Tag Archive for bike safety enforcement

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. 

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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.

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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

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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.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Safety crackdown in Mission Viejo, Shimano parts may be built by slave labor, and bike book wins non-fiction award

December 8, 2023 / / Comments Off on Safety crackdown in Mission Viejo, Shimano parts may be built by slave labor, and bike book wins non-fiction award

It’s Day 15 of the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Which means there’s just 16 days left to support SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy.

Thanks to Phillip Y, Ed R and Christopher T for their generous donations to help keep this site coming your way every day. 

So please, take just a moment to give now!

Pretty please?

And while we’re at it, happy Chanukah to everyone who lit a candle last night.

Chag sameach!

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Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program as promised this fall: 13

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The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will conduct a major bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation in Mission Viejo this weekend, after pedestrian deaths have jumped nearly a third in the county over the past decade.

Which means the usual protocol applies — ride to the letter of the law until you leave the area, so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

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Shimano is investigating a report from The Telegraph that consumers are buying parts made by virtual slaves in a Malaysian factory.

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The Buddha and the Bee, a book about a 2001 bike ride from Minnesota to California along America’s forgotten highways, has won the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Award for non-fiction.

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‘Tis the Season.

One hundred kids in Victorville, California got new bicycles as part of the 20th annual Doris Davies Memorial Bicycle Giveaway, named for the late civic advocate who founded the program.

Fayetteville, Arkansas’s Bicycle Man Foundation is unexpectedly back in business, a year after the widow of its eponymous founder retired a decade after his death; now the Bicycle Madea, whose own son was a beneficiary of the program, is reviving it and distributing one hundred new bikes to kids in need.

Meanwhile, 60 kids in another Fayetteville, this one in North Carolina, got bikes courtesy of a local insurance company, which gave a new bicycle to every 3rd grader at a Fayetteville elementary school.

And if you’re looking for the perfect holiday gift, you could do a lot worse than an autographed copy of Seattle Bike Blog editor Tom Fucoloro’s new book, Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars.

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Local 

Agoura Hills received a half-million dollars in state funding to complete an 11-mile bike lane through the West LA County city, which will eventually be part of a regional bike network.

 

State

Sad news from Marin County, where officials identified the victim of Saturday’s fatal bicycling crash in San Raphael as a 70-year old randonneur who was well known in the area; he was on a 124-mile club ride across the county when he apparently fell off his bike while riding over a railroad crossing, and was run over by the driver of a pickup towing a trailer.

Bad news from Sacramento, where a 50-year old man was hospitalized with a “substantial” head injury after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike.

 

National

Fast Company explains why 2023 was the year of the ebike and not the self-driving car.

Colorado Congresswoman and pistol-packing grandma Lauren Boebert is accused of dipping into campaign funds to cheer her boyfriend to a 774th place finish in the prestigious Leadville 100 mountain bike race, a month before they were caught fondling one another during a performance of Beetlejuice in a Denver theater; no word on whether she’s paid back the funds.

Sad news from Buffalo, New York, where friends remember the leader of a local bike club after he was killed in a fire at his home.

The rich get richer, as New York completed yet another Complete Streets project, redesigning dangerous intersections and adding nearly two miles of bike and bus lanes on Third Ave in Manhattan; Streetsblog says the wide bike lane is a good start, but the makeover still devotes too much space to cars.

 

International

Bike Radar explains why you should buy an endurance bike instead of a race bike. Having owned both over the years, I definitely preferred the ride of the former.

Former Ab Fab star Jane Horrocks is one of us, after breaking her wrist and bruising her ribs falling off her bike when she hit a patch of black ice.

Ford says the warning signals on the doors of their new European passenger van will protect bike riders by alerting passengers to their presence. After all, why build safer doors when you can just put warning signs on the deadly ones?

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling says it’s a good thing the planned merger of the Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep cycling teams fell apart earlier this fall, since it could have resulted in a superteam with too much top talent concentrated in a single team. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Pez Cycling talks with former pro Jordan Cheyne about what comes after a cycling career, after an unplanned retirement following a crash on a training ride that left him fighting for his life.

Cycling Today remembers climbing specialist Jose-Maria Jimenez, once touted as a successor to Miguel Indurain, 20 years after he died in a Madrid detox clinic.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can see the bicycle owned by President William McKinley, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1901. That feeling when you make a big impact on your “little” bike.

And a record-setting 80-mile “Look Ma, no hands!”

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Ride to letter of the law in SaMo today, police look for hit-and-run bike rider, and Beverly Hills cops accused of racial bias

September 3, 2021 / / Comments Off on Ride to letter of the law in SaMo today, police look for hit-and-run bike rider, and Beverly Hills cops accused of racial bias

Apologies for the short notice on this one.

You’ll want to ride to the letter of the law in Santa Monica today while the police are conducting another bicycle and pedestrian safety operation.

They’ll be looking for violations that put bike riders and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them. So just make sure it isn’t you.

And maybe the city can give us a little more notice next time.

Photo of green bike lane on Main Street in Santa Monica.

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Beverly Hills Police are looking for this man for questioning in a hit-and-run collision with a pedestrian.

If you know him — or if it’s you — contact the Beverly Hills Police Department at 310/550-4951. Right now, they just want to talk.

And yes, it’s still hit-and-run if you’re on a bicycle, and ride away from a collision that injures another person. So don’t do that.

Stick around and exchange information, or wait until the police arrive, just like you would in a car collision.

Because you would, right?

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Speaking of Beverly Hills cops, the department is accused of harassing Black people on and around Rodeo Drive, according to a lawsuit filed by a Black couple visiting from Philadelphia, who were arrested for the heinous crime of riding scooters on the gilded street.

They were among the targets of a task force set up in the wake of last year’s George Floyd protests to address fraud in the high-end shopping district arrested 106 people — 105 of whom were Black.

The other man was identified as Latino.

Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Other Black people were arrested for walking outside of the crosswalk or roller skating, although the police noted that the task force did recover 13 loaded guns and seized $250,000 in cash and ill-gotten debit cards.

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Great idea. A new clamp-on attachment promises to convert a wheelchair to an e-tricycle.

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

No bias here. A Purdue University website says people on bicycles break laws and create danger for drivers. Just wait until someone tells them about the dangers caused by lawbreaking drivers.

Police in Nottingham, England are looking for the driver caught on video calmly driving down a bike lane, as if it was his or her own personal traffic lane.

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

A student at LA’s Santee High School was shot in the leg following a fist fight with another student, who fled on a blue bicycle.

Police in Ventura are looking for a man who randomly attacked a woman walking on bike path near Kimball Park, after he rode his bike past her, then turned around and assaulted her for no apparent reason.

Someone is riding a bike around the Harvard University campus randomly punching male grad students.

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Local

An op-ed in the LA Times examines why people of color are more likely to be the victims of traffic violence, both in Los Angeles and throughout the US, while noting that pedestrian deaths are up more than a third in the six years since the city adopted Vision Zero.

Metro Bike is offering free one-ride passes for Labor Day weekend, and a 30-day pass for just one dollar.

No bias here, either. A writer for Yo! Venice says now that the city has cleaned up the homeless encampments, it’s time to deal with the “scourge” of e-scooters, complaining they’re “out-of-control and everywhere.”

Pasadena approved spending $168,000 on a Slow Streets program by repurposing funds originally budgeted for the 626 Golden Streets open streets fest, but had to return another $162,000 in Metro grant money.

Mike Richards may have lost his short-lived job replacing Alex Trebek as host of Jeopardy, but he’s still one of us, riding with his family on an offroad trail in LA.

 

State

More on the passage of AB 122, which will allow California bike riders to treat stop signs as yields, assuming the governor signs it. And which overwhelmingly passed both houses of the legislature with rare bipartisan support.

Officers from the Westminster Police Department and Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies finished a four-day, 630-mile to Sacramento to honor officers who died in the line of duty earlier this year.

If you were planning to spend the holiday weekend at the China Peak bike park outside Fresno, start making new plans, after it abruptly closed for the season due to the high fire risk.

Campus police at Chico State are urging students to secure their bikes with a U-lock, as bike theft increases on the campus.

 

National

They get it. The American Prospect says it’s time to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the pandemic by building back, not just better, but bike friendly, while noting that not many US cities have done that.

The Verge offers more on the groundbreaking new bike-by-wire system designed to power ped-assist ebikes without a chain or belt drive.

MSN ranks their picks for the best bike computers for all types of bicyclists. On a similar note, Forbes offers their choices for the best bike helmets for different types of riders.

A bike rider in Salt Lake City was lucky to escape with minor head injuries after he rear-ended a stopped van when his brakes apparently failed. A reminder to always check your brakes before you ride, and clean your rims to remove oil or other residue if you have rim brakes. 

Drivers in Texas could now see jail time for killing or injuring a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Now extend the law to bike lanes, and we can talk.

Chicago is installing new protected bike lanes on the “notoriously dangerous intersection” where School of Rock drummer Kevin Clark was killed while riding a bike last summer; 13 years after another bike rider was killed at the same spot. Although the “protection” is nothing more than the plastic car-tickler bendy posts that too often pass for protection in Los Angeles, and won’t actually protect anyone. 

A longtime Chicago community activist and bike and pedestrian advocate was critically injured when he as struck by an SUV driver, after he somehow “appeared in the street” as the driver was turning right. Yet another reminder that no one ever just appears out of nowhere; it’s just another way of drivers admitting that they weren’t paying attention behind the wheel.

Life is cheap in New York, where the operator of a limo company walked without a single day in jail for a “catastrophic brake failure” that killed 20 people; he’ll serve just five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service despite copping a plea to 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide.

After being feted by Forbes as one of their Under 30 honorees, the founder of Philadelphia-based folding bike helmer maker Kova by AnneeLondon shuttered the business for the sake of her mental health after struggling to keep it going during the pandemic.

A bill to officially designate the 1,300-mile 9/11 National Memorial Trail connecting the three sites of the terrorist attacks, stretching from Pennsylvania to DC, passed the US House by a unanimous vote and now awaits its fate in the Senate.

 

International

The Guardian says bikepacking is the best way to escape the crowds in Cornwall on a new 124-mile gravel trail.

Berlin is making their popup bike lanes permanent, after the city saw a 25% jump in bicycling rates during the pandemic. On the other hand, Los Angeles can’t make any popup bike lanes permanent, because they didn’t install any. And no one really knows if bike riding rates went up during the pandemic, because no one was counting.

They get it. Lebanon residents are fighting to make the country more bicycle friendly as a solution to congestion and rising fuel prices. Exactly why we should do the same thing here, especially if you add combating climate change to the equation.

Atlas Obscura looks back fondly to the golden age of bicycle noodle delivery, when workers would ride with one hand on the handlebars and the other balancing a massive stack of boxed soba noodles on their shoulder.

 

Competitive Cycling

Swiss road champ Marlen Reusser broke away from a six-woman breakaway to win the first day of the Challenge by La Vuelta, with SoCal sprinter Coryn Rivera finishing second; the four stage race serves as the severely truncated women’s counterpart to the 21 stage Vuelta.

Colombian Miguel Ángel López claimed a solo victory after riding away from the pack on the hors catégorie Altu d’El Gamoniteiru in Thursday’s 18th stage of the Vuelta, while Primož Roglič finished second to virtually his seal victory in this year’s race.

Sixty-year old Aussie Paralympic cycling great Carol Cooke was hospitalized with a punctured lung following a “nasty crash” with two other competitors on the rain slicked road cycling course; she’d won gold in the event five years ago in Rio.

Cyclist questions whether this year’s Tour de France was decided by the high number of crashes involving top riders.

 

Finally…

Why settle for a regular ebike when you can have a DIY part-time pneumatic tall bike? That feeling when your bird hates flying but loves riding on your handlebars.

And who needs an ebike when you’ve got rocket power?

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Thanks once again to Matthew R for his generous monthly donation to help support this site. Donations of any size or frequency are always welcome and appreciated. You can also help by telling your favorite local bike shop to advertise here.

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

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

Morning Links: Flax calls out road diet bullies, PCH bike/ped safety grant, and ‘tis the season for bike giveaways

November 30, 2017 / / 4 comments

Yes, we were bullied.

An Op-Ed by Peter Flax offers a good look at what he describes as the histrionics and fake news that have corrupted the road diet debate in the wake of the Playa del Rey debacle.

He describes the one-sided videos and unsupported accusations that the lane reductions were harming businesses in Playa and Mar Vista. And that it was Mayor Garcetti who pulled the plug in Playa del Rey.

One unpublicized meeting spelled the end of the task force and the Playa del Rey road diet. In league with outside forces, lower Playa business owners — among them prominent members of the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce, already applying public pressure — demanded an audience with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. People familiar with the proceedings tell me the group confronted Garcetti with a narrative that the road diet was destroying local businesses and made explicit threats to undermine the mayor’s political ambitions. These strong arm tactics set off a chain of events that led to the near-complete reversal of traffic-calming measures on Culver, Jefferson and Pershing…

This was a savvy move: Everyone cares about the health of small businesses in the community. As an advocate for pedestrian and cyclist safety, I will admit that I’m comfortable if peoples’ commutes get a few minutes longer if it makes our streets less dangerous, but I don’t want local merchants to suffer. Nobody does, and a perception that road diets harm local businesses could shift public opinion in a major way. Dozens of studies conducted in major U.S. cities have concluded that traffic calming efforts ultimately boost business, but that certainly hasn’t stopped opponents from arguing that these dynamics don’t apply in L.A.

He also points the finger where it belongs — at the mayor and city departments that have failed to lead and to stand up in support of their own programs.

The absence of facts is a defining problem in the public conversation about our roads. This cannot simply be blamed on one side of this dispute. Part of the problem is how poorly our politicians and transportation officials as well as the city’s dominant news outlets have communicated incontestable facts to people who live and drive in L.A. The mayor has been painfully silent.

This has created a void that allows a free-for-all on Facebook and Nextdoor, where people on both sides can essentially make up their own facts — about travel times, accident rates, business impacts, the laws governing speeding and jaywalking, the scientific underpinning of Vision Zero, and so on. Rather than form opinions about what to do on Venice Boulevard based on substantiated traffic or accident data, published studies on road diets, or an unbiased analysis of business impacts, the public has wound up getting informed and misinformed by social media, where people who are angry about traffic freely dismiss INRIX and LADOT data as #fakenews and then create memes with data they prefer.

It’s worth reading the full piece. Because this is the fight we’re all in if we want safer streets in the City of Angels, whether we like it or not.

And yes, I’ve felt a lot of that bullying myself, usually after something I’ve written has been mentioned on Nextdoor, a site I avoid like the plague.

Although nowhere near as much as Flax, who has been subject to more abuse and attempts at character assignation than anyone should have to tolerate.

All for the sake of safer and more livable streets, and a more vibrant community.

There is a sickness within our society right now, where what should be civil, fact-based debates too often degenerate into name calling and outright lies.

Not to mention the death threats I reported to the police earlier this year.

This is our city and these are our streets. They don’t belong to cars or the people in them.

They belong to all of us.

And we all have a right to live — and survive — on them.

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A $15,000 state grant will be used to improve bike and pedestrian safety along PCH through Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades and Malibu, including better enforcement and education on bike laws.

Although they should start by educating the sheriff’s department, which frequently misinterprets CVC 21202 to ticket people for riding abreast or in the traffic lane, both of which are legal in most cases.

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‘Tis the season.

The parents of a fallen soldier have purchased 70 bicycles for kids at Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood.

A Virginia Walmart has stepped in to supply 460 of the 600 bicycles needed for a kids’ bike giveaway, after the original order was screwed up.

One thousand volunteers turned out in Tampa FL to build 800 bicycles to give to needy children.

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This is day seven of the 3rd Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. Your support helps keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

You can donate with just a few clicks by using PayPal. Or by using the Zelle app that is probably already in the banking app on your smartphone; send your contribution to ted @ bikinginla dot com (remove the spaces and format as a standard email address).

As always, any donation, in any amount, is truly and deeply appreciated.

And thanks to J Patrick L, Michael Y, Jeffrey F, Mark J, Joel S, Ellen S and Evan B for their generous donations to help support this site. And a belated thanks to Robs M for being the first to donate using Zelle, which apparently doesn’t let me know when someone uses it.

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Local

Spin is the latest dockless bikeshare company to invade LA, setting up office with a pilot program in Koreatown; Streetsblog asks if privately owned dockless bikeshare will prove to be a blessing or curse.

The LA Daily News looks at Metro’s plans to address the eight-mile gap in the LA River bike path through Downtown LA — although construction won’t start for at least another five years. Good thing they weren’t planning to use it for the road cycling course in the 2028 Olympics.

UCLA’s student newspaper say’s Elon Musk’s tunnels won’t solve LA’s traffic problems, and represents the same old thinking that got Angelenos stuck in this mess. Although the point of the tunnels isn’t to solve traffic problems, but just to let wealthy drivers avoid them.

A Monrovia letter writer can’t seem to grasp the concept that sharrows mean that’s where bikes are supposed to be, bike riders don’t have to get the way out of impatient drivers, and drivers are supposed to change lanes to pass people on bicycles.

 

State

Southern California officials say cuts in the proposed GOP tax bill could result in an increase in traffic, including the loss of a $20 benefit for people who bike to work.

The OC Sheriff’s Department is looking for the owners of the 1,000 presumably stolen bicycles that were recovered near a homeless camp along the Santa Ana River; if you think your bike might be one of them, send a description of the bike and the serial and police report numbers to lostbike@ocsd.org.

A 19-year old Watsonville man will face a vehicular homicide charge in the September death of a bike rider after police concluded he was speeding. And even though the victim ran a red light.

A new short documentary profiles a bike-riding, tai chi-practicing, tennis-playing San Franciscan octogenarian artist.

Once again, opponents attempt to use California’s CEQA anti-pollution laws to stop construction of bike and pedestrian paths in San Francisco, which is exactly what the revised rules are supposed to prevent. Update: J. Patrick Lynch forwards word that the San Francisco Supervisors shot that attempt down. 

You’ll soon need a reservation to visit the popular Muir Woods National Monument near Sausalito, unless you’re riding a bicycle or entering on foot.

A Sacramento cyclist is using a new form of inhaled insulin to control his Type 1 diabetes.

 

National

A new bike trailer can carry as much as a minivan while doubling as a fork lift — although you might need an ebike to pull the full 400 pound load.

Phoenix parents hop in their car and chase down a thief who stole their son’s bike.

A Colorado letter writer addresses the hatred expressed by some people towards the people on bikes who have the audacity to slow them down for a few seconds. Proving that it’s not just a SoCal phenomenon after all.

Caught on video: A pair of mountain bikers make the first-ever bike descent of a famed black diamond ski run at Jackson Hole WY.

Once again, authorities managed to keep a dangerous driver on the road until he killed someone. A Houston woman calls for changes in DUI laws after her bike-riding husband was killed by an alleged drunk driver who was already facing a previous drunk driving charge. Anyone arrested for DUI should automatically have their license suspended and the car they were driving impounded until the case is resolved.

A Texas TV station steps in after a bike rider gets the runaround when his bike was damaged by an uninsured Lyft driver.

Heartbreaking story from Minnesota, where a restaurant worker was the victim of two crashes in three weeks while riding his bike. And may not survive the second one, after the driver fled the scene.

Kindhearted Michigan police buy a new bike for a five-year old boy after he got caught in his and had to be cut out.

The Department of DIY strikes in Boston, where someone spray painted a bike lane on a bridge.

Once again, the tone deaf NYPD responds to the death of bike rider killed by a speeding driver by ticketing people riding bikes.

No surprise here, as the man accused of killing eight people in the New York bike path attack on Halloween has pled not guilty.

Hundreds of Philadelphians form a human-protected bike lane to protest the death of a bike rider killed by the driver of a trash truck while riding in a faded bike lane.

A road raging Pennsylvania man was sentenced to between one to 23 months in prison for attempting to run a bike rider off the road and threatening to kill him; he blamed the victim, as well as medications he was taking for paranoia and bipolar disorders.

A Florida bike rider became the latest victim of a police officer responding to an alarm without lights and sirens.

 

International

Local politicians say more has to be done to protect bicyclists and pedestrians in Victoria, British Columbia. And pretty much everywhere else.

Toronto is considering adopting a bike registration and theft reporting app that has resulted in a 30% drop in bike thefts in Vancouver over the last two years. Can we get that here? Pretty please?

London’s protected cycle superhighways move people five times more efficiently than regular traffic lanes. Meanwhile, the city will ban construction of new parking spaces in large segments of the city to reduce pollution. Which is probably better than LA’s approach of ripping out bike lanes.

A British magazine talks with adventurer Mark Beaumont about his record-setting ride around the world in less than 80 days.

Kashmir bicyclists pedal for democracy to call attention to the upcoming election process.

Caught on video too: After an Aussie driver nearly sideswiped a man riding in a bike lane, the driver accused him of riding outside the lane, which he clearly didn’t.

 

Competitive Cycling

Israel may be paying Chris Froome two million euros — the equivalent of $2.37 million — just to participate in next year’s Giro d’Italia, which is scheduled to start in the country.

A federal judge rules that Lance can use the “everybody else was doing it” defense in the $100 million lawsuit brought against him for allegedly defrauding his government sponsors through systematic doping.

Seven Columbian cyclists and one Bolivian rider failed drug tests at August’s Tour of Columbia, testing positive for a form of EPO. But let’s all pretend the doping era ended when Lance got busted, okay?

 

Finally…

You may able to drink your next Surly. You could be able to ride on, not in, your next Rapha.

And probably not the best idea to interrupt your 25-year ride around the world by getting drunk and assaulting cops just hours after entering a new country.

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Thank you all for the kind words about my wife. It looks like she may be doing a little better, and may be able to avoid additional surgery for now. 

Fingers crossed.

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

Morning Links: LA finally gets bike traffic lights, Garcetti say no to Veep, and it’s a bike safety weekend

June 17, 2016 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: LA finally gets bike traffic lights, Garcetti say no to Veep, and it’s a bike safety weekend

For once, LA bike riders are being treated like we actually belong on the streets.

On Thursday, the city officially unveiled the new protected bike lanes on Los Angeles Street, complete with LA’s first bicycle traffic signals.

Although the LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero can’t resist getting a little anti-bike dig in.

As he suggests, the bike-shaped signals are designed to tell riders when to stop. As well as when they can proceed, independent of the traffic signals for motor vehicles.

Sort of like walk signals tell pedestrians when they can cross the street, whether or not the traffic signal is green.

They could definitely use some on the bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd through Westwood and Century City, where bicyclists are expected to stop at red lights on T-intersections even when there’s no cross street.

And many don’t.

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After yesterday’s surprising news that Eric Garcetti is on Hillary Clinton’s Vice Presidential short list, the first-term LA mayor says not so fast.

Then again, that’s exactly what he’s expected to say, unless and until he actually gets the nod.

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Evidently, it’s a bike safety weekend.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will step up enforcement of traffic violations that can lead to collisions between motor vehicles and bicyclists or pedestrians today. So obey the letter of the law, because you don’t want to be the one who goes home with a ticket.

And the Santa Monica Police Department will conduct yet another of their bike and pedestrian safety crackdowns on Saturday.

So we should all feel safer on Sunday, right?

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VeloNews says if America’s Tejay van Garderen doesn’t win the Tour de Suisse, he’ll be carrying water bottles for Richie Porte at the Tour de France next month.

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Local

Metro board committees unanimously support the proposed Measure R sales tax extension, which could mean significantly more funding for bike and pedestrians projects.

The LA Times calls for making the pilot program to install interlock devices on the cars of convicted drunk drivers permanent and expanding it statewide. What we really need to do is impound the vehicles of DUI drivers while their licenses are suspended to keep them from getting behind the wheel. And let’s not forget that interlock devices do nothing to stop drugged driving.

CiclaValley says riding to the top of Mt. Baldy is a must.

Members of my college fraternity will depart from Long Beach this morning on one of three cross-country routes to raise over half a million dollars for disabled people nationwide.

 

State

Santa Barbara approves moving a contentious bike lane to a back street in order to preserve precious parking through a commercial zone. Because no one would never dream of riding a bike to go to a restaurant or retail store.

Sacramento increases fines for riding a bike on the sidewalk from $5 to $250, despite a lack of safe alternatives in many areas.

Changes to the bike path on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge will add $6.5 million to the project, which has already seen $24 million in cost overruns.

 

National

Nice move from Polar, as all the proceeds from their new Rainbow Pride water bottle will go to support victims and families of the Pulse shooting rampage in Orlando.

The Huffington Post says cyclists shouldn’t have to risk their lives just to use the road.

A Seattle cyclist gets her stolen bike back, thanks to registering it with Bike Index. Which you can do for free at the top of this page.

After two years of denials, new evidence shows a Spokane sheriff’s deputy really did crash into a teenage bike rider as they both maneuvered to avoid the collision, after an outside investigator found the imprint of the victim’s hat embedded on the bumper of the patrol car. Which raises the question of why police investigators couldn’t find it themselves with a two year head start.

Sad news, as the woman who helped start my hometown on the path to becoming one of the nation’s most bike friendly cities has passed away from Alzheimer’s at age 76.

Hats off to Kansas and Missouri, where authorities no longer consider crashes accidents.

A “hesitant” Chicago bike rider sees the world from a windshield perspective, as she calls for testing and licensing cyclists to improve safety, while complaining about road diets and bike lanes designed to do just that.

Cleveland drivers are confused by new bike lanes on two of the city’s busiest streets, but a bicyclist says they’re not so bad.

Nashville plans a left side bike lane along a center median to eliminate the risk of doorings and right hooks.

Both Streetsblog and Gothamist say the NYPD needs to stop targeting cyclists and start focusing on the people in the big dangerous machines.

Why wait? Residents of a DC suburb are protesting bike lanes that haven’t even been proposed yet.

 

International

Cycling Weekly offers advice on how to overcome setbacks, from losing a race to getting hit by a car.

Toronto drivers who kill or injure pedestrians or bicyclists too often avoid charges. In other words, just like drivers virtually everywhere.

Britain’s Jo Cox was one of us; the British Labour Parliament member was assassinated Thursday, by a supporter of an American neo-Nazi group.

A London bike rider became the latest victim of anti-bike sabotage when a group of teenagers strung a rope at neck level across a Hyde Park pathway.

A British writer learns that a 30 kilometer ride through Provence — 18.6 miles — isn’t that far, and can be enjoyable.

A couple from the UK celebrated their 60th anniversary, after they met when he stopped to help fix her bike.

 

Finally…

No motor scooter for you; get around campus the old fashioned way — on a bicycle. Don’t leave a suspicious package in your Metro bike locker.

And seriously, don’t punch a cop who tries to stop you for riding in the middle of the road. But feel free to correct him if you were just riding in the middle of a non-sharable lane.

No, seriously, they love that stuff.

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , ,
 
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