The victim, described only as a possible minor, died at the scene. The station reports a bicycle was lying on the sidewalk afterwards, next to a tent in the street covering the victim’s body.
Unfortunately, that’s about all we know.
There’s no word on how he may have been killed, or any description of a possible suspect.
Assuming this was a hit-and-run, there is a standing $50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the driver for any hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
This is at least the 19th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; four of those have been in the City of Los Angeles.
It’s also the eighth fatal hit-and-run involving a SoCal bike rider this year.
The suspect vehicle is described as an older model white Nissan, with likely with damage to its front end, hood and windshield from the impact with the victim.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Detective Juan Campos at 213/833-3713, or email 31480@lapd.online. Or call the Central Traffic Division Watch Commander at 213/833-3746 after hours or weekends.
As always, there is a $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious, but not fatal, injuries in the City of Los Angeles.
There’s always another side to the story, even when everyone has already taken sides.
It’s been clear for some time that we’ve only heard one side of the story about the white New York hospital worker filmed in a viral video trying to wrest and whine a bikeshare bike out of the hands of a Black teenager.
The woman, who has become infamous as the Citi Bike Karen, has spoken through her attorney, who claims he has receipts showing she rented the bike she was trying to claim.
She’s raised over $124,000 from people who thought she was unfairly accused of racism.
Now the family of the teenager she was trying to take the bike from is finally speaking out for the first time. According to them, the 17-year old boy’s life and family have been in turmoil since the incident.
They explained that as the son of low-income, West African immigrants on public assistance, he was entitled to discounted 45-minute bikeshare rides, after which the rate increases.
The day of the incident, he and his friends rode from his home in the Bronx to visit friends in Harlem. After 45 minutes, he re-docked the bike to reset the clock, before setting out again at the reduced rate.
Which is when he claims his life went to hell.
He says the hospital worker approached the group as they briefly rested with the bikes, asking each one in turn if she could use their bike. Each boy said no, because they were about to take them back out again.
So she stepped onto the bike anyway, using her phone to scan the bike’s QR code as he held onto the handlebars, and tried to take the bike out of his hands.
It was 7:24 p.m., and that is when the boys began recording…
Michael insisted Sarah Jane Comrie knew he was planning to use the bike. He said she asked him and his friends to use theirs, and they all informed her they were using the bikes and would be leaving shortly.
He said she seemed annoyed that they wouldn’t willingly give up their bikes to her. He also said he believes she wanted that bike as opposed to the others that remained docked in the rack because he had one of the newer e-bikes.
The rest of the interaction plays out in the video. Sarah Jane Comrie, dressed in scrubs bearing the NYC Health + Hospitals logo, removed her work ID badge from her neck, placed it in her bag along with a brown paper bag she was holding and began screaming for help.
Proving once again there’s always another side to the story.
We have no way of knowing who is right, or exactly how the events played out in the minutes before the camera was turned on. But the incident offers a Rorschach Test for today’s America, as people on both sides of the political divide quickly chose sides.
A white woman received over a hundred grand, while a young Black man has his life upended. Although a crowdfunding campaign started yesterday has raised over $37,000 for his legal fees in less than 24 hours.
This difference of intent and scale is worth dwelling on because it is why the comparison is so misguided. The U.S. Department of Transportation has estimated 475,000 households containing one million people were displaced due to highway construction from 1957 to 1977. That is the equivalent of displacing the entire population of modern-day Austin, Texas. Likewise, a Los Angeles Times analysis found that an additional 200,000 people have lost their homes due to highway construction since 1990. To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a single housing unit destroyed or person displaced to build a bike or bus lane anywhere in the U.S. On these grounds alone, it is simply absurd to compare urban highway construction to bike and bus lanes. Projects of such vastly different scopes and scale deserve different approaches and mindsets.
But there is another good reason to reject this comparison, one that is equally revealing about the biases of modern transportation officials. Reynolds asked, “What makes us so confident we know best?” Another way of asking this is, what makes us so confident we know bike and bus lanes are better than masses of parking and multiple travel lanes for private cars for everyone?
The answer is: we’ve got the receipts. In this case, decades of scientific study and experiments carefully tracked and evaluated by local departments of transportation.
The sheer absurdity of Reynolds’ comments, coming from someone who should surely know better, is appalling.
It also explains why so little was done to improve LA streets while she ran the department. And why we shouldn’t hold our breath for any major innovations coming from her new position as Metro’s Chief Innovation Officer.
Unless maybe her chief innovation is even more pointless, never-ending public meetings.
He’s also one of us, regularly taking part in the annual 545-mile AIDS/LIFECYCLE ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
However, Ratevosian faces stiff competition from Burbank Assembly Transportation Chair Laura Friedman, California State Senator Anthony Portantino, and former Boy Meets World star Ben Savage, among others.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
An award-winning British TV producer, writer and comedian was fined the equivalent of more than $1,200, plus another $1,250 in court costs and victim surcharge, for flipping off a bike cam activist when he was caught using his smartphone from behind the wheel of his $173,000 Aston Martin.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
After a Seal Beach letter writer complains that it seems petty to ticket a pair of senior citizens on a tandem for rolling a stop sign, a cop explains that bicycles are treated as vehicles in California, and bike riders have to obey the law, too. Even laws that most drivers don’t. Which is one more argument to pass the Stop As Yield bill in the state legislature, and get Governor Newsom to sign the damn thing this time.
A 28-year old Kentucky man is dead after a pickup driver crashed into his bike; police excused the crash because glare from the setting sun kept him from seeing the victim. Never mind that the correct course of action would have been to pull over to the side of the road until he could see, before he killed anyone.
This is who we share the road with. A 32-year old Philadelphia woman faces murder and vehicular homicide charges for a December hit-and-run crime spree that killed on man and injured two other people; she is accused of hitting three cars and a scooter rider, then crashing into a bike rider before fatally slamming into a man walking in a crosswalk, and fleeing from all three crashes.
Bicycling says the colossal amounts of elevation gain in the last few stages of the Giro will make the final days of racing a slugfest. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
May 24, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 23-year old man killed in South Park hit-and-run last month; police looking for silver 2008-2013 Mercedes
This is what keeps me up at night.
Too often, we may not learn about the things that happen on our streets until weeks later, if at all.
That’s what happened in this case, when a man riding a bike was left to die by a heartless coward in LA’s South Park neighborhood over a month ago.
And we only learned about it today.
According to a press release from the LAPD, a 23-year old man was riding west on 43rd Street at Main Street around 10:40 pm on Thursday, April 13th, when he was run down by a driver headed south on Main.
The driver fled south on Main without stopping, leaving the victim, identified as Iomer Samuel Cruz, fatally injured in the street.
There’s no description of the suspect; police are looking for a silver 2008-2013 Mercedes Benz C230 or C330.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Central Traffic Division Officer Balderas or Detective Campos at 213/833-3713; after hours or on weekends call the Central Traffic Division’s Watch Commander at 213/833-3746.
As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver.
You can find security cam video of the crash here. I’m not posting it because it shows the actual impact, so be sure you really want to see it before you click on the link.
This is at least the 18th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; just three of those have been in the City of Los Angeles.
It’s also the seventh fatal hit-and-run involving a SoCal bike rider this year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Iomer Samuel Cruz and all his loved ones.
The victim died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics, and has not been publicly identified.
An anonymous caller alerted the police to the location of the driver’s car, a black late model Nissan SUV, less than a block away in an underground parking garage in the 14100 block of Cerise Avenue.
A street view shows a large apartment complex at that location, suggesting the 21-year old driver, who also has not been publicly identified, may have been arrested at his home, or visiting another person.
April 28, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Deliberate vehicular assault in Point Loma hit-and-run, CA ebike rebates, and comment on Redondo Beach Blvd plan
Tristan Gonzalez, a former San Diego police helicopter pilot and a high school mountain bike league board member — and, I’m told, a really nice guy — was riding on Catalina Blvd near Bernice Drive when he was run down by the driver around 4:50 pm.
He posted about the crash from his hospital bed, describing the suspect as a white male around 35-45 years old, wearing a lighter colored baseball cap, and driving a smaller white pickup truck with an extended cab and non-tinted windows.
He said he first encountered the driver of a white Toyota Tacoma a block earlier near Catalina Boulevard and Narragansett Avenue. He said he sensed the driver was getting dangerously close to him. At one point, he said the driver hit the handlebars of Gonzalez’s bike.
Gonzalez said he approached the truck and looked into the window. He said the driver stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge him.
As they both continued down Catalina toward Bernice, he sensed he was about to be hit.
“All of a sudden, I hear honking. I hear a car speed up, and sure enough, the same white truck came up alongside me,” said Gonzalez. “I just had time to look over and to see it was the same truck and to see the driver steer and turn the truck and speed right into me. I went flying and landed in the street with several injuries.”
To make matters worse, I’m told a witness pulled over to help, but accidentally left her car in drive, only stopping when Gonzolez’ helmet was wedged between the front tire, fender and bumper as a wheel chock.
He was hospitalized with a broken hip, clavicle and punctured lung. The good news is, he was scheduled to be released on Wednesday.
Police are reportedly taking the incident seriously, investigating the crash as an assault with a deadly weapon. Although it should be considered attempted murder.
A still photo taken from a doorbell video shows the white extended cab pickup.
An anti-bike member of the British Parliament called for removing a bike lane where 59 people have been injured in the past year as a result of a pale line painted the same color as a curb, creating an optical illusion; he has also used racist terms in the past in criticizing bike lanes. Or they could just paint one or the other a different color, and solve the whole problem.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The LA Times gets it, saying walking to school shouldn’t be deadly, in the wake of the crash that killed a mom and critically injured her daughter as they crossed the street to get to the girl’s school. Then again, biking to school shouldn’t mean risking life and limb, either.
Metro says this year’s Bike Week is scheduled for May 15-19 and Bike Day, formerly known as Bike To Work Day, will be Thursday, May 18. Let’s just hope it doesn’t fizzle out for lack of interest like it did last year.
The family of fallen Encinitas bicyclist Jennings Worley have begun settlement talks in a lawsuit against Shea Homes, three years after Worley, a leading scientist working on a cure cystic fibrosis, was killed when moving truck driver right hooked him turning into one of the builder’s developments. Which raises the question of how many CF patients will needlessly suffer because he isn’t there to develop a treatment for the devastating disease.
A Spokane, Washington website says 750 bike riders have been struck by drivers in the city since 2014, along with 1,500 pedestrians, and examines what can be done to stop the carnage.
Road.ccexplains what all-road bikes are, describing them as “drop-bar bikes that are fast and capable on any kind of road surface from smooth asphalt all the way to light gravel tracks.” In other words, what we used to call a “bicycle.”
Let’s start with news of yet another bike rider injured by a heartless hit-and-run driver.
Steve Messer forwards news that a friend of his was the victim of a hit-and-run while riding in San Diego’s Point Loma neighborhood.
It’s hard to read the small type, but the victim, a former cop and board member with the high school mountain biking league, was riding on Catalina Blvd when he was run down by the driver around 4:50 pm.
The suspect, described as a white male 35-45 years old, wearing a lighter colored baseball cap, was driving a smaller white pickup truck with a regular cab and non-tinted windows.
If you live or ride in San Diego, try to get the word out to get more eyes out on the street looking for the suspect. And if you know anyone who works in the news media, give them a push to cover this story.
A review of the project after a year found an 18% increase in people walking and 32% more people biking through the area. At the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Main Street, the number of bikes counted nearly doubled. Bus travel became faster and ridership increased more on the corridor compared with citywide.People said they were biking, walking and taking transit more often in the area, according to the review. They felt safer, more comfortable and noticed fewer speeding cars.
As for traffic? It moved faster in the morning hours, and in the evening it took drivers about two minutes longer to pass through the area. Two minutes. That’s a minor inconvenience. It certainly seems like a fair trade-off to make the corridor safer and more convenient for alternative modes of transportation — which was the purpose of the project.
Yet remarkably, but perhaps unsurprisingly, MOVE Culver City is in danger of being unceremoniously ripped out by the new conservative majority on the council in response to the windshield bias of some motorists, many of whom may only pass through the city without stopping, on their way to somewhere else.
Yet somehow demand that the city cater to their needs, rather than that of people walking shopping, dining and biking in the downtown area, as well as those riding buses.
According to the paper,
Yet even the modest encroachment of Move Culver City may be too much for opponents of the project, who seem particularly offended by the bus lane. There is a proposal to add back a car lane and make buses and bicyclists share a lane, which would dissuade all but the most confident cyclists and slow the buses, thus making alternative modes of transportation a lot less appealing. And for what? So some drivers can get to their destination two minutes faster…
Like most communities across California, Culver City has plenty of plans detailing its commitment to bike lanes, public transit and sustainable city design as strategies to reduce greenhouse gases from vehicle pollution to help fight climate change. But those plans are meaningless if elected leaders don’t have the political backbone to see them through.
As the paper’s editorial bard makes clear, we will never have safe streets and more livable communities if elected leaders lack the backbone to stand up to opposition from motorists, which is virtually inevitable with any project.
Meanwhile, local elected leaders, both current and former, are adding their voices in support of the project.
Streets For All is asking you to call for more funding for LADOT at tomorrow’s LA City Council Budget Committee, and support bike and walk-friendly motions at Wednesday’s Transportation Committee.
Budget Committee (6:00pm, Tuesday 4/25)
The committee will take up the Mayor’s proposed budget for next fiscal year. We are asking you to:
– Advocate for 18 more positions for LADOT’s activate transportation team which is sorely under resourced and stymying our efforts
– Advocate for 4 litigation support positions for LADOT so they can focus on getting bus and bike lanes in the ground and not on lawsuits – Public comment can be made virtually in real time or in advance
Transportation Committee (2pm, Wednesday 4/26)
– Advocate that the committee approve LADOT’s plan to revisit peak hour lanes
– Support new protected bike lanes on Lincoln over Ballona Creek
– Support a new dedicated speed hump program around schools – Public comment can be made in advance or in person (no virtual option)We’ve put together a toolkit to help you make public comment in the easiest way possible:
British police used deadly force to bust a fleeing ebike rider, intentionally hitting the suspect head-on to end a “high-speed” chase before swarming him as he lay writhing in pain; he was charged with possessing a fake weapon and a “bladed article,” as well as weed. Although it’s questionable how high speed the chase could have been on an ebike.
A California appeals court concluded that drivers don’t have a first amendment right to honk their horns, ruling that the law “prohibits all driver-initiated horn use except when such use is ‘reasonably necessary to [e]nsure safe operation’ of the vehicle.” Now if we can just find someone to enforce that.
Accused killer Kaitlin Armstrong appeared in an Austin, Texas courtroom, charged with the murder of gravel cycling star Moriah “Mo” Wilson, as the press focused on her new face after undergoing plastic surgery in a failed effort to hide her identity before her arrest.
Surprisingly, a sizable majority of New Yorkers want the city to make streets safer for kids to bike and walk, even if it means removing parking or making it harder to drive; a new poll shows two-thirds of New Yorkers think the city should prioritize pedestrian safety over driver convenience, while nearly six in 10 support doing it even if it means removing parking, adding to traffic congestion or closing down streets.
In it, Linton takes the Los Angeles Planning Department to task — deservedly — for producing what he calls “an astonishingly vacuous report” that’s ostensibly a status report on implementation of the city’s mobility plan.
Yet one that he says ignores all the multimodal facilities included in Planning Department’s own plan.
Almost as if they are, in reality, the LA Lack of Planning Dept.
According to Linton,
In 2015, the city approved the Mobility Plan, with hundreds of miles of new bus and bike lanes, pedestrian improvements, and a Vision Zero policy to end L.A. City traffic deaths by 2035. Safe streets advocates loved it. Reactionaries hated the plan so much they sued to block it.
Yet the Planning Department somehow gives itself an undeserved pat on the back, claiming to have accomplished 76% of the mobility plan’s Action Programs.
While that may sound like they’re making real progress, those Action Programs have nothing to do with putting paint on the street. Let alone the long-promised barriers and networks that might actually provide some protection and connections for people on bicycles.
Instead, Linton describes them this way.
“…a sort of obscure plan appendix that lists 173 tasks assigned to various city departments. The Action Plan includes things like: roadway safety outreach, wayfinding, analysis of unpermitted mountain biking in city parks, and periodic updates of LADOT’s Manual of Policies and Procedures.”
He ties their massive success in rearranging the massive pile of papers on their collective desks back to last year’s fiasco with the city council’s non-approval of the Healthy Streets LA initiative — which does nothing more than require the city to live up to its commitments, and build out the mobility plan they already passed when streets in the plan get resurfaced.
That’s it.
But evidently, that’s just a bridge and resurfaced roadway too far for the city.
He describes how the city council, led by now-disgraced racist Council President Nury Martinez, voted to adopt their own ordinance mirroring Healthy Streets LA.
One that wouldn’t contain the requirement to build out the mobility plan, but would, in actuality, leave it up to the council to decide whether or not to actually fulfill their obligations.
And you can probably guess how that would go, if you’ve been paying attention so far.
Last August, the council made it sound like the ordinance would happen right away. Then-president Martinez stated that city staff would “report back on my motion within the next few weeks.” Councilmember Nithya Raman spoke of the council “match[ing] the urgency that I hear from all of you [safe streets advocates] today.”
That’s exactly what the city’s bicycling community heard from an LADOT official within weeks of the 2010 bike plan’s passage, which was later subsumed into the city’s mobility plan.
We were told, while still celebrating our hard-fought victory, that the whole damn thing was merely “aspirational.”
Something the city has more than lived up to by living down to their extremely limited aspirations.
As Linton mentions above, we’re still waiting for that draft ordinance mirroring Healthy Streets LA to come back for a reading, let alone a vote, a full eight months — not weeks — after it was promised.
There was hope after the last election that the city’s new progressive councilmembers would light a fire under our sleepy governing body, and we might actually see some action on our streets.
But it seems just the opposite has happened. And the council has managed to douse whatever fire they might have had.
As I said, it’s a must read. So what are you waiting for?
No description was available for the suspect or their vehicle. Or for the victim, apparently.
As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injuries in the City of Los Angeles. Although there’s not a lot to go on this time.
But there may be hope, according to The Thousand Oaks Acorn.
The survey found that 75% of drivers empathize with cyclists’ frustrations, such as being overtaken too closely, while 81% of cyclists said they understood the challenges that drivers must deal with while navigating busy local streets.
So there’s that, anyway.
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Gravel Bike California stops to sniff, if not the roses, the superbloom of flowers brought on by the recent rains on the Carrizo Plain.
Twitter post
Thanks to Zachary Rynew for the heads-up.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
San Francisco Streetsblog says a proposal for bike lanes on a commuter route and tourist attraction between Sausalito and San Francisco is already seeing a bikelash.
After a British bicyclist is understandably outraged and profane when a van driver cuts him off in the country’s left-handed equivalent of a high-speed right hook, the driver threatens a defamation case when he gets review bombed. As if you can somehow be defamed over something you actually did.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An Edinburgh columnist applauds anyone who has the courage to ride a bike on the city streets, but begs bike-riding men to cover their butt cracks. Or “bahookie” in the local parlance, apparently.
No bias here. A WeHo paper says the city wants to take away your “right” to make a right turn on a red light, while saying the maneuver is a factor in just 1% of crashes. Which means it’s responsible for around 400 deaths every year, which probably matters to the victim’s families, even if it doesn’t matter to them. And I don’t recall right on red being included in the Bill of Rights, but maybe I missed that day.
A San Diego TV station reports city council members responded to a recent hit-and-run by continuing to discuss the city’s Vision Zero Plan “to eliminate but also prevent traffic collisions, bicycle and pedestrian injuries and deaths,” which seems to be the same thing. Although I would be overjoyed just to hear Vision Zero discussed in the Los Angeles council chambers.
The San Jose Mercury News’ Mr. Roadshow explains why bicyclists don’t pay for the roads the same way drivers do. But then the paper hides it behind a paywall as “premium” content, reflecting a basic misunderstanding of how the internet works. Although you can read it for free if you’re willing to accept their daily emails.
Once again, my apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence.
Let’s just say it’s yet another reminder than diabetes sucks. And that you don’t want this crap if there’s anything you can do to avoid it.
Because right now, the only thing that compares to my excessively high blood sugar is just how low I feel each and every day, both physically and emotionally.
Thirteeen-year old Joshua Mora was crossing Whittier Boulevard in the crosswalk on March 30th when 29-year-old Banning resident Erwin Majano allegedly slammed into him.
Mora lost his right leg as a result of the impact.
At last report, Majano was being held on $50,000 bond; he was arrested following a tip from the public. Which means someone will likely receive the standing $25,000 reward upon conviction.
Imelda Padilla, field deputy for Martinez, will face Marisa Alcaraz, environmental policy director and deputy chief of staff to City Councilmember Curren Price.
Martinez resigned last October when a recording surfaced capturing her making racist and otherwise offensive comments in a conversation with CD14 Councilmember Kevin De León and former CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo, along with a powerful union head.
Yet one will be the district’s next councilmember — in part because a shameful 11.4% of eligible voters turned out to determine who will represent the other 88.6%.
This is who we share the road with. Police in Santa Ana are looking for the heartless coward in an older black Cadillac DeVille who flipped an 11-year old boy through the air and kept going without stopping; fortunately, the victim wasn’t seriously injured, and his companion wasn’t struck. Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the heads-up.
He gets it. A Utah columnist argues that cities need to prioritize people, not cars. Which is exactly what Los Angeles will do on Sunday, and four cities in the San Gabriel Valley will do next week. Now we just need to do it every day.
Bighearted residents of Seabrook, Texas rallied around a hit-and-run victim who was injured when a driver smashed into her adult tricycle; less than two hours after a volunteer firefighter posted about the crash, she had up to five replacement bikes to choose from.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana will extend and add lighting to the city’s Mississippi River Levee Path, which forms a link in the 3,000-mile-long Mississippi River Bicycle Trail. I used to ride that pathway over four decades ago, when I first got the little blue Trek I rode for 25 years.
In yet another example of keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late, a Florida man has been arrested for the high-speed crash that killed a bike rider. A security cam captured him doing 90 mph in a 40 mph zone moments before he slammed into the victim, knocking him more than the length of a football field from the point of impact; he has several previous citations for excessive speed, including doing 115 mph in a 45 mp zone just a year earlier. Yet he was somehow allowed to keep driving until he killed someone.
International
Momentum Magazine offers “six fantastic and affordable commuter bikes” for spring riding. And for once, when a magazine says affordable, they actually mean it, with price starting at just $499.
Cycling Weekly considers how far is too far to commute to work. I once met a RAAM competitor who trained by commuting from his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado to his job in Denver and back everyday, a distance of 156 miles — even in the winter.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a Mexican Paralympian’s custom adaptive handcycle from his Playa del Carmen home. Seriously, anyone could tell it’s made for someone with special needs just by looking at it.
April 10, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Protest calls for safer streets, more on death of masters track cycling champ, and not guilty plea in San Pedro hit-and-run
Mora’s injury is far from the first to happen on the one-mile stretch of Whittier Boulevard between South Boyle Avenue and South Lorena Street. According to the Transportation Injury Mapping System, between 2013 and 2022 there were 225 crashes resulting in injury or death.
“Enough is enough,” said Damian Kevitt, the founder of the non-profit organization Streets are for Everyone. “People need to slow down.”
Kevitt went on to add that local residents have been pleading for safety improvements at the crosswalk for years, including safety cameras and other security devices.
Meanwhile, San Francisco’s KRON-4 reports there were calls to pass AB-645, which would legalize speed cams around schools and dangerous streets.
Like in Boyle Heights, where the traffic fatality rate is 53 percent higher than the overall city, with more traffic deaths than any other L.A. neighborhood over the past five years.
The 51-year old Montoya had just picked up a meal from a food when he was allegedly run down by Lockhart’s speeding car. Police arrested Montoya five days after the crash, based on tips from the public.
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In case you ever wondered why those plastic car-tickler bendy posts aren’t protection.
Twitter post
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A new video refutes the myth that no one uses New York’s bike lanes, with 321 people on bikes passing through a single intersection in a single half hour during rush hour, compared to a little more than 500 motor vehicles.
And it notes that no one rode salmon, despite the city’s reputation for wrong-way bicyclists.
Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up.
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North Carolina Public Television offers a feature on Charlotte CyclingSavvy Instructor Pamela Murray, calling her a local bike hero.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
No bias here. A London website reports that bicycling trip segments have tripled in the city over the past 20 years — but then goes on to question whether concerns about road safety, “though perfectly right and proper,” have taken undue precedence, and been overly influenced by campaigners and “misplaced public opinion.”
No bias here, either. London’s Daily Mail tries to stir up controversy by sharing photos of 19 bike riders rolling through a floating bus stop as passengers are getting on or off. Buried in the story is the fact it took place over five hours at multiple locations, along with the fact that the bus stops are new and it will take everyone time to adjust to them.
A new coalition of Westwood Village and UCLA groups unveiled the new Westwood Connected campaign, which calls for a rail stop on the UCLA campus, pedestrian improvements, and protected bike lanes on Galey and Wilshire, as well as the long fought for bike lanes on Westwood Blvd. And it actually has a chance now that anti-bike lane former Councilmember Paul Koretz is gone.
Prolific character actor Michael Lerner passed away over the weekend at 81; the Oscar-nominated performer appeared in films ranging from Barton Fink, Elf and The Candidate, to Harlem Nights and Eight Men Out. Although the highlight of his career was undoubtedly playing a bicycle salesman in The Brady Bunch.
The CHP reports a man riding a bicycle in Oakhurst made a suicide swerve Saturday afternoon, striking the side of a large pickup as he allegedly began to make a U-turn. Which is probably bullshit; most alleged suicide swerves are likely the result of overly close passes, rather than careless bicyclists.
Fortunetalks with Forward health systems CEO Adrian Aoun, who rides his bike for mental clarity, calling it his meditation. I’ve long considered bicycling to be a moving meditation, allowing you to get out of your head and become one with the world around you.
That comes in behind only New York’s 17. And tops Houston, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida with ten each, followed by Chicago and Detroit with eight.
But on a per capita basis, we’re not even close.
Tucson, Arizona led the nation with 1.26 deaths per 100,000 residents, followed closely by Detroit with 1.2 per 100,000 people.
Los Angeles was all the way down at number 16, with a relatively paltry 0.30 per 100,000 residents. Or we could be 20th, since we were tied with Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Chicago and San Jose.
Despite leading the US in sheer number of bike riders killed, New York didn’t even make the top 20 on a per capita basis.
But however you look at it, it’s still too damn many.
Then again, even one traffic death is one too many.
Joshua Mora was crossing Whittier Blvd at Osme Ave when he was struck by the speeding motorbike rider, who left him sprawled and bleeding in the street as he angrily got back on his bike and sped away.
A writer for the Los Angeles Timeswalks all 25 miles of Sunset Blvd in a single day. That’s long been one of my favorite LA bike rides, taking you through a microcosm of virtually every type of LA neighborhood from DTLA to the coast. Although it’s a lot more fun if you do it when it’s not choked with cars and drivers.
State
A father in Aliso Viejo credits an Apple AirTag with recovering his daughter’s stolen ebike, reclaiming it from the thief himself when sheriff’s deputies were unable to find it. Although you should be cautious about that doing yourself, since you never know if the thief might be armed.
We recently mentioned a three-year old boy in Maine whose Spider-Man bike was stolen when he went into a store with his mom; now a bighearted woman who can’t even afford shelter for herself used what little money she had to buy him a new one.
Six months after they were installed, new bike and pedestrian lanes on a Maryland roadway have eliminated crashes for people walking and biking, while increasing travel times just 30 seconds for morning motor vehicle commuters.
