Kreza was training for an Ironman Triathlon when his bike was struck by a car driven by 25-year old Stephen Taylor Scarp around 8 am Saturday on Alicia Parkway near Via Burgos.
He was reportedly hit from behind as he was riding in the bike lane on eastbound Alicia Parkway, suffering critical wounds to the head and body.
Our brother, Mike Kreza passed away early this morning. Words alone cannot describe the immeasurable heartache felt by his friends & family, including his fire family.
No further information will be provided at this time.
Scarp remained at the scene. He was arrested on suspicion of DUI after police found multiple prescription medications in his car. At last report he was being held on $100,000 bond, pending a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.
Kreza leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.
This is made even more tragic, not just because of the families he leaves behind — both his own and the close-knit firefighter community — but because so many of us owe our lives to the men and women who devote theirs to saving others.
He died, sadly and needlessly, not in a courageous effort to rescue someone else, but as one of us.
The suspect, who was taken into custody leaving a local hospital, has three previous arrests on DUI charges. Yet was still driving, and posing a risk to everyone on the road around him.
So once again, authorities managed to keep a dangerous driver on the streets until it was too late.
And another innocent family had to pay the price.
Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
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Brazilian big wave surfer Maya Gabeira combined running and riding intervals on her bike to get back in shape, five years after she was nearly crushed to death by a monster wave.
A hard-hitting public service campaign uses actual broken bicycles, helmets and personal possessions belonging to people who were killed on Toronto’s streets to drive home the message of the city’s Vision Zero campaign.
These definitely succeed at cutting through the usual ad clutter, and eliciting a strong visceral response.
The question is whether it’s enough to convince people to drive more carefully. Or just convince people that riding and walking are too dangerous, as Marc argues in this Twitter thread.
I’m not sure just where I come down on that debate.
But I do know they’re a hell of a lot more effective and impactful than this embarrassing effort from LA’s Vision Zero program.
After losing at City Hall, LA’s overly litigious, self-appointed NIMBY watchdogs have filed suit against the City of Los Angeles to halt the recently approved plans allowing for greater density near Expo Line stations.
Zwift wants you to ride for a good cause starting next week, including helping pay the medical expenses for former pro Adrien Costa, who lost a leg while rock climbing in Italy, as well as raising funds for African bike charity Qhebeka, among others.
An Ottawa, Canada woman says bike riders should stay off the damn sidewalk already. No matter where we ride, people will complain that we should be somewhere else. Or anywhere else. So just ride safely, legally and courteously, and let it be their problem.
Which is a good reminder that it can take a full 24 hours or more to metabolize marijuana. And driving under the influence of cannabis is just as illegal as alcohol, if harder to quantify.
Meanwhile, Wednesday marked the first day cannabis was legal in Canada.
But remember that the next time a driver gets a slap on the wrist for deliberately running down someone on a bicycle.
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And combining the last two themes, Jeffrey Fylling forwards a press release from the Orange County DA’s office announcing that a 24-year old woman will face up to 10 years in prison for killing an 81-year old man while allegedly driving high on cannabis.
Which gives a whole new meaning to the term weed killer.
It would be nice to see prosecutors take it that seriously the next time a California driver kills someone on foot or on a bicycle.
A public meeting will be held at each school next Thursday to discuss a Walking Safety Assessment.
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Local
Curbedtalks with East Side Rider’s founder John Jones III about the club’s efforts to inspire change in the local South LA community through bicycling. Although I had no idea they had chapters in other cities across the US. And thanks to whoever sent this to me; my apologies for losing track of it.
Chico is updating its bike plan after just five years. So naturally, the local TV station quotes a driver complaining about scofflaw bicyclists. I wonder if they also bring up lawbreaking drivers whenever someone wants to build a new overpass.
National
They get it. AARP suggests ten ways bicycle friendly streets are good for people who don’t ride bikes, while offering a reminder that people of all ages like to ride bicycles. Print this one out before your next public meeting, and leave a copy on every seat. Especially since older people tend to be more resistant to bike-friendly changes.
No bias here. A Chicago writer complains about an “abundance of rude (maybe even psychotic) bicyclists” who ride on the sidewalk, instead of in the “bike lanes that have disrupted and uglified” downtown streets, while adding that police should ticket downtown bike riders instead of sidewalk riders in black neighborhoods. Nothing opposing bike lanes, as well as people who don’t feel safe using them.
France considers a mandatory bicycle registration program to fight bike theft as part of a 25-point, $401 million plan to boost bicycling — including a proposal to pay people up to $458 a year to bike to work.
“I’ll live with this the rest of my life. I would give my life for the people I murdered, killed and maimed and everything else and I just want to say I’m sorry,” he said, wiping away tears.
The judge wasn’t having any of it, though.
The judge called Pickett’s apology “woefully inadequate,” saying that until that point, he didn’t appear remorseful for his actions. The judge also pointed out Pickett had many opportunities to stop driving before he hit the cyclists, but didn’t.
Laguna Beach police conducted their annual Road Safety Expo to help stop bike and pedestrian deaths; they focused on the dangers of distracted driving, as well a bicycling and walking skills.
A group of Frazier’s friends gathered to block the intersection at Manchester and Normandie with their bicycles to call attention to the death and demand justice for their fallen friend.
The protest got out of hand after several people attacked an LAPD SUV when police arrived to break it up, smashing its windows with their bikes.
According to Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman, the young men were angered after graphic photos of the man they knew as Woon were posted online overnight, showing their friend splayed out on the street as another rider attempted to comfort him in his final moments.
She then gunned her engine and fled the scene as Stallings stumbled to the curbed.
He was taken to a local hospital; reports are he was not seriously injured.
Now police are looking for two hit-and-run drivers.
One with a $50,000 bounty on his or her head for leaving Frazier to die in the street; another who could — and should — be facing a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.
Twenty-one-year old Ronnie Ramon Huerta Jr. is accused of driving up to 100 mph while stoned before slamming into 49-year old Mark Kristofferson, killing him almost instantly. He was taken into custody after the arraignment hearing, and held on a $1 million bond.
He’s also charged with driving on a suspended license and driving under the influence of drugs.
The piece tells bicyclists to “Always ride in single file,” even though there’s nothing in state law that prohibits riding two or more abreast. And riding abreast is often safer in lanes that are too narrow to share with a motor vehicle by increasing visibility and preventing unsafe passes.
The piece also says riders should walk their bikes across busy intersections, which increases the risk by decreasing mobility and exposing riders to careless and distracted drivers for a longer period of time.
And never mind that a bike helmet may be a good idea, but it’s not required for anyone 18 or older.
But if the point is to increase awareness of bike safety, where is the companion piece telling drivers to always watch for bikes, pass with at least a three foot distance, and open doors with your right hand to prevent dooring?
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Local
Metro released their draft strategic plan for the next ten years, as they transition from a transit provider to focusing on the entire mobility ecosystem.
Another good piece from Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss, who considers the ethics of breaking traffic laws, noting that obeying the letter of the law isn’t always the safest way to ride.
A transportation technology project from the University of Melbourne says to improve safety and performance on our streets, we’ll all have to be connected in a single network including cars, buses, pedestrians and bicyclists.
April 9, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: 15 years for Oceanside drunk driver, ebike regulations, and young cyclist dies in Paris-Roubaix
For once, the charges — and the conviction — fit the crime.
In an extreme case of heartlessness, she drove over a mile with the victim’s body embedded in the seat next to her. Then parked the car around the block from her house and walked home.
And did all that after her friends warned her she was too drunk to drive, but got behind the wheel anyway.
At least she’s not likely to be driving again for a very long time.
Drunk or otherwise.
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Today’s common theme is ebikes and the rules governing them.
He had posted this moving photo on Instagram just two weeks ago.
Michael Goolaerts, who died today at the age of 23, posted this beautiful shot on Instagram two weeks ago. Just a kid living a dream. Life can be cruel. pic.twitter.com/4OEnfzKDZw
An Op-Ed in the LA Times says almost no one walks to or from LAX because the airport has made it virtually impossible to do. But those who do may find some hidden gems. Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the heads-up.
Seattle’s new mayor puts the brakes on plans for a promised bike lane on 4th Street, delaying it until at least 2021 over fears of slowing traffic. Because everyone knows people on bikes don’t count as traffic. Right?
Denver’s bikeshare system is adopting a hybrid program to compete with dockless bikeshare, allowing riders to leave bikes in hundreds designated bike corrals, or leave them anywhere for a small additional fee. Something Metro may want to consider as dockless bikes expand through Los Angeles.
Treehugger says you could solve the problem of New York’s salmon cyclists by getting rid of one-way streets. Or at least installing contraflow bike lanes.
A Vancouver Op-Ed says bicycling is often more convenient than driving in major cities. I’ve found that true in Los Angeles, where I could commute from Westwood to DTLA in the same time it took to drive, with far less hassle and aggravation.
Milagro cómo sale el @Ride_Argyle sin que aparentemente le pase nada (el coche está bien aparcado y la curva no es peligrosa. Es un descuido) pic.twitter.com/xCGQW4jyCG
And left to die in the street, literally within site of her own home.
The driver, Ricardo Hernandez Sandoval, was arrested less than an hour later after horrified witnesses followed him to his home. He was booked on charges of felony hit and run, felony DUI and vehicular manslaughter.
Now I’ve been informed that he was sentenced on Friday to four years for vehicular manslaughter under the influence, and five years for the fatal hit-and-run, to be served consecutively.
In other words, nine years total, along with fines and restitution.
I’m also told the assistant DA had to wipe tears from his eyes when Gresham’s children gave their witness statements.
It won’t bring Deborah Gresham back. But for once, a fallen SoCal cyclist got justice from the courts.
According to the story, the City of Los Angeles settled with 17 bicyclists last year for a total of $19 million, over four times more than in any previous year.
That’s $19 million that could have gone to fixing the streets before anyone got hurt, rather than waiting until it was too late.
It was those settlements that inspired Councilmember Mitch Englander’s misguided proposal to ban the striping of bike lanes on any streets with less than an A pavement grade, and removing any existing ones from streets with a B or less.
Which would leave few, if any, bike lanes anywhere in Los Angeles.
And only serve to increase the city’s liability when bike riders continue to get injured on streets that used to have bikeways.
The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee will meet tomorrow night in Hollywood; the BAC is the only official voice for bike riders in the City of LA.
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The LACBC has unveiled a new video explaining who they are and what they do as part of their 20th Anniversary Celebration.
A bike rider was hit by a car in Pacific Palisades last Wednesday; no word on how the victim is doing. The driver somehow claimed to be driving just 15 mph in a 45 mph zone at the time of the crash.
Slate says requiring bicyclists to wear sensors so self-driving cars don’t crash into them is cheating, and autonomous vehicles should be able to spot people riding bicycles on their own, without outside help.
Details have been released for this year’s Ride the Rockies bike tour through the Colorado high country; it will cover 418 miles and nearly 26,000 feet of vertical climbing in six days. And it will visit the tiny lakefront town where my mother worked as a waitress when she was just 18.
Seriously? The death of a Kansas cyclist competing in the state time trial in 2015 was the catalyst for a proposed state law prohibiting negligent driving. Except the penalty would be a whopping $45, which isn’t likely to change anyone’s driving habits.
Michigan is doubling the width of a four-foot bike lane and adding other safety improvements, after two women were killed there two years ago. Maybe they could try making improvements like that before someone gets killed. Which goes for Los Angeles, and everywhere else, as well.
January 16, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Sharing the road with flying cars, and maybe bike riders aren’t scofflaws after all
They drive among us.
Maybe you somehow managed to miss the multitude of new stories over the weekend about the allegedly stoned driver who managed to plant his car on the second floor of a dental shop in Santa Ana.
No, really.
According to reports, the driver, who hasn’t been publicly identified, hit a center median with enough force to launch his car into the air, across three lanes of traffic, and embed it into the wall of the shop while still gaining altitude.
The inevitable question of how fast he had to be traveling to launch his car with such force is only partially answered by security camera footage.
As well as the view from an oncoming bus that was nearly taken out by the airborne ballistic automobile.
But at least that one seems to have stuck to the ground.
Top photo from Orange County Fire Authority. Thanks to Erik Griswold and Wes Salmon for the heads-up.
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Pot, meet kettle.
It’s long been common knowledge, among drivers at least, that people who ride bicycles are a bunch of reckless scofflaws who pay no attention to the law.
Never mind that even the most reckless bike rider is primarily a danger to him or herself, while a reckless driver is a danger to everyone around them.
That should have changed a few years ago, when a study from the University of Colorado showed that drivers and bike riders broke the law at nearly the same rate — 8% to 9% for drivers, and 7% to 8% for bicyclists.
As well as a follow-up study that showed when drivers broke the law, they did it for convenience, while people on bikes did it out of concern for their own safety.
Except that the both studies were greeted with crickets by the mainstream media.
Let alone the motoring public.
Now another study has shown virtually the same thing.
In the end, the results indicated that cyclists were compliant with the law 88 percent of the time during the day and 87 percent of the time after dark. The same study determined that drivers who interacted with the study subjects complied with the law 85 percent of the time. In other words, drivers were slightly naughtier than the cyclists—even without measuring speeding or distracted driving.
In a conversation with three of the researchers who conducted the study, I asked if they had any insight into why the findings vary so significantly from public perceptions about scofflaw cyclist behavior. “Many drivers simply don’t know the rules that concern people on bikes,” says Cong Chen. “About how much space to give cyclists, for instance, or when riders should get the right of way.”
The study also offers suggestions on how to improve safety.
In any case, based on the study findings, the researchers offered a number of recommendations to help mitigate the frighteningly high rate of close calls. For infrastructure improvements, they suggested wider and protected bike lanes; reflective green markings on bike lanes; improved lighting on roadways that see significant bicycle traffic; and so-called “through lanes,” which reduce conflicts between bicyclists and turning vehicles at intersections by letting riders be safely positioned before cars turn. “Based on what we saw and measured, we recommend measures that promote separating more than sharing,” says Kourtellis. “We think creating buffers between cars and bikes is smart.”
But once again, don’t bother trying to find any mention of the study in the mainstream media.
Evidently, dispelling a widely held misperception too often used to demonize people on bicycles just isn’t news.
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Speaking of demonizing bicyclists, one Aussie rider caught skitching — holding onto a moving vehicle to hitch a ride — is used to attack everyone who rides a bike for wanting “extra rights” on the road.
Never mind that most bicyclists haven’t done that, and never will.
And the only extra right we want is the right to ride a bike, and get home in one piece.
Los Angeles County’s outgoing Health Services director says he didn’t expect to fall in love with LA after moving here from San Francisco, but riding his bike to work from Hancock Park to DTLA certainly didn’t hurt. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
Repaving started this past weekend on 6th Street between La Brea and Fairfax to prepare it for the half-measure safety improvements pushed through by Councilmember David Ryu, against the wishes of local residents who were fighting for a road diet. Any hope that the road diet might go through died following the fiasco in Playa del Rey, where recently installed road diets were yanked out after an outcry from motorists.
The latest Bike Talk podcast features John Russo and Karla Mendelson of Keep LA Moving, who successfully fought to have the Playa del Rey road diets removed, and want to halt any future lane reductions in the city.
You never know what you might find while riding your bike. Like a boa constrictor with a broken jaw on the side of a Bay Area highway. The good news is, the snake has fully recovered.
An Oregon town posts a sign telling drivers not to text and drive, in honor of a 16-year old boy who was killed by a texting driver while riding his bike. Which will undoubtedly cause every driver to put down their phones. If they even bother to read it.
Just a year after finishing a seven year, 43,000 mile around-the-world bike tour, an English man is planning to set a new record by riding across Europe in less than 20 days.
A British father shares gruesome photos of his son after the boy crashed face-first into a brick wall, saying it’s a reminder to always wear a helmet. Which might have actually helped, but only if he’d worn it over his face.
An Aussie woman says she deserves a reduced sentence because the bike rider she left bleeding on the side of the road while driving high on ice didn’t die, but merely suffered permanent, life changing injuries.
South African cyclist Louis Meintjes learned the hard way to put on sunscreen under his mesh jersey. I once ended up with the Canari logo tanned onto my back after wearing my favorite jersey a little too often.
The 26-year old driver fled the scene, but was arrested nearby after police found a white sedan with damage consistent with the collision. Fox 11 reports he was speeding at the time of the crash, and was found in his car obviously intoxicated.
He appears to have been riding a mountain bike with reflectors, but no lights are visible in the news reports.
A street view shows a four lane road on Western with center left turn lanes in both directions at San Marino, and no bike lanes. And little or nothing to slow a speeding drunk at that hour.
This is the 52nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 23rd in Los Angeles County; it’s also the eighth in the City of LA.
At least 19 of those 52 fatal crashes have been hit-and-runs.
He was thrown approximately 100 feet, which suggests he was struck at a significant rate of speed. The car veered into the center median before slamming into a palm tree, sheering it off at the base.
The victim, who hasn’t been identified, was taken to Harbor UCLA Medical Center, where he later died.
Thirty-year old Hawthorne resident Andrew Figueroa was arrested at the scene on suspicion of drunk driving, and could face a manslaughter charge.
A street view shows a divided roadway with three lanes in each direction, with an unsignalized intersection at either end of the block.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Detective John Dixon of the Hawthorne Police Department Traffic Bureau at 310/349-2701.
This is the 48th bicycling fatality in Southern California, and the 21st in Los Angeles County.
And it should be yet another reminder to always carry ID whenever you ride.
