Tag Archive for blame bicyclists

Bicyclists framed for bear’s murder in Central Park, and El Segundo bike rider critically injured by driver fleeing cops

August 6, 2024 / / Comments Off on Bicyclists framed for bear’s murder in Central Park, and El Segundo bike rider critically injured by driver fleeing cops

Clearly, I’m still having trouble keeping this site online.

I’m told the problem is outdated and incompatible apps bringing it down, so maybe that’s something I can work on one-handed when I’m out following my surgery. Keep your fingers crossed that I get this post up and you get to read it before it goes down again.

Because that seems to be a thing right now. 

I hope to be back again tomorrow before I go under the knife.

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Just 147 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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We was framed.

Presidential candidate, vaccine denier and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy admitted on Monday that he was the perpetrator of a prank that helped fan the flames of anti-bike hysteria a decade ago.

Apparently an aficionado of road kill, Kennedy claimed he in a video with Roseanne Barr that he had found a small bear after it had been struck by a driver, and scooped it up planning to butcher it later and eat it.

But he ran out of time before he had to catch a flight. So rather than let a good dead bear go to waste, he took it to New York’s Central Park and dumped it next to a bicycle, staging the scene to make it look like a bike rider had killed the bear and run away afterwards.

Never mind that a crash with a bicycle is highly unlikely to kill even the barest of a bear. Which, as I recall, was what I wrote at the time, as the media ran wild with the story of the heartless killer bike rider who ran away rather than face the consequences for killing a cute, cuddly walking teddy bear.

This at a time when the media was whipping up a frenzy over New York’s expanding bicycle network, which eventually proved to be a boon to businesses and property values.

As well as reports of reckless, scofflaw bike riders crashing into joggers in Central Park and pedestrians everywhere, in which the person on two wheels inevitably received the full blame for the actions of both parties.

That was the environment in which Kennedy the Younger played his joke, leading to a police investigation that went nowhere.

Evidently, forensics don’t work on bear carcasses, since the cops couldn’t seem to figure out that the fatal injuries caused by a motor vehicle couldn’t have been caused by a lightweight bicycle.

However, it’s likely that Kennedy’s belated confession wasn’t just an effort to cleanse his soul and lighten the bear burden on his conscience.

Rather, he was apparently trying to get ahead of a rumored unflattering story in the New Yorker that would have pointed the finger at the formerly feckless scion of the Kennedy clan for the bear’s demise.

Or at least why its final resting place was next to a Central Park roadway rather than out in the woods.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

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It’s happened again.

Just weeks after Raul Castañeda was killed by a driver fleeing police in Irwindale, another man was critically injured when he was struck by a driver fleeing from cops in El Segundo on Sunday.

The driver was fleeing from a traffic stop by members of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s gang and narcotics team when he slammed into the man riding a bicycle at Center Street and Mariposa Ave around 3 pm.

As usual, there’s no word on the victim’s current condition.

Police found the driver’s car nearby after he escaped on foot.

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A 71-year old man was hospitalized with major injuries after he was struck by a driver in Chula Vista, California.

Border Patrol agents attempted to revive the victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified.

The driver, a woman in her 30s from Vista, was arrested by the Border Patrol agents for charges “unrelated to the collision.”

Local police said alcohol played a role in the crash, but didn’t clarify whether the driver or the victim appeared to be under the influence.

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Streets For All is hosting a virtual mobility debate between the candidates for the WeHo city council on August 15th.

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It’s now 229 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 38 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

Once again, a driver intentionally ran down someone on a bicycle and posted the video to Instagram, this time leaving a Detroit bike rider with two broken legs.

No bias here. A columnist for the Boston Globe swears he’s not against bike lanes, let alone bicycles, but thinks someone was just trying to prove a point by “shoehorning” a bike lane onto his favorite boulevard, which was apparently much better when it was just crammed with cars.

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Local 

Cronkite News says Los Angeles should prepare for the 2028 Olympics by copying the bike lanes of Paris.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s adopted son Pax was released from the hospital after nearly three weeks in the ICU with serious head injury suffered in a helmet-less ebike crash.

 

State

How do you say “bikelash” in Mandarin? San Francisco backed down on plans to install a bike lane in Chinatown after business owners got out the torches and pitchforks, arguing that the area is just too crowded.

 

National

A group of New Yorkers took the “worst bike ride ever” over the weekend — a 130-mile ride from New York City to the Montauk Point Lighthouse riding the worst bike they could get their hands on, including a heavy bikeshare bike.

A Queens, New York bike rider was killed, despite riding in a protected bike lane, when the driver of a box truck drove over the armadillos meant to force a wide turn.

 

International

A new re-wilding project in Wales is being funded by the same mountain bikers usually accused of destroying nature, not restoring it. Thanks again to Megan Lynch. 

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list. National Geographic suggests taking a multi-day bike tour of the ancient ruins, nature reserves and seaside villages along Turkey’s Aegean coast.

Hong Kong bicycling deaths tripled over the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year — and already top the six riders killed in all of 2023. Although that’s just a quarter of the 24 bike riders killed in Los Angeles last year, even though Hong Kong has twice the population.

Aussie cyclist Rohan Dennis will face trial on charges of causing death by dangerous driving and driving without due care in the death of his his wife and fellow Olympic cyclist Melissa Hoskins.

 

Competitive Cycling

American Kristen Faulkner won the Olympic road cycling race on Sunday in a surprise victory over the legendary Marianne Vos, just seven years after taking up cycling through Central Park; she was selected as an alternate when another rider dropped out.

Road.cc wants to know if the Paris Olympic road course was the most photogenic ever. And yes, even potty breaks are harder at the Games.

Cyclist offers a preview of next week’s week-long Tour de France Femmes.

Legendary five-time Tour de France champ Eddy Merckx touts Olympic road cycling champ Remco Evenepoel over Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar at the upcoming world championship.

Sad news from North Carolina, where expert class rider Scott Huntley died Sunday after a major crash at the 2024 Gravity Mountain Bike National Championships, a tragic reminder about the risks pro mountain bikers take on a daily basis.

 

Finally…

Throwing your bike at passing cars is not among the recommended uses.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Caltrans meager PCH safety efforts, a peloton ticketed for following too close, and a call for a life-saving super power

December 21, 2023 / / 2 comments

It’s the last four days of the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Last year, it took a real Chrismukah miracle to top the previous year, with more than 25 donations in the last five days.

We’ll need at least that many this time around just to catch up — let alone set a new record for the 9th year in a row. 

So thanks to Steven H and Joshua H (no relation) for their generous support for SoCal’s best source bike news and advocacy.

But time is rapidly running out for this year’s fund drive. 

So don’t wait.

Stop what you’re doing, and give now!

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Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program this fall as promised: 0

Seriously, is anyone really surprised that the California Air Resources Board missed their latest self-imposed deadline once again?

Anyone?

Bueller? Bueller?

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If you haven’t already, sign the petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to listen to the dangers we face just walking and biking on the streets of LA, and city’s ongoing failure to build the safer, more livable transportation system they promised.
Then share it with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

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Even reporters for the Los Angeles Times question whether Caltrans meager safety “improvements” on PCH will be enough to make a difference.

Writing about Monday’s performative press conference to announce a lousy $4.2 million in safety work for the 21 miles of PCH that snakes along the Pacific Coast — which works out to just $200,000 a mile — they almost immediately called the announcement into question.

While there is a process each project will have to undergo, “this is not a ‘business as usual’ approach,” Omishakin said as cars whizzed past.

After several deadly pedestrian crashes that roiled Malibu and sparked calls for change, business as usual won’t be enough, transportation activists said. Damian Kevitt, founder of Streets Are for Everyone, told The Times the “design of PCH through Malibu is simply and clearly deadly.”

“It needs to be a transformed from a highway where people can do 60 to 80 to even 100 mph through residential [areas] and businesses, with families and cyclists, unprotected, just a couple feet away,” Kevitt said.

Hopefully, Caltrans can demonstrate a little more urgency than the $34.6 million project currently underway to sync red lights along the highway, presumably to make speeding drivers stop for red while the typically non-existent non-speeding drivers on the highway will see greens.

The project was approved seven years ago, but because the highway is under California Department of Transportation jurisdiction, it had to be reviewed by the state.

“The Caltrans review process, while undoubtedly necessary for ensuring regulatory compliance and safety standards, proved to be more cumbersome than anticipated,” said Matt Myerhoff, Malibu’s public information officer.

Gee, you think?

Although red lights are typically synced to smooth traffic flow, rather than control speeds.

Meanwhile, Caltrans pledged to study PCH to determine if it can be designated as a safety corridor, in which fines for speeding can be doubled.

But f the mounting death toll on the highway isn’t prima facie proof of the problem, I don’t know what yet another study will accomplish. Then again, you could quadruple the fines, and it won’t matter if the drivers don’t get caught.

Which points to the sheer stupidity of California’s speed cam pilot program only being allowed in Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach, along with three NorCal cities, while completely ignoring the state’s deadliest corridors.

But still.

Members of Seetoo’s Fix PCH Action Team, including Kevitt, say the seven years it took Caltrans to allow Malibu to begin the signal synchronization project “doesn’t indicate that Caltrans is prioritizing safety at all.”

Collecting and studying the data could mean “years and years more delay before they even decide if they can slow down this highway that is known to be deadly,” Kevitt said.

Chris Wizner, another action team member, told The Times he wondered how many more deaths it would take for Caltrans to slow down PCH.

That’s easy.

The formula has always been N+1.

It will take one more death than we’ve already suffered, no matter how many there have already been.

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A Santa Barbara cop takes a turn at demonstrating he knows nothing about riding in a peloton, without saying it, as a group of Santa Barbara bicyclists got delayed tickets in the mail for following one another too closely, after one rider went down and took several other riders down with him.

Here’s the full text of the tweet.

Insult to injury rant: Group ride Santa Barbara to Ventura & back Nov. 21, a cyclist in the peloton front crashed & took down several of us. EMTs came & took me for a brain scan. I’m fine. Cop pretended to help me as he asked my name etc.

I just got a ticket for “following too close”. In a peloton. Seriously. $235 or contest it in court.

I’m tempted on principle. Would love to confront this cop & ask why he didn’t give me the ticket then & there (others also got tickets in the mail). He probably knows we would have pitched a fit.

Disgraceful. I’m lying there on the ground in paid, bloody & nauseous & this MF cop is writing me up for a traffic violation. No wonder people don’t trust the police. “Protect & Serve”. Bullshit.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

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Somehow this one slipped under the radar, as Robert Leone forwards the results of the Universal Postal Union’s 2023 letter writing competition.

Okay, maybe I know why this one slipped under the radar.

Regardless, the UPU asked children to write on the following topic:

“Imagine you are a super hero and your mission is to make all roads around the world safer for children. Write a letter to someone explaining which super powers you would need to achieve your mission.”

The winner, a 13-year old girl from Kenya, requests a simple super power — the ability to write posters that will make drivers slow down, because children are the most helpless road users.

Amen.

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Thanks to Megan Lynch for forwarding the following video, which includes these key points:

  • Soul-crushing car traffic makes the Yosemite experience very frustrating
  • That frustration gets unloaded on retail workers there
  • You should definitely ride a bike in Yosemite
  • But don’t leave anything on your bike because even in Yosemite thieves will strip it to the frame

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‘Tis the season.

A San Diego group is continuing a five decade tradition of giving, by working to build 150 bikes to give to kids on Christmas Day.

A Cedar Rapids, Iowa bike shop turned into Santa’s workshop as volunteers joined staffers to refurbish 50 bikes for kids in need.

An Alabama Baptist church collected more than 300 bikes to give to area kids for Christmas.

The work of Florida’s legendary Jack the Bike Man lives on, as the charity he founded gave 100 bicycles to people in need, despite his death earlier this year.

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

Eureka scrapped plans for a buffered bike lane on Myrtle Street, caving to angry residents who prefer convenient parking to protecting human lives, as long as those lives get around on two wheels instead of four.

No surprise here, as compromises forced on a Brooklyn protected bike lane by people loathe to sacrifice parking or traffic lanes resulted in a project that virtually no one is happy with.

No bias here. A New York councilmember calls for mandatory licensing and registration of ebikes, rhetorically asking “How many actual ebikes do you see stopping at a red light or observing traffic laws?” Just wait until someone tells him about cars and their drivers, which are already registered and licensed, and regularly break traffic laws anyway.

Evidently, verbally abusing and repeatedly swerving a car into a woman riding a bike isn’t illegal anymore, after police in the UK “mistakenly” close the books on a road raging driver.

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Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton applauds yesterday’s deep dive on dooring in the Los Angeles Times.

Metro will offer free bus and train rides on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, along with free Metro Bike Share for the first half hour from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day.

 

State

A man was arrested in Santa Ana Saturday after walking out of an Irvine Walmart with a new beach cruiser. Seriously, if you’re going to steal a bike, at least steal a better one.

Streetsblog zeros in on San Diego’s new Complete Streets policy, examining how advocates pushed for and won a better approach to street design.

A local San Francisco website says sales data doesn’t back up claims from merchants along Valencia Street that the new centerline bike lane has killed their business, showing just a 6% drop in retail sales during construction of the bike lanes. Although to be fair, a 6% drop can mean the difference between profit and loss for some businesses, but it’s a far cry from what they claimed.

At the same time, San Francisco website Underscore_SF says the controversial centerline bike lane was never going to work, and San Francisco should move the bike lanes to a more traditional curbside configuration.

 

National

GCN offers six top tips for descending on a road bike.

REI’s second-gen e-cargo bike is on sale for its lowest price ever; CNN called it the year’s best ebike, cargo or otherwise. At less than $1140, you could easily buy one with California’s ebike voucher program, and have change left over — if the voucher program ever actually launches.

More churn in the ebike world, as Harley-Davidson sold its Serial 1 ebike division to Florida ebike maker LEV Manufacturing.

Not surprisingly, bike riders in Ashland, Oregon support plans to install more bike parking in the public right-of-way.

A pair of alleged bike burglars face charges for breaking into Lance Armstrong’s storage unit — yes, that Lance Armstrong — and stealing four complete bicycles and a couple frames valued at $105,000; it’s not clear if any of the bikes were recovered.

A Texas man will face two counts of criminally negligent homicide for killing a married couple as they rode their bikes this past June; he was allegedly texting when he hit their bikes, which explains why he says he never saw them.

More on the bizarre ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court that says cities aren’t liable for injuries to bike riders due to bad pavement because streets without bike lanes aren’t intended for bicycles.

Inmates in a New Hampshire county jail are learning to repair bicycles, working towards their master bike technician certification while serving their time. Which should provide a nice incentive to commit another crime if they get released before earning their certification.

A Long Island woman faces a host of charges, including 2nd degree assault and disabling an Interlock device, for speeding through a parking lot where a triathlon was being held and slamming into a competitor riding his bike, leaving the victim with a traumatic brain injury and cervical spine fracture.

 

International

Toronto’s paramedic’s union said a controversial protected bike lane cost an ambulance crew 30 seconds getting through an intersection because drivers couldn’t get out of their way. Maybe someone should tell them those little car-tickler plastic posts are designed to bend, so you can drive right over them. 

Sad news from the UK, where popular industry pro Nils Amelinckx died after a lengthy battle with stage four bowel cancer; Amelinckx founded the nonprofit Rider Resilience to promote the use of bicycles as medicine, as well as the bicycling wing of gear maker Lyon Equipment. He was just 36.

Grieving British parents called for mandatory speed limiters on all motor vehicles, after a speeding driver climbed the curbed and killed their 14-year old daughter as she rode in a separated bike lane.

Bankrupt Dutch ebike maker VanMoof intends to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes with plans for a new e-scooter.

The BBC examines how the Finnish coastal city of Oulu became the winter bicycling capital of the world, despite its location just 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Vuelta released its course for next year, starting and ending with time trials, and “savage” climbing in between.

https://twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1737208276511588374?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1737208276511588374%7Ctwgr%5Efd11a704aa7aaf06f14e2637bcad18fa3438063b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-20-december-2023-305753

 

Finally…

Aquaman is one of us. This is what it would look like if Tony the Tiger sponsored a cycling team.

And your next e-cargo bike could haul a baby grand piano.

Or a grown-up one, even.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Shocked — shocked! — I am to find bikes on the bike path

July 24, 2008 / / One comment

I never cease to be amazed at people who are shocked — shocked! — to discover bikes on the bike path.

Like the people who casually stroll along the bike lanes on Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue, the Marvin Braude (nee Santa Monica) bike path along the beach is inexplicably full of people who seem to have no clue that they might actually encounter bicycles as they blithely ignore the Bikes Only and No Pedestrian markings under their feet.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking the entire 22.3 mile length of the path. The upper portion along Will Rogers State Beach is usually okay, as is the lower portion through the South Bay, at least until you get to Hermosa Beach. No, I’m referring to the vastly over-populated portion from the Venice Pier north to the walkway under PCH at West Channel Road.

I’ve had a number of bizarre encounters there over the years, such as the time a toddler darted out from the parking lost directly in front of me. I jammed on my brakes and managed to come to a panic stop just inches from her.

So did the bystanders chastise her parents, for letting a small child run unsupervised like that? Or did they commend me for riding defensively, and putting the safety of a child ahead of my own?

Of course not.

Instead, I got to hear an old guy complaining about “all the damn bicycles on the bike path.” And I rode off, wondering just exactly what he expected to find there.

Then there was the woman so engrossed in her cell phone conversation that she stepped directly onto the bike path — and right in front of me — without ever looking up. So I yelled out a warning and learned hard to my left, then immediately back to the right, carving a perfect C shape right around her.

And then I made my big mistake. I stopped to make sure she was okay.

She started screaming at me — without ending her call, of course — for having the audacity to frighten her. Never mind that if she’d done the same thing on a city street, she’d probably be dead now. Or that a less experience cyclist probably would have crashed right into her, sending both of us to the ER.

No, as far as she was concerned, she was blameless and I was the bad guy, just because I tried to spare us both from serious injury.

In other words, blame bicyclists first.

Or take the large family of very large Texans I encountered near the volleyball courts awhile back. There were about 12 of them, all gathered in a group and completely blocking the entire bike path in both directions.

Eternal optimist that I am, I assumed that they would move aside to let me pass when I got close. But no, they just stared at me, their bovine expressions unchanging as they gazed at the approaching cyclist.

Polite requests to pass accomplished nothing. So finally I came to a full stop just feet in front of them and, exasperated, yelled at them to get out of the way.

That had the same effect as poking an enraged bull. The women started screaming at me and the men started moving angrily towards me. One woman, apparently the matriarch of the group, sputtered that they were from Texas, and had never encountered such rudeness.

So let’s recap, shall we? They were far from home, blocking a major pathway, preventing anyone else from passing in any direction, and ignoring every reasonable request for passage.

And I was the rude one?

Finally, some other riders approaching on the other side of the group called for them to move, as well, and slowly they gave way to either side, not unlike Moses parting the Red Sea.

And I rode off, wishing them a safe and speedy return to Texas.

Okay, so I may have left out the safe part.

Today’s must reads: Streetsblog reminds readers about tonight’s DWP meeting to discuss the annual Festival of Lights, giving us an opportunity to protest their absurd — and illegal — ban on bicycles (thanks to Alex Thompson for pointing us to section 21 of the state vehicle code). Speaking of Alex, he’s posted a beautiful reverie on racing a magical wave on Ballona Creek. The Time’s Bottleneck Blog provides the details of the proposed sales tax increase, which still lacks any provision for bicycles and pedestrians. And finally, sad news from my home town, where one rider was killed and another severely injured when they were stuck from behind by a drunk driver — at 5:20 in the morning.

Category: Best of, General / Tags: , , , , , , , ,
 
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