Tag Archive for bike registration

California traffic deaths jump 17% last year, Metro proposes erasing NoHo bike lane, and register your bike already

February 2, 2022 / / One comment

No, you’re not just being paranoid.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released their latest count of US traffic deaths for the first nine months of last year, showing an estimated 31,720 people died in motor vehicle crashes through the end of September.

That’s a 12% increase over the previous year, and the most traffic deaths in 15 years.

Not to mention the biggest one-year jump since they’ve been keeping score.

Things are even worse here in California, which saw a 17.2% increase in traffic deaths for the first nine months of 2021.

Unfortunately, they don’t break out figures for bicycling and pedestrian deaths, so we’ll have to wait to learn just how bad it’s been for those of us who aren’t wrapped in a couple tons of steel and glass, and protected by seat belts and air bags instead of a little plastic hat.

But if you thought it was getting worse out there, you’re right.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

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Unbelievable.

The world may be burning, but Metro is busy erasing bike lanes.

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Yet another reminder to register your bike.

Now.

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I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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

Life is cheap in South Africa, where a prominent triathlete was killed and another injured by an alleged drunken hit-and-run driver, who was released on bail due to “lack of evidence;” the driver couldn’t get away because his Porsche was too damaged to drive. Which sounds like pretty solid evidence to me, but what the hell do I know?

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

Police in London’s Hackney district busted 18 people on bicycles for jumping red lights in just 90 minutes, fining them the equivalent of around $68.

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Local

Los Angeles is hosting tire recycling events in Baldwin Park at the end of this month, East LA next month and the Antelope Valley in April. And yes, they’ll take bike tires and tubes.

Once again, an Apple Watch has called for help to rescue an injured bike rider, this time when a man somehow came off his ebike while riding in Hermosa Beach.

 

State

A man known as the scraper bike king of East Oakland is working with kids to carry on the tradition of colorful, highly customized bikes, hoping it will help keep them out of trouble like it did him.

 

National

A new study from the Urban Institute shows that pressuring city officials to build bikeways works.

This is who we’ll soon have to share the road with. Even an automotive site calls for banning the new 840 horsepower Dodge Demon from public roads, calling it a nominally street-legal dragster.

Dockless e-scooter provider Superpedestrian is rolling out a new safety system designed to detect and correct unsafe rider behavior in real time, preventing things like riding on the sidewalk or riding salmon.

Triathlete credits a bike safety campaign featuring triathletes for the White House’s shift to prioritizing bicycle safety.

220 Triathlon considers whether you’d be better off with a women’s bike.

Reno bike riders get a new nearly half-mile multi-use path near the airport. Although it looks like whoever striped it needs to cut back on the weed.

A Denver bike advocate laments the death of what would have been a perfect bike lane, thanks to a whole 17 complaints during the public comment period.

An Ohio letter writer complains about the angry drivers who feel the need to ruin a good bike ride because they don’t understand the law. Or just having a bad day.

The Boston Globe marks Black History Month by remembering Kittie Knox, who integrated the League of American Wheelmen — now the League of American Bicyclists, aka Bike League — in 1893, a year before the organization banned Black members to keep her out.

A writer for Jalopnik totals up what it cost, in dollars and swearing, to rebuild a titanium Litespeed bike abandoned for two years on a Brooklyn street.

A New York photographer documents Gotham bike messengers of the 1990s.

 

International

More proof bike riders face the same problems everywhere, as bicyclists in Antigua and Barbuda renewed calls for greater consideration on the roads after a 16-year old boy was while killed riding his bike.

Something tells me there will be no shortage of volunteers to become the UK’s first bike lane inspector.

America’s Got Talent star Simon Cowell is still one of us, despite suffering a broken arm and suspected concussion when he pulled an endo hitting a wet patch while riding his ebike in London; he fractured his back in 2020 crashing an electric motorcycle.

That’s more like it. A drunk hit-and-run driver got seven years behind bars for killing a British man riding a bicycle; he was captured when police spotted him from a helicopter trying to sleep it off in a field.

A Scottish transport and health professor explains the changes to Britain’s Highway Code, while stressing that it’s probably not enough to change anyone’s behavior. Meanwhile, a British bike rider says forget the Highway Code, he just wants to get home in one piece.

A Santa Fe man offers advice on what to consider before exploring Germany by bicycle. Pro tip: Stop the page from loading before the paywall pops up.

As if careless drivers weren’t enough to worry about, a Spanish bike rider was seriously injured when he was shot by a hunter, who apparently mistook him for some sort of game animal riding a bicycle.

A European travel site explores Dubai’s 52-mile Al Qudra cycle track, which connects to other bikeways to form a 124-mile route.

Fifty people had to be evacuated from a Singapore housing block when a ped-assist ebike battery caught fire; authorities advised not using third-party batteries or charging them overnight to avoid fires.

 

Competitive Cycling

Egan Bernal remains in serious but stable condition, as his doctors shift to a focus on pain management to deal with his multiple injuries; Bernal suffered a fractured femur, kneecap, vertebrae and ribs, as well as a punctured lung and chest trauma when he slammed into a poorly parked bus while training in Colombia.

 

Finally…

When you’re trying to escape the cops with an outstanding warrant, try not to ride head-on into a patrol car. Why ride on dry, dusty mountain bike trails when you could have your very own dust Zamboni — which is exactly what it sounds like?

And shades of the Super Bowl Shuffle.

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

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

Tragic reminder to always carry ID, LAPD recovers bike thanks to Bike Index, and Mexico City bike riders brutalized by cops

February 8, 2021 / / One comment

My wife and I spent a little time on Burbank’s Magnolia Blvd over the weekend. 

And we were struck by what a pleasant shopping street it is. 

Or more precisely, what a pleasant street it could be without the constant noise and fumes from all the cars and trucks funneling through. 

Maybe someone should explain to the merchants along the route just how much they could benefit from a Complete Street that makes room for their customers, and not just the cars they came in. 

And thanks to everyone who let me know this site was down Friday morning. I still don’t know what happened, but it seemed to resolve itself after an hour or so.

Photo by Pexels from Pixabay.

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Sometimes even I get tired of harping about the need to always carry some form of ID and emergency contact information with you when you ride.

And preferably something that won’t get stolen if you’re incapacitated, which sadly happens far too often.

But this comment, which is reposted with permission from Gravel Bikes California, offers a tragic reminder why it matters.

This is long, but please read to the end.

Yesterday I met my friend Adam Lopez for a ride. We met at Eroica California in 2018 and have ridden together a number of times since he got his gravel bike in 2019. We started in Summerland at 11am and did just a wonderful/casual/beautiful ride through Santa Barbara on fantastic pavement, dirt, and gravel. We stopped for a burger at 4pm and were headed back to the cars when he started slowing down on easy climbs. He said that his heart rate was fine but that the air felt cold in his lungs. We passed butterfly beach and stopped again right before the turn at Jameson. We were 2.5 miles from the cars. He decided to press on since we were mere minutes away. He was pacing me just a few yards behind. Every 15 seconds or so I would glance back and see his light. This happened for a about a mile, and then I glanced back and didn’t see him. I rode maybe 150 feet back and saw that he was collapsed over onto the chain link fence, still clipped in, unresponsive and staring. Myself and passers-by who stopped to help called 911. I started chest compressions until fire arrived just a few minutes later. They took over, shocked him twice, established an airway, and continued cpr for 15 minutes. Unfortunately he never revived. He was gone when he hit the ground. His mother died of a heart attack 9 months ago, and his brother died of a heart attack a few weeks ago.

Now for the reason why I’m telling you this: he didn’t have any emergency contact info on him. Although I’ve known him for a while I only had his cell number. The sheriff was required to follow protocol and have the law enforcement agency closest to Adam’s home do an in person notification. I was absolutely helpless. I did advise the deputy that I authorized him today to give my information to Adam’s family, and his wife made contact with me today. She was happy that at least he died doing the thing he loved. She also told me that he had been feeling tired for some time but hadn’t been checked out yet.

Had he had something like a Road ID wristband we would have much more information, and his family could have been notified much sooner.

Please, I BEG YOU, get something like a Road ID so fellow riders or first responders can help. Please look after your health and get checked. And ride with buddies whenever possible. No one should see and go through what I did. I’m deeply saddened and affected.

As I’ve mentioned before, I always wear a RoadID anytime I leave home, whether or not I’m on my bike.

It serves as both my ID and contact information, and a medic alert bracelet for my diabetes.

I’ve never needed it, and I pray I never will.

But as this story so painfully illustrates, I’d much rather have it on me and not need it, than the other way around.

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Do you really need another reminder to register your bike today?

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Nothing like protesting traffic violence, only to be met by police violence.

Tired of police inaction in the wake of too many deaths and serious injuries, bike riders in Mexico City took to the streets to demand better safety and protection from the police.

In fact, while motor vehicle traffic has decreased as much as 50% in the city due to the pandemic, bicycling deaths doubled over the past year.

But instead of addressing their concerns, the protesters were brutally attacked and beaten by the same officers they were pleading with for help.

Even people who were trying to leave were stopped by multiple cops and brutalized.

A Spanish language news story Mexico City’s El Pais begins like this.

The police attacked this Friday night a group of cyclists who were demonstrating in Mexico City. The confrontation took place in the Periférico, one of the main arteries of the city, at the height of the Naples neighborhood, during a bicycle protest to demand justice for the deaths of cyclists in the capital. The head of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum, described as “unacceptable” the aggression of the agents to the demonstrators and assured that the Secretariat of Citizen Security will carry out an investigation to determine responsibilities. This Saturday, the mayor reported that “about 10” agents have already been removed from their positions.

Several protesters were injured in the head and face, according to images released on social networks, when they tried to access the second floor of the Periférico. In the recordings, it is seen how several agents surround some of the participants in the shooting and attack them with blows. The group was protesting to demand justice for the death of cyclists who died in traffic accidents in Mexico City, which in 2020 were more than 16, according to the Bicitekas association.

In the videos posted on social networks, protesters are seen with swollen faces and cuts on their faces after the confrontation. “We were protesting, we were leaving, and they ran, and they grabbed me like eight policemen,” one of the injured assured one of the reporters who was at the scene. “They cut my head open, they hurt my ribs,” said another, sitting on the sidewalk, when the protest, which had gathered around fifty people, already seemed dissolved.

The paper goes on the quote officials as saying an investigation has been launched into who ordered the attack, and the officers who carried it out. And that while some riders also attacked the police, the police had an obligation to maintain the peace, and ones responsible for their actions would be fired.

Which is exactly what should happen.

If they’re serious.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

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The annual Bicycle Film Festival takes part entirely online this year; any tickets purchased this week will benefit Sacramento and Davis advocacy organizations.

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One more reason flimsy plastic bendy posts do not a protected bike lane make.

In case you’re wondering what happened to the bike lane markers on Grand St….
byu/wesweslaco injerseycity

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That feeling when visitors drop in without warning.

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Bicycles hardly ever…well, you know.

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Take a break to catch a little air at a Virginia mountain bike park.

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GCN offers a pair of videos, pitting a GPS bike computer against a rider using an old-fashioned map and compass…

….and asking if hybrids can be just as fast as roadies.

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Local

No news is good news, right?

 

State

San Clemente is the latest SoCal coastal town to consider restricting ebikes on trails.

A San Diego paper asks if 2020 was the year that changed bicycling in the city for good. Let’s hope so.

Coachella’s Grapefruit Blvd is set to get a Complete Streets makeover, including sidewalks, trees and bike lanes. Although it’s also set to get a couple more traffic lanes, as well.

Once again, bike riders are heroes, as a pair of off-duty cardiac care nurses hopped off their bikes to save the life of an Aptos mountain biker who had collapsed on the side of a trail.

 

National

Luxury site the Robb Report suggests ebikes for any kind of terrain, although most of the prices are what you’d expect for a site where money is no object. Then again, $3,200 is apparently considered entry level for an e-cargo bike these days.

Which of these is not like the others? A design website urges readers to commute in style with several outlandish-looking, planet-friendly ebikes, while a road bike and a couple foldies stand out just for not looking strange.

A Portland photographer documents a year of change as the city confronts the Covid-19 pandemic, while riding his new ebike 5,000 miles through the city.

They get it. The Las Vegas Sun reports that efforts to protect bike riders are gaining traction in the wake of the meth-fueled crash that killed five bicyclists near the city last month, while correctly noting that people on bikes pay for the road, too.

An Albuquerque NM woman got her stolen bike back just a day later after Facebook users spotted it for sale on Craigslist and OfferUp, and concerned cops posed as buyers to bust the thief.

There’s a special place in hell for the driver who ran down a Texas boy and just kept going in a crash caught on security cam; fortunately, the kid only suffered a few scrapes, even though he thinks the driver hit him on purpose.

A kindhearted Good Samaritan replaced a young Arkansas boy’s stolen bicycle, just hours after it went missing.

When a teenaged Chik-fil-A employee won a new car at the company Christmas party, she immediately gave it to a coworker who was riding a bike seven miles each way to work every day through the frigid Wisconsin winter.

Nice story from Florida, where a goodhearted stranger bought a new bicycle for an autistic man she’d just met after noticing the bike he was riding to work was worn out and had no functioning brakes. Then more strangers pitched in to replace it when the new bike was stolen the next day.

 

International

Specialized promised there wouldn’t be any major interruptions in retail sales after their UK headquarters went up in flames.

Internationally known London bike shop Geoffrey Butler Cycles closed its doors without warning, shuttering the shop overnight after 60 years, while the mail order business will shut down in July.

Scottish stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill could have some competition in a few years from a two-year old English stunt rider.

An independent press organization rules that Britain’s Mirror was wrong to publish a photo of identifiable bike riders apparently ignoring distancing guidelines.

Acclaimed Irish author Colum McCann learned to listen and developed his voice as a writer on a two-year bike trip across the US.

A Philippine official broke up an unsanctioned early morning bike race, even though it was taking place at 4:30 on a Saturday morning.

 

Competitive Cycling

Three-time world champ Peter Sagan is reportedly doing well, after he and a pair of teammates — including his brother — tested positive for the Covid bug.

The maskless Australian Road Nationals show what’s possible when a country has the coronavirus under control.

Forget gravel, and do your racing on the white stuff without a front wheel.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to ride a bike to rob a couple convenience stores, maybe put a mask on first — and not just for the coronavirus. Before you steal a bike, you might want to make sure it doesn’t belong to the daughter of a mixed martial arts fighter first.

And who knew Thor rides an e-fat bike?

https://twitter.com/jackblack/status/1358219871880835073

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Thanks to Robert L for his generous donation to help keep SoCal’s source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. Our annual holiday fund drive may be over, but donations are always welcome and appreciated.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already. 

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

Bike registration and green transportation at LA council this week, new CicLAvia to the sea, and selective enforcement in NYC

February 25, 2020 / / Comments Off on Bike registration and green transportation at LA council this week, new CicLAvia to the sea, and selective enforcement in NYC

Mea culpa.

Once again, I accidentally hit the wrong damn button and posted this piece before it’s ready.

My sincere apologies for premature publication.

I know they say it happens to everyone.

But still.

Image by Christelle Olivier from Pixabay.

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Let’s start with a couple items coming up before the Los Angeles City Council this week.

Because, after a long hiatus on the subject, the council is once again talking bikes.

Twice, no less.

Although one of those times, bicycles are rolled up with bus lanes, clean transit and reducing the amount of cars on our streets.

First up, the full council will address a motion allowing the LAPD to establish a free voluntary bicycle registration program at today’s meeting.

Key word, voluntary.

And free.

Except I can almost guarantee someone — Koretz, perhaps, maybe Cedillo — will argue that it should be mandatory, taking us back to the bad old days when police used missing registration stickers as a pretext to stop bike riders, particularly when their skin tone was something other than white.

The police are proposing a partnership with a still-unnamed nonprofit bike registration program, allowing easy online bicycle registration and reporting of stolen bikes.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly what you’ll find with the links to Bike Index at the top of this page — with the exception that reporting with them doesn’t currently link to an online theft report with the LAPD, though that would be easy enough to fix.

However, it’s also what you can find with their only major US competitor, Project 529, formerly known as the National Bike Registry.

At this point, it’s not clear whether they will announce their choice at today’s meeting, or if they’re only looking for authorization to set up a program with a company to be named later.

Then Wednesday afternoon, the council’s Transportation Committee will take up a motion directing LADOT to develop a plan for a network of bus lanes and active transportation corridors as part of the mayor’s Green New Deal.

Except the city council already adopted those plans with the 2010 Bike Plan and the Mobility Plan 2035 it was subsumed into.

So it’s questionable just what they’re asking the LADOT to spend the next four months doing.

Unless, of course, the city is already tossing out everything they’ve already done, and starting over all over again.

That’s a good question to ask, if anyone is planning to be there.

Or we could just wait until LADOT reports back in July to figure out just what the hell is going on.

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The next CicLAvia will revisit the popular route from Mid-City to the Sea.

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No selective enforcement here.

A New York bike rider complains about getting a ticket for not having a bell on her bike when she stopped to take pictures of three cops ticketing a bicyclist for not using the bike lane.

And ignoring scofflaw drivers in the process.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

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No surprise here.

Not only did an ebike rider soundly defeat a driver in a race through LA traffic, he even beat the camera crew — despite giving them a half hour head start.

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Best argument for universal single-payer healthcare, as former pro Phil Gaimon gets shafted stuck with a quarter million dollar hospital bill following a crash, despite being insured.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. 

An English bike rider barely escapes a close call when a driver pulls out directly in front of him. Note to bike riders: Edit down your bike cam videos. No one needs to see a full minute or more of peaceful riding before some idiot in a car does something stupid.

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

A man on a bicycle was interrupted by a neighbor while attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail at an occupied San Jose home, and set the fence on fire instead of his apparent intended target.

Not all police chases are on four wheels. Sometimes it’s someone on a bicycle trying, and failing, to get away.

A London man paid out the equivalent of nearly $38,000 after hitting a woman who was crossing the road while looking at her phone.

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Local

Streetsblog offers an open thread on Sunday’s South LA CicLAvia. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make this one, because I being interviewed, along with a couple other people, for a story about the foster corgi; hopefully that one will appear in print and online in the next week or two.

A Santa Clarita bike rider was injured in a collision with a motorist near the College of the Canyons Monday afternoon; no word on the condition of the victim.

 

State

If you’re riding in Santa Maria today, look out for a crackdown on traffic violations that endanger bicyclists and pedestrians. The standard protocol applies. Ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limit line so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

Over one hundred bike riders turned out to honor a Bakersfield bike mechanic who helped keep them on their bikes, after he passed away earlier this month.

Rancho Cordova approves plans for a $3.6 million bike and pedestrian bridge over US 50, connecting two sides of the city divided by the highway.

San Francisco Streetsblog says it’s time to ban cars on Market Street for real.

 

National

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released $562 million in highway safety grants, including a relatively paltry $14.3 million for bike and pedestrian safety programs throughout the US.

Bicycling calls the new $2,200 Batch E-Commuter ped-assist ebike an affordable and efficient solution for bike commuting and other daily outings. Evidently they have a different definition of affordable than the one I use.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a bicycle from an autistic Seattle teenager while he was looking for his lost phone.

A Minnesota letter writer opposed to a proposed bike lane somehow feels the need to point out that most bike commuters are men, and most bicycling injuries are suffered by…wait for it…men.

Someone stabbed a Chicago man after knocking him off his bicycle as he rode on a bike path, for no apparent reason, in an apparently random attack before running off and leaving him there. Special thanks to Block Club Chicago for that lovely photo of the victim’s blood pooled on the ground inside the crime scene tape. Really nice.

VeloNews talks with a Vermont gravel race promoter about riding a bike throughout her pregnancy. Never mind that’s she’s married to popular former pro Ted King.

No bias here. A Long Island NY town is preparing to crack down on “objectively moronic” teenagers who pop wheelies while impeding motor vehicle traffic, by impounding their bicycles. If they think that’s bad, just wait until they hear what drivers do.

A Streetsblog NYC op-ed suggests Uber could use its data to keep their drivers out of bike lanes.

Nice guy. A New York truck driver blames the victim for a crash last year that took the life of a three-year old boy, and threatens to sue Streetsblog for reporting the facts in the case.

A Florida city is seriously considering armed bicycle guards. Except they’re talking about armed security guards on bicycles, not armed people guarding bicycles, which is a much better idea.

This is who we share the road with. A Florida man spent the day drinking at a bar, accidentally ran over his girlfriend after leaving the bar, then went back to the bar to keep drinking; remarkably, investigators waited several hours to administer a blood test, by which time he had sobered up. He had also gotten arrested a year ago for attacking a bike rider after nearly crashing into him.

 

International

Treehugger says cargo bikes and ebikes will “eat” delivery vans and cargo haulers. If any of us survive the onslaught of massive SUVs and pickups over the next few years, that is.

Cool graphic as a London man slowly sketches out the city’s street grid, one bike ride at a time.

Scottish bicyclist Josh Quigley is looking forward to resuming his journey around the world on a new bespoke bike given to him after he barely survived a 70 mph crash on a Texas highway.

Hell must be getting pretty crowded, because here’s a special place right next to the other jerk for whoever stole a wallet and phone from a Kiwi woman as she was in surgery after getting hit by a driver.

An Aussie woman can thank an off-duty nurse for saving her life after she was critically injured when she was struck by a bike rider

A group of Australian bicyclists will ride sans skid lids to protest the country’s mandatory helmet laws while promoting the benefits of bike riding. Just keep on depressing bicycling rates by fining people hundreds of dollars for riding without a helmet. It’s not like the country is literally burning or anything.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling asks the burning question of whether road bikes are already as good as they can get, or if there are still better ideas being stifled by bike racing’s governing body. I’d put my money on the latter, but what the hell do I know.

VeloNews talks with Dirty Kanzaa winner Colin Strickland, who’s trying to push American cycling in a whole new direction.

 

Finally…

Who needs a velodrome when you’ve got an empty parking garage? And if you’re going to do a story about a man who enjoys taking his bird for a bike ride around the neighborhood, you might want to show a picture of the bird, you know, on the bike.

Or at least mention it in the story.

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

Morning Links: Possible LA bike registry, who we share the roads with, and a powerful call for traffic safety

June 18, 2018 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Possible LA bike registry, who we share the roads with, and a powerful call for traffic safety

The Los Angeles city council voted to reinvent the wheel on Friday.

Despite several free, nationwide bike registry programs — including Bike Index, which this site links to — the council voted to explore creating its own registry program.

Never mind that the cost of administering such a program would likely exceed the amount it would bring in.

Or that the city council cancelled LA’s existing bike registry nearly ten years ago after it was almost universally ignored, and nearly impossible to use.

And that police officers too often used it as an excuse to pull over and search bike riders of color.

Then there’s the problem that all thieves had to do to escape discovery was take stolen bikes to one of the 87 other communities in LA County, where the LA bike registry wasn’t used.

What’s really needed is voluntary, countywide — if not statewide — registry.

Until that happens, Los Angeles is a lot better off partnering with one of the existing free bike registries.

And promoting the hell out of it.

Full disclosure: Neither this site, or I personally, receive any compensation for hosting the Bike Index bike registration program here. I just effing hate bike thieves, and want every stolen bike to find its way back home.

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This is who we share the roads with.

A road raging Denver driver fatally shot a 13 year old boy, and injured three other members of the boy’s family after following them to a parking lot and briefly arguing with the boy’s mother. Then told police he has mental health issues after admitting to the shooting.

So why was he allowed to own a gun — let alone drive a car?

Meanwhile, a Toronto bicyclist was tailgated through a narrow alley by a driver who kept honking his horn, and yelling “Looks like another dead cyclist.”

And commenters fall over themselves congratulating an Indiana state trooper after he tweets about ticketing a driver for not speeding in the left lane. Thanks to Chris Klibowitz for the heads-up.

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Powerful piece from a Toronto columnist, who says we know how to make roads safer, we just have to do it.

He writes that New York eliminated fatalities on Queens Blvd, aka the notorious Boulevard of Death, where 186 people were killed between 1990 and 2014.

How did they do it? As summarized by the Times, they narrowed and removed some car traffic lanes, and decreased speed limits by five miles per hour. They increased the amount of time given to pedestrians to cross the street and increased the number of pedestrian crossings. They redesigned sidewalks at intersections to narrow the crossing in some places. They introduced bike lanes and larger medians protected by barriers to the road. They added cameras with photo radar near schools.

If you want to make roads safer, you can. How to do it is not a mystery. Slow traffic down through laws, enforcement and — especially, crucially — design improvements. Put infrastructure on the street to protect cyclists and pedestrians. Pay close attention to intersection design. Voila.

He goes on to add that Stockholm, Sweden, the birthplace of Vision Zero, has a fatality rate just one third of New York or Toronto.

Stockholm didn’t cut its fatality rate dramatically by educating people and more strictly enforcing laws. The Swedes did it by slowing urban traffic and by re-engineering their roads to reduce serious injuries and fatalities. “Most of the people in the safety community had invested in the idea that safety work is about changing human behaviour,” Matts-Ake Belin, one of the architects of the program, told CityLab in 2014. “Vision Zero says instead that people make mistakes … let’s create a system for the humans instead of trying to adjust the humans to the system.”

Lower speeds, better protections, designs that discourage collisions and encourage safety.

We know what works. We can see its success even on the so-called Boulevard of Death. The obstacle to ending our own killing streets is not knowledge. It’s caring enough to bother applying it.The

Maybe some day, Los Angeles will care enough, too.

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Organizers of a British triathlon threaten to permanently ban racers who were responsible of undertaking a woman riding a horse on a trail, crashing into the side of the horse in their rush to pass unsafely.

And yes, both the horse and its rider were wearing hi-viz.

Seriously, it takes a special kind of schmuck to pull something like this on a public right-of-way, race or not.

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Local

Metro is teaming with the Mid City West Neighborhood Council to offer a free class on how to ride safely on city streets; participants will also receive a free helmet and bike lights.

The executive director of Los Angeles Walks calls for dedicating one or two parking spaces per block for shared bikes and scooters, rather than parking them on sidewalks.

Yo! Venice reports bike theft is on the rise in the seaside community, which is already one of the city’s hotspots for bike theft. And recommends registering your bike to help get it back if it’s stolen.

 

State

A Fresno bike shop’s troubled spring took a turn for the worse when one of their customers collapsed and died on one of the store’s group rides; a fundraising page has raised over $1,700 of the $2,500 goal for his family.

A San Francisco bike rider is suing the city and county, as well as a construction company, after she broke her wrist falling on debris in a construction zone.

Caltrans will widen shoulders and install bike turnouts along Highway 1 in Marin County to improve bike safety, as well as installing “mumble” strips along the center line, which are quieter than rumble strips.

 

National

GeekWire tries out one of Uber’s Jump dockless bikeshare ebikes as they begin moving into Seattle. The bikes are already available in the Bay Area, but haven’t begun a southward migration yet.

A retired Kentucky journalist discovers that he lives just off a US bike route, and stumbles onto a cross-country Bike MS ride.

Milwaukee bike advocates have declared 100 Days of Biking to celebrate the trails, rides, events and people that make the region special.

The son of the founder of Crain’s Detroit creates a lot of pro-bike blowback after his myopic, windshield-biased screed complaining that city planners are “discriminating against cars in favor of two-wheeled transport.”

An eight-year old New York program extends the joy of bicycling to people with visual or physical disabilities by pairing them with a partner on a tandem bike.

Despite needing a number of improvements, bicycle traffic often exceeds motor vehicle traffic during rush hour on New York’s Chrystie Street, where a protected bike lane was installed two years ago.

 

International

A stuntman offers advice on how to crash your bike while keeping your body and dignity mostly intact. I offer my own hard-earned lessons on how to crash on the Survival Tactics page above.

A Vancouver TV station says ebikes are revolutionizing people’s commutes.

While Vancouver residents prepared to celebrate a pair of Car Free Day open streets events, a local TV station can only see through the prism of their own windshield bias, warning of a traffic hell for motorists.

Saying “this is why we can’t have nice things,” organizers threaten to pull the plug on a popular Windsor, Ontario bike ride because of the behavior of a handful of riders.

The Montreal Gazette examines how to coax commuters out of their cars and onto bikes.

Toronto condo owners are being warned not to trust locked bike rooms in their buildings, which are being targeted by thieves. Which is fair warning for bike riders anywhere — don’t trust bike rooms or garages without extra security of your own.

A 13-year old boy was arrested in the death of a Toronto bike rider who was intentionally run down, then kicked, beaten and stabbed by the occupants of the car.

A UK bike rider says the country’s mental health services have failed him, as he’s suffered from PTSD after finding the body of a suicide victim while biking to work two years ago.

A British reporter discovers first hand the abuse and harassment women on bikes experience on a daily basis.

A researcher calls for a mandatory helmet law in Norway, after a meta-analysis shows helmets reduce the risk of head injuries by 60%. Even though the experience in other countries shows that helmet laws reduce the injury rate by reducing the number of people riding.

A riot broke out at an Eritrean cycling festival after opponents of the country’s president barged in throwing bottles, food and beer kegs; nine people were injured, including children.

Another ride to add to your bike bucket list — experiencing the unique biology of Madagascar by bike. And as long as you have your bucket list out, here’s eight more epic cycling tours around the world.

In a major turnaround, two-thirds of Aukland, New Zealand residents now believe bike lanes are good for the city and would welcome them in their own communities. This should be a lesson for Los Angeles; the opposition to bike lanes disappeared as more were built and people began using them.

An Aussie columnist says it’s time to end the bad blood between drivers and people on two wheels. Funny how it’s only the ones who ride bikes who call for a truce on the streets; it’s almost as if most drivers don’t even know there’s a problem.

Caught on video: A Perth, Australia bicyclist was lucky to escape with a case of ‘roo road rash after becoming the latest victim of a jay-jumping kangaroo.

A Japanese newspaper says the best way to explore Okinawa is on two wheels.

Seoul, Korea was expecting 5,000 bicyclists for a 13-mile annual bike parade on Saturday.

 

Competitive Cycling

A Scottish cyclist broke the 97-year old hour British hour record — on a Penny Farthing.

 

Finally…

Now your bike can have its own little house, just like the dog. If you’re going to ride on the freeway, at least take the lane.

And I’d be pretty pissed if bike riders whizzed near me, too.

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

Morning Links: Bike Index partners with VerifiR embedded chip maker; theft victim buys his own bike back

June 7, 2017 / / 6 comments

Let’s digress for a moment.

Although whether you can digress before you start might be questionable.

Veterinarians and animal rescue groups have long recommended having a small microchip embedded under the skin of your pet to identify it if it ever gets lost of stolen.

And there’s no shortage of stories about dogs and cats who’ve found their way back home after months, or even years, when a simple scan by a vet or shelter revealed where they belonged.

The Corgi has one.

As a rescue, she came with a chip in her shoulder, courtesy of her original owners. As well as one on her shoulder, after being unceremoniously booted from the only home she’d ever known.

Now your bike can have one, too.

Because Bike Index announced yesterday that they are partnering with VerifiR to add an extra level of security to their free bike registration program.

According to their press release,

VerifiR’s groundbreaking security tags let anyone with a smart phone quickly ‘scan’ a bike to check origin and verify ownership. Once molded into a bike’s frame or concealed under paint during manufacture, VerifiR’s technology is nearly impossible to remove or deface and much easier to scan than a traditional bicycle serial number.

Bike Index – the world’s largest and most successful bike registration and recovery system – will add VerifiR-protected bikes into its database of over 115,000 bicycles when the purchaser of a participating brand registers the bike through a scan. Stolen bikes embedded with VerifiR tags will also cross-list into the Bike Index upon theft, making the bike’s information immediately available to the thousands of partners who identify and recover stolen bikes every day.

Which means that your next bike could come with a VerifiR tag embedded in it. Or maybe you already have one, if you’ve purchased a new bike recently.

And you can add that information to any new or existing Bike Index registration to help ensure that your bike, like a lost puppy, can find its way back home.

Now let’s hope they’ll develop an aftermarket tag we can all add to our current bikes.

Full disclosure: While this site hosts the Bike Index bike registration and stolen bike reports, as well as a listing of bikes reported stolen in the LA area, neither it or its operators receive any form of compensation from Bike Index. Bicycle registration and reporting is offered as a free service to BikinginLA readers because we effing hate bike thieves, and look forward to the day when they have to find another line of work.

………

Speaking of Bike Index, I was forwarded this good news/bad news online posting.

Good news, because they helped the owner get his bike back. Bad news, because the owner couldn’t get the time of day from the LAPD.

And frankly, we all deserve better than that.*

(Note: I’ve remove the name of the person who posted this since I haven’t been able to contact him.)

*Pro tip: When you report a stolen bike, include the value of everything you’ve added to it, including wheels, tires, racks, locks or bike computers. The higher the value, the more likely the police are to take it seriously — especially if the total exceeds the $1,000 threshold for felony theft.

………

A new book remembers British cyclist Tom Simpson, who died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France.

Love strikes out, as the Belgian cyclist who asked his dream date out by writing it on his chest at the start of this year’s Giro d’Italia time trial ends up in the dreaded friend zone.

A nationally ranked junior cyclist from Philadelphia is fighting back after surviving a rare form of bone cancer, discovered when he walked with a limp after finishing 18th at last year’s junior nationals.

………

Local

KNBC-4 looks forward to this Sunday’s Glendale Meets Atwater Village CicLAvia. But it wouldn’t be a CicLAvia without the Militant’s guide.

If there’s more pressure on Long Beach bike thieves these days, it’s because they stole a city councilwoman’s bike.

A Long Beach letter writer says forget the bollards, because she seldom sees anyone using the green bike lanes they protect. Which is kind of like saying stop building sidewalks because there’s no one walking on them when you drive by.

 

State

A California bike rider waiting for X-rays describes being harassed and chased by a driver, while the driver ends up getting arrested.

A 69-year old Laguna Woods resident rode across the US this spring as part of a group ride, because he finds it relaxing. Bicycling has always been a form of moving meditation for me. Except when bad drivers intrude.

Santa Ana’s Bicycle Tree bike co-op will reopen in a new location this weekend.

Santa Barbara bicyclists can look forward to smoother riding in a couple weeks.

A San Francisco reporter says no, bikes aren’t express lanes for drivers trying to get around backed-up traffic — even if you’re driving a bus.

San Francisco approves parking protected bike lanes on upper Market Street.

Sad news from Siskiyou County, where a 61-year old woman died after she lost control of her bike on a descent and crashed into a tree.

 

National

Mobility Lab says businesses can’t afford to ignore customers on two wheels.

Curbed writes that ebikes could be the key to getting drivers out of their cars.

Streetsblog suggests male cyclists need to stop the “macho nonsense” directed at female riders.

Plan your vacation around where to ride through this summer’s total solar eclipse. And no, we won’t see it here in LA, dammit.

Bicycling offers quotes about cycling they think every rider should know. Although there’s a lot more where that came from.

For the second time this week, a woman riding a bike in Chicago’s South Loop district has been attacked by someone trying to steal her bag.

A memorial mass and ride will be held today to honor the victims of the Kalamazoo crash, a year after an alleged drugged driver killed five cyclists and injured four others. The woman who led that ride says she can’t let evil take her joy away.

Five Cleveland bike riders were injured when they were struck by a car this past weekend; the driver was arrested on the scene for aggravated vehicular assault and operating a vehicle under the influence.

A Boston survey says there are racial and cultural differences in how people see bikeways that should be taken into account in designing them.

A Connecticut town threatens to confiscate the bikes of scofflaw middle school students who have been terrorizing — or perhaps just infuriating — the populace.

 

International

An Op-Ed in the Toronto paper says unlike other disasters, traffic deaths have become normalized, with grave consequences.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour candidate for British prime minister in this week’s election, says owning more than one bicycle is extravagant.

Once again, a bike rider is hero. A London doctor was riding his bike home from work when he saw emergency vehicles rushing towards London Bridge, so he turned around and rode back to the Royal London Hospital, where he operated through the night trying to save 12 victims.

Statistically speaking, Britain’s roads are as safe today as they were a decade ago, despite a 23% increase in miles traveled by bicycle.

A writer for the Guardian says there’s something to be said for taking your time riding around the world.

 

Finally…

If you’re riding with coke and a concealed gun on your bike, stay off the damn sidewalk, and don’t make any illegal turns. Nothing like stealing own daughter’s bicycle, then recording her frantic search for it.

And was he blocked because he criticized the president, or because he rides a bike?

 

Category: Morning Links, Stolen Bikes and Bike Crime / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Bike-friendly Davis breaks the law a little, and something’s rotten in SoCal bike racing

January 7, 2016 / / 2 comments

Someone you know needs a new bicycle. Just click here to read about our first bike giveaway and nominate someone who deserves to win a free bike from Beachbikes.net. 

And come back later today when another rider uses video to describe his ride.

………

It looks like bike-friendly Davis is breaking the law. But only a little.

The platinum level Sacramento-area college town is reminding bike riders to renew their licenses, since any two-year bike license issued in 2013 has now expired.

Just two small problems with that.

First, they suggest that bicycles are registered with the state of California, which doesn’t license bikes. Instead, CVC 39002 allows local jurisdictions to license bikes at their discretion. Meanwhile, CVC 39003 (same link) makes it clear that the licenses must be issued by the city, county or some other agency they designate.

Not the state.

Second, they charge a modest $10 for a new two-year license, and just $5 to renew an existing license.

But both of those amounts are illegal and excessive.

According to CVC 39004 (ditto), those same jurisdictions are allowed to charge no more than $4 per year for a new license, and $2 a year for a renewal.

Which means Davis is overcharging bicyclists by a whopping 25%. Or a measly $1 or 50¢ a year, respectively, depending on how you want to look at it. Although that’s no small amount when multiplied by the tens of thousands of bikes in the city.

Either way, the program is in clear violation of state law.

Something to remember if your city or county has a bike licensing program, or is considering one.

On the other hand, the registration program is helping a number of UC Davis students get their bikes back, after Dixon police bust a pair of thieves with 31 hot bikes.

………

Streetsblog LA named the winners of their annual Streetsie Awards, including LA City Councilmember Joe Buscaino as Elected Official of the Year, Caltrans’ Dale Benson as Civil Servant of the Year, and the LACBC’s Tamika Butler and Mark Lopez of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice in a tie for the Deborah Murphy Award for Excellence in Advocacy.

You can see the full list of winners here.

Meanwhile, California Streetsblog names Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom as Legislator of the Year.

………

I’m not really tuned into the SoCal bike racing scene. But if David Huntsman and Seth Davidson both say there’s something wrong with the sport’s local governing body, then something is definitely rotten in our cycling state of Denmark.

Besides, if you can’t trust a couple of bike riding lawyers, who can you trust?

………

Following up on yesterday’s tech news, Sony ups the ante to take on GoPro in the action cam market, while Nikon introduces a cam offering 360° views. Of course, the only way to make that work is to mount it on the outside of your handlebars or the very top of your helmet. And then sit up very straight.

………

Local

CiclaValley offers tips for riding in the rain. Rick Risemberg recommends lights, capes, wool clothing and fenders, while Ciclelicious asks which fender. I’d suggest this one, but I doubt it would help.

Not surprisingly, the LA River bike path is closed due to the rains, along with most, if not all, of the other creek and riverside bikeways in the county. Meanwhile, plans are underway to improve the lower portion of the river.

Glendale will host a public meeting on Saturday to get input on a planned redesign of Ocean View Blvd, including bulb-outs and bike lanes.

 

State

Campbell cyclists raise $20,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation in a post-Christmas ride.

Beaver fever strikes on a Merced bike path.

Cupertino’s De Anza college adds three new e-bikes to their fleet of 56 bikes available to students free of charge for a full quarter.

 

National

Conspiracy theorists are still opposing bike and transit projects throughout the US, even though the Agenda 21 Chimera that fueled it is gone.

Bicycling lists seven people — okay, 219 — who could really use a good bike ride.

Next City says it’s time to bury the sharrow for good.

The newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame is one of us.

Outside offers a profile on Ned Overend, who’s still kicking fat bike ass at age 60 — 26 years after his mountain bike world championship.

An interesting study from the University of Washington finds neighborhood density is the primary factor that encourages low and middle income residents to walk or bike; for wealthier people, the attractiveness of their neighborhood is key.

Seattle bike cops recover a $4,000 stolen bike using the Bike Index website. You can register your bike, report a stolen bike or check to see if a bike has been stolen using Bike Index right here on this site. And unlike the Davis program, it’s free.

It takes a real jerk to steal a motorized recumbent from an Iowa man battling stomach cancer who used it as his only form of transportation.

A Florida paper shows what a difference it can make when the press calls attention to bicycle safety instead of trolling bike riders.

Nothing like starting young. A pair of Florida boys, just seven and eight years old, are under arrest for an attempted strong-arm bike jacking. No one hates bike thieves more than I do, but handcuffing a seven-year old seems a tad extreme.

 

International

Bike Radar offers some good advice on buying a used bike online.

A Canadian writer offers lessons learned from 100,000 kilometers — 62,137 miles — on the seat of a bike.

A British site offers advice on how to make your bike commute more like the Tour de France, while Road.cc pipes in with some additional suggestions. Although getting someone to hurl abuse at you is no challenge in LA traffic.

A new study shows London bike riders are six times fitter than other commuters.

It takes a major jerk to punch a 62-year old British woman after shoving his bike into her, regardless of what she may have said to him.

Retiring former world track champ Martyn Irvine says he shamed dopers by beating them fair and square.

Drain a Paris canal built by Napoleon, and what do you find? Bicycles, naturally.

Bike riders are braving Delhi’s infamous traffic, despite conditions that make LA seem like a breeze; meanwhile an ad for an Indian hospital sums up the health benefits of bicycling.

A 24-year old biology student works to become the first professional cyclist from Burkina Faso. If there are any bike makers reading this, send this guy a new racing bike. Now.

An Australian chief traffic cop questions whether older drivers belong on the road. It’s a tough call; some older people retain the vision and reflexes they need to drive safely into their nineties, while others should have their keys taken away.

Toyota’s new robotics expert was inspired to build crash-proof cars by seeing the aftermath of a bicycling crash as a child.

An Aussie expat living in Ho Chi Minh City has set out to ride every road connecting north and south Vietnam.

 

Finally…

Nothing like banning a doper after he stops racing. It doesn’t do a lot of good to sue the Forest Service for failing to maintain an illegal bike trail.

And evidently, the fastest way to improve bike safety is to get the damn bike riders off the road.

 

Category: Bikes & the Law, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,
 
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