I hope you had a good, environmentally conscious Earth Day yesterday.
I celebrated by spending most of the day on it.
Meanwhile, today’s image is Metro’s new limited-edition Earth Day TAP card; the fully functional bamboo TAP cards are available at any Metro Customer Center until they run out.
AB 1557, which redefines an ebike as having a motor limited to maximum of 750 watts, and lowers the maximum assisted speed for Class 1 and Class 2 ebikes to 16 mph, passed out of the Assembly Transportation Committee 12-0; the purpose is to clearly distinguish ebikes from e-motos of questionable legality.
AB 2284 passed the committee with 15 votes in favor; it would require the state Attorney General to maintain a public list of electric two-wheeled devices that don’t meet the state’s legal definition of an ebike.
Now for the bad news.
AB 1942 also passed the committee, and would mandate that all Class 2 and Class 3 ebikes have to be registered with the DMV and display license plates, just like cars, trucks and SUVs. It would be one of the most effective ways to put the brakes on ebikes, limit the growth of an otherwise legal alternative to driving, and start us down the slippery slope that could lead to licensing regular bikes and their riders.
Somewhere in between good and bad, and also moving forward, are AB 1569, which requires students from kindergarten up to complete an approved electric bicycle safety training course before they could park an ebike on school grounds, and AB 2595, which creates a pilot program allowing cities in San Mateo County to ban kids under 12 from riding any form of ebike.
Mejer had been warned by deputies last year that the Surron Ultra Bee she purchased for her son was an illegal electric motorcycle capable of speeds up to 58 mph, and that her son had been riding it recklessly.
She is accused of lying to investigators about after the crash, claiming neither she nor her son owned a similar e-moto.
Meanwhile, former Marine pilot and substitute teacher Ed Ashman remains hospitalized, facing a long and costly recovery; a crowdfunding page to help pay his medical expenses has raised over $87,000 of the $90,000 goal.
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The Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council is hosting a CD13 City Council candidate forum next Thursday.
My finely honed political instincts tell me incumbent Hugo Soto-Martinez will probably cruise to re-election in the June primary. But I’m often, if not usually, wrong about such things, so take that with a bag of salt.
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The City of LA reminds us about the first West LA CicLAvia this Sunday.
Get ready for the first @CicLAvia of 2026! Step into the open streets of CicLAvia—West LA on Sunday, April 26, 2026, from 9 am to 4 pm. Whether walking, jogging, or biking, experience 3 miles of car-free streets along Santa Monica Boulevard and Westwood Boulevard.🚶♂️🏃♀️🚴♂️ pic.twitter.com/L81d9DtjBh
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes — and pedestrians — just keeps on going.
County officials in Ireland are urging the country’s government to reconsider a plan for mandatory hi-visibility clothing at night for bicyclists and e-scooter users, even though the initial plan to require hi-viz collapsed within a day from a withering backlash; then again, they’re also calling for pedestrians to wear hi-viz when walking 24/7. Which is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The Victor Valley News reports an ebike rider was hospitalized after being struck by a driver Wednesday evening — although photos of the bike make it look at lot more like a dirt bike or e-moto than anything that could be classified as an electric bicycle under current California law.
The boy was reportedly riding recklessly when he collided with the victim as the older man was crossing the street. Deputies identified the suspect and arrested him after serving a search warrant at a nearby home in Lake Forest.
The Orange County Sheriffs Department reports he was on a Surron e-motorbike, which is not street legal and can reach speeds up to 68 mph, depending on the model.
And thanks to the OCSD for making it clear the boy on an e-moto, and not a Class 1, 2 or 3 ped-assist ebike.
Although whether the results can be replicated in other car-dependent countries, such as the US, remains to be seen.
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We could be getting bike lanes on Vermont Ave after all.
Although the motion only calls on the city to study adding bike lanes to the project. And as well all know, studying is what this city does best, rather than actually, you know, doing anything.
Video circulated throughout the Mideast showing the President of Iran casually riding a bike with the governor of Isfahan and other officials over the weekend, appearing unfazed by the American and Israeli attacks.
Once again, a bike trail has apparently been sabotaged, this time in France near the Swiss border, when someone strung a cable across the trail at eye level that knocked two kids off their bicycles while on a family outing.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Maybe it’s the result of a bad translation. Two sets of South Korean parents were arrested and released on charges of child neglect after their middle school kids reportedly threatened people with their “Pixie” bikes, the site says is an abbreviation for “fixed-gear.” Can’t speak for you, but “pixie bike” kinda has a ring to it.
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Local
An op-ed in the new Rupert Murdoch-owned California Post looks at LA’s invention of the phrase “large asphalt repair” rather than repaving, which would trigger legal mandates increasing the costs, concluding that fewer streets will get fixed and we’ll all be worse off as long as “fixing a street means triggering a cascade of costly mandates.”
The Smithsonian, of all sources, looks at the history of yesterday’s Bicycle Day, 83 years after Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally ingested LSD before bicycling home from his lab in Basel, Switzerland, taking the first trip on two wheels.
Taiwan’s Giant bicycle is reportedly on the verge of launching the first ebike powered by a semi-solid-state battery, a step between lithium-ion and solid-state batteries, which could provide more energy for less weight, longer life and less risk of fires.
And state and local government, from the governor and legislature on down to the mayor, city council and school board, are out to lunch…
But the bottom line is this: Government at all levels is failing to lead, course-correct, and address –– with even minimal efficacy –– a range of issues that increasingly degrade life here.
In fact, elected officials, driven by cronyism, interest-group pressure and out-of-touch far-left ideology, mostly make the crises worse.
Look, I’m no fan of our current city leaders, but life here ain’t all that bad.
It just could be a lot better.
And something tells me, we might not agree on who the special interests are. Never mind what “far-left” ideologies are just practical solutions that we haven’t been tried yet.
Like building more bike lanes and providing safe, practical alternatives to driving, rather than doubling down on the same things that got us in this mess.
Liberal hellfire and damnation — or maybe just fire — photo by Sergey Meshkov from Pexels.
California lawmakers are right to be concerned about the spread of high-powered electric devices marketed as e-bikes. There is some truth behind the now-familiar image of 12-year-olds doing wheelies through suburban streets on machines far more powerful than a legal electric bicycle. But too many of this year’s bills respond to that concern by going after the wrong target, and they will not deliver the results anyone actually wants. Instead of drawing a clear line between legal e-bikes and illegal e-motos, these proposals blur it further. They add burdens to the bikes people actually rely on, while failing to directly address the devices creating the confusion in the first place.
California needs to protect the promise of e-bikes, not let the e-moto backlash distort the law. In this century, e-bikes have been one of the most important transportation success stories in the state. They help people replace car trips. They expand access to biking for older adults, working families, and people who might not otherwise ride in hilly terrain. They make biking more practical for longer distances, hills, errands, school dropoff, and everyday life. In a state that talks constantly about climate, congestion, affordability, and mobility, e-bikes should be an obvious part of the solution, and under settled California law, they already are.
It’s worth checking out.
And taking just a few moments to voice your support.
Investigators still don’t have a suspect, but describe the vehicle as a Toyota Previa van that sped away west on Anaheim.
Anyone with information is urged to call LBPD Collision Investigation Detail Detective David Doughtery at 562/570-7355, or anonymously through LA Crime Stoppers at 800/222-TIPS (8477) or LACrimeStoppers.org.
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Streets Are For Everyone is joining with CD4 to call for help cleaning up the Forest Lawn Drive bike lanes on Saturday, April 25th ahead of this year’s Finish the Ride in Griffith Park (and good luck to Kayla as she competes in Hong Kong). For some reason, I can’t embed Instagram Reels, so you’ll have to click on the link.
SAFE is also celebrating the re-opening of the Marvin Braude Bike Trail in Pacific Palisades after it was washed out by last year’s storms, as well as progress on bike lanes in Griffith Park.
Finally, SAFE and Finish the Ride are bringing back the city’s much loved and lamented LA River Ride on May 3rd. And yes, it will still contain that confusing stretch south of DTLA where the bike path hasn’t been completed, and probably won’t be for some time.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits Santa Monica’s MANGo.
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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks healthcare while vlogging from her bike seat.
Thanks to Megan for forwarding the video.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
British bicyclists may be in for a surprise, after an English city finally got around to installing flexible wands to keep drivers from illegally parking in a bike lane. Which if Los Angeles drivers are any example, won’t actually stop anyone.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The Pasadena City Council unanimously approved plans for the 710 Freeway stub, including housing and multimodal transportation initiatives, but wants to talk more about restorative justice for the mostly Black residents who were unceremoniously shoved out to make room for the never-built freeway.
Louisville, Kentucky has painted new downtown bike lanes a bright shade of neon green, not to keep drivers out, but to make them more obvious to pedestrians, who were falling off the curbs. Evidently, they don’t film many movies or TV shows there, because that looks like the same shade Hollywood producers went to war against here in Los Angeles.
Shockingly, business owners have “concerns” over a proposed new bike lane on a New York thoroughfare. In other words, kinda like every business owner everywhere when new bike lanes go in. Never mind that studies show their business is usually better within a few months afterwards.
Oopsie. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said recently that just 1,700 people use a new bikeway each day; that turned out to be the number of people who use the new showers at the end of the path, compared to 7,000 people who used the actual pathway in just a four-hour window.
Before we get started, I hope you’ll join me in thanking Cohen Law Partners for renewing their ad and their support for another year.
Looking back, they’ve helped sponsor this site for 13 years now.
It’s their support, and that of our other sponsors, that allows me to keep bringing this site your way every day.
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Now that’s more like it.
I saw this Tennessee license plate while riding in my wife’s car in West Hollywood on Sunday. And could only wish we had something like it in California.
A Bicycle Awareness license plate was in the works a few years back, but to the best of my knowledge, it ever got enough pre-orders to go into production, though I’d love to be corrected on that.
But even that wouldn’t directly address the three-foot passing law, or any other specific bike safety laws, like specifying our right to take the lane in most cases.
But we can hope, I guess.
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WTF?
Patch offers a muddled, barely comprehensible look at the rise of ebikes, focusing primarily on enforcement and injuries, while not only conflating the usual ped-assist bikes and e-motorbikes, but also tossing e-scooters into the mix while they’re at it.
In fact, they offer only one sentence addressing the difference between legal ebikes and illegal e-motos.
Law enforcement and researchers alike caution that rising injury numbers mirror the explosion in ridership. Still, confusion between legal e-bikes and higher-powered “e-motos” continues to complicate enforcement and policy. That confusion has triggered a wave of legislation.
That’s it.
Then there’s this, as they loop older, helmetless e-scooter jockeys into the mix.
Because they can, I guess.
Not all accidents or scofflaws involve children or teens. On Wednesday a 61-year-old Petaluma man traveling on the wrong side of a sidewalk on an electric scooter without a helmet collided with a pedestrian. However, accidents are more common among youth. And a study by the Mineta Institute reported that existing evidence points to a wide variety of people using electric bicycles for transportation, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities. The study’s authors also noted that electric bicycle patients 65-years and older had both the highest hospitalization rate and highest head injury rate.
They also say a part of the problem is a lack of age limits, while failing to mention that California passed a law last year allowing cities to ban ebikes for younger riders, and faster e-mopeds and e-motos require a license.
And that Class 3 ebikes are limited to riders over 16 — as are e-scooters and hoverboards, for that matter.
But the last half of the piece is devoted entirely to a debate over Lamorinda Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan’s AB 1942, which would require visible licenses for all ebikes, and Encintas State Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, which creates a clear distinction between ebikes and e-motos, while banning deceptive advertising promoting the latter.
In case anyone needs a refresher, here is how ebikes are currently classified under California law.
Streetsblog LA’s “This Week in Livable Streets” is always a must read to keep up on all the meetings and events happening each week in safer streets and livable communities, as well as our own wonderful world of bicycles.
So apparently, the people in the big, dangerous machines don’t have to obey traffic signals or pass safely if someone on a bike isn’t in a bike lane.
Never mind all the other little things like not speeding, not driving distracted as long as you minimize the distractions, or even swigging some swill before getting behind the wheel.
And bike riders are free to do all kinds of stupid and potentially dangerous things, as long as they don’t ride salmon and stop for red lights.
Got it.
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Gravel Bike California rides the Redlands Strada Rossa XII(4K).
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Police in Florida went out of their way not to blame an elderly driver for a collision that injured two triathletes, using the most passive language possible by reporting that “The driver and bicyclists ‘did not identify” each other ‘until the crash was unavoidable'” — even though the 74-year old driver right-hooked them on a lane that was supposed to be closed to traffic.
Visit California explains how to get around Los Angeles without a car, but somehow forgets to mention walking or riding a bike. Or even renting a damn scooter, for that matter.
A pair of Navy vets plan to ride from California to Shanksville, Pennsylvania and on to New York City to mark the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, while benefitting the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. California is a big place, though, so maybe they should mention where they’ll be leaving from.
Heartbreaking news from Spartanburg, South Carolina, where two kids were killed by an alleged drunken, unlicensed driver violating the open container law; the victims, just 9 and 12-years old, were riding their bikes on the sidewalk when the driver jumped the curb.
Before we get started, I hope you’ll join me in thanking Cohen Law Partners for renewing their ad and their support for another year.
Looking back, they’ve helped sponsor this site for 13 years now. Their support, and that of our other sponsors, is how I can continue to keep bringing this your way every day.
………
Now that’s more like it.
I saw this Tennessee license plate while riding in my wife’s car in West Hollywood on Sunday. And could only wish we had something like this in California.
A Bicycle Awareness license plate was in the works a few years back, but I don’t think it ever got enough pre-orders to go into production, though I’d love to be corrected on that.
But even that wouldn’t directly address the three-foot passing law, or any other specific bike safety laws, like specifying the right to take the lane.
But we can hope, I guess.
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WTF?
Patch offers a muddled, barely comprehensible look at the rise of ebikes, while focusing primarily on enforcement and injuries, and conflating not only the usual ped-assist bikes and e-motorbikes, but tossing e-scooters into the mix while they’re at it.
In fact, they offer only one sentence addressing legal ebikes and illegal e-motos.
Law enforcement and researchers alike caution that rising injury numbers mirror the explosion in ridership. Still, confusion between legal e-bikes and higher-powered “e-motos” continues to complicate enforcement and policy. That confusion has triggered a wave of legislation.
That’s it.
Then there’s this, as they loop older, helmetless e-scooter jockeys into the mix.
Because they can, I guess.
Not all accidents or scofflaws involve children or teens. On Wednesday a 61-year-old Petaluma man traveling on the wrong side of a sidewalk on an electric scooter without a helmet collided with a pedestrian. However, accidents are more common among youth. And a study by the Mineta Institute reported that existing evidence points to a wide variety of people using electric bicycles for transportation, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities. The study’s authors also noted that electric bicycle patients 65-years and older had both the highest hospitalization rate and highest head injury rate.
They also say a part of the problem is a lack of age limits, while failing to mention that California passed a law last year allowing cities to ban ebikes for younger riders, and faster ebikes require a license.
And that Class 3 ebikes are limited to riders over 16 — as are e-scooters and hoverboards, for that matter.
But the last half of the piece is devoted entirely to a debate over Lamorinda Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan’s AB 1942, which would require visible licenses for all ebikes, and Encintas State Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, which would create a clear distinction between ebikes and e-motos, while banning deceptive advertising regarding the latter.
In case anyone needs a refresher, here is how ebikes are currently classified under California law.
Streetsblog’s “This Week in Livable Streets” is always a must read to keep up on all the meetings and events happening each week in safer streets and livable communities, as well as our own world of bicycles.
So apparently, the people in the big, dangerous machines don’t have to obey traffic signals or pass safely if someone on a bike isn’t in a bike lane.
Never mind all the other little things like not speeding, not driving distracted as long as you minimize the distractions, and go ahead and swig a few gallons of booze before you drive.
And bike riders are free to do all kinds of stupid and potentially dangerous things, as long as they don’t ride salmon and stop for red lights.
Got it.
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Gravel Bike California rides the Redlands Strada Rossa XII(4K).
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Police in Florida go out of their way not to blame an elderly driver for a collision that injured two triathletes, by using the most passive language possible, reporting that “The driver and bicyclists ‘did not identify” each other ‘until the crash was unavoidable'” — even though the 74-year old driver right hooked them on a lane that was supposed to be closed to traffic.
Visit California explains how to get around Los Angeles without a car, but only focuses on Metro, and forgets to mention you can also walk or take a bike. Or even rent a scooter, for that matter.
A pair of Navy vets plans to ride from California to Shanksville, Pennsylvania and on to New York City to mark the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, while benefitting the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Although California is a big place, so they might want to mention where they’re leaving from.
Heartbreaking news from Spartanburg, South Carolina, where two kids were killed by an alleged drunken, unlicensed driver with an open container in his car; the victims, just 9 and 12-years old, were riding their bikes on the sidewalk when the driver jumped the curb.
A town in Norfolk, England is being criticized for spending nearly $700,000 to build a mile-long bike lane, which has supposedly made it less safe by narrowing the street, even though that’s been shown to slow drivers while improving safety for everyone — although bicyclists have a legitimate complaint because haven’t kept delivery drivers from blocking them.
The AP correctly notes we’re living in a golden age of cycling, with “weekly brilliance and once-in-a-lifetime rivalries,” thanks to Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard. And you can add Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and the incomparable Marianne Vos, as well.
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
A town in Norfolk, England is being criticized for spending nearly $700,000 to build a mile-long bike lane, which has supposedly made it less safe by narrowing the street, even though that’s been shown to slow drivers while improving safety for everyone; although bicyclists have a legitimate complaint because the city hasn’t kept delivery drivers from blocking the lane.
The AP correctly notes we’re living in a golden age of cycling, with “weekly brilliance and once-in-a-lifetime rivalries,” thanks to Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard. And you can add Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and the incomparable Marianne Vos.
Yet he was still behind the wheel and on the streets until he managed to kill someone.
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Here’s the ebike problem in a nutshell.
Police in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado got in hot water when they spotted a group riding dirt bikes, e-motos and four-wheelers popping wheelies, weaving through traffic, and ignoring traffic signals before fleeing from the cops.
They only managed to capture a single 30-year old rider, as all the others slipped away.
The problem came when they talked about it on social media and described the vehicles as ebikes, even though none would have met the definition of an ebike under Colorado law.
Or most other states, including California.
Yet the cops, the media and most of the public somehow lump all forms of two and three-wheeled electric vehicles together as ebikes.
Never mind how powerful or fast they are, whether they have functional pedals, or have been illegally modified to exceed legal speed limitations.
As far as they’re concerned, they’re all ebikes, whether you’re talking about a ped-assist road bike with a barely noticeable battery, or something that looks, rides and feels like a motorcycle.
And so we end up with laws like the one recently passed in New Jersey that requires a license and registration for any bike with an electric motor, without distinguishing one from another.
Or in California beach towns, which restrict where and how fast ebikes can be ridden, banning ped-assist bikes from bike trails along with electric motorbikes.
Nobody wants to hear about budget constraints from people who helped create them, or that’s it’s someone else’s responsibility, or that making improvements is complicated.
It’s really that simple.
Whether you’re talking about the blight at City Hall, or potholes in the streets, bike lane “barriers” in need of replacement, or a mobility plan that never seems to get built.
The leaders of this city have put us on the brink of bankruptcy, and then complain about a lack of funding to get anything done.
Either fix the damn city, or get the hell out of the way and let someone else do it.
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The early bird may not get the worm.
But you could get the tickets, in this case.
Noche de las Luminarias is back ✨ Early bird tickets are on sale now.
Join us for a special night of good food, music, and community, all in support of the work building a healthier, more connected San Gabriel Valley.
Sad news from Calistoga, where a bike rider was killed after being rear-ended by a driver when they allegedly crossed in front of the oncoming car. As always, the question is whether there were any independent witnesses, since the driver has an inherent interest in seeing their own action in the best possible light.
National
Popular Science digs into the eternal question of why you never forget how to ride a bike, because the brain stores skills differently than facts, making them easier to remember.
A team of people with Parkinson’s will marked the centenary of America’s iconic Route 66 by riding the 1,600 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles, in part to show how physical activity can fight off the effects of the disease.
Sometimes, a crash can cause a heart to stop. And sometimes, a heart stopping can cause a crash.
This time, it looks like it may have been the latter case.
The Ventura County Star is reporting that a man died after suffering cardiac arrest following an ebike in Point Mugu State Park on Saturday, although the story is hidden behind a paywall.
The victim, identified only as a 68-year old man, was riding with a group of people in Sycamore Canyon when he crashed near Big Sycamore Canyon and Ranch Center roads sometime before 1 pm on April 11th.
His fellow riders tried to resuscitate him before county fire personnel and state park rangers arrived and took over; unfortunately, he died at the scene.
Sheriff’s investigators concluded he probably crashed because of a medical problem, although the exact cause will likely be determined by the Ventura County medical examiner.
A street view appears to show the location is a pair of fire roads in hilly terrain. Even on an ebike, the exertion could have brought on something that caused his heart to stop.
This the 25th bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the third in Ventura County.
She argues that the opposition campaign is “both amazing and shocking. Also, laughable.”
The slogans on these signs are not just false, they are complete reversals of truth. That is organized disinformation.
So, first of all, there is no plan to remove all the parking from Overland Ave. Making this the top slogan shows that the people leading this campaign are consciously using a bait-and-switch approach to getting your attention.
She goes on to make the case that the project has been thoroughly vetted, and if people didn’t know about it, it’s only because they weren’t paying attention.
Actual, verifiable facts: The Better Overland project has been in process since May of 2024, and has been approved twice by the Culver City Council. Twice.
City staff held eight public meetings for the community, in addition to multiple private meetings with smaller organizations that were stakeholders in the process.
There were QR codes posted along the entire length of Overland Avenue so that everyone using the street could post their thoughts and ideas regarding Overland directly to the project portal. They received more than a thousand public comments, the vast majority in favor of the project.
It’s typical whenever a project like this goes in that some people will somehow insist there wasn’t enough public outreach, no matter how many times they were given an opportunity to provide their input.
Or that they were never informed, despite repeated efforts to do just that.
That was what happened in Playa del Rey, when opponents said they were never informed about the road diets to Vista del Mar, Pershing Drive and Manchester Ave, or given a chance to voice their objections.
Even though the project was designed by local residents, part of a multi-year public process that included several meetings at a local school, as well as outreach efforts to contact local residents.
So if anyone didn’t know about it, it was because they had their heads firmly buried in the sand at Dockweiler Beach.
Never mind that any increased congestion usually goes away as motorists find other routes, or other ways to get around, like walking or riding a bicycle.
Then there’s the ultimate trump card for the driving public, which seems to be in play with Better Overland, that officials are coming for your parking spaces.
Even though most homes have driveways, and the curb space along the street belongs to the city, not local homeowners. And any actual loss of parking is usually mitigated nearby.
It’s inevitable that no matter what a city does to prepare residents for road changes, some people will always complain. It’s human nature to resist change.
But as former New York DOT director Janette Sadik-Khan put it, people always fight to prevent changes. Then once they get used to it, they’ll fight to keep it.
LADOT is looking for input on creating a low-stress bikeway along Marmion Way and Monte Vista Street, rather than implementing the road diet long planned for the deadly, high-speed North Figueroa corridor.
Help us shape a safer Marmion Way! We’re working with @cd1losangeles to create a low-stress bicycle corridor and safer streets along Marmion Way & Monte Vista St. If you haven’t taken our survey yet, there’s still time to share your priorities! https://t.co/CKtSuPf8xipic.twitter.com/s435JuuhLS
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Sad news from Tulare County, where the CHP was quick to blame the victim when someone riding a bicycle was killed after allegedly veering left in front of an SUV driver — which a local paper TV station reported by saying “it” veered in front of the SUV. Talk about a great job of dehumanizing someone. Never mind that what actually happened depends entirely on whether there were any independent witnesses, or if the CHP relied entirely on the driver’s perspective.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Portland, Oregon is launching a $20 million ebike rebate program to help pay for more than 6,000 ebikes over the next three years. Which compares favorably to Los Angeles, which has invested exactly $0 in ebike rebates to help improve traffic congestion and air quality by getting cars off the road.
Washington State is rolling out another round of ebike rebates up to $1200 for a Class 1, 2 or 3 bike, with recipients chosen by lottery. That compares favorably to California’s ebike rebate program, which now only pays for electric cars after the funding was stolen by the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB. Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.
You’ve got to be kidding. A 52-year old Arizona man died in police custody after he was repeatedly struck and tased by cops for fleeing a traffic stop — because he didn’t have a damn headlight on his bicycle.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the bike and belongings of Polish endurance cyclist Justyna Jarczok, which she described as everything she owns, including her house keys, when she stopped at a gas station after winning one of the UK’s toughest bikepacking events; her belongings were found at a local park, but her rare Kona mountain bike is still missing.
AB 1740 (Zbur) makes it easier to build bike lanes, bus improvements, infill housing, and other multimodal projects in urban coastal communities. Right now, even straightforward street safety projects can get bogged down in the coastal permitting process. This bill would let qualifying urban communities move more quickly on projects that improve safety and reduce emissions, while still preserving coastal access and protections.
AB 1837 (Mark González) extends transit lane and bus stop camera enforcement and makes that authority permanent statewide. Illegal parking in bus lanes and at bus stops slows buses, creates unsafe boarding conditions, and makes transit less reliable. This bill would help keep transit moving and make bus service faster and safer for riders.
AB 1976 (Wicks), the Safe Streets Streamlining Act, tackles the process barriers that delay or kill good street safety projects. It changes local input requirements, ends unreasonable petition requirements for traffic calming, updates the pedestrian mall law, and creates a clearer path for cities to actually deliver the bike, pedestrian, and transit projects they have already said they want. California cannot keep saying yes to safe streets in theory while allowing them to be endlessly blocked in practice.
SB 1167 (Blakespear) cracks down on high-powered “e-motos” being sold as e-bikes. It tightens definitions, changes labeling rules, and requires sellers to clearly disclose when a device is actually a motor vehicle and not a legal e-bike. Real e-bikes are an important transportation tool. But that only works if the category remains clear and trustworthy.
AB 2015 (Wicks) helps cities keep slow streets actually slow by stopping navigation apps from routing cut-through traffic onto neighborhood streets that have been intentionally designed for local access, walking, and biking. If a city has decided that a street should function as a calm neighborhood street, app-based routing should not undermine that decision.
AB 1599 (Ahrens) creates a centralized California Transit Stop Registry. Transit stop data is often fragmented, inconsistent, and confusing across agencies. A statewide registry would make transit data more accurate and useful, improve coordination, and help create a better rider experience. The bill will also help us get more data on what amenities are at transit stops.
SB 1292 (Richardson) gives cities stronger curb management tools to enforce parking violations in places like loading zones, bike lanes, and crosswalks. Curb space matters, and mismanaged curb space creates safety problems, transit delays, and chaos on the street. This bill gives local governments more tools to manage that space better.
AB 2284 (Dixon) requires CHP to publish a list of devices that are being marketed as e-bikes but are not actually legal e-bikes. That kind of transparency would help consumers, schools, local governments, and law enforcement better understand what devices comply with California law and which ones do not.
AB 1833 (McKinnor), the Consumer Driving Data Protection Act of 2026,allows drivers to voluntarily opt into insurance telematics systems, with privacy protections, to better align insurance rates with actual driving behavior. This bill is about allowing safer driving to be reflected more fairly, while preserving strong guardrails around consent, data use, and consumer protection.
SB 1423 (Stern) would steer half of one of California’s biggest transportation funding sources toward projects that actually make streets safer. The bill would dedicate half of STIP funds, one of the state’s largest transportation pots of money, to projects that improve safety for people walking, biking, and taking transit. It would also simplify the application process for the state’s top safe streets grant program and elevate its identity as California’s flagship source of funding for street safety.
Budget Ask: A $200 million annual addition to the Active Transportation Program (ATP), which is our state’s premier pot of street safety funding. Last year, ATP only funded about 30 of the 350 projects that applied.
Meanwhile, Road.cc wrote that BP — the former British Petroleum — is encouraging drivers to deal with rising gas prices by skipping the pump and riding a bike instead. Which actually had me fooled at first.
No bias here. A San Diego letter writer says if you really want to help kids, skip the bike lanes and use the money for libraries, instead. Which sets up a false dichotomy between libraries, which should get better funding, and bike lanes, which improve safety for everyone on the streets, not just kids. Although you’ll have to find a way around the paper’s paywall to read it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Great use of police resources. The Macomb, Georgia Police Department put their new drone to use in less than 24 hours by capturing a 14-year old kid speeding on his ebike. Next they’ll use it to bring in other dangerous desperados, like maybe a bunch of littering nuns.
Bodycam video is raising questions about a Texas cop’s takedown of a 16-year old kid, who make the simple mistake of trying to call his dad when the cop stopped a group of teens for rolling a stop sign; after taking the kid down, the cop then seized and searched the boy’s phone without a warrant.
A British bike rider is suing three police departments for the equivalent of $6.35 million, alleging they covered it up when a driver knocked him off his bike; the cops said he just fell off his bike, even though a witness said she saw the driver clip him. Which sounds a lot like when I was run down by a road-raging driver, and the LAPD concluded I somehow defied the laws of physics by falling to the left while making a right turn, but it never occurred to me to sue them.
China’s longtime bikemaker Flying Pigeon is shedding its traditional image as a self-destructing bicycle-shaped object, and using combination of flexible sensors, artificial intelligence algorithms and the internet of things to redefine the bikes from a simple form of transport into an “intelligent health management terminal.” Unless China Daily is pulling an April Fool’s joke, in which case they got me.
A 17-year British amateur, part of the country’s development team, was left brokenhearted when an insurance company refused to pay for three stolen Pinarello Dogma bikes worth a total of $20,000 because the thieves weren’t violent enough, and just walked away with the bikes instead of breaking in or causing major damage.
The fourth-year student headed back to his dorm from the Black Student Union when he was approached by four teenaged boys and a girl on their ebikes.
After he asked to be left alone and tried to walk away, they started to chase him.
According to KNBC-4,
“They were close enough that they were spitting on me, trying to grab at me, trying to do all sorts of heinous things,” he said. “I’m being called ‘monkey,’ ‘blackie,’ completely out of my name. Obviously, this is stuff I never expected to hear.”
During the attack, the victim said he was also called the N-word and was struck on the back of his ankle by an assailant who accelerated their e-bike toward him.
“It was the worst pain I had felt in a very long time,” the victim said.
The campus police offered a description of just two of the five kids.
According to UC Irvine police, one of the assailants was described as a 16 to 17-year-old boy who was about 5-feet-8-inches tall and weighed about 160 to 170 pounds. He had a white T-shirt, black pants, a black helmet and was traveling on a black e-bike at the time of the attack.
A second attacker was described as a 14-year-old boy who was 5-feet-5-inches tall and about 190 pounds. He wore a black shirt, denim gray pants, white Air Force 1 Nike shoes, a black helmet, a blue backpack and was also traveling on a black e-bike, police said.
We can assume the kids are white, but that’s not guaranteed. Because for some bizarre reason, there’s no mention of the teens’ race in their descriptions, which just might help identify them.
There’s also no word on what kind of ebikes the kids were on. But we can probably guess.
Anyone with information is urged to call UC Irvine Police at 949/824-5223.
“I just want to go home,” her daughter says in the video while kids yell racial slurs and other expletives. After about two-and-a-half minutes of tension, she rolled her bike backwards, away from the group. A young boy pulled her bike back in and then 30 seconds later, someone slapped the girl in the face before she got off the bike and fought back.
“She stood her ground,” Amor said. “I told my daughter, you don’t start fights, but you better finish them. And I’m proud. I’m proud of how she conducted herself.”
Amor said she was removing her daughter from the school district, and will be homeschooling her now.
Rocha also faces four counts of attempted murder, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of battery for a series of assaults, including intentionally plowing his car into a group of seven fixie riders.
Allegedly.
Rocha was reportedly still angry following a series of altercations a few minutes earlier when he encountered the group that included Valdez.
Just 10 minutes before the crash, Rocha is seen on camera at Queen Wash in Oxnard, confronting and then hitting a man and his wife in the laundromat. When another man follows Rocha outside to take a photo of his license plate, Rocha is seen driving his car into the man and knocking him over.
To make matters worse, he seemed proud of it.
Later in the evening, in a video from the back of a police car, Rocha rants about how he didn’t have a house to sleep in, while rich kids pretended to be poor. He said he didn’t care if he went to prison.
“I’m happy I ran over those fools today, dawg,” Rocha said, prompting tears from Pedro’s parents in the audience.
In a recorded police interview, an officer asks him if he took his anger from the laundromat fight out on the bicyclists and intentionally hit them, and Rocha replies, “Yeah.” He said he accelerated toward the bikes and didn’t stop after the impact.
The trial was delayed after Rocha was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, which seems to be his defense.
Because according to his lawyer, Rocha didn’t mean to slam his Lexus into the kids riding bikes; he just didn’t see them because he was so deeply psychotic and intoxicated.
The paper reports he’s being held without bail while the trial continues, which is expected to take four weeks.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Apparently lacking anything new to stir up outrage against bicyclists, British tabloids dig up an old survey that they twist to suggest half of bike riders “think they’re ‘too cool’ to wear a helmet.” Even though 31% actually said it’s not practical or needed because they’re only riding a short distance, and 13% don’t want to mess up their hair — which still only adds up to 44%. And while I wasn’t a math major, that seems like less than half. But what do I know?
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The family of fallen San Diego bicyclist Andres Gallardo want answers, after the 43-year old man was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding in the city’s Clairemont neighborhood March 1st; a crowdfunding campaign to defray funeral expenses and send his ashes to his parents has raised the equivalent of just $144. And no, it doesn’t look like I knew about this one yet; I’ll try to get to it later today.
San Diego is on the verge of becoming the largest California city to crack down on ebikes, including a ban on kids under 12. Although like virtually every other attempt to rein in ebike riders, they continue to conflate ped-assist ebikes with higher speed and more powerful electric motorbikes and dirt bikes.
Santa Clara has adopted a Vision Zero plan, after 51 people were killed in traffic collisions over a five-year period in the city of just 120,000.
The parents of a four-year old boy are suing the city of Burlingame, as well as 19-year-old driver, her parents, and the parents of an 11-year old boy riding an ebike, after the four-year old was killed as his family exited a restaurant, collateral damage following a collision between the 19-year old driver and the boy on the ebike.
Uh, probably not. After a teenaged Utah girl miraculously survived a traumatic brain injury, her mother said “it would have made the hugest difference” and “she would have had such less trauma” is she had only worn a bike helmet when she crashed her ebike into a retaining wall at 40 mph, then landed head-first after falling 25 feet off a cliff. Even though bike helmets are only designed to protect against impacts up to 12.5 mph. And don’t even get me started on her grammar.
A Netflix doc about the life and murder of gravel champ Moriah “Mo” Wilson premiered at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, Texas on Thursday, the city where she was fatally shot by a jealous Kaitlin Armstrong, who thought she was involved with her erstwhile boyfriend, pro cyclist Colin Strickland, in 2022.
The North Westwood Neighborhood Council voted to approve plans for a protected bike lane on Ohio Ave, which offers the only practical east-west route between Westwood and Santa Monica that does not require riding past on-and-off ramps for the 10 Freeway, where at least two bike riders have been killed in recent years.
Streetsblog’sJoe Linton offers more information on a number of bike projects in Los Angeles, including Crystal Springs Drive and Pershing Drive below, as well as plans for new bike lanes on Terra Bella Street after the East San Fernando light rail project results in ripping out 2.8 miles of bike lanes on Van Nuys Blvd.
Crystal Springs Drive in Griffith Park is looking a lot better, too, four years after Andrew Jelmert was killed in a hit-and-run while training for the former AIDS/LifeCycle Ride. Although I remain adamant that cars don’t belong in parks. Period.
Here's an early look at the reconfiguration of Crystal Springs Drive in Griffith Park (this is southbound, going toward Los Feliz Blvd). No bollards or curb in place yet, but you can already tell what an amazing transformation this will be for all users. Thank you @nithyavraman! pic.twitter.com/tIWPwzDjIc
— Los Angeles Dept. of Transformation (@LA_DOTr) March 8, 2026
And even the death of a pregnant mom isn’t enough to get protected bike lanes on Pershing Drive.
After the death of a pregnant mom riding a bike with her family, Traci Park all of a sudden cares about bike lanes.But the bike lanes they’re proposing aren’t safe! They’re door zone bike lanes.Even after a tragic death, protected bike lanes aren’t being considered.
Cal Matters reports that the California DMV not only kept a driver on the road, despite at least 16 previous moving violations and four crashes, they fought to keep his driving record a secret.
Even from persecutors after he was charged with vehicular manslaughter for killing a two-year old boy.
And adding insult to grievous injury, the DMV renewed his license just a year later, while the manslaughter charge was still pending.
Surely, the DMV did some sort of review before deciding it was safe to let (Kostas) Linardos stay on the road.
Right?
The DMV spent close to a year fighting to keep the answer to that a secret, refusing to release information on Linardos without a court order and then urging a judge not to issue such a decree. The agency’s lawyer argued in a filing that prosecutors wanted records “for the improper purpose of smearing the DMV for alleged and unfounded wrongdoing.”
Prosecutors said they wanted the DMV records to help show Linardos knew the risks of driving recklessly, which is something they needed to prove to make a felony vehicular manslaughter charge stick.
When the issue finally made it to court this year, the attorney representing the agency made a shocking admission: The DMV had no records of any investigation into a longtime reckless driver who killed a 23-month-old boy. The agency didn’t even appear to have held a hearing before deciding it was fine to let Linardos stay on the road.
Although once again, there’s no attempt to differentiate between ped-assist ebikes and electric motorbikes.
According to the study, the hospital recorded 262 ebike-related trauma cases last year, with most of the victims 11 and 14 years old, with a noticeable spike among 13‑year‑olds.
While that likely corresponds to the increase in ebike use, the hospital also reported ebike injuries were likely to be more severe than those caused by regular bicycles.
It’s also questionable how many of those ebikes were actually street legal, or could legally be ridden by children that young, who are limited to Class 1 and 2 bikes with a maximum speed of 20 mph.
And as studies have shown, sharrows are worse than nothing when it comes to preventing injuries to bicyclists, and shouldn’t be used on streets with speeds above 35 mph.
Actions speak louder than words, Lucy pulls the football away again; whatever aphorism or metaphor one wants to use, Caltrans proves once again that it’s run by bad actors who betray the public in their relentless pursuit of auto-über alles policies.
Then there’s this.
With the removal of the painted bike lanes, which were woefully inadequate on a multi-lane street such as Oak Street to start with, Caltrans now expects cyclists to share a lane with traffic. Keep in mind that this is also a major route to I-880 and is plagued with non-stop speeding traffic and red-light running. The removed bike lanes are on a major bike commuter routes that connect the Oakland ferry terminal, Lake Merritt BART, and thousands of residential units…
Nobody, really, should be surprised. Caltrans, Alameda County, and the consultants who work for them have acted in bad faith throughout this project.
Never mind that Caltran’s ostensible Complete Streets policy requires the state transportation agency to “provide comfortable, convenient, and connected complete streets facilities on all projects and in all project phases, including construction and maintenance,” according to Jeanie Ward-Waller, Director of Transportation Advocacy at Fearless.
She should know, since Ward-Waller was the whistleblower who was “reassigned” from her position as Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans after warning that a Sacramento highway project violated that same policy.
Just one more reminder, if we needed it, that the agency’s Complete Streets requirement needs to be codified into law, since they only seem to follow it when it’s convenient for them or the public demands it.
………
I had the time to rip into this piece from a rightwing Irish site, as a writer complains about the “fetishization” and “relentless promotion” of the government’s “obsession” with bicycling.
According to Vincent, from the “perception of the average person”, the number of cyclists in Dublin using the city’s bike lanes “is so small that it is set completely off balance with the amount of space they take up”.
“Hardly anyone uses these lanes, and yet we are forced to swallow it when an entire lane from a road is sacrificed – often with the result of creating an infuriating one-way system in the area – to make space for more bikes; the same bikes that seem never to fill the lanes they are currently provided with,” he continues, failing to grasp the point of cycling infrastructure entirely.
Never mind that those “empty” bike lanes have resulted in a 50% increase in bicycle trips.
But that inconvenient fact probably wouldn’t fit his narrative.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The LAPD is looking for a suspect in a bike-by shooting in Historic South Central Los Angeles, after a 36-year old man was shot by someone on a bicycle while sitting in his car at Washington Blvd and Santee Street.
If you left your bicycle, cellphone, blowtorch or prosthetic leg on a Metro bus or train, they may be holding it for you to reclaim. Although it makes sense that someone would leave their bike behind after losing their leg on the bus, which would make it kinda hard to pedal.
Momentumhails Santa Monica resident Caro Vilain, aka mobilityforwho on Instagram, for her “viral videos steering a fun-fueled cycling revolution.” I would have embedded some of her videos, but Insta was being uncooperative tonight.
A North Carolina newspaper offers an in-depth report on last month’s 950-mile Remember the Removal bike ride to help members of the Cherokee Nation reconnect with their heritage, while retracing the northern route of the horrific Trail of Tears; an estimated quarter of the 16,000 tribal members died along the way when the Cherokee people were forced to walk to Oklahoma from their Southern Appalachian homelands.
