March 22, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bike-riding man left to die by hit-and-run driver in Cypress Park; 9th fatal SoCal bicycling hit-and-run this year
Yet another bike rider has been murdered by a hit-and-run driver.
According to the LAPD, the victim was riding east on San Fernando Road near Pepper Street when he was rear-ended by an unknown driver around 7:15 pm.
The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was described only as a man in his 50s or older, which suggests that he has still not been identified three days after his death.
Police investigators have been unable to find any witnesses to the crash, but are attempting to identify the suspect vehicle from debris left at the scene.
The crash occurred somewhere near the park. It happened just minutes after sunset, so victim should have still been visible, with or without lights.
Anyone with information is urged to contact LAPD Detective Berdin at 213/833-3713 or email 31958@lapd.online.
This is at least the 24th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County. It’s also the fourth that has been publicly reported in the City of Los Angeles.
Nine of those SoCal deaths have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Thanks to Streetsblog’s Joe Linton for the heads-up.
March 17, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Driver leaves bike-riding woman to die alone in violent Riverside crash; 8th fatal SoCal bicycling hit-and-run this year
It never stops.
Yet another Southern California bike rider has been murdered by a hit-and-run driver.
According to LA’s FOX-11, Riverside police found a woman lying dead on the side of the roadway early Wednesday morning, her bike and belongings strewn for a full block behind her.
The officers discovered the victim, who has not been publicly identified, while responding to a call at Orange and Center streets in Riverside a few minutes before 2 am.
There was no sign of the driver, and no description of the suspect vehicle. It’s not clear if she was riding or walking the bike at the time of the crash.
The lengthy debris field suggests she was either struck at high speed, or she and her bike were dragged under the vehicle for at least a block.
There’s no way of knowing at this time how long she had been there, or if she could have survived if the driver had stopped and called for help, as both the law and basic human decency requires.
When and if the driver is found, they’ll face a maximum of just four years for felony hit-and-run resulting in death under California’s overly lenient hit-and-run statute.
The advantage of a rebate, rather than suspending the state gas tax, is that it won’t affect critical funding for road repair and improvements, according to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
However, a rebate targeting only people who own motor vehicles will miss everyone who choses not to contribute to the problem, by riding transit, riding a bike or walking. Even though everyone pays higher gas prices in the form of climbing prices for food, and everything else that’s transported by truck.
As he suggests, it would be interesting to see just what people actually choose. And getting people out of their cars would reduce some of the demand forcing prices up.
Although I want to see who people blame for high gas prices when oil companies start reporting record profits in a few months.
Meanwhile, blame once again falls on LA’s failed leadership, or the lack thereof.
Los Angeles has had a full decade to build out the city’s bike and mobility plans, which should have been 40% complete by now if city leaders plan on meeting their self-imposed deadline of 2035.
Instead, both plans are gathering dust in some dark corner of the city servers, instead of providing the safe, convenient alternatives to driving that Angelenos were promised a decade ago.
So if you or your loved ones feel like you don’t have any practical alternative to driving, despite the rising prices, you know who to thank.
Evidently trees are out to get us, too, with today’s photo of fallen tree limbs attacking the Metro Bike dock at Runyon Canyon. And a dog, too.
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Maybe Octavio Mendoza will see justice, after all.
It’s not yet clear whether this was a random case of road rage, or if the men knew one another.
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Apparently, if Obama hadn’t worn a bike helmet, Ukraine might not be under attack today.
BoingBoing looks back to the good old days of 2014, when Fox News blamed the then-president for Putin’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbas by insisting his bike helmet made him look weak.
No, really.
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For some reason, I still can’t embed tweets on here, so we’ll have to settle for a few semi-decent descriptions.
Really disappointing that we can’t embed this one, since it features a really cool short video of a 1956 handcycle, with the hand crank awkwardly mounted on the crossbar of a standard bicycle frame.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Mountain View police are looking for a suspect who slapped a pair of women on the butt as he rode past them on his bike, while making suggestive comments. And for anyone unclear on the concept, that’s not flirting, it’s not a prank, and it’s definitely not funny. It’s sexual assault. Period.
Someone stole a teenage boy’s ebike in a strong-arm robbery on a La Jolla bike path, shoving the victim off his bike and taking off with it; police are looking for multiple high school-aged kids, including the primary suspect who rode off on the victim’s bike wearing a full motorcycle helmet and moto goggles.
Wiredtalks with the woman who was behind the wheel, but allegedly watching videos on her phone, when a self-driving car prototype killed a bike-riding woman in Tempe, Arizona four years ago.
Cambridge, Massachusetts will intentionally miss a deadline to build out quick-build separated bike lanes by May 1st, saying they need more time to engage local stakeholders. Evidently, they don’t understand the concept of “quick-build.” And somehow couldn’t manage to engage those stakeholders in the six years since a bike rider was killed there.
In an all-too familiar story, the Colorado Classic women’s stage race is on life support, unless a sponsor steps up with $3 million to keep the race alive; otherwise, it will follow the late, lamented Tour of California, Tour of Utah, and the USA Pro Challenge into the “ever-growing graveyard of American pro cycling races.”
March 5, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Fullerton man riding DIY ebike killed in possible hit-and-run; 5th Southern California bike death this week
Please make it stop.
After a terrible start to the year — and one of the worst weeks in memory — yet another bike rider has lost his life on the mean streets of Southern California.
Borstens was discovered suffering from serious injuries, next to a mountain bike that had been converted to an ebike.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police are investigating the crash as a possible hit-and-run, but acknowledge it’s possible that Borstens may have fallen off his bike for some reason.
Officers stressed that Borstens’ bike had been modified to add an electric engine, rather than manufactured as an ebike. There are any number of conversion kits on the market that can turn any bike into an ebike.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Fullerton Police Department at 714/738-6812.
This is at least the 23rd bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Orange County. It’s also the fifth SoCal bicycling death in just the last week.
If this turns out to have been a hit-and-run, it would be the eight fatal bike hit-and-run since the first of the year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Ivars Borsteins and all his lived ones.
Security cam video acquired by KCBS2/KCAL9 shows Gonzales was riding against traffic with three other boys when he was struck by the driver of a speeding pickup, who kept going without slowing down.
His friends immediately dropped their bikes and chased after the driver, but weren’t able to catch him or get the license plate.
Police are looking for a black or dark-colored full size pickup. Anyone with information is urged to call Riverside Police Department Traffic Detective Jeff Derouin at 951/826-8722, or email Jderouin@riversideca.gov.
They note that this is the fifth fatal crash in the city in just six days. But the other drivers at least had the basic human decency to remain at the scene.
Ironically, the driver would have been unlikely to face charges in this case if he or she had simply stopped after the crash. Now they face up to four years behind bars for felony hit-and-run.
This is at least the 22nd bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the fifth that I’m aware of in Riverside County.
They found the rest of the 57-year old victim’s body in the back of a man’s pickup, where it had been since the driver had crashed into his bike around 12 hours earlier.
The driver claimed he didn’t know the victim’s body was there until he got home — and then apparently just went inside and left him there to die once he did.
Graphics by tomexploresla
Which presumably would have given the man plenty of time to sober up before the cops found the body in his truck.
And how anyone could do something like that without being drunk or stoned is beyond me.
Bike Talk talks with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider about the organization’s Healthy Streets LA initiative to force Los Angeles to build out the city’s mobility plan when streets get repaved.
That’s followed by a segment with Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss discussing the Idaho Stop Law, which allows bike riders to treat stop signs like yields, and — at least in Idaho’s original version — treat red lights like stop signs.
A version of which was vetoed by California Governor Newsom last year.
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Remember what we said yesterday about the new Taylor Yard Bridge opening next month?
British singer, songwriter and producer James Blunt is one of us.
Born on this day, February 22, 1974: James Blunt, musician, here riding in aid of wounded and injured military personnel in London, UK, 2013. Happy #bicyclebirthday, James!#BOTDpic.twitter.com/gWY3kPUSJc
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A road-raging British driver walked without a single day behind bars for chasing down and ramming a bike rider who damaged his wing mirror; adding insult to injury, the driver was ordered to pay the equivalent of just $1,359 in compensation, despite totaling the victim’s $9,500 bicycle.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
New York’s legislature is considering a package of bike and pedestrian safety bills that would give cities more control over speed limits, encourage them to build safer sidewalks and bike lanes, and require drivers to study more safety topics for their license test.
The driver briefly stopped a short distance away before driving off, leaving his victim bleeding in the street.
Investigators ask anyone who lives in the area to check their surveillance cameras for any video that might show the crash or the suspect.
Something sheriff’s investigators should have done themselves in the first few days, if not hours, following the crash, before any video would be deleted or recorded over.
But maybe they were, like, busy or something.
Anyone with information is urged to call San Dimas Traffic Detective Christopher Bronowicki at 909/859-2818.
The video is difficult to watch, so make sure you really want to see the crash and its aftermath before you click play, because you can’t unsee it once you do.
Seventy-four-year old John Burgan is in a coma in critical condition with internal injuries, as well as fractures all around his skull, face, ribs and right femur, after an apparent hit-and-run.
The location and condition of his undamaged bicycle suggest he may have been struck by the wing mirror of a driver’s vehicle while making his way to the left turn lane at Hosp Way.
Anyone with information is urged to call Carlsbad Police Officer Adam Bentley at 760/931-2288 or email adam.bentley@carlsbadca.gov.
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Finally, a little good news from LA City Hall.
Streetsblog is reporting that the City Council Transportation Committee has taken the unprecedented step of — wait for it — actually lowering speed limits in the City of Angels, in hopes of maybe making a fewer of them.
Angels, that is.
The city’s hands have long been tied by the deadly 85th Percentile Law, which worked in conjunction with speeding drivers to push limits ever higher, regardless of whether the new speeds were actually safe.
It took a new state law, sponsored by Burbank Assemblymember Laura Friedman, to reform, but not repeal, the 85th Percentile Law to allow the city to begin reducing speeds on city streets.
However, the committee’s action covers just 177 miles out of LA’s more than 6,500 miles of streets.
But it’s a start.
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It looks like New Yorkers overwhelmingly support safer streets, and using automated traffic cams to do it.
New Yorkers want these changes to make streets safe. An Emerson College poll found that 68% of city residents support lowering the speed limit to 20 mph, and 72% want the city to have authority to set its own speed limits. A Siena College poll found that 85% of New York City voters, including 84% of car-owners, support red light enforcement cameras. More than three-quarters of New York City voters, including just about the same share of car owners, support automated speed safety cameras.
Not only are the speed and red light cams popular, they’re also effective.
As one example of the consequences, consider New York City’s speed safety camera program, which is currently only permitted by Albany to operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday. In effect, Albany forces cameras to be off for more than half of the hours in any given week. Speed safety cameras are wildly effective: A 55% drop in all traffic fatalities and a 72%decline in speeding followed the launch of the program. Speed safety cameras also avoid racial biases that may be present in armed police stops and avoid risks of stops turning violent or deadly. However, in 2020, nearly 40% of people killed in fatal traffic crashes died in speed safety camera zones, but when the cameras were forced to be off. Speeding doesn’t sleep, but state law forces our speed safety cameras to get plenty of shut-eye.
Let’s hope California legislators are paying attention.
Not to mention the LA City Council, which cancelled the city’s red light camera program, for reasons that mostly boiled down to angry drivers who didn’t like getting tickets for breaking the law.
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I wouldn’t count on plastic bollards to keep you safer. Even if these are better than the flimsy car-tickler plastic bendy posts.
Santa Monica has these in a few spots but goes for the truly useless ones like these in most places. Disappointingly the latter for the Ocean Ave "protected" bike lane and, shocker, half of then were gone in less than a year and it constantly has motor vehicles in it. pic.twitter.com/5xG7g9zNuS
— lana Negrete mentioned me on rightwing fake news (@schroedinger_) February 17, 2022
Personally, I consider anything marked by plastic bollards to be a separated bike lane, rather than a protected bike lane.
Because those little posts don’t protect anyone.
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Burbank police will be offering bicycle registration next Wednesday afternoon.
And cookies, too.
Join us for our first ever Cookie with a Cop next Wednesday at Sliders, from 2-4pm. We will also have bicycle registration available, too! @BurbankCApic.twitter.com/yXwRNRRDZS
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Cincinnati op-ed calls bike lanes a “misappropriation of funds,” calling for the money to be spent fixing potholes rather than catering “to a small group of citizens that happen to bicycle.” Never mind that potholes are more dangerous for people on bikes than those safely ensconced in a couple tons of steel and glass.
Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a man got a lousy 30 months for the drunken hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle, then tried to blame an innocent co-worker for the crash. Never mind that it was the third time in six years he’d been accused of DUI. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.
February 15, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on New bike lane appears on North Figueroa, 16-year old critical after SaMo hit-and-run, and upper Ballona Creek bike path closure
Cedillo has gone so far as to ask the council to remove all proposed bike lanes in CD1 from the city’s mobility plan, arguing that the people in his district don’t ride bikes. And evidently forgetting that many people in the immigrant-rich district rely on bikes as their primary, if not only, form of transportation.
It’s not clear why the councilmember, whose opposition to safety projects earned him the moniker Roadkill Gill, had an apparent change of heart.
One clue comes from LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney, who notes that the new bike lanes wouldn’t inconvenience the people in cars.
L.A. City Transportation Department (LADOT) spokesperson Colin Sweeney wrote that “StreetsLA recently completed resurfacing on Figueroa after which LADOT restriped the street to bring it up to current standards. In this instance, restriping created space to add a bike lane to the existing configuration without impacting other road users (no impact on parking or number of travel lanes).” North Figueroa was repaved between Pasadena Avenue and the 110 Freeway.
Although neighborhood advocate Felicia G. has another, equally plausible explanation.
Cedillo has been in office 9 years. The community has asked for a safer @fig4all the entire time.
Because he’s up for re-election soon *surprise* a bike lane is squeezed in?
The victim was injured around 2 a.m. Sunday, when Maximiliano Ramos Santiago allegedly slammed into her bike at Chelsea Ave and Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica.
Santiago was arrested at his home yesterday, and booked on charges of felony hit-and-run and driving without a license.
Which would have given him plenty of time to sober up, assuming he had been drinking, which is highly likely given the time of the crash.
Let’s hope she makes a full and fast recovery.
And that the driver who did this is held fully accountable for leaving a young woman bleeding in the street.
It looks like the upper section of the Ballona Creek bike path will be out of commission for the next four and a half months.
Speaking of Ballona Creek Bike Path, the stretch between the end near La Cienega Station and Duquesne appears to be closed due to Higuera Bridge work until 6/30/22. Will it randomly open on weekends like it was for me a couple weeks ago? Who knows! #culvercitypic.twitter.com/8tAlHJ52cM
A letter writer takes the LA Times’ Robin Abcarian to task for questioning the value of Vision Zero when, she said, eliminating traffic deaths is doomed to fail. Although that name of that letter writer seems sort of familiar.
A letter from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider argues that Rancho Mirage can, and should, make convert Highway 111 into a real street that meets the needs of all users, rather than just the ones in cars. Exactly the same arguments apply to PCH in Malibu, as well, which should be the city’s Main Street, instead of a sewer for pass-through drivers and their cars.
Residents of a San Mateo neighborhood overwhelming oppose plans for a bike lane network, preferring preserving street parking over the safety of people on bicycles; however, people in the rest of the city support the project.
Streetsblog invites you to vote on the worst kind of bicycle infrastructure; among the choices are Orange County favorite painted bike lanes next to high speed roadways, and sharrows, which only exist to help drivers improve their aim and thin the herd.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A Pennsylvania man is still riding at 90 years old, although the area’s hills mean he does most of his riding inside. Which makes him an ideal candidate for a ped-assist ebike to get back on the road.
The hit-and-run epidemic show no sign of stopping.
The same day a Santa Ana bike rider was murdered by a driver who fled the scene, leaving his or her innocent victim to die in the street, another bicyclist was lucky to survive being run down by a hit-and-run driver on the Ventura County section of Southern California’s killer highway.
Or maybe calling PCH a serial killer highway is more accurate.
Here’s a brief press release from the victim’s family.
Santa Barbara family seeks answers and witnesses in PCH hit-and-run
On Saturday, February 12 at 11:10 a.m., Santa Barbara resident Jeff Sczechowski (seh-CHOW-ski) was struck from behind and thrown into a parked vehicle while riding his black mountain bike on the shoulder of the northbound side of the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). This was just north of the Sycamore Canyon State Park entrance across from the Thornhill Broome Beach Campground that is south of the large sand hill on the inland side of the PCH. He was wearing a white helmet and grey and yellow cycling clothing. The victim was transported by ambulance to the Ventura County Medical Center, where he is hospitalized and receiving care. He has sustained significant injuries to his back, leg, and arms. Jeff, a chemical engineering PhD, manages a research center in the UCSB Department of Physics. He is also an avid cyclist and bonsai tree artist. Jeff, his wife, and their children ask anyone who may have been involved in or witnessed the event to please contact Ventura California Highway Patrol Officer Bowen at 805-662-2640.
Shamefully, fully half of the 12 people killed riding bicycles in Southern California this year have been the victims of hit-and-run drivers.
Yes, 50 percent.
There is simply no excuse.
Not for the heartless cowards who lack the basic human decency to stick around after a crash. Or for those in elected office who lack the courage to do anything about it.
The project would have added 4.75 miles of offroad trails along a pair of channels, where they would have had zero impact on traffic and the surrounding community. And provided much needed safe routes through the beachside city, which is already one of the most dangerous places to ride a bike in Orange County.
Instead, the responses from local residents were apparently so bad that local officials decided not to do the right thing, and killed the project instead.
Never mind the current dangers faced by bike riders and pedestrians in the city. Or the desperate need to get people out of their cars, at a time when Orange County is already a year-round fire zone.
And never mind that access to a safe bikeway increases local property values.
There’s simply no rational reason to oppose a project like this, let alone cancel it.
But they did anyway.
Thanks to Eric Eberwein for the tip.
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Say goodbye to the green bollards on Del Amo Blvd in Long Beach, and hello to a new curb-protected bike lane.
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The Davis Bike Counter wasn’t just removed. It was killed by an errant driver.
No bias here, either. An Indian protected bike lane was removed after drivers were “inconvenienced” by the lane reduction to make room for it, never mind that bike riders were inconvenienced by the drivers parking in it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
San Francisco ripped out a protected bike lane due to a construction zone, temporarily replacing it with a painted bike lane, despite being on a street where three people have been killed in three years. Never mind that removing the protected lane will make the city liable for any injuries that happen as a result.
Utah’s law cutting the blood alcohol level required for DUI to .05, from the .08 allowed the other 49 states, is showing demonstrable benefits, with drunk driving deaths and crashes dropping 20% in the state since the law went into effect.
A cautionary story from Charleston, South Carolina, where police are reopening a crash investigation after a man died two months after he was hit by a driver, despite being released from the hospital the same day with an apparent misdiagnosis of just minor injuries.
Retired Irish pro Nicholas Roche has been warned not to ride in the mountains south of Dublin, while he’s filming the British version of Dancing With the Stars in the city, because thieves are known to knock riders off their bikes, then toss them in their van and drive off while the rider is still sprawled in the roadway.
The Italian movie The Pantini Affair should be coming to the US, after Capital Motion Picture Group picked up the North American rights to the 2020 film about the last five years in the life of legendary cyclist Marco Pantani.
February 13, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Bicyclist killed in Santa Ana hit-and-run; half of all SoCal bike victims this year killed by hit-and-run drivers
Once again, someone riding a bicycle has been killed by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
Despite the efforts of first responders, the victim, who was has not been publicly identified, died at the scene.
Police believe the victim was riding east in the bike lane on West First when the driver of a red Kia sedan ran them down from behind, then fled the scene.
Unfortunately, there’s no further description of the car or the driver. But whoever did it should face a murder charge for making a deliberate choice to leave an innocent victim to die in the street.
Anyone with information is urged to call Santa Ana Police Investigator Bao at 714/245-8223.
This is at least the 12th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third that I’m aware of in Orange County.
Half of those SoCal victims have been killed by drivers who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterwards.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his or her loved ones.
