Police are looking for a dark-colored compact with likely front-end damage; the driver fled south on Palm Canyon. There’s no description on the driver or make of car.
Jaime’s family called on the driver to turn themself in.
Someone’s sitting at home knowing that they hit someone, they hit a person, and they know that they killed him. They know that; there’s no way on God’s green earth can they not know,” said Jeanette Jaime, Raymundo’s aunt and godmother. “I can understand the fear in them, but it just sickens me that someone can just do this to another person, to a human being.
He leaves behind his wife and a four-year old daughter.
“She is going to grow up without a father,” Jaime said. “It means that she will cry herself to sleep. They had a very awesome relationship.”
As well as clarifying that while this site is about advocacy, I’ve been the only one behind it since the Corgi died.
We might have started out with this observation.
Two girls, one about eight, the other about six, rip along in the middle of streets on motorized scooters that — and I am not making this up — zoom along at a solid 10 miles an hour.
Now, 10 mph may not seem like a lot if you’re tucked safely in a car. But hitting the asphalt at 10 miles an hour can destroy flesh, bone and skull, especially if a child is struck by a vehicle.
Yet that’s not what terrifies me.
What terrifies me is that these kids don’t wear helmets, an occurrence I see more and more.
I would have pointed out that, yes, anyone under 18 is required to wear a helmet on a scooter, just like on a bicycle.
There’s good reasoning for that. Children’s skulls and brains are still developing, and they lack the judgement to make an informed decision on whether or not to use a helmet.
Then the conversation might have moseyed along to this study.
Rosenthal and Kreeger is a California law firm that specializes in injuries, but also does actual research that tilts toward actually saving lives.
“Since helmet laws have been instituted in the majority of states, at least for children the death rate for that age group has decreased,” the firm points out. “But research shows that over half of adult bicyclists still do not use a helmet at all.
However, there have been studies that suggest the reason bicycling death rates have declined for children is simply that fewer children are riding bikes these days, as parents ferry them to and from school and soccer practice. And everywhere else.
Some people blame helmet laws for that decrease, saying it makes bicycling seem dangerous.
I’m not sure I buy that argument; I think the reason is the just the dangers on our streets, real and imagined.
But that would have led to discussion of the mandatory, and much hated, bike helmet laws in Australia and New Zealand.
Using bikeshare is often a spur of the moment thing, and no one wants to cart around an awkward helmet all day on the off chance they might rent a bike or scooter.
That would lead us to this discussion.
Between 2010 and 2017 (the latest year available), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports cycling fatalities increased by a whopping 35%.
In 2017, nearly 800 people were killed riding bicycles. Not surprisingly, there has been a corresponding increase in bicycle injuries — many of which are never reported.
I’ll add that California has one of the highest death rates in the nation, and Los Angeles and San Francisco made the top 10 list for the most deadly cities.
Yet there is no helmet law for adult cyclists.
Yes, the increase in bicycling fatalities is frightening, and has to be addressed.
But banning SUVs, with their deadly flat grills, and preventing cellphones from working in moving vehicles for anything other than directions and calling 911, would probably be more effective at reducing deaths than putting a bike helmet on every head on two wheels.
The problem with citing figures like that is that we have no way of knowing how many of the people who died were wearing helmets, or how many suffered head injuries.
We can project that from various studies, but at best we can only achieve a very rough estimation.
We also have no way of knowing if those people died as a result of head injuries, or if those injuries would have been survivable if they’d been wearing a bike helmet. Or if they suffered other injuries that would have cost them their lives anyway.
And that’s the last point I would have made.
Because bike helmets aren’t designed to protect against crashes with a car going 70 mph. Or 30, for that matter. And they don’t protect against injuries to any other part of the body.
Even the most expensive helmets are only required to withstand relatively minor impacts.
In other words, a fall off your bike, not a collision with a bus.
They also do nothing to protect against a traumatic brain injury, as I learned the hard way, unless you spring for the more expensive MIPS or WaveCel models.
And the jury is still out on those.
So yes, a bike helmet may help reduce the force of impact in a collision, as well as the severity of any head injury.
Or they may not, depending on the speed of the vehicle and angle of impact.
That’s if the straps don’t break and the helmet stays on. And if it’s still effective, and not degraded due to age or previous impacts.
A bike helmet is a single use device. Hit the pavement or bounce off a bumper just once, and it needs to be replaced.
That’s when I’d tell Whiting that I never ride without mine.
But I also recognize its limitations, and don’t count on a bike helmet to save my life. A helmet should always be seen as the last line of defense, after everything else — from street design to defensiveriding skills — have failed.
There are also arguments that they actually increase the danger to riders, whether as the result of closer passes from drivers and riskier behavior by riders, or the dangers of rotational injuries.
Regardless of my own choices, however, I respect people who have made the decision not to wear a helmet, and I respect their right to choose.
Which is what adult bike helmet use should be.
A choice. Not a law.
So I would have ended by saying I respect you, David. I think you’ve done a lot of good for the bicycling community.
A San Francisco letter writer says forget cars rolling stop signs, the real problem is people on bicycles. And apparently has a speed gun built into his glasses. Seriously, if you’re not going to stop, always obey the right-of-way, especially around pedestrians. And ride carefully around people on foot, who can be unpredictable, and are the only ones more vulnerable than we are.
Life is cheap on an Albuquerque Air Force base, where a truck driver got two and a half years for a) running a stop sign, while b) talking on his cellphone, and c) killing a man riding his bike.
Heartbreaking story from Aukland, New Zealand, where an 18-year old champion track cyclist will never be the same after a driver ran a stop sign and slammed into his bike, leaving him with a major head brain injury and nearly costing his life.
October 21, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Uber & Lyft blamed for traffic deaths, file LAPD theft and hit-and-run reports online, and lots of bike videos
Curbed’s Alissa Walker calls for emulating San Francisco’s closure of Market Street to private motor vehicles, and suggests seven LA-area streets that should be closed to cars and opened to people. It would be hard to make a case for closing Sunset, Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, as she suggests, since they represent three major parallel crosstown routes; a better case could be made for closing Wilshire and Hollywood to cars.
Surprisingly, Yahoo says you can’t power an entire city with your bike. It’s not surprising you can’t generate that much power with your bike; it’s surprising that Yahoo is still around.
The best laid plans of mice and bike thieves. A pair of Aussie thieves steal the security cameras from a Sydney parking garage, then come back the next night to steal a bicycle — unaware they were being recorded by dash cam.
Thanks to John L for his generous donation to support this site.
As we noted before, it would take just $10 from everyone who visits BikinginLA today to fund it for an entire year; John says he says he gave extra to make up for a couple people who didn’t.
Stephen Taylor Scarpa’s arraignment, scheduled for last Friday, was delayed again.
There are so many facets of this case that don’t look good for him: his status as an addict; his admission during interrogation that he should not have been driving; the amount and sheer number of drugs in his system; the presence in his vehicle of drugs obtained from an alleged overprescriber; his crash after “passing out” behind the wheel earlier in the year… etc.
He’s going down.
What perplexes me is the murder charge, because I can’t find any evidence of a prior DUI conviction — within LA or Orange County, at any rate. He could have priors elsewhere.
The Watson law is specific in its requirements: party has to be informed upon a DUI conviction of the possibility of a murder charge if said party kills someone while DUI.
So, this would mean, wouldn’t it, that Scarpa’s been convicted in some court at some point within the past 10 years?
A Watson advisement notwithstanding, PSA’s, American alcohol ads, and the DMV paperwork you sign before the state issues you a license all tell you that DUI is dangerous. But is that bombardment of facts enough to define malice, which is a required component of murder?
There’s one other thing that might convince a jury that Scarpa was aware of the dangers of DUI, enough so to convict of murder and not just manslaughter.
In 2011, as a student at Esperanza High, he participated in an Every Fifteen Minutes event, which is pretty comprehensive. In addition to pulling “dead” students out of classrooms every 15 minutes, a simulated collision is set up on campus, with the driver “arrested,” and moulaged “injured” & “dead” students extricated from the wreckage. These actors don’t go home that night; they’re sequestered overnight at a hotel, where they write a “Today I died” letter to their parents. (The parents also write to their dead kids.) The next day, these letters are read aloud at a school assembly.
Scarpa was one of the dead who was extricated from a mangled vehicle, who told his parents he died, who read this letter to his entire school.
I hope, every night before he falls asleep, he thinks of all the letters Mike Kreza never gets to write.
Pratiti Renee Mehta is back from her vacation in Chowchilla Women’s Facility. She’s in custody in County, awaiting a court appearance this morning. I will be there, because I am a horrible person and will enjoy seeing her violent, unrepentant ass in saggy jail-issued fashion and shackles. The sentencing was in July, and I missed it. How it wasn’t on my calendar, I dunno. (Busy week with the PAC on the 18th and the Caltrans D7 BAC on the 19th, but I wouldn’t have skipped the sentencing for anything.)
Due to a “clerical inadvertency,” Mehta had been sent up to state prison prior to a required sentencing assessment.
According to court records, on July 17th, the Defense’s request to reduce the felony hit-and-run count to a misdemeanor was denied, and then the judge sentenced Ms. Mehta to 3 years in state prison.
Two other things surprise me about the sentence: (1) The judge actually threw the book at her, wow. (2) The People didn’t request anything close.
That’s right, the People actually requested leniency: 90 days in County and an additional 200 hours of community service. For a woman who broke a guy’s bones, left him in the street, and then put in deliberate effort to lie to the cops about it. I remain furious that the ADW charge didn’t stick.
Hannah Jordan suffers from an unknown metabolic disorder that prevents her body from storing glucose; when she started on an intravenous formula from a Santa Barbara company, she began to thrive — and kick ass on her bicycle.
She’ll compete in Phil Gaimon’s hillclimb competition on Gibraltar Road with the feeding tube attached, then may train for international competition at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs CO.
And yes, her tube has been approved for competition.
There’s a special place in hell for a Japanese man who rode his bike up from behind a bike-riding 17-year old girl and groped her breast as he rode past, telling police he just couldn’t control his lust for her. Which should be read as a confession from a total asshole.
Streetsblog says Gavin Newsom’s veto of the state’s Complete Streets bill stinks, and that Caltrans’ reasoning for fighting it is “hogwash.” Someone suggested that we should now call getting hit by driver on a Caltrans-controlled street “getting Newsomed,” just like we called a close pass “getting Jerry Browned” after he repeatedly vetoed the three-foot passing law.
Virgilio Lemus Garcia, the 60-year old victim in Sunday’s Santa Ana hit-and-run, remains in grave condition; police are looking for a dark blue mid-’90s, four-door Honda Civic with probable front end damage and a possible shattered windshield.
Apparently never having heard of induced demand, Caltrans will close San Diego’s Friars Road this weekend in preparation for adding a fourth lane in each direction, along with sidewalks and bike lanes. Hopefully, they’ll also consider how the hell pedestrians are supposed to cross that massive monstrosity.
Apparently, it’s okay to be nuts for nuts. But don’t eat too many because they can cause kidney stones, as I learned the hard way.
A new survey from Lime says scooter users don’t want to ride on the sidewalks, but do it anyway because they don’t feel safe on the street. Which is exactly the same reason many bike riders do. And the answer isn’t threatening or ticketing them, it’s building more and better bike lanes.
Kansas City’s mayor wants to rip out a new protected bike lane less than a month after it was installed, saying it’s made things very difficult for businesses and residents. Apparently, it must have been installed on a whim, without any studies, since he wants to remove it the same way; any change to a roadway requires time for people to adjust to it before you know how its going to work out.
A new British study shows a cheap, widely available drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide if given in the first few hours after a head injury; the medication, called tranexamic acid, costs the equivalent of less than $8 in the UK. Which means it will probably sell for a couple thousand dollars a dose in the US.
And it’s not a record jump if you don’t stick the landing.
………
Thanks to John Hall for his generous donation to support this site, and help keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way (nearly) every day.
October 14, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: More of same as Newsom vetos Complete Streets bill, and Santa Ana hit-and-run gravely injures bike rider
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Evidently, not much has changed with a new, more progressive governor in Sacramento.
Former Governor Jerry Brown became famous for obstructing bicycle safety bills, to the point that “Jerry Brown” became a pseudonym for a dangerously close pass after Brown vetoed two versions of a three-foot passing law before finally agreeing to the watered-down version we have today.
And yes, I may have had something to do with popularizing that term.
Which is the primary reason Newsom gave for vetoing it.
But anyone who’s followed Caltrans for any length of time knows they’re notorious for promising change, then continuing with the same deadly, auto-centric policies.
Newsom’s veto message says Caltrans is already committed to Compete Streets “where reasonable and feasible.”
Which is simply another of saying if it gets hard in anyway, or anyone complains, just forget it.
And we’re left with a few minor changes to add sidewalks or bike lanes here and there — the “low hanging fruit,” as LADOT described it.
Newsom also cited Caltrans’ brazen, and successful, attempt to sabotage the bill, despite their many pledges of support for Complete Streets. The agency cited an absurdly high projected cost for the measure, claiming it would cost the state an extra $1 billion a year.
Add that to the bike lanes, and double it for both sides of the street, and you’re looking at less that $375,000 per mile.
Just a tad less than that $4.5 million.
Maybe they were planning on some very expensive crosswalks, and a shitload of Share The Road signs.
Or maybe they just didn’t want to finally be held to account.
So once again, people who choose not to drive, for any length of time and for any reason, are left holding the bag.
Along with the communities these roads pass through. And the earth they’re built on.
And once again, we’re left with a self-proclaimed climate governor, like LA’s ineffectual climate mayor, who’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect the environment and fight climate change.
As long as that doesn’t mean inconveniencing drivers in any way.
………
Yet another bike rider is barely clinging to life, thanks to yet another heartless coward behind the wheel.
If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, this spectacular stunt from his self produced video series probably will.
The 36-year old British Columbia native was riding a trail in Cabo San Lucas when he fell, suffering a fatal head injury.
He started racing BMX at 11 before switching to mountain bikes at 15, rising to become the second-ranked North American rider in the 2003 World Cup standings.
He also became the first rider to land a Cork 720 a few years later. Even if he misses it here.
Sometimes the problem is just bald-faced bigotry directed to someone made more vulnerable by being on a bike. A British man intervened when a handful of teenagers surrounded a Jewish man, shouting anti-semitic slurs and threatening to take his bicycle. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with some people?
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A man was fatally stabbed in South El Monte Friday evening after three men got out of a passing car, knocked him off his bike, and repeatedly stabbed him; the victim tried to get back on his bike and ride for help, but only made it another block.
Life is cheap in New York State, where authorities plea bargained a case of vehicular manslaughter in the drunken hit-and-run death of a bike rider down to a simple hit-and-run injury case; the driver could be out in as little as 18 months. Also good to know that driving at nearly three times the legal limit is just an effing misdemeanor in the Empire State.
The University of Alabama football team has sent a football and jersey signed by star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to the family of a 12-year old boy who was recently shot and killed by another boy because he wouldn’t give his bicycle; his family plans to have him buried with both.
According to the Ventura County Star, a 45-year old man was killed when he was struck by the driver of a semi-truck while riding his bike against traffic on an Oxnard street.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was struck just after 11:30 am as he was riding east in the westbound lane of East Wooley Road, west of Saviers Road in Oxnard
He was dead at the scene before emergency personnel arrived.
The driver of the truck continued west without stopping. When Oxnard police stopped the truck shortly later, the driver reportedly cooperated with investigators, claiming he was unaware of the crash.
Unfortunately, they don’t explain how the crash happened. It strains credibility to believe the driver could have been unaware of a head-on collision; however, it’s possible he may not have known if he sideswiped the victim or hit him with the truck’s wing mirror.
October 10, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Charges increased in Frederick “Woon” Frazier death, and WeHo drag queen run down on purpose
Maybe there will be justice for Woon after all.
I received the following email from an anonymous correspondent at yesterday’s scheduled prelim for Mariah Kandise Banks, charged with the hit-and-run death of Frederick “Woon” Frazier and the attempted coverup that followed.
The People have filed an amended complaint against Ms. Banks in which the charge of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence has been upgraded to felony.
Judge Lynne Hobbs thanked Ms. Banks for being on time this morning. Alas, the prelim was trailed yet again.
The judge inquired about the prosecution’s previous request for an increase in bail due to the accused’s alleged harassment of the victim’s family (and frankly, she seemed willing and prepared to grant it). The prosecutor stated that she had spoken to the victim’s family two days ago and had received no further reports of harassment, so the bail stands as-is.
Ms. Banks was her usual muttery self as she exited the courtroom.
The increased charges mean Banks now faces six years for felony vehicular manslaughter, rather than one year for the misdemeanor count.
That’s in addition to a possible four years for felony hit-and-run.
However, it’s unlikely she’ll serve anywhere near that. The LA district attorney’s office has a well-deserved reputation for bargaining charges down to avoid a trial.
If Banks is smart, she’ll drop the attitude and cop a plea. And maybe get out in a couple years, rather than risk serving the full dime behind bars.
Photo of Frederick “Woon” Frazier taken from his original crowdfunding page.
The victim, Sasha Markgraf, says he was the only member of the group dressed in an effeminate manner.
In addition to being a drag performer and singer, Markgraf is also a costume designer. When he left the bar with his friends to cross Larrabee Street after 2 a.m. he was wearing high heels and suspects the driver may have intentionally hit him.
“It’s sad to say but I think he was coming straight for us. He didn’t have to go right. He didn’t have to veer to the right,” Markgraf says.
A crowdfunding page says the driver turned on his car as Markgraf stepped off the curb and revved his engine before plowing into him. So far, it’s raised just $2,100 of the $50,000 goal.
Unfortunately, the only description of the car is a silver Honda Civic. There’s no description available for the driver.
Lets hope they catch this jerk before he or she tries to kill someone else.
Great piece about a British Columbia bike shop owner and inventor who earned the Lanterne Rouge in the 1955 Tour de France, joining another rider as the first British cyclists to finish the tour; after moving to Canada, he built the wheelchair used on an around-the-world journey, as well as refurbishing bicycles to give to those in need. Sadly, he died of cancer on Saturday.
A Pittsburgh man is making his third official attempt to set a new handcycle 24-hour record. The paraplegic athlete set an unofficial record of 407.7 miles in 2016, breaking the existing record of 403.8; however, the track wasn’t certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, so it didn’t count.
Life is cheap in Pennsylvania, where a 73-year old woman was killed in a left cross collision, and the driver walked with a lousy traffic ticket. There’s something seriously wrong when needlessly taking the life of another person amounts to nothing more than a simple traffic violation.
Life is cheap in Wales, too, where a woman got off with just 27 months behind bars for drunkenly driving “like a maniac” and plowing into four members of a family out for a bike ride, then fleeing the scene; one of her victims was lucky to survive. So naturally, she blamed the entire thing on her boyfriend.
October 9, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: NIMBY Pasadena traffic survey, LA finally counts bikes, and bust made in near-fatal Ramona hit-and-run
But the best way to overcome their extreme NIMBY windshield bias is to get everyone you know who supports walking, bicycling, transit and safe, livable streets to take the survey themselves.
Hardly a valid basis for any city to make solid transportation decisions.
Bizarrely, though, the story implies that the counts will only be done on weekends, which will provide little real information on bike commuting and transportation riding.
Almost as if the city has fallen for the old myth that the only people who ride bikes in LA are the weekend recreational riders.
By contrast, the LACBC counts were done during both morning and evening commutes, as well as on weekends.
However, that may not be totally accurate, as Sean Meredith suggests that the weekday counts may have been contracted out to a private company.
Let’s hope he’s right.
Update: The LACBC confirms that LADOT has contracted out to a private company to do bike and pedestrian count using traffic cameras.
We've been told they hired a company to do weekday counts with cameras and the weekend counts are being done by volunteers. Yes, there should be more locations and we told them so, along with others. But they ARE doing weekday counts. #bikeLA@Maddz4planning
FWIW, I wrote to LADOT about the weekend survey, and they mentioned they already collected weekday data last month, and will use the weekend survey to contrast usage patterns.
The damaged car, which had stolen plates, was seized as evidence.
………
This is who we share the road with.
CiclaValley catches the end of a nasty U-turn by a driver who didn’t seem to care he was there.
My front camera was out of battery, but my rear camera still caught this driver who almost made a u-turn into me on Laurel Canyon. CLP# 7KOY224 pic.twitter.com/FX1i2PymdW
Unruly teenage bike riders participating in a ride out take over the streets of Vacaville, allegedly kicking and slapping vehicles, and attempting to open car doors at red lights. Police took several riders into custody for traffic offenses, even though those are ticketable violations, rather than crimes subject to arrest. Note to Daily Republic: Unless the kids were trying to sell something to the people in those cars, the word you’re looking for is “pedalers,” not “peddlers.”
A Singaporean e-scooter rider will spend six weeks behind bars for crashing into the back of a man’s leg without slowing down. Seriously, they take this shit seriously over there. Thanks to Mike Cane — that’s C-A-N-E, with no R — for the heads-up. Despite how I usually seem to spell his name.
October 7, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: A short CicLAvia thread, NYT op-ed says cars are death machines, and Keep LA Moving summit on video
I had a little different CicLAvia yesterday.
My wife, who doesn’t ride a bike, wanted to go to CicLAvia this time.
So I left my bike at home, and we walked the section through the Civic Center and Little Tokyo, then combined it with a long-planned walking tour of the Arts District, ending with lunch at Smorgasburg.
Along with a stop at Angel City Brewery on the way back for a touch of Octoberfest and a half growler of their fest martzen.
And yes, a good time was had by all. With the exception of my new knee, which has been barking at me ever since we got home.
I should have sprung for the Vibranium model.
Or maybe unobtanium.
More a few people turned out this time. Just like every CicLAvia, going back to the very first one.
Whoever scheduled a Mole fest right next to CicLAvia deserves a promotion.
Who doesn’t love the incredible craftsmanship that goes into these lowrider bikes?
Thanks to Jason for a quick rundown on Pure Cycle’s new e-cargo bike.
I’m not saying everyone went to Angel City post CicLAvia…
…but it sure as hell looked like it.
Meanwhile, Sam Omar-Hall offers a great thread capturing the day.
Allison Arieff writes that she used to think calling cars death machines was extreme. But not any more.
Especially after her nine-year old niece was lucky to survive getting hit by an ice cream truck in Los Angeles.
Cars are death machines. Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; more than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2018 alone. More than 4,000 American kids are killed in car crashes every year – I am thankful every day my niece wasn’t one of them.
Here’s the thing: Statistics clearly don’t seem to persuade anyone of the magnitude of this problem. Not policy makers or automakers, technologists or drivers.
She goes on to quote from over 500 people who responded to her request for stories of getting hit by a driver.
And says autonomous cars aren’t going to save us.
Among the safety measures proposed by car companies are encouraging pedestrians and bicyclists to use R.F.I.D. tags, which emit signals that cars can detect. This means it’s becoming the pedestrian’s responsibility to avoid getting hit. But if keeping people safe means putting the responsibility on them (or worse, criminalizingwalking and biking), we need to think twice about the technology we’re developing.
This may be the worst outcome of the automobile-centered 20th century: the assumption that it’s people who need to get out of the way of these lethal machines, instead of the other way around.
And neither are SUVs.
Because the front end of an S.U.V. is higher than the average car’s front end, it is far more likely to hit a pedestrian in the chest or head and twice as likely to kill walkers, runners, cyclists and children, compared to regular cars. And yet, S.U.V. sales account for 60 percent of new vehicle sales.
One of the easiest ways to make cars safer would be to make them smaller. Another way? Figuring out how to get people to drive less by providing safer, more sustainable alternatives to the car.
Seriously, take a few minutes to read the whole thing — including the quotes from the victims.
The LA Timescelebrates the permanent hold placed on the freeway portion of the High Desert Corridor through north LA County, saying building a highway that will increase the amount of miles driven, at a time when the state is committed to cutting driving miles, is the wrong move. But notes that the high speed rail and bike path portions of the project can still go through. And should.
This is who we share the roads with. An allegedly drunk Pasadena driver fled the scene after killing a pedestrian; the driver faces charges for vehicular manslaughter, DUI and driving without a license. More evidence just how desperately those Complete Streets are needed. And how desperately we need to do something to stop hit-and-runs.
A bike-riding San Francisco columnist says the solution to conflicts on the road are bicycle turnout lanes that would allow bike riders to get out of the way of trailing traffic, just like the one he and his wife used to pull aside to leet a semi pass on a narrow roadway.
Sad news from Oakland, where a 24-year old man was the victim of a dooring; he was killed when someone opened the door of a parked car in front of him, knocking him into the path of a large pickup. I’m told the street had sharrows, which were due to be replaced with bike lanes. But it’s too late to save this man.
Seattle police appear to have abused their bait bike program, targeting poor and homeless people by leaving an unlocked bicycle outside of a Goodwill store; nine people were busted, but the only one that went to trial resulted in a not guilty verdict.
Delaware bicyclists are looking for a private property owner willing to host a ghost bike, when they had to take down the bike honoring a fallen bike rider after just two days because the local DOT was planning to remove it from the public property it was sitting on.
A British man rode a BMX bike 300 miles in a monkey suit to raise funds and call attention to the problem of stillborn births, walking the last mile after breaking his chain. And learned the hard way that a plush monkey head works better than a bike helmet.
If you’re going use a mountain bike as your getaway vehicle, at least wait until you get the money. If you’re playing hide and seek from the cops with a stolen motorbike, maybe find a better hiding place than behind a telephone pole — and put a damn shirt on for your mug shot.
A special thanks to Linda T and Matthew R for their generous contributions to support this site. I rely on your support — emotionally and financially — to keep the best bike news coming your way every day.
September 29, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: Drinking, unlicensed hit-and-run driver slams into four bike riders in El Centro, killing 44-year old man and injuring 3
It’s not often we hear from Imperial County. And when we do, the news usually isn’t good.
The driver was arrested shortly later after fleeing the scene. Officials said she had been drinking, but was not legally intoxicated, and didn’t have a valid license.
The victims were all reported to be Mexican citizens.
This is at least the 55th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first in Imperial County.
The most seriously injured victim was flown from El Centro to Palm Springs for treatment, while the Mexican consulate was working to help the other victims and get Millan’s body back home to Mexicali.
The driver, a resident of El Centro, is being held on $150,000 bond on felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter charges.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for EmeterioMillan and all his loved ones. And best wishes for a fast and full recovery to all those injured in the crash.
