story.

The CHP has identified, but not publicly named, a 28-year old Hispanic man as a person of interest (scroll down) in the intentional hit-and-run death of 16-year old Jonathan Flores in LA’s Exposition Park Friday night.

Investigators also seized two cars after serving a search warrant at a home in Los Angeles.

According to witnesses, a group of around forty teenage bike riders got into a verbal dispute with the driver of a blue BMW while riding south on Figueroa Street.

They rode into the parking lot at BMO Stadium to get away, but were followed by the driver of a second car, described as a Honda sedan. That driver plowed into Flores, who wasn’t involved in the initial confrontation, before fleeing the parking lot.

Flores died at the scene.

The cars seized by the CHP were a blue BMW, and a Honda Accord, corresponding with the witnesses description.

However, no arrest has been made, as the CHP is urging the person of interest to turn himself in.

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It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following this site that hit-and-run deaths in Los Angeles continue at near record levels, accounting for nearly a third of all traffic deaths in the city.

According to Crosstown LA, 345 people were killed as a result of traffic violence in Los Angeles last year, including 108 who died as a result of hit-and-run collisions.

And things aren’t not much better this year, with just five fewer people dying in hit-and-runs through the end of October, compared to last year.

Also not surprising, people in DTLA and South LA bore the brunt of the problem, without a single neighborhood in the wealthy Westside showing up on a list of the 13 worst neighborhoods for hit-and-run this year.

Then there’s this.

Also increasingly at risk are bicyclists. According to LAPD data, nine cyclists have died in hit-and-runs so far this year; the recent annual high for bicycle hit-and-run deaths was nine in 2019 and again in 2023.

Altogether this year, 21 bicyclists have been killed in collisions, according to Traffic Division Compstat data. Another 130 people suffered serious injuries.

Michael Schneider, founder and director of transportation-focused advocacy group Streets For All, said bicyclists are “being pushed to the margins” of the roads. With streets in the city being designed like freeways, with wide lanes and synchronized traffic lights, the result, he said, is more speeding, which endangers cyclists and pedestrians.

That’s a whopping 14 more than the seven bicycling deaths I’ve counted in the City of Fallen Angels so far this year — exactly three times as many bicyclists actually killed as have been mentioned by the local media.

Never mind that a total of 151 people have been killed or seriously injured riding a bicycle in LA this year.

And you wonder why I’ve been warning that my totals were probably an undercount.

I’ve long called for taking the crime more seriously, including revoking, not suspending, the license of any driver who flees the scene of a collision, regardless of severity.

Along with impounding their cars as evidence until their case is settled, then selling them upon conviction, with any proceeds going to the victims.

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Failure continues to stalk the bike industry, with three more bike-related companies going belly up or suspending sales.

British bike distributor The Martlet Group, owner of i-ride and its bike brand Orro, went into receivership — the equivalent of bankruptcy — earlier this year, due to heavy discounting of overstock merchandise.

French sportswear maker Le Coq Sportif also went into receivership; the firm made all the yellow jerseys for the Tour de France for more than four decades, noncontiguous though those decades may have been.

And Swiss bikemaker Stromer is immediately suspending sales of its Stromer and Desiknio bike brands in the US and Canada, after it was unable to find a North American distributor willing to take it over. Thanks to Ellectrek for the heads-up. 

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Black Friday is once again rearing its ugly head. Although now it’s a week, if not a month, instead of a single day, making it much harder to ignore.

Bike Rumor is first out of the gate with a roundup of the best Black Friday bike deals, while Momentum makes their picks for the best Black Friday deals on bikes, cargo bikes and ebikes.

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It’s now 342 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

More than 30 Evanston, Illinois business owners decided to shoot themselves in the foot by urging city officials to drop plans to expand a protected bike lane, apparently not wanting the increase in foot and bike traffic, and higher retail sales and property values, that usually come with such projects.

No surprise here, as Ontario, Canada passed controversial legislation allowing the province to go over the heads of city officials to remove local bike lanes; making matters worse, the legislation also allows construction of a highway through First Nations lands without consulting Indigenous leaders. Schmucks.

Momentum explains just what cities give up by giving in to car culture — starting with an increase in traffic congestion and a decline in business revenue — aptly calling the Ontario bike lane dispute “hogwash.”

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Local  

No news is good news, right?

 

State

Coronado is hosting a family friendly bike ride on Sunday, December 8th.

Hundreds of San Jose residents turned out for a bike-only ride through an annual holiday light display usually reserved for motorists.

Velo examines why San Francisco is ripping out the city’s most controversial bike lane, as the centerline Valencia Street bike lane is being replace with a more conventional curbside lane.

More bad news from Northern California, after someone riding a bicycle was killed by the driver of a massive Yukon SUV in Concord on Sunday. Although a collision with a vehicle that big is unlikely to be survivable, anyway. Which is why drivers of large vehicles should have a greater responsibility to drive safely, but unfortunately don’t. 

 

National

Hawaii celebrated the opening of a new bike lane through Central Oahu that was decades in the making. Which demonstrates the needless and ridiculous delays we face nearly everywhere in the US in getting much needed safety improvements on the streets.

Our former president isn’t the only one skating on criminal charges, after an Oregon judge granted a DEI agent immunity from prosecution on charges of blowing through a stop sign and killing a woman riding a bicycle in Salem last year. Although you’ll have to figure out a way around the Oregonian’s paywall if you want to read about it. 

A New Mexico researcher is looking into why the number of pedestrians and bicyclists killed on American roads has nearly doubled in just the past 12 years. Hint: Tell him to look at the rise in distracted driving, and the massive bloat in motor vehicle size.

The legacy of the Fayetteville, Arkansas “Bicycle Man” lives on despite his passing in 2013, as the program prepares to give away more than 1,000 bikes to kids in need next month — although that’s just a fraction of the actual need, since they receive over 3,000 requests each year.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A friend gave a Knoxville, Tennessee Korean War vet a new bicycle to replace his worn out bike, so the 86-year old man can continue his daily 22-mile bike rides.

New York responded to complaints of double parked drivers and blocked bike and bus lanes by opening more than 500 new loading zones throughout the city. Although if New York drivers are anything like their SoCal counterparts, they’ll continue to block the bike lanes, rather than drive another 30 or so feet to get to an open loading zone.

My hero. A Huntsville, Alabama radio host is staying up on a 40-foot outdoor tower, exposed to the elements, until a local campaign receives enough bicycles to give every foster kid in the city a new bike for the holidays.

 

International

An English driver proves there are still good people in the world, giving stranded bike riders a lift across flood waters in his 4 x 4 pickup.

No bias here. A British man complains that police are “completely unwilling to prosecute drivers” who hit bicyclists, after getting knocked off his bike a couple weeks ago..

A Philadelphia op-ed writer says bicyclists are treated like traffic in Northern Europe, making it safer for everyone, unlike here in the US where bicycles are considered obstructions for drivers to squeeze by.

 

Competitive Cycling

Australia has banned 25-year old track cyclist Matt Richardson for life, after he switched teams and won three Olympic medals at the Paris Olympics competing for Great Britain. But he won’t be banned from international competition for his new team.

 

Finally…

Kick ass on a BMX bike, and maybe one day, you too can get your very own line of “Bike Air” Jordans. And if wanting to ban SUVs makes you a communist, just call me a pinko.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Teen bike rider murdered in deliberate hit-and-run, Canadian bike lane madness, and assess bike/ped safety in your town

November 25, 2024 / / Comments Off on Teen bike rider murdered in deliberate hit-and-run, Canadian bike lane madness, and assess bike/ped safety in your town
Just 35 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But so far, no LA city leader has even mentioned the impending deadline. Let alone done anything about it. 

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If you missed it over the weekend — and that was easy to do, given the relatively minimal press coverage — a 16-year old boy was murdered by a driver who deliberately ran down his bike in LA’s Exposition Park on Friday.

The boy was part of a group of around 40 kids who got into some sort of altercation with a road-raging driver while riding south Figueroa Street, just above Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, allegedly breaking the car’s mirror.

The teens rode through a gap in the fence surrounding BMO Stadium in an effort to get away from the driver. But the driver followed them into the parking lot and slammed into the victim, then fled afterwards.

The victim died at the scene.

To make this horrific, needless tragedy even worse — if that is even possible — the boy reportedly had nothing to do with the dispute on the roadway, making him an entirely innocent victim.

So far, teenaged victim has not been publicly named.

There is also no description of the driver or suspect vehicle, other than a four-door sedan, with a broken side mirror and likely front-end damage.

The CHP is investigating the killing, since it took place on state property. Anyone with information is urged to call the their Southern Division Major Crimes Unit at 323/644-9550, or the Los Angeles Communication Center at 323/259-3200.

Let’s hope they find this murderous jerk soon, and get him off the roads.

Permanently.

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No surprise here.

It turns out that ripping out Toronto bike lanes like Ontario Premier Doug Ford — brother of the city’s late crack-smoking mayor — is demanding would actually make the city’s traffic worse, not better.

Meanwhile, a Mastadon user says the hundreds of bicyclists participating in a Toronto protest received a hero’s welcome from both pedestrians and drivers.

And a former Winnipeg city counselor and Canadian cabinet member called for halting new bike lanes, arguing that “Bike lanes have become more symbolic than functional, and symbolism is not enough to justify millions in spending.”

Never mind that bike lanes have repeatedly been shown to boost local businesses and property values while improving safety and livability for everyone.

Which should more than justify the relatively small amount to build new bike lanes, here, there or anywhere.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

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Applications are now open for community groups to apply for two programs run by the UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) designed to train people how to assess bicycle and pedestrian safety in their communities, and recommend how to improve it.

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Be on the lookout for a stolen trailer full of hot bike gear taken from Culver City’s Walk ‘n Rollers.

Not to mention the lowlife schmuck who made off with it.

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It’s now 341 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

Is anyone really surprised that the leader of an Irish political party says he gets more abuse “week in, week out” while riding his bicycle than he does as a politician?

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Local  

Streetsblog talks with sustainability advocate, LA County transportation deputy and newly elected Culver City Councilmember Bubba Fish, who restores the city’s narrow progressive majority; losing that majority two years ago resulted in conservative councilmembers ripping out the successful MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes.

Streets For All is encouraging people to become supporting members for just $12 a month, looking to reach 200 members by their member event next month.

Eastern Ave in El Sereno will get a major makeover this fall to bring better bike paths, safer sidewalks, more trees and traffic calming.

 

State

Streetsblog San Francisco examines Emeryville’s nearly completed sidewalk-level Horton Street bike lane.

Sebastopol is looking into the viability of building a multi-use path bisecting the city.

 

National

Now you, too, can build your own ebike out of PVC pipe.

According to the former head of the Federal Highway Administration, barrier-protected bike lanes are a “proven safety countermeasure” that has been shown to reduce crashes “an average of exactly 49 percent on four-lane, undivided collector and local roads” in an urban area, and they have reams of federally compiled data to back it up.

You can find a lot of things while riding your bike, but no one wants to discover human remains along a Phoenix area bike path.

Bike helmets — they’re not just for surviving Oklahoma tornadoes anymore.

New York Magazine considers the best holiday gifts for bicyclists, chosen by bicyclists.

A lifelong Jersey City, New Jersey resident  says a recent op-ed saying plans for a new bike lane are hated by locals relied on cherry-picking opinions while “ignoring both data and the realities of traffic safety.”

The good news is the Pennsylvania legislature didn’t reject a bill legalizing protected bike lanes, but the bad news is they didn’t pass it, either.

Congratulations to workers at DC’s Washington Area Bicyclist Association, who are now officially unionized.

If you’re riding your bike from Delaware to Key West, it only makes sense to honor the late Jimmy Buffet along the way.

 

International

Cycling Weekly asks why cars, trucks and SUVs keep getting bigger, questioning whether it will ever end. And they say modern bikes are so good, they take the worry out of riding.

Bicycling offers advice on how to safely do an Idaho Stop. But you’ll need a subscription to read the story, because this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else. 

Momentum considers the “world’s coolest and most unique” bicycling infrastructure innovations. None of which can be found in Los Angeles. Or the US, even.

A British Columbia judge denied bail to a man accused of trying to use a stolen dump truck to break into an ebike store, after he failed to bust through the security gates despite multiple attempts, just four months after he was arrested for using a forklift to break into a different ebike dealer.

Strange case from Cornwall, England, where a man in his 60s died crashing his bicycle into a parked car, just hours after going missing from a local hospital.

Bike lane opponents in Coventry, England are upset that trees are being cut down to make room for one, but only because they chose saving parking over saving trees.

A writer for the Guardian goes ebiking through Britain’s New Forest National Park.

That’s more like it. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for banning SUVs from the city, warning that they could become weapons against other citizens. Even if the conservative London Telegraph takes great pains to point out that she’s a Socialist — capital S — which has nothing to do with banning SUVs 

A French soccer website criticizes Lionel Messi for his “overpriced bicycle scandal,” after the Argentine superstar introduced his own very high-end bicycle selling for more than $15,000.

New Zealand officials found a 78-year old man safe and well after he failed to return home from a mountain bike ride.

An Aussie program is teaching older women the joys of riding a bicycle. Thanks again to Megan Lynch.

 

Competitive Cycling

Costa Rican pro Andrey Amador called it a career at 38 years old, after he’s been unable to compete since a truck driver ran over his foot and bike while training in Spain last May.

Cycling Up To Date considers five “magical” cycling records Tadej Pogačar could set this year.

American cyclist Neilson Powless, the first Native American to compete in the Tour de France, wants to inspire more Indigenous Americans to get on their bikes.

 

Finally…

Why wait for officials to do something about distracted drivers, when you can just post your own traffic signs saying “Get off your damn phone.” When you’re under house arrest, maybe don’t show up to vote riding a bicycle.

And no, you don’t have to send a thank you note to the driver who gave your kid a new bike after crashing into him and destroying his old one.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Not so much for safety as a shared responsibility, more or less on bike lanes, and just try surviving without one

November 22, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 38 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But sure, raise your hand if you’ve heard a single LA city leader so much as mention it. 

………

He gets it.

A writer for Fast Company says the common refrain of “safety is a shared responsibility” — or “a two-way street” in the parlance of too many newspaper editors — misses the point, absolving those who are really responsible for this country’s inexcusably high rate of traffic deaths.

Innocuous though it may seem, the refrain encapsulates much of what’s wrong with road safety in the U.S., where crash death rates are at least double other rich countries, from Japan to Finland to Canada.

In reality, the duty to prevent collisions should fall on the road engineers, car companies, and public officials who create the system in which people drive, bike, or walk—and not on road users themselves. By lumping everyone together, the phrase blurs that distinction, allowing those who can do the most to save lives to dodge accountability.

It’s worth giving it a quick read, because there are a lot of people to blame for the rising death toll on our streets.

Starting with the people who build and market oversized and over-powered vehicles virtually designed to kill. Not to mention the engineers and politicians who build the roads they speed on.

But the actual victims, not so much.

Graphic from Bike Santa Clarita. 

………

Today’s common theme is bike lanes, And more bike lanes.

Or fewer bike lanes, even, in a few cases.

Velo says bike lanes make the road safer for everyone, not just bicyclists, citing a new study showing that adding bike lanes to a busy intersection makes drivers slow down, whether going straight or turning right.

No surprise here, as San Diego’s notoriously anti-bike lane OB Rag picked up the anti-bike lane screed from the Washington Post we debunked yesterday. And trust me, you don’t want to read the comments. 

A Petaluma op-ed considers the health benefits of the city’s bike lanes, including encouraging people to bike instead of driving.

You’ve got to be kidding. Quebec’s anti-bike provincial government covers its bases by amending the bill allowing them to overrule local governments to rip out bike lanes, by absolving themselves of any liability for anyone killed or injured after one is removed.

Seriously? City officials in Bangkok ripped out a new bike lane just one day after it was installed, reopening the lane to motor vehicles and apologizing for the traffic “chaos” it caused. Never mind that drivers likely would have adjusted to the change if they gave them half a chance.

And heading back to Quebec, a tongue-in-cheek new game clarifies the risks to riders once the lanes are removed. I lasted a whopping 51 seconds before dying in a dooring; thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

The OC Wheelmen say it’s starting to look a lot like party time.

………

Yes, that pretty much sums up the value of hi-viz.

………

It’s now 338 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

Local  

You’re invited to attend the official opening of the new Bouquet Canyon Trail in Saugus this Monday.

 

State

Calbike is hosting a Zoom meeting December 3rd to unveil their priorities to make California’s streets safer and more sustainable.

More bad news from the Victorville area, where a man riding a bicycle was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver in nearby Apple Valley Thursday night.

Ventura nonprofit Bikes 4 a Cause will offer a free class to teach kids to ride a bicycle tomorrow.

Bad news from Northern California, where a man was killed while either riding or walking his bicycle in Del Norte County.

 

National

Singletraks offers 13 gifts for the “badass” modern mountain biking women in your life.

If you bought your kid a Nerf Barrage Bike Helmet from Walmart, it’s been recalled because they don’t meet mandatory federal safety regulations and could result in a head injury. Never mind why the hell you’d put your kid in a Nerf helmet to begin with. 

That’s more like it. A 27-year old Las Vegas man will spend up to ten years behind bars — and at least four — after copping a plea to killing an ebike rider while speeding and driving under the influence with a suspended license. Although maybe someone should tell the TV station the victim probably had a name, too. 

A writer in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown says the site of the old Colorado State University Rams football stadium would make the perfect site for a bike park to serve kids and adults. I once saw the Rams kicker set the NCAA record for the longest field goal there — which lasted about half an hour until someone else at another college broke it. 

Des Moines, Iowa opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge over the Racoon River.

A Texas man will spend the next 42 months behind bars after pleading guilty to stealing six bikes worth more than $100,000 from Lance Armstrong’s storage locker; no word on whether Lance ever got them back. Although if it makes you feel better, one of the bikes was only worth 500 bucks.

Tragic news, as it turns out the Mississippi woman killed in a dispute over a bicycle that we mentioned yesterday was shot multiple times by her own 29-year old daughter, who now faces a murder charge along with another man.

 

International

Road.cc recommends budget-friendly gifts under the equivalent of $68 for the bicyclist in your life. Hint: You’re probably the bicyclist in your life. Just saying. 

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list, as Momentum offers a guide to biking in Reykjavik, Iceland. Better yet, you’re only 40 miles or so from the active volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula. 

That’s more like it. A British driver with a history of speeding got a well-deserved eight years behind bars for killing a 12-year old boy riding a bicycle, after recklessly weaving while speeding through traffic and roaring his engine.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old Irishman — from Tipperary, no less — is keeping fit by riding his new ebike, after years riding a racing bike.

Aussie adventure cyclist Jimmy Ashby — named Australian Geographic’s Young Adventurer of the Year for 2019 — spent the last 11 months riding his bike from Asia to the Middle East to North America and home again. So what did you do this year?

 

Competitive Cycling

British road champion Pfeiffer Georgi still won’t watch video of her crash at the Tour de France Femmes, when she went over her handlebars in a mass crash and fractured her neck, but she says she’s ready to get off her sofa and back onto her bike — and hopefully make it back to the Tour next year.

Remco Evenepoel’s road to the 2025 Tour de France runs through an American wind tunnel.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be both recycled and recyclable. You can never have enough lights on your bike — or a jersey that says you’re packing.

And if the cops can catch a violent bikejacker less than a day after installing bike path security cams, maybe they should have done it just a tad sooner.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

LAPD keeping us in the dark on hit-and-runs, update to 5-Star Safety Ratings, and Robin told Conan to “go ride a bike”

November 20, 2024 / / One comment
Just 40 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
Not that LA leaders actually care, or anything. 

………

Monday evening I updated our report on the hit-and-run collision that took the life of bike rider Oscar Guardado in South LA last month, after the LAPD finally got around to asking for the public’s help.

Which is one reason I wasn’t able to post anything here yesterday.

Guardado was killed when he was struck by the driver of a black four-door sedan at Normandie Ave and W 23rd Street around 9:55 pm on October 27th; the driver fled the scene, apparently without stopping.

LAPD detectives urged any witnesses to the crash to come forward, after security video showed there were other people who could have seen the crash in the area at the time of the collision.

Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Sgt. Garbiel Nily of the South Traffic Division at 323/421-2500, or call the South Traffic Division Watch Commander after business hours at 323/421-2577.

As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.

However, the city also has a hit-and-run alert system which was approved a decade ago to get the public’s assistance in the hours immediately after a driver flees a collision, when they are most likely to remember key details that could help the cops find a suspect.

It was based on the highly successful program used in Denver to track down hit-and-run drivers, and was quickly followed by a similar California program.

Yet to the best of my knowledge, the LAPD has never used either one, apparently preferring to wait until the trail has gone cold before asking for our assistance.

Which could explain their miserable success rate of identifying a suspect in just one in five hit-and-runs reported to the department, and resulting in charges in less than half of those.

Although that’s better than the eight percent success rate they claimed in 2018.

If we had an effective city government, our elected leaders would demand to know why so little effort apparently goes into solving a crime that affects so many people. And demand to know why the tool the created to get the public’s help in solving it continues to go unused.

Or why they can’t at least inform the public within a few days of a serious crash.

But they don’t.

And we don’t.

So we can continue to count on the LAPD letting us know about serious and sometimes fatal crashes, when and if they get around to it.

Because why change a system that clearly isn’t working for anyone.

Meanwhile, the crowdfunding page to help pay for Oscar Guardado’s funeral expenses has raised just $1,625 of the modest $12,500 goal.

So if you have any extra cash lying around that you don’t need, they could use the help.

Photo of Oscar Guardado from crowdfunding page.

………

About damn time.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, has finally finalized changes to their 5-Star Safety Ratings program by incorporating new driver assistance tech, as well as measuring the degree of a vehicle’s pedestrian protection.

According to the NHTSA,

Notable changes to the program provided by this update include:

  • The addition of four advanced driver assistance technologies that will enhance crash-avoidance safety: pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist, blind spot warning and blind spot intervention.
  • Updated and strengthened testing procedures and performance criteria for advanced driver assistance technologies that are already included in NCAP, such as automatic emergency braking.
  • The addition of a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program to evaluate the ability of a vehicle’s front end to mitigate pedestrian injuries and fatalities in vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts.
  • Midterm and long-term roadmaps to accommodate future updates amid ongoing research and technological advancements in vehicle safety, including crash avoidance and crashworthiness improvements to protect bicyclists and motorcyclists and an updated rating system.

The protections for people outside the vehicle don’t go nearly as far as, or offer the rigid requirements of, the vehicle standards in the European Union.

But it’s a start.

………

We already knew the late, great Robin Williams was one of us.

Now it turns out that after Conan O’Brien was fired from the Tonight Show when Jay Leno decided he wasn’t ready to step down after all, Williams called him out of the blue and told him to hit the road, too.

But in this case, the bike-riding comedian told Conan he had rented a Colnago for him at a Santa Monica bike shop, instructing them to paint it in “crazy” Irish colors. And told him to bike around the city to clear his head.

It must have worked, because Conan will host the Oscars next February, after hosting his own late-night show for 11 years.

………

This is who we share the road with.

A 33-year old travel influencer faces 15 year to life for the crash that killed an 83-year old woman on deadly Fountain Ave in West Hollywood.

If he survives, that is.

Garrett Bruno suffered only minor injuries in the October 10th crash that killed Esther Abouab and seriously injured her husband, while allegedly speeding in his SUV.

But he broke his jaw falling off a scooter less than a week later. Then he allegedly fell off his scooter again days later on October 25th, this time suffering a fractured skull. And just two days before sheriff’s deputies raided his home in an attempt to arrest him, unaware that he was reportedly hospitalized in grave condition in a coma.

Assuming he recovers, prosecutors are expected to file felony counts of second-degree murder and reckless driving against him.

Let’s hope he’s not allowed to drive again. And has enough sense to stay off scooters going forward.

………

BikeLA hosts its’ 3rd Annual LA Bike Fest Fundraiser Happy Hour this Saturday from noon to 3 pm at the Highland Park Brewery in, yes, Highland Park.

………

Caltrans is hosting a meeting to discuss proposed changes to Foothill Blvd in La Verne.

………

Good question.

https://twitter.com/HowTheWestWS/status/1858698580829368799

………

It’s now 336 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

No bias here. Republican California State Senator Republican Kelly Seyarto complains, among many other things, that the policies of California’s Democratic leadership “prioritize curbing the construction of roads and highways in favor of bike lanes and high-speed rail projects.” Considering the cuts California’s Active Transportation Program took in the governor’s budget, before being restored by the legislature, they don’t seem to prioritize that, either. 

Residents of a London neighborhood got fed up with Lime bikes abandoned in a parking lot, and took an axel grinder to them.

London’s anti-bike Telegraph publishes a “dossier of collision data” involving “rogue cyclists” in the city’s parks. And illustrates it by manipulating photos of people bicycling safely and legally to make it look like they’re speeding.

A Northern Irish newspaper gets its Irish up over a nearly $3.3 million investment in a new bike lane, without noting that is the cost to rebuild the entire roadways.

………

Local  

While Los Angeles does nothing, as usual, Glendale is moving ahead with plans for implementing the speed cam pilot program approved by the state earlier this year.

Streetsblog tours the Puente Hills Landfill that is intended to become the future “Griffith Park of the San Gabriel Valley” when it opens in 2027. Let’s just hope it turns out to be safer than the “Griffith Park of the Los Angeles Basin.”

They get it. A coalition of South Pasadena safe streets organizations complain about the city’s wide open, high speed streets, and call on local residents to support the vision for city streets presented by Toole Design Group.

 

State

It’s been a rough few days for Victorville bicyclists, including a bike rider who was hospitalized after being struck by a pickup driver yesterday.

No surprise here. After hitting a young man riding a bicycle last weekend, a Santa Barbara driver got out of his car and disappeared, while the passenger started to exchange information with a witness, before taking off in a dead run after being asked if the driver had been drinking. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

A crowdfunding campaign for a 13-year old Bakersfield boy killed in a collision while riding his bike has raised nearly $9,000 of the $15,000 goal.

Sad news from San Carlos, where a Palo Alto woman was killed in a collision while riding her bike.

San Francisco presents the final design for moving the much-maligned Valencia Street centerline bike lane, which got the unanimous blessing of the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency’s board of directors.

 

National

Cycling Weekly says the fatality rate for bicycling is disproportionately high, but it beats the hell out of the health risks of letting your car do all the work.

US bikemaker Woom is recalling 2,500 children’s bikes that may be afflicted by damaged cranks, which could break during use, and have resulted in at least one injury.

A Seattle Redditor posts video of the city’s obstructed bike lanes.

Colorado’s governor calls for doubling the state’s rate of bicycling, walking and transit use by 2035. Let’s hope they do better than Los Angeles, which has missed nearly every date it has set for the last decade.

North Dakota’s governor celebrates a $1.5 million grant that will allow the state to bring the All Kids Bike program to 233 elementary schools, teaching the kids how to ride a bike safely.

Apparently bike polo is still a thing, as a Texas public radio station talks with a San Marcos bike polo player who says it’s his thing.

Indianapolis bike riders offer advice on how drivers can help keep them safe on the roads, reminding them that the person on the bicycle is “somebody’s mother, sister, brother, father.”

Sports Illustrated profiles Dartmouth College student Bond Almand, who shattered the Pan-American Highway Bike Race record for riding from Alaska to Argentina.

A Georgia Tech research engineer tracks the evolution of bike helmets, from plant rinds to high-tech materials.

 

International

The Guardian picks the best gifts for bicyclists, from a neck snood to geranium and orange bath oil. Even if you have to buy them for yourself.

Cycling Weekly celebrates the benefits and freedom of taking your time on your next ride.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website turns the usual “best cities for bicycling” routine on its head, listing the five European cities where you absolutely shouldn’t ride a bike, including Lisbon and Dubrovnik. But not including Venice, where it is literally impossible.

Momentum considers family friendly adventure cycling routes around the world, including America’s Great Allegheny Passage.

A new map tells you what intersections to avoid on your bicycle on your next trip to London.

No surprise here, as an 18-year old British man finds himself reluctant to get back on his bike after getting hit by drivers for the third time.

The student newspaper for Dublin’s Trinity College examines the “perilous history” of bicycling in the city.

Bicycling Dutch says “Good cycling infrastructure is where small mistakes do not have severe consequences.” They got that right. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Testimony at an official inquest reveals 24-year old New Zealand cyclist Olivia Podmore was bullied by her coaches in the days before her suicide, apparently in response to being left off the squad for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

U-23 cyclist Tom Schellekens is walking away from his team’s road cycling squad to focus on mountain biking in Los Angeles in 2028.

 

Finally…

Forget ebikes, just plant more trees. If you’re riding your bike carrying meth and drug paraphernalia, with eight — count ’em, eight — active arrest warrants, maybe just don’t.

And nothing like finding a biohazard container or a llama in the bike lane — but that beats the hell out of a moving car on a bike path.

Or bigass Christmas tree.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Cover your ass with uninsured motorist coverage, new Baldwin Park bike lanes, and dead bear bike framer to head HHS

November 18, 2024 / / 4 comments
Just 42 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Good advice from Oceanside bike injury attorney and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette not to skimp on the uninsured motorist coverage on your auto insurance policy, which could protect you financially, if not physically, if you’re struck by a driver.

It’s a topic we’ve covered before.

Maybe someday insurance companies will figure out that maybe we’d like to be able to buy our own insurance policies, even if you don’t own a car.

Jackass photo from Pixabay, reminding you to, well, you get it. 

………

Yes, please.

Although I’m told this is actually in Baldwin Park, not Baldwin Hills. Just too many Baldwins out there.

And Streetsblog visits LA County’s new Vincent Community Bikeway, with includes stretches of “new creekside bike/walk paths, connected by on-street protected bike lanes.” If you consider car-tickler plastic bendy posts protection, that is. 

………

Bay Area bicyclists rode to protest a proposal to make the bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge just part-time during non-rush hours. Because evidently, only drivers need to commute at regular work times. 

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

It’s now 334 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

The families of Ontario traffic victims rallied to criticize provincial Premier Doug Ford’s anti-bike lane bill; it could adversely affect handicapped people, as well.

Hamilton city counselors reject the “war on cars” label, and tell Ford to butt out of the city’s business.

A new survey shows Canadians are all in favor of bicycling infrastructure — as long as it’s not in the roadway.

No bias here. Welsh drivers claim that narrowing a roadway to make room for a bike path is an “attack on your right to drive a car.” Because evidently, they’re entitled to every inch of the road. Or think they are, anyway. 

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

A writer for the Virginia Tech student newspaper correctly points out that both bicyclists and non-riders need to show better etiquette on the roads. But only the bad etiquette from drivers is likely to get someone killed. 

No bias here, either. The London Times calls out “rogue cyclists” who’ve knocked down children and the elderly in the city’s parks. Never mind that sometimes people step into the path of a bicycle without looking, or the overwhelming majority of people who ride safely. And just wait until they hear about all those “rogue” drivers out there.

A British mom criticizes a bike rider for “uttering the worst excuse” after crashing into her disabled son while riding on the sidewalk, saying he couldn’t stop in time. It may be valid to criticize the rider for riding too fast, or even being on the sidewalk in the first place. But somehow expecting him to know her kid had a blood disorder, or being able to stop instantly under any circumstance, is asking too much. 

………

Local  

The LAPD is looking for the suspect who fled on a bicycle after shooting and killing a man on Pacific Ave in San Pedro.

Streets For All is calling for anyone who lives, works or shops — or rides, for that matter — in Burbank to turn out tomorrow to support dedicated lines for the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project through the city.

 

State

San Diego residents called for safer streets on the World Day of Remembrance for the victims of traffic violence.

An op-ed from a Petaluma small business owner and safe streets advocate says the city needs to build a bike-friendly future.

They get it, sort of. The Sacramento Bee writes that the city needs funding for safer streets fast, because they’re killing people at alarming rates. But then they hid their editorial behind a paywall, as if no one really needs to see it.

 

National

A coalition of organizations working to end car crash deaths and serious injuries in America penned an open letter calling on the incoming administration and Congress to unite to solve the country’s roadway crisis. I only wish I still had hope that might happen. 

Bicycling says Trump’s proposed tariffs could make your next bike much more expensive. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Life is cheap in Ohio, where a woman got a whole 60 days behind bars — or 59 with time served — for killing a 12-year old boy who was riding his bicycle, after her attorney got a blood alcohol test tossed showing she was over three times the legal limit. But at least her license was suspended for five years. Because as we all know, no one would ever consider driving on a suspended license, right?

Massachusetts bicyclists rallied at the state capital to demand an end to traffic violence.

The night after Trump won the White House and Republicans took Congress, a DC church erupted in anger — over proposed bike lanes, not the election.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Florida jury acquitted a 77-year old woman on hit-and-run charges after a bike-riding man was killed when she cut him off in a crosswalk, because her lawyer managed to convince them she didn’t know she’d hit anyone. Seriously, if you don’t know when you’ve even been in a crash, you shouldn’t be driving. And if you shouldn’t be driving in the first place, you should be held accountable for whatever happens if you do.

 

International

Cycling Weekly wades into the debate over whether or not you should ride your bike after dark. Because evidently, only people who drive need to go out at night. Or home, for that matter. 

They get it. Momentum says governments should start paying people to bike to work to confront traffic congestion, pollution and sedentary lifestyles, like some cities in Europe are doing.

A British radio host completed a 300-mile ride from Wales to Scotland on a Raleigh Chopper bike, raising the equivalent of over $9.4 million for children in need.

LeMonde says anti-bicyclist anger is rising in France. But you’ll have to subscribe if you want to read the whole thing. 

Life is cheap in Singapore, where a former actor was fined the equivalent of a whopping $2,230 for injuring a man riding a bicycle. But at least he was banned from driving for five years. And in Singapore, that might actually mean something. 

An Aussie driver considers why some bicyclists have a capacity to inflame drivers’ emotions — which is putting it mildly — when even riders who don’t move into single file aren’t that hard to pass.

 

Competitive Cycling

Somebody give that boy a sandwich, already.

 

Finally…

You can see a lot from your bike — like a rabbit-like rodent on the wrong damn continent. Even the safest streets aren’t safe when drivers aren’t.

And the guy nominated to head up the US Health Department is the same anti-bike lane schmuck who dumped a dead bear on a Central Park bike path to frame bike riders for its killing.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

World Day of Remembrance,Westwood Mobility Popup on Sunday; and bike-friendly November election wins

November 15, 2024 / / Comments Off on World Day of Remembrance,Westwood Mobility Popup on Sunday; and bike-friendly November election wins
Just 45 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Sunday is the World Day of Remembrance for the victims of traffic violence.

So take a moment to remember those who have been sacrificed to the almighty motor vehicle gods, and those who drive them — including the 48 SoCal bike riders who have needlessly lost their lives this year.

Streets Are For Everyone, So Cal Families for Safe Streets, LA Walks, Bike LA and SAFE Families will hold memorials Sunday to remember the 746 people killed in collisions in Los Angeles County last year at Gloria Molina Grand Park in DTLA, at 9:30 am, 11 am, and 2:30 pm.

Other observances will be held in Corona and San Diego; see the top link in this section for details.

Photo by Tucă Bianca from Pexels.

………

Candidates endorsed by Streets For All helped lead to bike-friendly city council majorities in Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Culver City, as well as winning races in CD10  and CD14 in Los Angeles.

So maybe the new majority in Culver City can undo the ridiculous removal of the highly successful MOVE Culver City protected bike lanes.

We can hope, right?

Meanwhile, Calbike claims victory for seven of the nine bike-friendly candidates they endorsed in this month’s election, including new Burbank Assemblymember Nick Schultz, and new Los Angeles Assemblymembers Jessica Caloza and Sade Elhawary.

And famed Emeryville “Bike Mayor” and cargo bike pilot John Bauters is now officially an Alameda County District Supervisor.

………

Streets For All is hosting a mobility popup in Westwood this Sunday, in conjunction with AARP.

And Bike LA — the former Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition — will host their annual Bike Fest Happy Hour a week from tomorrow.

………

It’s now 331 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s ebike rebate pilot program boosted the net earnings of delivery workers compared to using a car, while generating virtually no greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

………

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

Cycling Weekly offers tips on how to rebut the usual anti-bike rants.

It will cost at least $48 million to remove Toronto bike lanes targeted by bike-unfriendly Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

Once again, someone has boobytrapped a UK mountain bike trail, stringing electric wire fencing at neck level across the trail, which could shock or strangle, if not decapitate, an unsuspecting victim. And which should be prosecuted appropriately once they find the asshole.

A road raging Norwegian driver went on a rampage against a bike-riding man, first blocking the bike lane with his van, then drop kicking him off his bicycle before assaulting both bike and rider.

………

Local  

Santa Monica’s 17th Street and Michigan Ave Safe Streets project was named Transportation Project of the Year by the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA).

 

State

Coronado considers banning ebikes from sidewalks.

Livability says the all-year sunshine, mild high desert climate, and open roads and mountain bike trails make San Bernardino County’s Victor Valley a bicycling paradise.

Heartbreaking news from Bakersfield, where a 13-year old boy was killed by a driver while riding his bicycle home from school.

Sonoma is looking for feedback on the city’s Active Transportation Plan.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a man in his 40s was killed by a motorist when he allegedly swerved his bike in front of the driver’s SUV.

Sacramento is considering a plan to limit parking spaces in new buildings, while increasing bike parking; Los Angeles passed a similar measure over a decade ago.

 

National

Consumer Affairs ranks the worst states per capita for bike thefts. Shockingly, California isn’t on the brief list.

About damn time. GM is making technology to alert drivers to the presence of bicyclists standard equipment on all its brands, beginning with the 2025 model year.

Bike Magazine highlights the country’s six best winter mountain biking destinations; the list includes Southern California from Santa Barbara to Santa Monica. Although word has it that Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties ain’t bad, either.

Five years after a Minneapolis street safety advocate was killed while riding his bicycle, his father continues to carry on his son’s work.

Tragic news from Wisconsin, where five people were killed when their car went off the road and struck a tree; all five were active in the annual Ride to Cure Diabetes, a fundraising ride to fight type 1 diabetes.

Life is cheap in Connecticut, where a 72-year old woman walked without a single day behind bars for killing a 47-year old woman riding a bicycle while “fiddling” with her steering wheel, and the two “just seemed to merge together.” Yeah, that’s one way to describe it.

An Atlantic City writer says he knew an ebike was the best investment he ever made the moment he sat in the saddle.

 

International

Momentum highlights the seven lightest ebikes for easy urban riding, and lists the top ten reasons to bike to work in the winter. Most of which don’t apply here in sunny SoCal.

Life is cheap in Ontario, Canada, where a driver walked without a single day behind bars after he was sentenced to home vacation detention for the hit-and-run death of a 54-year old man, despite leaving his bike-riding victim to die alone in a ditch.

British bicyclists are warned not to ignore pain or weakness in your hands, which could result in a serious condition known as cyclist’s palsy. The same advice holds on this side of the Atlantic. 

A 62-year old father and noted criminal defense attorney died in a solo fall during a Belfast, Northern Ireland sportive when he struck a badly worn speed bump.

No surprise here, as a “groundbreaking” new German study shows bicyclists exhibit a greater commitment to the common good than their motoring counterparts.

More proof bikes make the best emergency vehicles, as bicycles prove critical in the wake of extreme flooding in Spain’s Valencia region. Thanks again to Megan Lynch. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist ranks the top 50 cyclists of this decade; Sepp Kuss is the top rated American at number ten.

Sad news from Germany, where six-time world track cycling champ Michael Hubner passed away in a Saxony hospital; he was 65.

French pro cyclist Célia Le Mouel was lucky to escape with minor injuries when a driver turned across her path without looking; her bike was not so lucky.

Three-time Tour de France champ and one-time shotgun blast survivor Greg LeMond tops Cycling Up To Date’s ranking of the all-time best North And South American cyclists.

Carbon monoxide could be the new doping.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to steal a $6500 ebike, maybe don’t leave your old bike behind as evidence. It’s one thing to carry a keyboard on your bicycle, it’s another when your entire bicycle is a piano.

And of course Hitch was one of us.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

San Diego traffic deaths climb 10 years after Vision Zero, rigid bollards pose risk to bikes, and who we share the road with

November 13, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 47 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

Meanwhile, San Diego’s Vision Zero program is working about as well as most, including here in Los Angeles, as a new report says pedestrian and bicycling deaths have continued to climb in the ten years since the program was adopted.

The difference is that San Diego actually took major steps to improve safety, building new bike lanes and pedestrian improvements throughout the city. Although it’s arguably — and demonstrably — not enough.

But whether cities can ever do enough to compensate for bigger, faster vehicles and drivers distracted by smartphones and dashboard video screens is highly debatable.

………

A new German study confirmed the complaints of some San Diego bicyclists who’ve argued that rigid bike lane bollards pose a high risk for bicyclists, and can result in serious injuries to riders who hit them.

The authors conducted an experiment to test the risks to riders.

To assess the risk posed to cyclists by rigid bollards, DEKRA conducted two identical collision tests at its Crash Test Center in Neumünster, Germany, with a three-wheeled e-cargo bike driven at a speed of 25 km/h (about 15-16 mph), one against a flexible post and the other against a rigid one.

“In the test against the rigid post, there was a strong deceleration [slowing down] that threw the dummy from the saddle towards the handlebars. The bollard buckled and then acted as a ramp. The rear of the bike was lifted up, throwing the dummy off and causing the bike to tip over.”

“In a real-life situation, the person riding the bike would have suffered serious injuries,” Egelhaaf said.

On the other hand, flexible plastic bollards — like the car-tickler bendie posts preferred by LADOT — allowed riders to simply roll over them, with little or no risk of serious injuries.

But flexible bollards also do nothing to keep inattentive or uncaring drivers out of the bike lanes, and are often flattened within weeks, if not days, of their installation.

So the question becomes whether the risk of falls outweighs the risk posed by motorists and their big, dangerous machines.

I don’t know how to answer that.

The only way to get a actual answer would be to try a real world test on comparable roadways, and measure the rate of injuries on both after six months and a year.

And to the best of my knowledge, no one has done that. Or plans to.

………

This is who we share the road with.

A Santa Monica collision resulted in unexpected tragedy after a pickup driver collided with a motorcyclist on the 1400 block of Cloverfield Blvd, near the Specialized bike shop at Cloverfield and Santa Monica.

The motorcyclist only suffered minor injuries. But as he walked back to the truck to talk with the driver, he heard a shot ring out as the driver pulled out a gun and committed suicide, for reasons known only to himself.

………

This is who we share the road with, part two

A cop found a Lubbock, Texas man dead from complications of diabetes, which apparently resulted from injuries he suffered in an earlier road rage crash.

Witnesses said a driver seemed to intentionally crash into the victim’s motorcycle, after the motorbike rider waved a gun as the two men argued moments before the crash.

The driver claimed he accidentally hit the motorcycle while attempting to flee from the gunman — then he did flee immediately after the crash, turning a road rage incident into a fatal hit-and-run.

Or maybe even a homicide.

………

No bias here.

A panel of sadly misinformed Aussie broadcasters called for banning all bicyclists from the roads, especially the ones who “wear Lycra and have large guts,” while calling a three-wheeled recumbent bike a child’s toy tricycle.

All because video showed a driver correctly slow down behind the recumbent rider to wait for a safe opportunity to pass, before a truck driver slammed on his brakes to avoid running up the driver’s ass, and nearly hit an oncoming car headed in the other direction.

And somehow, they managed to conclude this was all the bike rider’s fault.

………

Drivers often act like we’re invisible.

Sometimes, it may actually be true.

………

Maybe Santa will bring me the new Tern do-it-all e-cargo bike for Christmas.

It could happen, right?

………

It’s now 329 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

No bias here, either. A Boston bike commuter says the city’s new bike lanes are a metaphor for the Democratic Party, since they were built to appease a “small, highly vocal minority,” a “depressing number” of whom consider the resulting traffic congestion a benefit, not a trade-off. Tell us you don’t understand traffic calming without saying it. 

If you’re going to hate on bicycles, might as well do it poetically, as a British letter writer pens an ode to the local city council’s “absurd” and “crazy” “cycle crusade.”

Now we’re being attacked by elderly Florida dog walkers and British people on e-scooters.

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

A Long Beach bike rider learned the hard way that when you’re carrying a bag of meth on your bike, don’t ride salmon. And don’t lie to the cops about having a gun, for chrissakes. 

Police in Brighton, England are investigating after a teenaged ebike rider crashed into a 75-year old woman, who had to be hospitalized.

………

Local  

Lucky us. Even more bicyclists get to participate in Waymo’s beta test, willingly or not, as the autonomous cab company expands into more Los Angeles neighborhoods, and opens up to all users.

WorldTour cyclist Neilson Powless and US crit champ Coryn Labecki led a 25-mile bike ride through the streets of Pasadena, before returning to a new private school to help the students build bicycles for underprivileged youth.

They get it. A Pasadena study session will consider how to revitalize North Lake Ave and turn it into a Complete Street to make it more inviting to bike riders and pedestrians, as it currently “suffers from excessive space allocated to cars.”

Manhattan Beach students will now be required to display a sticker saying they’ve taken an approved ebike safety course if they want to park them on campus.

Streetsblog hosts an open thread on Saturday’s relatively sparsely attended Beach Streets open streets event in North Long Beach, including Joe Linton’s always great photos.

 

State

Costa Mesa will host Micromobility America, a trade show for ebike and e-scooter makers, and others in the micromobility industry, this Thursday and Friday.

The Guardian examines the backlash to the closing of San Francisco’s Great Highway, as if it hadn’t just been approved by a majority of the city’s voters.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a 32-year old woman was killed when she was stuck by a driver while trying to ride across the street; naturally, the CHP blamed the victim for riding directly into the car’s path, without mentioning whether the driver may have been speeding or gone through a traffic signal.

 

National

Momentum writes in praise of community bike co-ops.

Bicycling considers how to say goodbye to the rider you used to be. A lesson I’ve struggled to learn myself. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

National Geographic — yes, it’s still a thing — picks the best ebikes to “make cycling adventures a breeze,” while the National Council on Aging selects the best ebikes for old farts older Americans.

Bike Portland says last week’s election bodes well for bicycling in the city.

Colorado county commissioners nixed a hotly debated proposal for a mountain bike park, although the decision left developers demoralized.

NBA star Klay Thompson is one of us, riding his bike to relax between games after signing with the Dallas Mavericks.

A YouTuber rides the rough streets of Dallas to confirm whether it’s really the country’s most unbikeable city.

That’s more like it. An Illinois driver faces up to 61 years in prison for the drugged-driving crash that killed a man riding a bicycle, after he was convicted on four counts of aggravated DUI causing death and one count of reckless homicide.

A Vermont police officer was placed on administrative leave after killing a 38-year old man who was pulling a bike trailer behind his bicycle; officials unofficially exonerated the driver of the police cruiser by insisting it was rainy and dark, and the street was wet. Which is usually what happens when it rains.

Kindhearted McDonalds coworkers bought a new bicycle for a Cambridge, Massachusetts man after his bike was stolen.

New York completed the final phase of a Vision Zero makeover of the city’s former “Boulevard of Death,” which has already resulted in a dramatic reduction in deaths and serious injuries for all road users, while increasing bike use up to 450%.

Prosecutors in New Jersey are headed to the grand jury to seek a formal indictment of 43-year old Sean Higgins, accused in the drunken, high-speed crash that killed the hockey playing Gaudreau brothers as they rode their bikes on the shoulder of a New Jersey highway the night before their sister’s wedding.

Once again, someone riding a bicycle fell off a Florida drawbridge, when a 72-year old man fell after holding on for dear life after the bridge opened as he was riding across; fortunately, the victim’s injuries weren’t life threatening.

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine looks at city bicycling rules that need to be changed.

The BBC takes a look at bike riders who are taking things into their own hands, and tracking down their own stolen bicycles when the cops won’t. Speaking of which, Amazon has Air Tags on sale for just $19, or $70 for four. 

Life is cheap in Wales, where an 84-year old driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a bike rider after claiming he just couldn’t see the victim, he was apparently spared jail time by virtue of being old. And once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, if you can’t even see a grown man on a bicycle. 

An English police department is employing “scarecrow” bikes to frighten off bike thieves.

A British doctor suggests wearing a hot and slightly cumbersome face mask that may take some getting used to when you ride a bike on city streets.

Add riding a bike through the streets of Istanbul to your bicycle bucket list. Singing “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” while you ride is optional.

An American experiences “dirt, sweat and philosophical enlightenment” while gravel biking across Morocco.

Streetsblog considers what the US can learn from Africa’s bike mayor, asking what we can “learn from developing countries where car dependency hasn’t yet taken root.”

The New York Times looks at the thinking behind the massive five-hour bike ride that brought tens of thousands of Chinese people out on a search for dumplings, which became so popular the government shut it down. Cycling Weekly says with enough belief, we could all have our own viral Chinese dumpling ride.

Cycling Up To Date examines the ten biggest scandals in cycling history, culminating with our old doper buddy Lance.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks back to Connie Carpenter’s — now Connie Carpenter-Phinney — win in the first women’s Olympic road cycling race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 40 years before the next American woman would take gold at this year’s Paris Olympics.

 

Finally…

Now you can crash your bike without ever leaving your living room. Even ungulates are breaking into bike shops these days.

And you really can carry a sofa on a bicycle. Or what looks like a love seat, anyway.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Open letter to SaMo City Council — Ensure fairness before approving Selective Traffic Enforcement funds today

November 12, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 48 days until LA fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

We have a time-sensitive matter to discuss.

The Santa Monica City Council is going to address a motion to accept a $300,000 grant from the Office of Traffic Safety as part of their pro forma consent calendar at today’s meeting.

The purpose of the grant is to fund more Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations by the Santa Monica Police Department, in which officers ticket anyone who commits a violation on the road that could endanger vulnerable road users.

But as you’ll see below, that isn’t always enforced equally, fairly or equitably.

Longtime Santa Monica bike advocate and former LACBC Board Member Dr. Michael Cahn wrote the following open letter to the council, calling attention to the windshield bias and other problems inherent in these operations.

So I’m going to step aside, and let Dr. Cahn do the talking today.

You can do some talking of your own by contacting the Santa Monica City Councilmembers prior to today’s 5:30 pm meeting, to call for fairer police enforcement in bike/ped safety operations before approving Item 5D — particularly if you live, work or ride in Santa Monica.

And if you’re one of those unfortunate bike riders who was ticketed in one of the previous operations, they especially need to hear from you.

We’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, to catch up on anything we missed today.

……….

Dear Council Members,

Before you give a green light to the OTS Grant for 300.000 $ for Selective Traffic Enforcement, let me give you some feedback, from the handlebars and from the sidewalk, looking back at how these grants have worked in the past.

They used to be awarded for Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety, and they were always conducted “through the windshield”. The motto was: Drivers are driving, now let’s keep the pedestrians and cyclists out of harm’s way. To do that we must ticket them when they ride their bikes on the sidewalk, we must educate them to cross at the intersection.

There is a big monster in town, it is called vehicle traffic, and it will snap a pedestrian, a cyclist here and there. The main job of SMPD Traffic Division is to keep the monster rolling through town, and keep those who use the streets without a license plate out of the path of this dangerous beast. Not exactly the best way to address the source of the danger, methinks.

It does not look good when an SMPD Sergeant is parked at the intersection and ignores how this Prius endangers the pedestrian in the crosswalk (Montana):

All photos by Dr. Michael Cahn

But the cyclist on the sidewalk is quickly found and stopped and “enforced”:

Sometimes crossing the intersection without a green light is safer for the cyclist, but the officer only cares about the rules:

SMPD knows that riding bicycles on Lincoln Blvd is hairy, so they do it on the sidewalk:

But the black kid is being hassled for doing the same — riding his bicycle on the sidewalk on Lincoln:

We all sometimes think cars can not be avoided. Our police force, too, is fully subscribed to this attitude. We once had a transportation management division in this city, but how do you manage the king of the American road? The car is in charge, but CicLAvias and other open streets events come and go.

And yet, we must manage and challenge all this driving. We must do less of it, and we must do it less often. And the SMPD, too, must project this goal of less driving. One way to do this is to contradict the idea that driving is always necessary (it is not), that we all drive (we do not). Imagine the citywide moment of education and insight that would happen if our own police department challenged the poison of motonormativity. Encourage the SMPD to challenge the notion that driving is the default. Let’s see these officers on their bicycles enforcing the law on Wilshire, for a change.

Yes, they do ride their bicycles on the beach path, but are they big and strong enough to do it in town? In town the bicycles are transported on the back of a car.

Chicken anybody?

SMPD avoiding ride bicycles on city streets (“we are not crazy”):

Every time the SMPD is not riding a bicycle in traffic, it gives us cyclists the sense that we are just a crazy suicidal minority. And it gives all the drivers out there the same message: Crazy cyclists. What we need from them is to share the road with us on a bicycle, and to bring their authority and their uniforms and their tickets to the bike lane, and to deal with the drivers parking on the bike lane, turning without indicating, overtaking dangerously, ignoring crosswalks, opening doors without looking.  This should be part of the 300K grant from OTS!

You want safer streets in Santa Monica? Put your officers on bicycles and let them ride up and down Wilshire, up and down Lincoln. That is where the education and the enforcement needs to happen. Enforcement of our drivers, the single most dangerous road participants

You know you want to do it, just see how you imagined the SMPD as an all terrain mountain cyclists force. No road chickens here.

Please make approval of item 5D contingent on consideration of the following items

  1. Highly visible bicycle patrols on heavily trafficked streets: Film it, Share it: Show us and show the community that cars are not always necessary.
  2. Conduct Crosswalk Sting Operations on Montana, Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvd etc. Film it, Share it.
  3. Enforcement of drivers who stop or park on bike lanes.
  4. Enforcement of illegal parking and waiting around schools: Lincoln Middle School has crossing guards. Their good work is made impossible by parents defiantly waiting in their cars on bike lanes and in alleys in the vicinity. Saint Monica School proudly displays long lines of illegal parking and waiting on California Ave over multiple blocks.
  5. Revisit the sidewalk riding ordinance.

Thank you !

— Dr Michael Cahn

………

It’s now 328 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 41 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Guest Columns / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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