Evidently, justice delayed isn’t always justice denied.
It was seven long years ago when a wrong-way driver slammed into a group of 30 bicyclists on San Diego’s Fiesta Island, injuring ten people.
Theresa Owens was high on meth when she got behind the wheel, looking for a boyfriend she thought was cheating on her.
She was speeding on the 25 mph roadway, after turning the wrong way on the narrow, one-lane road, when she rounded a blind corner and smashed into the group of riders.
Six of the victims were seriously injured, with Juan Carlos Vinolo ending up paralyzed from the chest down, as well as suffering a long list of other injuries.
A jury divided the liability between Owens and the city in 2019, ruling San Diego was responsible for failing to maintain visibility on the roadway, despite knowing of the dangers.
They held the city responsible for 27% of the damages, while state law required the city to pay 100% of Vinolo’s past and future medical bills and lost earnings.
Yesterday that bill came due, when the San Diego city council agreed to a whopping $23.75 million settlement for Vinolo and his wife for the meth-fueled Fiesta Island crash.
Although something tells me they’d gladly give back every penny in exchange for the use of his legs again.
Meanwhile, the city could have saved a fortune just by trimming some bushes and reducing berms, instead of waiting until it was too late.
And maybe reworking the intersections to channel drivers so they can only turn in the right direction.
Thanks to Megan Lynch, Phillip Young and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette for the heads-up.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.
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Los Angeles County responded to a recent LA Times investigative report that found biased policing of bike riders by LA County sheriff’s deputies.
The Times found that the overwhelming majority of bicycle traffic stops conducted by deputies were in areas where people of color make up the majority of the population, and with limited bike infrastructure.
Seven out of ten of those stops involved Latino riders, and 85 percent of the riders stopped were searched by deputies — even though those searches only turned up illegal items eight percent of the time.
Just imagine the outcry if drivers were routinely placed in the back of a squad car while police searched their belongings following a simple traffic stop.
Let alone white drivers.
The LA County Board of Supervisors responded on Tuesday by unanimously approving proposals to decriminalize bicycling violations, including
- Developing a diversion program allowing bike traffic school in lieu of fines for traffic tickets, which was approved by the state a few years ago, and
- Drafting a change to county code to legalize riding a bicycle on the sidewalk in unincorporated areas, although only on non-residential streets without bike lanes.
In addition, the supervisors ordered a review of biased policing of bike riders by the sheriff’s department.
Not surprisingly, though, the sheriff’s department, which has attempted to stonewall virtually every other effort at oversight, had no response.
Granted, these are just proposal to develop new rules, so far. But it’s a big step in the right direction.
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Newly bike-friendly Culver City officially kicks off Move Culver City this Saturday, featuring three new quick-build bus-bike lanes in the downtown area.
Mayor Fisch introduces #CulverCity's new transportation initiative to create safe and sustainable mobility options. Join us on Saturday, November 20 at 10 AM for a kickoff celebration of the project. #MOVECulverCity – It's how we get there. pic.twitter.com/ylNEdSD8cE
— City of Culver City (@CulverCityGov) November 16, 2021
Quite a change from the not-too-distant past when Culver City cops would meet group rides at the city limits, and ticket riders for every real and imagined violation they could find, while they escorted them out of town.
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Streets For All has posted video of last night’s mobility debate between the candidates for LA’s CD13, currently held by two-term incumbent Mitch O’Farrell.
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Clearly, not even Tour de France winners are safe from dangerous drivers, as 2019 winner Egan Bernal was the victim of a far too close pass from a driver trying to squeeze into a non-existent gap.
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Local
No news is good news, right?
State
The president of a college-prep nonprofit spent every Friday for the past month riding his bike to talk with teachers and students at nearly 30 Orange County schools, covering 200 miles by the time he was done. Thanks to Sindy for the link.
A bike-riding homeless woman went to court, and won the right to keep living in a Fountain Valley park, despite repeated attempts to force her to leave.
San Diego continues to make strides to meet their climate change goals and reduce car use by eliminating parking requirements for businesses near transit or in densely populated areas.
Sad news from Bakersfield, where a woman was killed when she allegedly rode her bike across the street in front of an oncoming driver. As always, a lot depends on whether there were any independent witnesses, besides the driver, who saw her ride out into traffic.
A Berkeley paper joins the Cal Berkeley student paper’s call to improve Telegraph Ave, and raises them by calling for making the iconic street carfree.
National
Last month’s Vision Zero Cities conference considered how the language used in ads and newspaper reports can hurt crash victims, who are inevitably blamed for their injuries.
An Arizona man is 6,700 miles into a planned 18,000-mile journey by bicycle to visit each of the more than 400 national parks in the US, although he may need to pick up the pace a little after hitting just 14 parks, leaving another 386+ to go. He’s attempting to raise $50,000 for conservation projects in the National Parks.
Speaking of national parks, Utah’s Zion National Park now has a new ten-mile bike trail on the east side of the park.
A Streetsblog op-ed says New York’s bike lanes need more protection than the usual plastic car-tickler bendy posts, which don’t keep anyone out.
A Washington Post op-ed says American bicycling has a racism problem, tracing the roots to discrimination against Southern Black bike riders around the turn of the last century.
Tragic news from Florida, where a 14-year old boy was found dead after he went missing while riding his bike on Monday; no word on the cause of death, though his school described it as an “accident.”
International
Montreal’s Bixi bikeshare had a record-setting year, with ridership up 74% as they packed the bikes up for the winter.
This is who we share the road with. A London woman mistakenly stepped on the gas instead of the brakes, jumped the curb and killed a man walking on the sidewalk, then lied to investigators by saying the man stepped out into the street in front of her. So naturally, the court let her walk without a day behind bars, and took her license away for a whole year.
Burglars broke into a British bike park and stole literally everything there was to take, from generators and Park Tools, to cash raised for a local air ambulance service.
He gets it. A writer for Britain’s Independent says we’ll never get to zero emissions until we admit we’re all climate hypocrites who want to stick to our comfortable, fossil-fueled lifestyles.
A member of the UK Parliament says the country’s lax hit-and-run laws give drivers an incentive to flee the scene rather than stick around and get tested for DUI. We have exactly the same problem in California, where lax penalties and minimal enforcement encourage drivers to flee, knowing they’re unlikely to ever get caught, or seriously punished if they are.
E-scooters in Paris will be forced to automatically slow down to just above walking speed in over 700 more crowded areas throughout the city.
Bicycle Dutch author Mark Wagenbuur has updated his classic explanation of how the Dutch got their cycle paths.
An Indian writer considers the benefits of getting your kids off their screens and onto bicycles.
He gets it, too. An op-ed by a New Zealand university professor explains why your next car should be a bike.
Competitive Cycling
The popular SoCal edition of the Belgian Waffle Ride gravel race hits the little screen with the new hour-long documentary This Is Not A Gravel Race premiering on Outside TV.
Britain’s Pfeiffer Georgi won the country’s road race national championship less than 12 months after breaking two vertebrae while riding in Belgium
The thief who stole Geraint Thomas’ bike was just 15 years old; Thomas said he was looking forward to checking his Garmin to see if the kid had any skills.
Track racing at the Velo Sports Center in Carson this weekend.
For all those racing LAVRA and/or the Southern California/Nevada Cycling Association District Track Championships this Sat, Nov 20 at the @velosportsctr, here is the schedule and links to register:https://t.co/xtKDsIdZB6https://t.co/tZFKqiRVq8https://t.co/y9sSYNoshT pic.twitter.com/5QFDiIFBkh
— LA Velodrome Racing / LAVRA (@LAVeloRacing) November 16, 2021
Finally…
Build your own DIY shaft-drive bike. Now you, too, can ride a hand-painted work of art, for the low, low price of 30 grand.
And we may have to deal with LA drivers, but at least we don’t…well, wait for it.
https://twitter.com/heyitsalexsu/status/1460425075392323584
Thanks to Pops for forwarding the tweet.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
