Tag Archive for Earth Day

Fighting bike dismount law at Redondo Pier, active transportation lost in LA budget, and free Earth Day Metro Bikes

April 19, 2023 / / 5 comments

Happy Bicycle Day!

Which may not be exactly what you think. Or maybe it is.

Photo shows a bike dismount sign in Manhattan Beach, because I don’t have one from Redondo.

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I’ll let someone else start things off today.

Daryll Strauss writes that the Redondo Beach City Council was hearing a recommendation from city staffers last night about the long-standing requirement to walk your bike on the beachfront bike path as it passes the city pier.

Not to mention the ridiculous 5 mph speed limit as the bike path snakes through the pier parking garage, which makes it a challenge to keep your bike upright while getting anywhere close to it.

Redondo Beach Pier has a bike path that travels through the pier parking garage. The RBPD has begun a maximum enforcement ($300 ticket) policy requiring bicyclists to walk their bike through the garage through the south end of the pier. A distance of about 300 yards.

The laws in the city allow police to enforce a walk your bike requirement anywhere signs are posted, and signs can be posted anywhere city staff wants. There are signs and flashing lights that say walk your bike when flashing, but they flash all the time.

The South Bay Bicycle Coalition and the Redondo Beach Harbor Commission have recommended loosening the restrictions, but the recommendations from city staff is to keep the status quo.

This topic is on the agenda for the Redondo Beach City Council meeting tonight.

The staff recommendations are ludicrous. They don’t provide any data to justify their recommendations and make specious arguments. It basically comes down to the fact the police can’t legally enforce a speed limit so they’ll make it “walk your bike”. Their safety concerns for bicycles riding through turns, at an arbitrary 5mpg, are outright ludicrous and can be mitigated with textured pavement. It’s also ironic that they just installed a skate park on the pier which would have much larger safety issues.

I ride this route regularly. I completely understand walking my bike where the bike path crosses the main entrance of the pier when there is significant pedestrian traffic, but the majority of the restrictions are ridiculous.

This is the beginning of the process, so there may be an opportunity to change these rules if the city council doesn’t rubber stamp the staff recommendation tonight.

I always thought the requirement was absurd when I used to ride through there on a semi-regular basis.

Unfortunately, I received this too late to get the word out for last night’s meeting. But hopefully we’ll let you know if they reconsider it at a future meeting.

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As expected, Los Angeles Mayor Bass released her first budget yesterday.

It will take someone with more financial acuity than I possess to dig into it and see what she’s budgeted for alternative transportation, bikes and Vision Zero, and how it compares to previous years.

But a cursory examination didn’t reveal any mention of it in the budget, or in LAist’s detailed look at the budget. Which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

But maybe I’m not looking in the right place.

This is what she had to say on the subject when she was campaigning for mayor. We’ll see how much actually made it into the budget.

8. Prevent Traffic Fatalities and Champion Walking and Biking

Los Angeles has one of the highest rates of traffic fatalities in the nation 11 – and those deaths disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. 1213 That is unacceptable. Traffic safety is a public health issue.

Meanwhile, survey after survey shows that Angelenos don’t feel safe getting around their neighborhood on foot and by bike – even though they want to. 1415 Angelenos shouldn’t have to worry about being struck by a car when they’re trying to bike to work or walk their children to school. Bass will stand up for safe streets, and prioritize accessibility for the most vulnerable members of our community.

As Mayor, Bass will:

  • Treat street safety as the public health crisis it is, and leverage all available city resources to address unsafe speeds and save lives.
  • Prioritize first and last-mile access to transit so that all Angelenos can use the region’s growing rail and bus network.
  • Invest in street safety infrastructure that saves lives.
  • Create family-friendly bicycle and pedestrian routes to connect neighborhood destinations and transit stops.
  • Support and expand monthly open streets events across L.A. like CicLAvia that bring communities together.

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Metro Bike is offering free rides for Earth Day this Saturday.

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BikeLA, the former Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, supports a more equitable distribution of street space on Eagle Rock Blvd.

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The fight to preserve the MOVE Culver City streetscape — and keep it from reverting to the car sewer it used to be — comes to a head on Monday.

https://twitter.com/BikeCulverCity/status/1648361017196548100

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ActiveSGV is hosting a bike ride through Covina on May 6th.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1648453853682061312

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Berkeley bike riders demonstrate the right way to do a die-in, starting with having enough bodies to actually get some attention.

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1648519850753671170

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

No bias here. San Jose’s Mr. Roadshow agrees with motorists who demand that bike riders should pay their fair share for the roads we ride on, neglecting to consider that we already pay more than our share for the negligible damage we do to the streets — unlike the massive SUVs that threaten our safety while destroying our streets, and our world. Unfortunately, you’ll have to sacrifice your email address if you want to read it, however.

A New York man faces charges after intentionally driving his car up onto a sidewalk in an effort to run down a kid riding a bicycle, claiming the boy had attempted to steal his property. Which is not an excuse for attempting to use deadly force, as he’s about to learn the hard way.

Police in Surrey, England are looking for a man who stepped out of the darkness to attack a man riding a bicycle with some sort of weapon; the attack was captured on security cam, but the attacker’s face was hidden by a balaclava.

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

An Illinois man faces up to 30 years behind bars for riding his bicycle over a homeless man sleeping in a parking garage, then attacking the victim with both ends of an axe; the horrific assault only ended when the victim was able to reach an emergency phone.

A Singapore man was hospitalized with a brain bleed after he was struck by a “peloton of crazy cyclists” while riding his bike, none of whom stopped after the crash.

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Local 

Metro is hosting a virtual community meeting this afternoon to discuss the Rail to Rail Active Transportation Corridor Project, which will create a walking and biking pathway through Inglewood and South LA.

Santa Monica is planning safety improvements to deadly Wilshire Blvd, including “special markings at four intersections (to) create dedicated space for cyclists to safely cross Wilshire Boulevard.”

 

State

Bills to authorize speed cams and camera enforcement of bike lanes passed their first committee hearings in the state legislature; unfortunately, a bill that would rip out the bike lanes on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and replace them with another lane for motor vehicles did, too.

San Francisco bike advocates rallied to demand protected bike lanes on Arguello Blvd, where masters cycling champ and world record holder Ethan Boyes was killed earlier this month.

 

National

Distracted driving kills ten people a day in the US.

Fast Company says it’s time to undo bikeshare’s original sin, and subsidize it like the public asset it is.

In a surprising move, outdoor co-op REI is pulling out of ostensibly bike-friendly Portland.

A North Carolina paracyclist made a remarkable recovery to complete Monday’s Boston Marathon riding a recumbent handcycle, after he was severely injured in a collision with a pickup driver last July while training for the Para-Cycling Road World Championship.

Heartbreaking news from Florida, where an 83-year old man was murdered by a heartless hit-and-run driver, after he was struck by a motorcyclist while trying to ride his bike across the street; the motorcycle rider was critically injured, as well. Seriously, anyone who can still ride a bike at that age deserves a hell of a lot better. Then again, so does anyone else.

More bad Florida news, as Dartmouth College football coach Buddy Teevens had his leg amputated, as well as suffering spinal injuries, as a result of last month’s collision while he was riding his bike home from a restaurant; police naturally blamed him for the crash, and never bothered to test the uninsured driver for drug or alcohol use.

 

International

GCN demonstrates how to wrap handlebar tape on drop bars.

Winnipeg, Manitoba is holding an online auction of unclaimed bikes. The only problem is you’ll have to go there to pick it up if you win. 

England and Wales are on the verge of banning bicycle tires and inner tubes from being dumped in landfills, requiring them to be recycled, instead.

The parents of a young Scottish woman complain that “society has accepted death as a cost of getting from A to B,” after she was killed while riding her bike earlier this year.

Britain’s self-governing island of Jersey is the latest jurisdiction offering ebike rebates, with the equivalent of $372 for a standard ebike, or twice that for a cargo-ebike.

Remarkable news from France, where the 50-year old man who received the first double arm and shoulder transplant two years ago was able to ride a bicycle for the first time after losing both arms when he was electrocuted by power lines 25 years earlier.

The world’s longest purpose-built bike and pedestrian tunnel has opened in Norway, running 1.8 miles under a mountain.

Traffic deaths are up in the Netherlands, as the country suffers the highest bicycling death toll in nearly three decades — especially for riders over 75.

Switzerland is encouraging its citizens to bike to work this spring.

A Spanish man rode his bike 378 miles in just 20 hours to raise awareness and respect for people on bicycles. He certainly earned my respect.

An Indian man has developed a DIY ultrasonic dog repellent to stay safe riding his bike. Although maybe he could make it just a tad smaller before it hits the market.

Your next Taiwanese smart ebike could have a frame made of interlocking carbon triangles crammed with all the latest tech.

In yet another example of keeping a dangerous driver on the streets until it’s too late, Australian officials gave the visually-impaired driver who killed a 66-year old man riding a bike an unconditional driver’s license, despite failing the minimum vision test requirements and almost hitting parked cars during his driving test.

 

Competitive Cycling

The governing body for time trials in England, Scotland and Wales is introducing a standard road bike category to encourage more people to take part; no word on why Northern Ireland bike riders weren’t invited to play.

Indiana University’s student newspaper looks forward to the school’s iconic Little 500 bike race this weekend; the race was made famous by the equally iconic Breaking Away. Which is the movie that inspired me to buy a bike and start riding as an adult.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a loose plastic bag makes its home in your spokes while you ride. Now you can carry your bike across your back like a backpack; just be careful walking through crowds or going through doors.

And forget the diamond, and buy your beloved an engagement bike, instead.

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Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month. 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Riding a bike shouldn’t be so dangerous, a look at LA’s Vision Zero fail, and Garcetti cuts LA’s transportation budget

April 22, 2022 / / 5 comments

Happy Earth Day.

Or as Los Angeles officials call it, Friday.

LA’s elected leaders will undoubtedly pontificate and issue all kinds of public statements stressing the importance of protecting the earth and fighting climate change.

But won’t do a damn thing about it.

And if you happen to see outgoing CD5 Councilmember and current candidate for City Controller Paul Koretz, ask him how he can be a self-professed environmentalist while blocking bike lanes in his district.

………

He gets it.

In today’s must-read story, a columnist for the New York Times writes that riding a bicycle in the US shouldn’t be this dangerous.

Using the recent death of a 13-year old Mountain View boy as a starting point, Farhad Manjoo writes that the boy was right hooked by a truck driver who reportedly never saw the kind on his bike hidden in his blind spot.

And that Andre Retana and the man who killed him didn’t do anything. But Andre lost his life anyway, thanks to roads designed to prioritize automotive throughput over everything else.

Including human lives.

Manjoo goes on to say this —

The United States is in the midst of a traffic fatality crisis. Nearly 39,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes on American roadways in 2020, the most since 2007. American roads have grown especially dangerous to “nonoccupants” of vehicles — that is, bicyclists and pedestrians. In 2011, 16 percent of traffic deaths were of nonoccupants; in 2020 it was 20 percent. The trends are a major reversal — from the 1970s until the late 2000s, deaths on American roadways of bicyclists, pedestrians and people in cars had steadily declined. There are a number of potential reasons for rising deaths — among them that many more of our cars are big and deadly S.U.V.s, that states keep raising speed limits, that ride-sharing vehicles have made our roads more chaotic, and that people drove much more recklessly during the pandemic. But while many cities, states and the federal government have unveiled plans to mitigate the horror, progress has been elusive.

The intersection of El Camino and Grant Road illustrates a major part of the problem. A big reason our roads are unsafe is because they were designed that way — because, as the advocacy group Smart Growth America puts it, policymakers at nearly every level of government continue to prioritize the speedy movement of vehicles over the safety of everyone else on our streets. And even when the dangers of our bad roads become glaring, officials have limited options for fixing them.

Our roads are deadly because officials will still call the inevitable consequences of this ill-design a tragedy rather than a choice.

It’s more than worth taking a few minutes from your day to read the whole thing.

Go ahead, we’ll wait.

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Call this one another must-read.

LAist’s Ryan Fonseca looks at the failure of LA’s Vision Zero and the city’s mobility plan, citing a lack of funding and political will that has led to a dramatic increase in traffic deaths, rather than eliminating traffic deaths by 2025 as we were promised.

Despite putting both plans in motion more than six years ago, L.A.’s streets are deadlier now than they were then, especially for people walking.

In 2015, 186 people were killed in crashes on city streets. Last year, the death toll was 294, according to city data. Pedestrians make up the largest share of victims, with 132 people killed by drivers while walking last year. That’s up 50% from 2015.

Fed up, a coalition of safety advocates and community groups is working to get a measure on the local ballot this November. The measure would compel the city to follow its mobility plan whenever it repaves a street. That’s rarely happening now, according to the group, called Healthy Streets LA.

Once again, it’s worth a few minutes of your day to read the entire piece.

Because, to paraphrase the NYT’s Manjoo, riding a bike — or walking, or even driving or riding in a car — shouldn’t be this dangerous.

Or deadly.

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Unfortunately, the mean streets of Los Angeles aren’t likely to get any safer anytime soon, as the mayor’s new budget cuts $14 million from the city’s already underfunded transportation budget, while pumping another $125 million into the LAPD’s bloated $3.2 billion budget.

https://twitter.com/kennethmejiaLA/status/1516818957054791681

Things like this are why both the LA Times and I have endorsed Kenneth Mejia for city controller, because he’s already doing the controller’s job of digging into the city’s finances to uncover what’s hidden there.

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Los Angeles filled in yet another missing chunk of the LA River bike path in the San Fernando Valley, as the city works to complete the entire 72-mile pathway in time for the 2028 LA Olympics.

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So tell me again how bicyclists don’t ride in the damn bike lane?

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The estimable Will Campbell offers a video love letter to the little known 4th Avenue bike and pedestrian bridge over the !0 Freeway.

https://twitter.com/wildbell/status/1517199030052220928

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

More blowback for the coal-rolling Texas car tuner, as bike riders call for a boycott of the shop over the video of a driver enveloping a bicyclist in his truck’s exhaust, which was apparently posted by the shop owner, who somehow feels like he’s the victim the victim in the whole thing. Hint: He’s not.

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Local

A writer for the LA Times gets four of the five mayoral candidates on the record for their stands on environmental issues, including calls for better bike infrastructure; billionaire Rick Caruso evidently couldn’t be bothered to do more than email it in.

This, too, is the cost of traffic violence. A mountain lion was killed on the busy 405 Freeway just south of the Getty Center early Thursday morning, apparently trying to get across the massive billion dollar car sewer.

Over one hundred people turned out to honor fallen bike rider Andrew Jelmert with a ghost bike ceremony Wednesday night.

 

State 

Calbike credits their advocacy work for California’s 4th place ranking in the Bike League’s roster of bicycle-friendly states.

Costa Mesa opens a new bollard-protected bike lane on Bristol Street, while “enhancing” existing bike lanes on Baker Street. That protected lane is pretty much just separated bike lane marked by green plastid bollards that aren’t going to stop anyone.

La Jolla’s Traffic & Transportation Board unanimously approved plans to repave and restripe the city’s deadly Via Capri to narrow traffic lanes and add buffered bike lanes, after a $1.32 million settlement over a man who was killed when his motorcycle hit one of the street’s many potholes.

Fontana has decided to abandon an undeveloped piece of property the city has owned for 25 years, while vowing to continue the bike races that often start and end there.

Cambria’s Eroica California vintage bike ride returns to San Luis Obispo County next weekend.

 

National

Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss says bike companies may not be perfect when it comes to protecting the environment, but they should keep doing what they’re doing.

Low-income resident’s of Corvallis and Eugene, Oregon can get a $1,200 rebate on the purchase of an ebike.

The wives of fallen bicyclists Adam and Matthew Bullard, the Whittier brothers killed while riding near St. George, Utah, thanked tlocal residents for honoring the men with a ghost bike; the city is also moving forward with plans for a permanent memorial near the site.

Indiana University’s legendary Little 500 is set to roll this afternoon; the race was made famous in Breaking Away.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole an adaptive tandem bike belonging to a Missouri special needs kid.

 

International

The City Fix calls out five ways to cut oil and gas use through clean transportation, including building safe bicycling and walking infrastructure, and prioritizing both in transportation budgets. Unlike, say, the budget presented by LA’s mayor this week.

The Belize cycling federation called on all bicyclists to don their team jerseys to ride along with the funeral procession honoring cycling coach and race organizer Edison “Vintage” Usher, who died just days before his 49th birthday when the motorcycle he was riding with another man exploded while on their way to livestream a women’s cross country race.

Canadian mountain bikers call for an apology after an Adidas marketing manager wrote a “willfully ignorant” blog post “steeped in white privilege,” which they say suggests the reason women of color don’t succeed in the sport is due to their own lack of hard work.

The president of a Malaysian road safety research institute says there’s no law banning bike riders from any road in the country, as long as they adhere to basic safety requirements.

 

Competitive Cycling

VeloNews says Dutch pro Mathieu van der Poel may be wiser and more dangerous than ever after bouncing back from a nagging back injury.

Paris-Roubaix really was the Hell of the North for France’s Florian Sénéchal, who claims a spectator doused him with urine during the race. Yet he still managed to finish 13th, despite an earlier crash.

VeloNews offers photos from the first stage of this year’s Redlands Classic.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you just want to go for a buck naked bike ride. Nothing like biking with a goggles and bowtie wearing kitty.

And answering the age old question of why do bicyclists shave their legs?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Morning Links: DC bike advocate Dave Salovesh killed, DTLA cycle tracks starts work, and Metro Bikes free today

April 22, 2019 / / 5 comments

I lost a follower on Twitter last weekend. 

Which is nothing new.

Except this time it happened the worst possible way. 

Like a number of other people, I’ve followed Dave Salovesh, aka @darsal, for some time. And vice versa, for reasons only he knew.

The extremely popular DC bike advocate has been an outspoken supporter of protected bike lanes and safer streets, as well as taking action now to fight climate change. I’ve enjoyed his humor and insights, and learned a lot from him over the years.

Sadly, we won’t be following each other anymore.

Salovesh was killed Friday morning when the speeding driver of a stolen van ran a red light, crashed into a car and slammed into his bicycle before crashing into a tree.

It could be argued that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, collateral damage to someone else’s crime.

Except he was riding on one of the city’s most dangerous streets, where Salovesh had been fighting to get a protected bike lane.

Whether that would have been enough to save him, we’ll never know.  

Meanwhile, a bicycle columnist for a DC weekly remembers Salovesh as his good friend, confessing to raw emotions while adding that bike advocacy will go on, but it will be far less meaningful without him.

Over two hundred bike riders held a vigil and ghost bike ceremony in his honor on Sunday, starting and ending at the spot where the speeding car thief took his life. 

A DC TV station calls his death a cruel irony, while bike riders attending the vigil demand for safer streets for all bicyclists. 

And the city announced, just a little too late, that it would increase enforcement against drivers who stop or park in bike lanes.  

Which is another of the issues Salovesh had long fought for.

Meanwhile, I’ve lost an ally and a friend, albeit one Ive never met. 

And now, never will.

Photo of Dave Salovesh’s ghost bike and the spot where the driver’s car came to rest by Ryan Keefe. 

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LADOT is beginning work next weekend to convert the bike lanes on Spring and Main Streets in DTLA to two-way protected cycle tracks. 

Now let’s just hope they also do something to keep drivers the hell out of them. 

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Metro, Metrolink and other SoCal transit systems are offering free rides today in honor of Earth Day.

They’re also providing free rides on the Metro Bike bikeshare system. 

Or you can just ride your own bike, which is always free, with or without a code. 

Meanwhile, Metro celebrates Earth Day by beginning a three-year detour of the Expo Line bike path next to Jefferson Blvd today. 

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LA’s hit-and-run epidemic struck close to home last week, when a man was murdered by a hit-and-run driver on Sunset Blvd just walking distance from our apartment.

Even with the cane I’m currently confined to.

Compounding the tragedy, the victim was an Australian man who had been released from prison 12 years after he was wrongly convicted of murder.

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Pinkbike celebrated the weekend with videos of epic mountain bike fails. 

On the other hand, at least these people were out there riding, so there’s that.

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Local

Westwood Village applies for grants to improve the appearance and walkability of Westwood Blvd, as well as install bike racks. But apparently forgets to improve the actual streets and add bike lanes so people might actually use them. 

A writer for the USC paper says the future of LA sustainability begins with students, urging them to get involved at every level of planning and policy, including supporting more bike lanes. 

The LACBC’s next Sunday Funday Ride rolls May 5th, offering a preview of June’s popular LA River Ride. 

Claremont police ticketed bike riders and drivers in a crosswalk crackdown for rolling through the crosswalk instead of stopping for pedestrians, as the law requires. 

Food delivery drivers will get their own dedicated parking spaces in front of two restaurants in downtown Santa Monica for a three-month trial to keep them from double-parking in the bike lane. Now maybe they can do something about the FedEx and UPS drivers who park in the bike lanes on Ocean and San Vicente on a daily basis. 

 

State

Turns out the thief who stole a $5,000 bike from the Cyclist bike shop in Santa Ana just wanted to ride it, and cut off the ends of the handlebars because he’s a Phil Gaimon fan.

A San Diego community planning board voted to approve plans for a new cycle track in Point Loma. 

A bike rider was lucky to escape with minor injuries following a crash with a hit-and-run driver near the University of San Diego. 

A “gypsy family” of pedicab drivers stops in Coachella to provide rides at the music festival, one of several they serve as they make their way around the country. 

A San Jose newspaper says the popular road up Mt. Diablo needs more bike turnouts allowing drivers to pass bike riders without crossing the center line, and hopefully avoid the next crash. 

In a horrifying story, the CHP is looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a Merced woman to die on the side of the road after crashing into her bicycle; her body was found at 1 pm, hours after she was struck the previous evening. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know if she would have survived if she had been found sooner. Or if the coward who hit her had stopped to get help. 

 

National

Seattle bicyclists rode to all 27 public library branches in the city in an 11-hour, 70-mile ride to support investing in the city’s library system.

Speaking of Seattle, the city is bucking the trend by maintaining a fleet of dockless bikeshare bikes, even as providers pull dockless bicycles in favor of e-scooters. 

Talk about not getting it. A Texas man will spend the next ten years behind bars after repeatedly violating the terms of his probation for the hit-and-run death of a bike rider; he had originally gotten out after serving just 17 days of a two-year sentence thanks to a loophole in the law. You’d think someone would have enough sense to keep their nose clean after a gift like that. But apparently  you’d be wrong. 

She gets it. A Chicago letter writer says make safer bike lanes the norm. 

A Michigan outdoor campaign is putting a face on distracted driving by plastering photos of the victims of distracted drivers on billboards.

A Rhode Island man has spent the past nine years looking for a pair of nurses to thank them for saving his life after his front wheel locked up on a bike path.

A 74-year old New York man says he was attacked by a lawless gang of teenage bicyclists swarming down a riverfront path. 

The head of New York’s TransAlt advocacy group says the NYPD has to stop going out of its way to blame the victims. 

DC bike cops bust a prodigious bike thief, but aren’t able to find any of the bicycles he allegedly stole. 

Kindhearted Virginia deputies pitched in to buy a physically and emotionally impaired man a new bicycle when his was stolen, after they learned he had overcome the odds by learning to walk again following a crash left him in a coma.  

A South Carolina newspaper says not every street in the state has to be a Complete Street, but there are some where it’s necessary.   

 

International

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for children and young adults. 

London’s formerly bike-friendly Sunday Times now says a reported drop in bicycling levels in the UK is a victory for motorists “in their long-running battle with cyclists.”

A writer for The Guardian says cars are ruining our lives and triggering environmental disasters, and must be phased out within ten years. 

Dutch bike maker VanMoof has sold 11,000 ebikes worth a cool $33 million and change. 

Afghan women are demanding that their rights be preserved in any peace talks, including the hard-won ability to ride a bicycle. 

South African police are looking for a hit-and-run driver who fled the scene on foot after plowing into a 10 bicyclists, killing one and injuring seven others.

In a case of keeping an elderly driver on the road until it’s too late, an 86-year Australian man faces charges for dragging a food delivery rider under his car the length of a football field before fleeing the scene; the 23-year old woman he hit suffered extensive injuries, including severe burns. 

In yet another case of an elderly driver who shouldn’t be, a Japanese man crashed his car into a group of people waiting at an intersection, killing a mother and daughter who were sharing a bicycle and injuring eight others. Police suspect the 87-year old driver hit the gas pedal instead of the brake. 

Taiwan’s Penghu archipelago, made up of more than 90 islands and islets, is promoting bicycling tourism, saying it’s the best way for tourists to explore the area. 

Beijing is opening a four-mile, bicycle-only roadway with one lane in each direction, along with a reversible lane in the middle. 

 

Competitive Cycling

USA Cycling will field a national team at the Amgen Tour of California, naming ten young riders the team will be chosen from, including one who competes for an LA team. 

Belgium is mourning the death of track cycling great Patrick Sercu, considered one of the greatest of all time.

 

Finally…

Banned from riding your bike in a not-so-public public park. When you decide anyone who doesn’t ride like you do and go out of their way to ride in a bike lane is a selfish, entitled jerk.  

And if you’re carrying a number of controlled substances on your bike, don’t break any bylaws.

Whatever that means. 

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