Tag Archive for impaired driving

Bolo Alert for Mid-Wilshire hit-and-run, NTSB ebike and e-scooter report a bust, and LAPD impaired driving holiday PSA

It’s the last four days of the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Just 96 short hours to show your love for this site, and help keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

Or even less, depending on when you read this. Never mind when I finally get it posted online. 

So let’s all thank James S, Brian N and Robert L for doing their part to ensure this site is here for you today, and every day!

Don’t waste another minute. Let alone another hour. 

Take a moment to donate right now via PayPal or Zelle. Then pat yourself on the back for doing a good thing. 

Because every contribution, no matter how large or small, is truly and deeply appreciated. And needed. 

And seriously, I mean it. Our spokesdog and chief fundraiser is going to keep staring until you give in and give something.

Trust me, you don’t want that.

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The LAPD is looking for a hit-and-run driver who seriously injured a bike rider in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood earlier this month.

The victim was struck by the driver of a 2012 to 2017 Toyota Camry at the intersection of Venice and Hauser around 9 am December 7th.

No information has been given about the victim, who suffered serious, but thankfully, non-life threatening injuries.

As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injuries in the City of Los Angeles. Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD detectives at 213/473-0234, or 877/527-3247 after hours.

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The first NTSB report on ebike and e-scooter crashes is a bust, as the agency concludes they just don’t have the data they need to reach any conclusions, after finding just 117 deaths on electric micromobility devices over a four-year period.

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A new holiday PSA from the LAPD’s Central Traffic Division sends a pretty clear message about the dangers of impaired driving.

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

Japan will become the fifth country to mandate bike helmets for adults, after Argentina, Cyprus, Australia, and New Zealand, in an apparent attempt to reduce ridership right when we need it most; however, there’s no penalty for failing to comply.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

There’s a special place in hell for the Florida man who tried to use his bicycle to abduct a 14-year old girl who was walking with her friends. And hopefully, behind bars, soon. 

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Local 

California Senator Alex Padilla announced $80 million in funding for projects in the Los Angeles area; the list includes $5 million for Glendora’s ten-mile active transportation People Movement project, $4 million for Metro’s Rail to River Active Transportation Corridor, and $3 million for El Monte’s Merced Avenue Greenway. His office also announced $69 million in funding for the Bay Area, and $48 million for the Sacramento area.

 

State

Orange County cities are struggling to regulate e-bikes, with restrictions — such as a 10 mph speed limit on public streets in Lake Forest — that may be illegal under state law.

Fifty San Jose kids could win free bicycles and helmets if they pledge to reduce waste and be more environmentally aware.

A Michelin-starred San Francisco chef examines the parallels between riding a bike and running a restaurant. Although no one ever got a Michelin star for riding a bike, though some of us do use Michelin tires.

 

National

VeloNews talks pinch flats and how to fight them, while Road Bike Action wants to know why bike events are so damn long.

PinkBike considers whether elite bicyclists are at higher risk of heart problems and premature death, concluding there’s a slightly elevated risk, but it’s still significantly less than not riding at all.

The NYT’s Wirecutter recommends the best gifts for bike riders, ranging from olive soap to an otter-shaped water bottle and cage, as well as summer weight women’s jerseys from LA-based Machines for Freedom.

Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus asks if officials really care about record traffic deaths when they don’t do anything to solve the problem.

Kindhearted Seattle residents have raised over $1,600 to buy a new e-cargo bike for a young girl after someone stole the bike she used to ride with her father on Sundays.

Utah is suffering through a record number of bike and pedestrian deaths; bicycling fatalities are at least 50% higher than any year since record keeping began in 1994.

A bike path along a Nantucket roadway is wanted by virtually everyone except the homeowners who live alongside it, who call it a bike path to nowhere and fear bike riders “wandering around private property.” They also suspect people won’t be able to control their bladders after a modest ten-mile bike ride.

Some Cambridge, Massachusetts city councillors want to rip out a new lane reduction and separated bike lanes, rather than give it time for traffic patterns to settle in.

A New York man says riding outside is still better than riding in his basement, even after getting hit by an elderly driver, and that surviving the crash made him feel invincible. Oddly, getting hit by a road raging driver had the opposite effect on me. 

The Washington Post offers advice on how to stay safe while biking through the dark winter months. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have their usual option to share it, so your ability to read it may vary.

A 91-year old Florida woman will spend what could be the last years of her life behind bars after running down a couple riding their bikes, then getting out to look at them, and just getting back in her car despite their serious injuries, and driving away to have it repaired at the local dealership; one of the victims called her “a heartless monster who only thinks of herself.”

 

International

Great idea. An English market district is using ebike-riding volunteers to make Christmas deliveries.

Cyclist talks with the British couple who just set a new world’s record for riding around the world on a tandem.

Ikea is experimenting with three-wheeled, solar powered e-cargo bikes to make deliveries in the Netherlands.

You could go for a Christmas bike ride through the streets of Cyprus tonight. Except it will probably be over by the time you read this, thanks to a ten-hour time differential between Cyprus and Los Angeles.  

Autoevolution considers a vaporware slap bike lock developed by a Korean inventor, designed to be easy to use and carry, but which currently exists only as trademark renderings.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling’s governing body will expand the Mountain Bike World Cup even further next year, with the introduction of enduro and E-enduro racing, which comes on the heels of adding cross-country marathon racing to the Cup.

No surprise here, as VeloNews names Annemiek van Vleuten their female cyclist of the year.

 

Finally…

Nothing like turning your e-cargo bike into a heavy duty snowplow. That feeling when your kid’s new Christmas bike was built by prison labor.

And don’t lie to your mom about wearing a helmet.

Seriously.

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Happy Chanukah to everyone celebrating today.

Chag Urim Sameach!

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Screens impair drivers more than alcohol or drugs, famed LA cougar victim of traffic violence, and snow gravel biking above LA

Just five days left in the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Time is running out to show your love for this site, and help keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

So let’s all thank John M, Thomas K and John C for doing their part to keep this site coming to your favorite screen today, and every day. 

Now it’s your turn. 

Your support is very needed, so don’t wait. Take a moment to donate right now via PayPal or Zelle, before you forget!

Every contribution, no matter how large or small, is truly and deeply appreciated. 

It’s okay. We’ll wait. 

No, seriously, she’s going to keep staring until you give something.

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A writer for Streetsblog suggests there’s a lot more to impaired driving than driving under the influence, noting that drivers using Apple CarPlay’s touchscreen are five times more impaired than someone who is legally drunk.

Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released what seems, at first, to be a shocking statistic: a sample of more than 7,000 road users who were killed or injured in car crashes across America, 56 percent of them tested positive for impairing substances when they arrived at the hospital…

To be abundantly clear: none of this is to say that impaired driving, and especially drunk driving, isn’t extraordinarily dangerous. A motorist’s odds of getting into a car crash double at a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.05, which is the legal limit only in Utah, and they roughly triple at 0.08, the limit in most other states. The universe of potential effects from the universe of impairing substances a U.S. driver might consume include decreased muscle coordination, distorted perceptions, increased risk taking, and so much more. The correct number of drinks, or pills, or other delivery mechanisms for impairing substances that a driver should take before she gets behind the wheel is always zero.

A lot of those deadly effects, though, are also present in people who are sleep-deprived, or stressed, or fiddling with a NHTSA-approved “infotainment” screen embedded in the dashboard of their car — and in some cases, those effects can be as bad or worse than knocking back a couple of beers. One UK study found that using Apple’s CarPlay system slowed drivers’ reaction times nearly five times as much as driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 — but CarPlay is legal on U.S. vehicles, even as U.S. regulators spend millions on anti-distracted driving campaigns to politely request drivers not use it.

It’s definitely worth taking a few minutes to read the whole story. And maybe change your mind on who and what poses the biggest risks on the roads.

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It turns out LA’s celebrity mountain lion P-22 was a victim of traffic violence, suffering from a fractured skull, an eye injury, herniated organs and a torn diaphragm, all apparently the result of being struck by a motorist.

He was put down on Saturday after being captured due to concerns over his health.

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Evidently, you don’t have to ride far to find snow above LA right now.

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Good question from Reddit.

I hate driving in Los Angeles.
byu/MadToothFairy inLosAngeles

Thanks to How the West WS for the heads-up. 

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This brief UK thread may be the best bike Twitter exchange this year.

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Bikepacking offers advice on how to secure your bike on a bikepacking trip.

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‘Tis the season.

A National City, California group plans on giving out 200 bicycles and a thousand toys on Christmas morning, continuing a 50-year tradition.

Touching story from West Jordan, Utah, where the family of a 13-year old boy killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike earlier this year were given a huge Harry Potter-themed Christmas tree that had been designed in his honor and sold to benefit a local children’s hospital; the buyer bought it just to give it back to them.

A Texas law firm donate 140 bicycles to local kids in their second annual bike giveaway, saying it reminds them of how much they enjoyed riding bicycles as kids.

The kindhearted owner of a Cicero, Illinois bike shop is fixing up old bikes, and placing them outside for anyone who wants one to simply take it, no questions asked.

A Michigan girl whose heart is definitely in the right place collected cans all year to buy 50 bicycles to donate to local kids.

Twenty-eight kids at at Bloomington, Indiana Boys & Girls Club got new bicycles in a Christmas tradition funded by a local attorney.

Kindhearted students at a Tupelo, Mississippi high school built bikes to give to local kids in need, as part of an annual Christmas bike giveaway.

A Hilton Head, South Carolina real estate agent donated 300 bicycles and helmets for local kids and teens for the 25th consecutive year.

A Georgia sheriff’s department teamed with a local bike shop to donate 13 bikes to local kids who might not otherwise get one. Then again, they also gave away a couple mini-motorized Ford Broncos, because its never too early to instill some motor mania in the kids.

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

No bias here. A San Diego letter writer insists that local residents just aren’t interested in riding bikes and protected bike lanes go unused, wasting money and road space. Although another letter writer insists on patience, comparing bike lanes to the centuries-long delay before indoor toilets gained popularity. Let’s hope it doesn’t take quite that long.

Edmonton, Alberta is ripping out a new bike lane because local residents preferred restoring curbside parking to keeping bike riders safe.

A Scottish judge allowed a road raging hit-and-run driver to walk without a single day behind bars for intentionally swerving into a bike rider, leaving the bike riding man seriously injured with multiple fractures, and sentencing the driver to an overnight curfew, instead. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the streets.

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Local 

Metro continues to flush money down the induced demand toilet by approving a zombie project to widen the 57 and 60 freeway interchange at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, despite the damage it will do the the climate; the project was originally conceived to serve a proposed football stadium that was never built.

Urbanize LA wants you to vote for LA’s biggest transportation story of 2022.

Apparently, it’s not just bikes, as Crosstown LA warns that e-scooter thefts are on the rise, too.

 

State

Yes please. A state committee calls for ending pretext stops by police, which have long been used to harass bike riders while fishing for criminal violations.

The Lightning Velo Cycling Club will host a pair of holiday lights bike tours in Rossmore on Thursday and Friday. (Scroll down)

San Francisco advocates used artificial intelligence to quantify how many bike riders used a local Slow Street, and saving it from being returned to drivers.

 

National

Bike shops across the country are coping with a post-pandemic glut of bikes, parts and accessories that were ordered during the bike boom, but delivered long after sales have tapered off. Which means it might be a great time to get great deal at your favorite local bike shop, who would undoubtedly appreciate the business. Thanks to Victor Bale for the link. 

Road Bike Rider explains the term “hold your line,” which you’re likely to hear on any group ride or road race. Someone once wanted to fight me because I failed to hold my line on a corner when I was a) riding alone, and b) riding despite a broken arm; the dispute only ended when I used my good arm to threaten to put an air pump through his spokes.

Seattle is replacing the car-tickler plastic bendie posts on a downtown protected bike lane with actual concrete barriers to keep drivers from parking in them, but leaving out a known conflict zone. (Scroll down. No, keep scrolling.)

The Washington Post examines Denver’s ebike rebate program, suggesting it could be a national model to cut emissions and traffic congestion. Then again, it could have been California serving as a national model, if the state’s fully funded $10 million ebike rebate hadn’t suffered a years-long failure to launch.

A Cleveland bike shop has been in business since 1883.

New York’s iconic 5th Avenue is about to get a Complete Streets makeover, transforming the car-choked boulevard into a safer, human scale “pedestrian-centered area that also prioritizes mass transit and cyclists.Maybe we can talk our new mayor into doing the same thing with Wilshire Blvd. Thanks again to Victor Bale. 

A Harlem magazine offers tips on how to pick a new bike. Which actually make sense for a change, even if they are a little simplistic. 

Philadelphia is closing in 30 miles of protected bike lanes. No mention of whether those are centerline miles or lane miles; the latter counts bike lanes on both sides of the road separately, effectively doubling the actual miles of protected roadway. 

A DC site celebrates a decade of getting their Christmas tree home by bike.

She gets it. The vice mayor of Manassas, Virginia says streets have to be remade to protect all road users, and it’s up to all of us to improve traffic safety.

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine questions whether a cop parked in a bike lane in front of a Toronto hospital was on an emergency call, or just getting coffee.

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling offers a short list of very practical gifts to keep your family bicycling.

Power may be out in most of Ukraine, thanks to Russian bombing of civilian infrastructure, but residents of Kiev are keeping the Christmas lights on at a train station through sheer pedal power and determination.

A Manilla writer calls for converting the city’s pandemic-era popup bike lanes into motorcycle lanes, because they aren’t safe enough for bicyclists to use.

 

Finally…

Turn your bicycle into a winter-friendly snowbike. Why it matters if your frame has a stiffie. Or is one.

And that feeling when you spend a month’s salary on a new bike, then disappear without a trace while riding it around the world.

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Happy Chanukah to everyone celebrating today.

Chag Urim Sameach!

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.