That’s more like it.
The driver who killed two people in an apparent DUI hit-and-run in Chatsworth last year could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Sixty-year old Chatsworth resident Nelson Rodriguez was sentenced to 15 years to life behind bars after pleading no contest to two counts of murder last month.
Rodriguez was convicted of killing 37-year old Ana Hernandez, who was 29 weeks pregnant, and 58-year old Matthew Zink as they rode their bikes on Plummer Street in January, 2022.
He fled from the scene, crashing into several other cars and objects before finally coming to rest against a wall on Knapp Street, west of De Soto Ave, where he was finally detained by witnesses.
There’s no word on why he was charged with murder, which usually requires driving under the influence, after receiving a Watson advisement following a previous DUI conviction. That informs the driver that they could be charged with murder if they kill someone while driving under the influence anytime in the future.
The only other explanation for the murder convictions is that police investigators concluded the killings were intentional, but there’s been no suggestion of that in the press.
There’s also no word on why Rodriguez wasn’t charged with hit-and-run for leaving the scene of multiple crashes.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.
………
A 26-year old Long Beach man will be well into middle age before he gets out of prison.
Junior Alexander Munguia was sentenced to 21-years in state prison for fatally shooting 46-year old Fernando Rodriguez five years ago in a dispute over who actually owned a bicycle.
As we’ve said many times before, no bicycle is worth taking another person’s life. Or giving your own.
………
Streets For All is hosting their latest virtual happy hour this evening, featuring Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle.
………
The late, great River Phoenix was one of us.
Born on this day, August 23:
River Phoenix, actor (1970-1993), shown here in a scene from Running on Empty (1988).
Happy #bicyclebirthday, River!#botd#bikesinfilms pic.twitter.com/U0dGgcr0xO— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) August 23, 2022
And the Curries were, too.
Physicists and Nobel Prize winners Marie Curie and Pierre Curie shortly after their wedding. France, 1895. pic.twitter.com/vSRjtsxn7y
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) August 21, 2023
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Michigan’s Supreme Court denied an appeal from a man who was injured when his bike hit a “yard-wide” pothole in a public park, after the park’s lawyers argued the pothole was pretty obvious and easy to see. And implying it was his own damn fault.
No bias here, either. Residents of a couple Baltimore neighborhoods rallied against traffic calming and expanding bike lanes, calling Complete Streets a “complete failure” that prioritizes special interest groups over the needs of everyday people. Because people who ride bikes or want safer streets aren’t everyday people, evidently.
Multiple North Carolina bicyclists went down when they were brake-checked by a road raging driver, who had honked and yelled over having to briefly slow down when the group of bike riders took the lane as they climbed a blind hill; no word on whether the driver will face charges, even though he used his vehicle as a weapon.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Brisbane, Australia are looking for a bike-riding man, after he apparently deliberately scratched 20 cars along the same road.
………
Local
LA Walks is looking for a new executive director.
Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, helped install the first two ghost tire memorials to honor victims of traffic violence in Los Angeles County; the program is similar to ghost bikes, but for people who were walking or in cars when they were killed.
Streetsblog says the 500-foot long, tree-lined bike and pedestrian Alameda Esplanade is partially open, and should be finished later this month.
Electrek suggest Commerce-based ebike and electric motorcycle maker SONDORS may be the next ebike brand to fail, as all signs point to a serious financial meltdown at headquarters — in fact, their California headquarters appears to be permanently closed, and their website is no longer taking orders.
ActiveSGV wants your input on the Santa Anita Avenue Complete Streets project in South El Monte.
One of the world’s biggest fundraising triathlons will take place in Malibu next month, when the star-studded Malibu Triathlon returns to Zuma Beach for the 38th year.
Metro, Metro Bike Share and the Auto Club of Southern California are offering a free virtual class on bikeshare 101.
State
Sad news from Fresno, where a 35-year old man was killed when he allegedly rode his mountain bike off the sidewalk, and into the path of trailers being pulled by a semi-truck. Which sounds more than a little suspicious, since it would require attempting the impossible by riding between the truck and the trailers. Never mind that a local Central Valley website seems to think a bike helmet could have protected him from harm when he was run over with a truck.
San Francisco Streetsblog says the protected intersection and bike lane project on Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue is nearing completion, without the commercial armageddon feared by local business.
National
Streetsblog says young people of color must be at the forefront of the mobility justice movement.
Bicycling highlights 22 bicycle products they say are among the best made in the US. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.
Speaking of Electrek, a writer for the site says stop calling it an electric bike craze because we’re looking at the future of transportation. Although a Santa Barbara paper evidently didn’t get the memo.
A pair of Tacoma, Washington brothers face murder charges for killing a man they had robbed less than two hours earlier, after the victim spotted the men and chased them down an alley to recover his stolen bicycle and necklace.
F! cars don’t have lights, so Formula 1’s Red Bull Racing team used bike lights to light their drive down the Las Vegas Strip.
Nevada’s Burning Man has issued guidelines for ebikes at the festival after deciding not to ban them — for now.
Utah is opening new world-class downhill mountain bike trails as phase one of the new Solitude Mountain bike park.
A Denver couple were violently attacked with a bat and five-foot tow chain when they spotted their stolen bike, and tried to buy it back from the person who had it. Which is another reminder to let the cops deal with it — if you can get them to, that is.
Colorado bikewear maker Pactimo is donating $60 from the sale of bike jerseys and running t-shirts designed by a Maui artist to benefit victims of the recent fires on the island.
An Abilene, Texas newspaper says pedestrians are worried for their safety after a man riding a bike was hit by a driver, in a town with limited bike infrastructure. Evidently, they couldn’t find any bike riders to talk to.
The Arkansas Farm Bureau is attempting to educate rural farmers on what to do when they encounter a spandex-clad bicyclist on a gravel road, and vice versa.
Kalamazoo, Michigan installed a lane reduction and two-way parking-protected bike lane on a major street, while insisting there’s still enough room for downtown traffic to flow freely.
A Michigan developer is suing a township over its requirement that builders fund bike lanes in order to get their projects approved, claiming it’s unconstitutional. Which should be a hard case to make, since it’s a pretty common provision throughout the US.
They get it. A Kentucky paper says yes, people on bicycles are required to stop for stop signs, then goes on to explain why someone reasonably might not.
Life is cheap in New York, where a 19-year old flatbed truck driver faces a whopping $500 fine or 15 days behind bars for killing a bicycle advocate as he rode his bike home from the market; the driver got a lousy traffic ticket for failing to yield.
New York’s Great White Way could soon have a two-way bike boulevard running next to Union Square.
She gets it. A Princeton, New Jersey pedestrian and bike safety educator says if people ride their bikes on the sidewalk, it’s because a lack of safe infrastructure means they don’t feel safe on the street.
Good question. The family of a Maryland man killed while riding his bike wants to know why the hell the driver hasn’t been charged.
Kindhearted Florida cops gave a 10-year old boy a new bike after a driver crashed into his old one.
International
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid, who marks a full century since cars drove people walking off the roads.
He gets it. An op-ed from a Toronto ER doctor says the bicycling injuries he sees are preventable if the city would just build more bike lanes.
He gets it, too. A Halifax, Nova Scotia writer tries Googling “bicyclist” and “pedestrian” compared to “person biking” or “person waking,” and discovers the difference is more than semantics.
After a pair of Scottish men were convicted of killing and burying the body of a man taking part in a fundraising bike ride in a drunken crash, a government watchdog has launched an investigation into the police who investigated the missing person’s case.
James Corden is one of us, as the former Late Late Show host was ordered to move his bikeshare bike when he tried leaving it in front of a posh restaurant in London’s Mayfair district.
A British designer has launched a new line of bike-friendly streetwear in a collaboration with Lime, featuring the company’s lime green branding.
The largest bicycle association in the Netherlands announced they will no longer insure fat tire ebikes, citing a 90% chance they’ll be stolen. So there’s hope, then.
A US Army major maintained her readiness by riding over 1,000 miles on local mountain bike trails while she was deployed in Poland.
After a writer buys a “super cheap” Chinese ebike, he quickly concludes it was a super bad idea.
A 14-year old Malaysian boy was injured when he crashed his bike into a house while being chased by a dog, which wisely ran away after he hit the wall.
Competitive Cycling
American Sepp Kuss is confirmed for the Vuelta, marking his fifth-straight grand tour in support of Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard, as their Jumbo-Visma team looks to sweep all three of this year’s grand tours.
Finally…
Seriously, how bad a driver do you have to be if you can’t even escape bike cops with a Dodge Charger? That feeling when a DeSantis supporter’s naked bike rides and fake fuzzy balls would run afoul of Florida’s new drag ban.
And even the great fail sometimes.
………
Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
