Tag Archive for heartless cowards

Where to give this Giving Tuesday, elderly bike rider run over by heartless hit-and-run driver, and taking The NY Times to task

December 3, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 28 short days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 
But not one LA city leader seems to give a damn about it. Or if they do, they’re not saying anything. 

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It’s Day 5 of the 10th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Michael B, the M’s, and Miriam H for their generous donations to keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

Now it’s your turn. Take just a few minutes, and donate now!

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If you’re looking to put your money to good use this Giving Tuesday, consider giving to Streets For All, Streets Are For Everyone, Bike LA, Streetsblog LA, , Calbike, Orange County Bicycle Coalition, San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, Bike SD, or your local bike advocacy group, wherever you live.

And give a little extra Giving Tuesday consideration to Culver City-based Walk n’ Rollers, after the trailer and equipment they use to train kids on bike safety was stolen. Because they can use the help right now.

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A 71-year old man is in critical but stable condition after he was run over by a heartless hit-and-run driver while lying helpless in the roadway, after apparently striking an object with his bicycle.

According to the Ventura Police Department, a motorist called 911 after spotting the man lying in the road near Foothill Road and La Fonda Drive in East Ventura.

But after pulling over, the caller watched as the driver of a white car, possibly a Lexus, drove over the incapacitated victim. The driver, described only as a woman who appeared to be in her 70s, and another woman in her 20s got out and walked over to the victim, but fled the scene before emergency personnel arrived — without assisting the victim or calling for help, as required by law.

We shouldn’t need to remind anyone that major injuries are far more serious and difficult to overcome in older people, compounding the outrageousness of their crime. Although, unfortunately, that’s not something California’s overly lenient hit-and-run laws take into account.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Ventura Police Traffic Division at 805/339-4437.

Let’s hope they find these two and get them both off the road.

Permanently.

Thanks to Joe Linton and Jeffrey Rusk for the heads-up.

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Good for them.

Streetblog takes the New York Times to task for their recent piece that appeared to blame the recent murder of a Parisian bike rider by the driver of an SUV on the mythical “war on cars.”

Here’s how Streetsblog describes the paper’s reaction to the death of 27-year old bike advocate Paul Varry, who was intentionally run down by a 52-year old driver as he rode in a Paris bike lane.

The New York Times, though, suggested that another suspect deserved some of the blame: Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who, the paper said, has been “ratcheting up tensions” in the City of Light by implementing policies that “limit the movement, speed and parking options of cars.”

In a stunningly misguided article “Death of Cyclist in Paris Lays Bare Divide in Mayor’s War Against Cars,” writers Richard Fausset and Ségolène Le Stradic devoted much of the first 1,000 words of a roughly 1,450-word story to those who would paint Varry’s death as the latest salvo in the battle against Paris motorists’ “liberty to circulate,” to quote just one of the many angered drivers the writers interviewed.

According to the same driver, Hidalgo “is putting a garrote around Paris” by building bike paths and reducing speed limits on many of the city’s most famous roads — an “anti-car stance” that the article seemingly implies is now driving motorists to lethal violence.

It’s worth taking a few minutes to read the whole story. Because the Times certainly didn’t give that to their readers.

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Speaking of Streets For All, the transportation PAC is urging anyone who rides Forest Lawn Drive to turn out tomorrow to voice their support for protected bike lanes on the hazardous, high speed street.

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

An Athens, Ohio paper complains about “the world’s loneliest bike lanes,” which are “woefully bereft of bikers” riding on the city’s busiest commercial corridor, “negating their purpose.” Never mind that bike lanes are more efficient, often making them appear to be used less than they really are. Or that bike lanes are an effective tool to slow speeding drivers and improve safety for everyone, even if no one uses them.

A Florida man faces charges for allegedly shooting a passing bicyclist with a shotgun, as he got out of his car while the victim was riding past on his way to a friend’s house.

Separated bike lanes in Mysuru, India are under attack from roadside vendors, who are deliberately removing plastic bollards to create prime business real estate.

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It’s now 348 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And a full 42 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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Local  

A 61-year old Westlake Village man is in critical condition after he was struck by a minivan driver while riding on PCH near Sycamore Cove in Malibu.

SoCal bikemaker Linus Bike is closing their iconic Venice store on Abbot Kinney Blvd, and shifting to an online-only focus.

Santa Monica is cutting speed limits on over 30 miles of city streets to improve traffic safety; a revision in state law from a few years ago allows cities to drop speed limits by 5 mph under specific conditions.

Speaking of SaMo, the beachfront city is making the city’s dockless e-scooter micromobility program permanent, after years of operating on a trial basis.

 

State

A 100-year old, and still rideable, road bike will find a new home here in California, as a 96-year old Canadian man passed it down to his American son after moving into a retirement home.

San Diego’s newspaper of record uncovers an apparent non-scandal, reporting that La Mesa City Councilmember Colin Parent solicited donations to Circulae San Diego, the transportation advocacy nonprofit he works for; Parent says he was careful to adhere to the rules for behest donations even as he ran in a failed bid for the state Assembly.

A San Bernardino man learns the hard way that when you’re riding your bike with an outstanding felony warrant, while carrying meth, marijuana, a working scale and “additional paraphernalia suggestive of drug transport and sales,” it pays to follow city ordinances and state vehicle codes.

 

National

A Philadelphia injury epidemiologist calls on the city to slow drivers, better protect bike riders, and collect better data to improve safety.

 

International

Seriously? Bicycling examines how international nonprofit Best Buddies uses bikes to make the world a more inclusive place, assisting 200 million families around the world affected by intellectual and developmental disabilities. But even that story is hidden by their paywall, so you’re on your own if they block you. And unfortunately, so is the charity they’re ostensibly trying to help.

About damn time. British cops are going undercover on bicycles to bust dangerous drivers making unsafe passes. We tried, and failed, to talk the LAPD into doing the same thing, for reasons that were never explained to us.

Mint considers India’s best cities for bicycling, from Bengaluru to Mumbai, for your next trip to the subcontinent.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks back at French cycling great Jeannie Longo’s victory in the 1985 Coors Classic, which was America’s biggest bike race at the time. I was lucky enough to be standing on or near the finish line for several of her stage wins in the race.

Rare historic and collectors items will be on display at Italy’s Longarone Fiere Dolomiti during next year’s Giro d’Italia, if you happen to be hanging around for the race.

British cycling great Sir Bradley Wiggins says Lance Armstrong isn’t so bad once you get to know him, arguing that the ex-Tour de France champ “has got a heart under there somewhere” after he offered to pay for a week of special therapy in the US for Wiggins, even though Wiggins had termed the Texan a “lying bastard” in the wake of his doping charges. So, maybe a lying bastard with a heart of, well, certainly not gold. 

 

Finally…

If you want to bike through a fast food drive thru, you’re probably out of luck. How to leap from winning KOMs to the WorldTour.

And a bus so nice, he stole it twice — running down a bike rider in the process.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Update: Man riding bicycle killed by two hit-and-run drivers in Northridge; nearly 40% of all 2024 SoCal bike deaths hit-and-runs

September 21, 2024 / / 12 comments

Once again, a heartless coward left a helpless bike rider lying injured in the street for someone else to kill.

And someone did.

And that one fled the scene, too.

Multiple sources are reporting that a person on a bicycle, publicly identified only as a man in his early 50s, was struck from behind by the driver of a gray Honda around 9:15 pm Thursday on Lindley Ave near Napa Street in LA’s Northridge neighborhood.

He was thrown into the street, landing back in the right lane, where he was hit again by the driver of a gray pickup.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Both drivers fled the scene without stopping to render aid or identify themselves, as required by law.

Witnesses reported that several vehicles had struck the victim, but video from the scene showed only two drivers actually hit him, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division at 818/644-8025 or 818/644-8117, or call 877/527-3247 after hours or on the weekend.

As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles, which presumably would apply to information leading to the conviction of either of these drivers.

This is at least the 37th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 11th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the sixth that we know about in the City of Los Angeles.

Fourteen of those SoCal deaths — over 38% — have now come at the hands of heartless cowards who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterward.

According to the Los Angeles Times, nearly one third of all traffic deaths in Los Angeles last year were hit-and-runs; no word on how many of those drivers were eventually arrested and charged, let alone convicted.

Update: The following was posted to Nextdoor in Northridge Village on Friday. 

Did anyone last night after 9 pm possibly see a man on a bike get killed by a hit and run driver near Lindley at Parthenia? That was my friend Dan. They didn’t stop. He was coming back from the Dollar store. He was a father and son and a good friend. He was on his bike. Please if anyone saw anything or knows anything. At least he deserves some justice. Just to hit him and leave him to die is too much.

Update 2: The victim has been identified as Danny Oerlemans. 

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Danny Oerlemans and his loved ones.

Thanks to Glenn Bailey for the heads-up. 

 

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , , ,

Breaking news: Man riding bicycle killed in Hyde Park hit-and-run; 12th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year

August 3, 2024 / / Comments Off on Breaking news: Man riding bicycle killed in Hyde Park hit-and-run; 12th SoCal bike rider killed by hit-and-run drivers this year

Yet another Southern California bike rider has been killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver.

KABC-7 is reporting that the victim was already dead by the time police arrived following the crash at W. 63rd Street near Overhill Drive in the Hyde Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles, just before noon Saturday.

He was identified only as a man in his 40s. His killer was apparently nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, there’s no word at this time just how the crash happened, or any description of the driver or suspect vehicle. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.

This is at least the 32nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth that I’m aware this year in Los Angeles County; it’s also just the fifth in the City of Los Angeles — at least that we know about.

Twelve of those SoCal deaths have been the victims of heartless cowards who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterward.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones. 

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , , ,

Man riding bicycle struck and killed by 2nd driver after Coachella hit-and-run; 19th fatal SoCal bike hit-and-run this year

December 9, 2023 / / Comments Off on Man riding bicycle struck and killed by 2nd driver after Coachella hit-and-run; 19th fatal SoCal bike hit-and-run this year

A man riding a bicycle was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Coachella Thursday night, then left in the road for another motorist to finish the job.

Or maybe it was Indio. Or even Thermal.

Multiple sources reported on the crash, but couldn’t seem to agree on the location.

But Google Maps puts in it Coachella, so we’ll go with that.

The victim was reportedly riding south in the 54000 block of Grapefruit Blvd, north of Palm Street, when he was run down from behind by a heartless coward, who fled the scene, around 11:35 pm.

He was then struck by a second driver, who stuck around after the crash and called 911.

The victim was identified only as a 54-year old man from Coachella.

There’s no word on whether he was riding in the traffic lane when he was struck; a street view shows a two lane highway with a minimal paved shoulder he could have been using.

It’s also not clear how long after the initial impact he was struck by the second motorist, or if he could have survived if the first driver had the basic human decency to stop after hitting someone.

The second driver won’t face charges in the crash. The same can’t be said for the coward who fled.

Unfortunately, no description is available for vehicle used in the hit-and-run, or for the person driving it. Anyone with information is urged to call CHP Officer Windsor at 760/772-5300.

This is at least the 67th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth that I’m aware of in Riverside County.

At least 19 of those SoCal bicyclists have been the victims of heartless hit-and-run drivers.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , , , ,
 
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