The driver was apparently headed west on Rosecrans when she slammed into the victim, then crashed into a pair of parked cars, telling police she lost control after hitting “an unknown item in the roadway.”
An unknown item that turned out to be a man on a bicycle.
The driver suffered some sort of unspecified injury; police planned to arrest her once she was released from the hospital.
Unfortunately, there’s no other information available at this time.
This is at least the 49th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
October 1, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Socialite kills brothers in alleged drunken street racing crash, more endorsements, and Burbank bike/ped overpass opens
The hit-and-run driver had apparently been drinking, and may have engaged in street racing at the time of the crash.
According to KCBS-2, she was identified as a 57-year old socialite and humanitarian, who should have known better.
Rebecca Grossman, 57, was arrested on two counts of vehicular manslaughter and is being held on $2 million bail. She did not stay on the scene, and her white Mercedes with front-end damage was towed away about a half-mile from where the boys were struck.
Grossman is the founder and chair of the Grossman Burn Foundation, and has also been recognized for her humanitarian work across the world.
Now two little boys will never grow up.
And if there’s any justice, it will be a long time before she sees the light of day again.
Chris Buonomo reports a new Burbank bicycle/pedestrian bridge is finally open, complete with nifty curved fencing to keep anyone from throwing things over the side. Or jumping.
A major ruling from a California appeals court, which overturned one of the biggest limitations on damage awards for injured bike riders, ruling that encountering a giant pothole is not an inherent risk of long-distance bicycling. That could open the way for all kinds of damage awards for bike riders — especially if the people responsible for the roadway already knew about the problem. Thanks to Phillip Young and Richard Duquette for the heads-up.
There’s no word on whether the victim had lights to reflectors on his bike, or if there was anything other than Bumpus’ alleged drunken state that would have kept him from avoiding the victim’s bike.
The Monday night crash in Garden Grove left a man in critical condition with major head trauma.
And yes, the victim reportedly had the right-of-way.
Not that it mattered.
Garden Grove resident Victor Medina was arrested a quarter-mile away when police found his Chevy Suburban with major front-end damage, while Medina showed signs of intoxication.
Anyone with information is urged to call Garden Grove Traffic Investigator Paul Ashby at 714/741-5823.
Let’s hope the victim makes a full and fast recovery.
In other words, what some of us do every day, anyway. Virus or not.
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A quick reminder that CicLAvia isn’t the only open streets game in town.
March Madness is upon us! Come on down to Beach Streets University where we have entertainment for the entire family. From the trackless train, art installations, rock climbing, live music, BMX demo, and FREE youth skate lessons. March 21st is just around the corner. pic.twitter.com/DkLNE7FsgJ
A new interactive map shows the most dangerous places for bike riders in Santa Clara County. Although Robert Leone questions whether defense lawyers will use it to argue that bicyclists should have known better than to ride there. Or that their clients can’t be guilty, because officials should have fixed the problems right away. Which they should, but still.
Residents of a Las Vegas neighborhood want a new bike lane removed because they didn’t see a lot of bike riders riding there before it went in. Which is kind of like saying they didn’t see a lot of cars crossing the desert before the roads were built, either.
Life is cheap in Iowa, where a retired cop walked with a shameful two years probation for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle. If you ever wonder why people keep dying on our streets, the failure of our court system to hold drivers accountable for killing people — let alone fleeing the scene afterwards — is Exhibit A.
No bias here. A Staten Island op-ed argues that speed cameras placed near schools are just a money grab, because if officials really wanted drivers to slow down, they’d say where the cameras are. That way drivers could slow down for half a block to avoid a ticket, then speed up and resume putting the lives of little kids at risk.
March 2, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Killer drunk driver walks free after 23 days, racist bike-hater gets probation, and 1/2 mile extension for Chandler Bikeway
My thanks to everyone who sent me links over the weekend.
Because of today’s overstuffed post, and the need to sleep sometime tonight, I’ll try to catch up on the rest tomorrow.
Which wouldn’t exist if Metro and the city hadn’t caved to a handful of NIMBY homeowners who were afraid thieves would ride bikes up to their homes to steal their flatscreen TVs.
No, really.
Because apparently, criminals don’t drive. And couldn’t accomplish the same thing by just driving up to their front doors.
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Why is it that bike safety goes out the window whenever someone wants to make a movie in Los Angeles?
A British driver complains that a mountain biker plowed into his car as he was stopped at a red light, then brutally attacked him when he got out to see if the bike rider was okay, while a young boy begged the attacker to stop. Although something tells me there might be another side to the story in which the driver is not wholly innocent.
Some people just don’t get it. A St. Paul letter writer says no one can commute or carry groceries on a bike, and people will stop riding when they get older. All of which is refuted by people who do it every day.
A new report from the International Transport Forum concludes that 80% of bicycling and e-scooters fatalities involve motor vehicles and the people who drive them. And traffic safety will improve if car, truck and motorcycle trips are replaced by scooters and bikes.
London is dropping speed limits to 20 mph in areas of the city used most by pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. Which compares to speeds of 45 mph or more on some LA streets.
If you have the patience to click through all 51 pages, you’ll see we’re in good company here in the late, great Golden State, with San Francisco checking in at #3, followed by San Jose at #4.
Also in America’s top — or maybe bottom 50, you’ll find San Diego at #12, Riverside at #16, Sacramento at #18, Fresno #27, and Bakersfield at #31.
Yes, Bakersfield.
The good news, though, is that Los Angeles has only the 31st worst traffic worldwide. So it could be worse.
And probably will be if we keep adding more and more cars to the streets, without providing safe alternatives to driving.
Although Southern California is well represented by San Bernardino (#3), Chula Vista (#6) and Bakersfield (#11).
Yes, bucolic, fog-shrouded Bakersfield is the only SoCal city to make both unlucky lists. If you want to stretch the definition of Southern California a little.
However, the point of the second list is to show how many of those people killed in each city were wearing helmets at the time of the crash. Bakersfield checks in with a big, fat zero, as does Chula Vista; San Bernardino does a little better with 14% helmet use.
As always, though, there’s no breakdown on how many of those people died as a result of head injuries, or whether their injuries might have been survivable even with a helmet.
So take it with a grain of salt. If not an entire bag.
But you might want to be careful riding in Bakersfield.
Naturally, the driver played the universal Get Out of Jail Free card, claiming he never saw the victim until he was on his hood.
But about a month later, the guy on the bike was sued in small claims court for $900 in damages to the car that hit him.
Somehow, though, the location of the crash described in the suit moved from a surface street to an Interstate highway. And instead of rear-ending the victim, the driver claimed the guy on the bike hit him while pedaling at 60 mph.
Or maybe 80.
When a reporter asked him about the bike’s remarkably high speed, the pizza man claimed it was doable if the victim was riding an expensive bike.
So maybe those $12,000 or more bikes are worth it, after all.
Despite telling officers he’d had just one beer four hours earlier, his BAC measured 0.17 — over twice the legal limit, or “super drunk” under Michigan law.
But he will get eight days credit for time served.
Just to be clear, alcoholism is a disease.
But deciding to get behind the wheel after drinking — or on the saddle of a motorized bike — is just plain, old fashioned stupidity.
That’s exactly the kind of truck that killed nine-year old Nicholas Vela in Anaheim in 2009, because the driver couldn’t see a little kid riding his bike in the crosswalk directly in front of him after he stopped for a stop sign.
I’ve never forgotten the sheer, effing needlessness of Vela’s death, all because a driver somehow felt the need to jack up his pickup to the maximum level allowed by law.
Something tells me he never will, either.
Maybe someday someone can tell me why machines like this are even allowed on the streets.
Calbike is hosting their annual California Dream Ride down the Left Coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles in October. And not only are ebikes allowed, they’ll let you borrow one if needed.
It may not be the carfree street that’s been discussed, but San Francisco’s Valencia Street will be getting protected bike lanes, complete with protected intersections.
While I’m told the first South LA CicLAvia had a smaller turnout than some of the other CicLAvias, several people have said it was one of their favorites.
Unfortunately, I missed it when I was first diagnosed with diabetes and neuropathy. I don’t plan on letting that happen again.
Meanwhile, CicLAvia will be hosting their annual fundraiser on the 2nd.
We're kicking off the year with CeLAbrate! – our all-ages fundraiser on Feb 2. Buy a ticket & join us for delicious brunch (mimosas, juice & coffee, pastries, breakfast tacos & other goodies), fun and games with friends, & the unveiling of our 2020 season https://t.co/MUiMa6HwPSpic.twitter.com/t5WMPJevFq
Whether this tragic shooting was justified will undoubtedly hinge on the officer’s dash cam and body cam videos, and whether they show the victim brandishing the part like a gun, or merely holding it in his hand.
Either way, it once again points to our society’s continuing failure to care for the homeless and mentally ill.
Thanks to everyone who sent this for the heads-up.
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You might need to find another route through Culver City to the coast for the next three weeks.
The Ballona Creek Bike Path entrances and exits will experience closures from January 21 – February 14 due to an educational art installation.
Once again, authorities do their best to keep a dangerous driver on the streets until it’s too late, as Chris Willig forwards news of a Bay Area man who was busted for drunk driving – while he was out on parole for his 11th DUI.
Yes, eleven.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
A Long Beach man is on trial for murder after shooting another man in the face during an argument over a bicycle and which of them owned it. Once again, no bicycle is worth your life; if it comes down to that, just let them take it. And no bicycle is worth killing for, either. Thanks to John Damman for the tip.
About damn time. A Colorado state senator proposes a bill that would give people on bicycles the unquestioned right-of-way in a bike lane. There’s simply no excuse for making bike riders second-class citizens in our own traffic lanes. So how about doing the same thing here in California?
The Scottish round-the-world cyclist who was nearly killed when he was run down by a Texas driver should finally be flying home this week, despite a fractured skull.
Life is cheap in Wales, where a driver got just 27 months behind bars when detectives tracked her down for fleeing the scene after slamming her car into four family members riding their bikes, seriously injuring three of them — including one woman who nearly died from a pair of heart attacks while waiting for paramedics.
Scottish bicyclists took matters and rakes into their own hands to remove dangerously slick leaves from a bike path, doing in two hours what the local government couldn’t get done in four months.
After hitting him, the 20-something driver continued on to smash into a parked car.
The victim, described only as a 60-year old man, died at the scene. Police note that he was not homeless, despite the early morning hour.
They also say the area is well-lighted and not considered dangerous for people on bicycles, and that the victim had lights on his bike; video from the scene clearly shows front and rear blinking lights.
Which means there was no excuse for taking the life of an innocent human being.
As if there ever is.
This is at least the 67th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 30th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; half of those deaths have occurred in the City of Los Angeles.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
October 30, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Big Easy drunk driver gets 91 years, Cathedral City bike rider critically injured, and safety in numbers real
Come back after 10 am today for a guest post from our anonymous courtroom correspondent, as she updates a number of recent stories — including the case of hit-and-run driver Pratiti Renee Mehta, who walked despite showing no remorse for her crime, or any sympathy for her victim.
Your next ebike could be a California bikemaker’s 36 mph bicycle made to look look like a vintage motorcycle, and designed by the grandson of the legendary Carrol Shelby. Although the 36 mph top end means it will require a helmet and a motorcycle license. And can’t be ridden in bike lanes or pathways.
Zwift wants you to help raise $25,000 for Movember to help fight prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health struggles and suicide prevention by riding your bike indoors.
Bike Magreviews the updated Camelbak Podium bottle, and flips over now being able to disassemble the lid to clean it. However, the insulated Podium Ice water bottle remains the best bike bottle ever in my book.
No surprise here, as the family of the British man killed by an American diplomat’s wife while riding his motorcycle, who fled the country after claiming diplomatic immunity, is suing the Trump administration for its handling of the case.
Stephen Taylor Scarpa’s arraignment, scheduled for last Friday, was delayed again.
There are so many facets of this case that don’t look good for him: his status as an addict; his admission during interrogation that he should not have been driving; the amount and sheer number of drugs in his system; the presence in his vehicle of drugs obtained from an alleged overprescriber; his crash after “passing out” behind the wheel earlier in the year… etc.
He’s going down.
What perplexes me is the murder charge, because I can’t find any evidence of a prior DUI conviction — within LA or Orange County, at any rate. He could have priors elsewhere.
The Watson law is specific in its requirements: party has to be informed upon a DUI conviction of the possibility of a murder charge if said party kills someone while DUI.
So, this would mean, wouldn’t it, that Scarpa’s been convicted in some court at some point within the past 10 years?
A Watson advisement notwithstanding, PSA’s, American alcohol ads, and the DMV paperwork you sign before the state issues you a license all tell you that DUI is dangerous. But is that bombardment of facts enough to define malice, which is a required component of murder?
There’s one other thing that might convince a jury that Scarpa was aware of the dangers of DUI, enough so to convict of murder and not just manslaughter.
In 2011, as a student at Esperanza High, he participated in an Every Fifteen Minutes event, which is pretty comprehensive. In addition to pulling “dead” students out of classrooms every 15 minutes, a simulated collision is set up on campus, with the driver “arrested,” and moulaged “injured” & “dead” students extricated from the wreckage. These actors don’t go home that night; they’re sequestered overnight at a hotel, where they write a “Today I died” letter to their parents. (The parents also write to their dead kids.) The next day, these letters are read aloud at a school assembly.
Scarpa was one of the dead who was extricated from a mangled vehicle, who told his parents he died, who read this letter to his entire school.
I hope, every night before he falls asleep, he thinks of all the letters Mike Kreza never gets to write.
Pratiti Renee Mehta is back from her vacation in Chowchilla Women’s Facility. She’s in custody in County, awaiting a court appearance this morning. I will be there, because I am a horrible person and will enjoy seeing her violent, unrepentant ass in saggy jail-issued fashion and shackles. The sentencing was in July, and I missed it. How it wasn’t on my calendar, I dunno. (Busy week with the PAC on the 18th and the Caltrans D7 BAC on the 19th, but I wouldn’t have skipped the sentencing for anything.)
Due to a “clerical inadvertency,” Mehta had been sent up to state prison prior to a required sentencing assessment.
According to court records, on July 17th, the Defense’s request to reduce the felony hit-and-run count to a misdemeanor was denied, and then the judge sentenced Ms. Mehta to 3 years in state prison.
Two other things surprise me about the sentence: (1) The judge actually threw the book at her, wow. (2) The People didn’t request anything close.
That’s right, the People actually requested leniency: 90 days in County and an additional 200 hours of community service. For a woman who broke a guy’s bones, left him in the street, and then put in deliberate effort to lie to the cops about it. I remain furious that the ADW charge didn’t stick.
Hannah Jordan suffers from an unknown metabolic disorder that prevents her body from storing glucose; when she started on an intravenous formula from a Santa Barbara company, she began to thrive — and kick ass on her bicycle.
She’ll compete in Phil Gaimon’s hillclimb competition on Gibraltar Road with the feeding tube attached, then may train for international competition at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs CO.
And yes, her tube has been approved for competition.
There’s a special place in hell for a Japanese man who rode his bike up from behind a bike-riding 17-year old girl and groped her breast as he rode past, telling police he just couldn’t control his lust for her. Which should be read as a confession from a total asshole.
Streetsblog says Gavin Newsom’s veto of the state’s Complete Streets bill stinks, and that Caltrans’ reasoning for fighting it is “hogwash.” Someone suggested that we should now call getting hit by driver on a Caltrans-controlled street “getting Newsomed,” just like we called a close pass “getting Jerry Browned” after he repeatedly vetoed the three-foot passing law.
Virgilio Lemus Garcia, the 60-year old victim in Sunday’s Santa Ana hit-and-run, remains in grave condition; police are looking for a dark blue mid-’90s, four-door Honda Civic with probable front end damage and a possible shattered windshield.
Apparently never having heard of induced demand, Caltrans will close San Diego’s Friars Road this weekend in preparation for adding a fourth lane in each direction, along with sidewalks and bike lanes. Hopefully, they’ll also consider how the hell pedestrians are supposed to cross that massive monstrosity.
Apparently, it’s okay to be nuts for nuts. But don’t eat too many because they can cause kidney stones, as I learned the hard way.
A new survey from Lime says scooter users don’t want to ride on the sidewalks, but do it anyway because they don’t feel safe on the street. Which is exactly the same reason many bike riders do. And the answer isn’t threatening or ticketing them, it’s building more and better bike lanes.
Kansas City’s mayor wants to rip out a new protected bike lane less than a month after it was installed, saying it’s made things very difficult for businesses and residents. Apparently, it must have been installed on a whim, without any studies, since he wants to remove it the same way; any change to a roadway requires time for people to adjust to it before you know how its going to work out.
A new British study shows a cheap, widely available drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide if given in the first few hours after a head injury; the medication, called tranexamic acid, costs the equivalent of less than $8 in the UK. Which means it will probably sell for a couple thousand dollars a dose in the US.
And it’s not a record jump if you don’t stick the landing.
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Thanks to John Hall for his generous donation to support this site, and help keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way (nearly) every day.
