Charles Eric Medina, the Texas driver accused of the alleged road rage killing of 26-year old boxer Hannah Rapp, was scheduled for a bond hearing yesterday.
Medina faces three charges, including manslaughter and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and criminal mischief, after passing Rapp and her boyfriend too closely at a high rate of speed. When Rapp’s boyfriend shouted and gestured in complaint, Medina allegedly slammed on his brakes, then sped into the couple in reverse, killing Rapp.
He is currently being held on a total bond of $1,229,000. Medina has an extensive history of criminal charges, including deadly conduct, reckless driving, assault and evading arrest, with at least 13 arrests since 2012 — an average of nearly one arrest per year.
The bond total appears to include priors for “evading arrest” on March 17, 2025, and “deadly conduct” on February 14, 2024.
Seems like a real prince.
Meanwhile, a petition for “Hannah’s Law,” started by Rapp’s mother, has garnered nearly 11,000 signatures to give Texas judges more freedom to order defendants with a documented pattern of dangerous behavior held without bond, which is very difficult under current Texas law.
Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels.
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Hollywood and session musician Stanley Behrens, aka “The Baron,” is recovering from serious injuries he received when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle in Santa Monica last month.
Behrens had just performed at the Summer Solstice street festival on Main Street in Santa Monica, and was hit by a driver who turned left into the bike lane he was riding in, while less than a mile from his Venice Beach home.
The crash left him with “multiple broken bones, including his orbital bone, nose, clavicle, scapula, C7 vertebra, ribs and ankle, and a serious brain injury that required emergency surgery on Father’s Day to address a significant bleed,” and has resulted in ongoing fever, delirium and confusion.
There’s no information provided about the driver or suspect vehicle.
According to CBS News,
The accident has halted Behrens’ active, music-filled life and independent routine. As a career musician with a wide-ranging résumé, he has contributed harmonica, saxophone and flute work to television soundtracks (“The Rockford Files,” “Quantum Leap,” “My Name Is Earl”), films including “The Rum Diary,” and albums by artists such as Willie Dixon, Jimmy Smith, Alice Cooper and Canned Heat, with whom he toured worldwide in the early 2000s.
A crowdfunding campaign to help pay his medical expenses has raised over $22,000 of the $50,000 goal.
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Writing for Cycling West, Peter Abraham, former head of marketing for the Los Angeles Marathon, who helped develop the popular “Stadium to the Sea” course, questions whether the upcoming Olympics will do for Los Angeles bicycling what it did in London and Paris.
The Olympics are a rare opportunity for a city to expand its bike infrastructure. I have spent time speaking with the people who led bike ridership initiatives in both Paris and London around the 2024 and 2012 Olympics. They were very strategic about how they thought about building infrastructure. It was not just “let’s build some bike lanes.” Careful thought was put into motivating people to get out on bikes, to ride to work and participate in cycling events. Big urban bike share systems were built into the plan as well as extensive investments in infrastructure. And importantly there was true leadership around bikes from the mayor of each city. Read former London mayor Boris Johnson’s 30-page manifesto on bike infrastructure, or the story of Anne Hidalgo’s leadership in Paris around bikes. We’re two years out from the LA Olympics, and I don’t see this kind of leadership from either the Governor Newsom or Mayor Karen Bass. That’s a shame. I realize there are many challenging things going on in Los Angeles right now: recovering from the devastating fires we had last year, ICE raids, the FIFA World Cup and elections this year for both LA mayor and California governor. But I would love to see some of our political leaders prioritize safe streets for pedestrians, bikes and cars.
He’s right.
Despite multiple promises made as part of former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Twenty-Eight by ’28 program of bike, pedestrian and transit projects that were to be completed in time for the LA Olympics, there’s been virtually no progress, and a lot of backsliding, in the short four years since he left office.
It would take a massive commitment from the city and state to make anywhere near the progress the other two former host cities made, something I don’t see happening under the current Los Angeles and California leadership.
Whether anything at all will be done in time for the games depends a lot on the coming November election.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Chicago Streetsblog “degreases” an anti-bike lane screed from a local writer.
No bias here. The anti-bike New York Post says New York Mayor “Mamdani loves the hipsters who love their bikes,” so they’re attempting to speed up the process of building bike lanes by cutting complaints out of the process. Considering most complaints can be summed up as “parking,” that’s not a bad idea.
A London woman was the victim of a “terrifying” road rage assault after her shoe grazed the side of a car as she was squeezing by on her bike in crowded traffic, despite her attempts to apologize profusely.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A four-year old Denver dog is recovering after he was struck by a hit-and-run ebike rider who zoomed by on the sidewalk, then told his owner “to ‘F’ myself and to ‘F’ off, and that it was my fault, and he had the right-of-way, and he was glad my dog was hit.” Nice guy. From the photos, it’s hard to tell if he was on a ped-assist ebike or an e-moto.
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Local
An attorney says a “high-end” Manhattan Beach store could be held responsible for the theft of a customer’s ebike, if it can be shown that there was a history of previous thefts, and they knew or should have known about the risk of theft.
A 27-year old old Dutch woman bicycling across the US on the Bikecentennial route started her trip in Los Angeles, and decided to bike down to Disneyland for the 4th of July fireworks — but didn’t realize it was 80 miles away, and arrived too tired to visit the park.
State
Seal Beach city leaders were due to meet at the Rotary Club last night to discuss the problem of ebikes in the city, which is better defined as a problem with mostly underaged riders on illegal e-motorbikes and electric dirt bikes, as well as on legal ped-assist bicycles that have been illegally modified to exceed speed and power limitations; it benefits no one to tar legal ebike riders with the same broad brush.
San Diego bicyclists will have to continue to practice potty training, after the city’s mayor rejected a proposal to reopen a number of closed restrooms along the popular Mission Bay bike route.
A proposed Berkeley protected bike lane is pitting neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother in the fight for and against it.
National
The American College of Surgeons says it’s leading the conversation on ebike safety, but once again fails to make clear that the problem stems from illegal e-motorbikes and electric dirt bikes, rather than relatively sedate ped-assist ebikes. Shouldn’t identifying the actual problem be the first step in actually solving it?
A Seattle woman was killed when she struck a bridge gate on her bicycle.
San Antonio, Texas will hold a community celebration on Thursday to mark the completion of the city’s first protected bike lane, providing a safe route along one of the city’s busiest corridors, while supporting the city’s Vision Zero plan.
August 5th marks opening day for bicyclists and pedestrians on the new Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.
Massive Maine-based appliance maker Whirlpool delayed its quarterly earnings reports after the company CEO was injured in a “minor bicycle accident.” No, a minor bike crash is when you show up at work the next day with a little road rash and a gnarly story to tell; missing a required earnings report hints at something more significant.
Vermont will build a bike and pedestrian bridge across the state’s busiest highway interchange. That compares favorably to Southern California, where bike riders are expected to play Frogger across highway entrances and exits, and cross only on automobile and smog-choked overpasses.
New York is planning to build 500 secure bike-parking locations across the city, capable of holding 6 to 80 bicycles, depending on size.
The Orange County school board approved a ban on ebikes at county schools; no, the one in Florida.
International
The UK’s somewhat less than bike friendly The Sun says new research shows that half of ebike riders in Glasgow run red lights, before making it clear that the problem riders are mostly delivery riders on illegally modified e-motorbikes.
A British man rented a Lime bike to follow the motorcade of Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara on a visit to London this past March, in a quest to find justice for his jailed, then murdered, father, and compensation for the seizure of their home by a government official.
Speaking of Lime Bikes, the Daily Mail tested the handlebars of the London bikeshare ebikes, and found “high levels of biological residue from skin cells, sweat, saliva, food residue – and in some cases, fecal matter.” No shit.
A German man says he feels “embarrassed” and “naïve” after his bike was stolen from a Newcastle, England metro station just days after completing a 1,000-mile ride down the length of the UK.
Sad news from Germany, where bike touring pioneer Heinz Stücke, who spent over 50 years exploring the world by bicycle, has passed away in his hometown of Hövelhof at age 86; Stücke rode more than 378,000 miles, visiting nearly every country on earth.
A Durban, South African bicyclist was killed when he was hit head-on by an alleged drunk driver on the wrong side of the roadway, on a three-mile beachfront circuit where riders train.
Johannesburg, South Africa’s Girls on Bikes turns heads with their bright pink helmets, in a movement built on friendship, confidence and proving that women belong on the road.
An op-ed in the South China Post considers how Hong Kong can embrace bicycling as a means of transportation, improving residents health while reducing road congestion and contributing to sustainability goals.
Sad news from Tokyo, where stunt cyclist Lilly Yokoi died at her Tokyo home at age 96; Yokoi gained fame riding her gold-plated bicycle at the halftime of Harlem Globetrotters games, as well as at Radio City Music Hall, the London Palladium and the Lido in Paris, and on television programs like “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Hollywood Palace,” and in the 1966 circus film “Rings Around the World.” And yes, I’m old enough to remember her on the Ed Sullivan Show — or “Shoe,” as he pronounced it.
Competitive Cycling
Velo says the Tour de France’s Montmartre circuit finally gave the race the ending it always needed.
Finally…
Your next race-ready kit could come with built-in crash protection. Wining fans and influencing people, Ricky Bobby style.
And how to tell when your tire is screwed.
Literally.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
