Un-effing-believable.
A 24-year old woman was formally charged with felony manslaughter for the October death of a bike rider in Long Beach.
Just one day after she was arrested for killing two other people in a Long Beach hit-and-run on Sunday.
According to the Long Beach Post, Ahkeyajahniq Owens was arraigned on a single count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for running down 35-year old Long Beach resident Raul Augustin Gallopa on October 6th.
Owens was allegedly driving her BMW around 100 mph when she slammed into Gallopa while he was attempting to turn left off of Fourth Street near Bonita Ave.
Remarkably, given Owen’s speed, he survived for two weeks in the hospital before dying of his injuries.
The deputy district attorney mentioned the additional killings almost in passing as she asked that Owens to be held without bail, arguing that she is “a huge risk to the community.”
Well, no shit.
Like the earlier crash, she’s accused of running red lights at over 100 mph before slamming into two cars at Sixth Street and Atlantic Avenue in Sunday’s crash, killing two people and injuring three others.
Which makes you wonder how the hell she manages to survive those high-speed crashes.
It also makes you wonder why her license wasn’t immediately pulled after killing one innocent person, let alone three.
It’s also stupendously idiotic that Owens wasn’t taken into custody after the first crash; instead, she was let loose on society after getting booked on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless driving.
Because apparently, inflicting life-threatening injuries at 100 mph on someone riding a bicycle is merely “reckless.”
In a functioning society that actually gives a damn about human lives, that would have been enough to suspend her license at least until a decision was made whether to file formal charges.
But we don’t seem to live in that society.
Instead, we just give dangerous drivers a pat on the back, and send them back out to get their cars fixed, and do it again three months later.
To say I’m disgusted and sickened would be a huge understatement.
To cap it all off, California’s lax traffic laws mean she faces a maximum of six years behind bars if she’s convicted for Gallopa’s death.
Too bad the judge can’t add a year for each 10 mph over the speed limit.
The only good news, if you can all it that, is that she should face a similar sentence for each of the two people she is alleged to have killed on Sunday. Although the DA should upgrade it to 2nd degree murder by arguing that she should have known the danger of speeding after the earlier crash.
We can hope, anyway.
At the end of Monday’s hearing, Owens was ordered held on $200,000 bail.
No word on whether the judge also took away her license until the trial is completed.
Thanks to Chris for the heads-up.
Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels.
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We finally got to see the first crack in the New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani thus far flawless bike-friendly veneer.
According to Streetsblog, Mamdani agreed that scofflaw bike riders shouldn’t be getting criminal summons in the Big Apple, rather than regular traffic tickets.
But he stopped short of saying he would direct NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to end the policy she implemented last year, instead just saying they’re still having “conversations.”
“These are part of the conversations that we’re having,” Mamdani said. “In addition to the question of what kind of a summons, we also have to make it easier to be a cyclist in compliance with the law, because I will tell you that you will find a cyclist biking on a pavement, and sometimes when you ask them why they’re doing so, they’ll point to the car that’s driving in the bike lane.
“We have created infrastructure issues for cyclists that we are then ticketing them for, where it is easier to be out of compliance with the law than in compliance with the law,” the mayor added.
Although if wants to maintain the bicycle street cred he’s built up in the first two weeks of his administration, he needs to stop conversing and start stopping things.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
The Canadian Constitutional Foundation is entering the battle over Toronto bike lanes, joining the appeal of a judge’s ruling blocking the province’s effort to rip them out, by contesting the constitutional basis for it.
Road.cc claps back about why “certain MAMILS” ride in the roadway rather than in a bike lane, in response to an anonymous Facebook poster complaining about four people riding perfectly legally two-abreast next to the kerb, uh, curb.
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Local
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes a look at the work by Caltrans contractors to prepare for new lanes on Santa Monica Blvd in the Sawtelle neighborhood, which can also be used by bicyclists once it’s finished.
State
A Wasco man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars after being sentenced to 86-years to life for fatally shooting a 51-year old man in a dispute over a stolen bicycle — which is convenient since there’s already a state prison right there. Seriously, no bike is worth a human life. Just let it go, and let the cops handle it.
National
Bike Magazine hosts three expert framebuilders discussing the challenges of building bicycles in the US, and the tradeoffs involved in making bikes overseas.
CyclingSavvy offers a lesson on the safe use of separated bikeways.
Forbes writes that ebike regulations are being tightened across the US in the wake of irresponsible drivers. But by “drivers,” they mean the people operating ebikes, not the ones in the big, dangerous machines.
Like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, a Massachusetts man says he depended on the kindness of strangers on his recent three-and-a-half year, 46,000-mile bike journey around the world.
New York will appeal a judge’s ruling that blocked an Astoria bike lane, while also addressing the concerns she cited.
A December demonstration project showed the practicality of delivering fresh seafood to a New York market via freight ferry and heavy-duty cargo bikes.
A Wilmington, North Carolina public radio station examines ghost bikes through the lens of a man who would have been 38 yesterday, if he hadn’t been killed by a driver while riding his bike over seven years earlier.
A recent South Carolina college graduate considers the people he met and the lessons learned riding his bike across the US, while raising $2,500 for charity.
International
Momentum ranks the bicycle festivals worth traveling to this year, starting with Monterey’s Sea Otter Classic in April.
Quartz highlights ten of the world’s best bike cities. None of which is Los Angeles, of course. Or even in the US.
An Irish writer considers why bicycles are a favored symbol of the country’s rural life, despite the damp and dreary weather.
A group of Indian soldiers are riding a thousand miles across the subcontinent, retracing the march of Peshwa Bajirao to victory in the 1737 battle of Delhi.
A kindhearted South African woman worked with a local bike shop to repair and refurbish her gardener’s broken bicycle at no cost, which is his main mode of transport.
A Chinese province used a recent mass bike ride to propagandize against “xie jiao,“ or “illicit religions, ranging from Falun Gong to perfectly orthodox Christian churches.
Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to Beijing with a new ebike, along with Chinese ceramics, a coffee cup set, apples and dried persimmons, and a traditional Korean painting symbolizing peace and prosperity. Seriously, he had me at ebike.
Competitive Cycling
In a surprise announcement, 33-year old British pro Simon Yates decided to quit at the top, calling it a career after after winning last year’s Giro, seven years after his first grand tour win in the 2018 Vuelta and 13 years after debuting alongside his twin brother Adam.
Finally…
Now you, too, can cosplay being a real Tour de France cyclist. Nothing like a bunch of rapping skinny ass white kids in spandex to get you in the mood for racing season.
And post this one under “problems SoCal bike riders seldom have.”
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
