According to a press release from the LAPD, a man was killed while riding along westbound Foothill Blvd east of Commerce Ave in Tujunga at 10:50 Thursday morning.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, and identified only as white man in his 30s.
This is at least the 21st bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the fifth in the City of Los Angeles.
And it’s another reminder that riding on the sidewalk is more dangerous than it seems.
Update 2: Family members have identified the victim as Steve Jensen.
I’m told Jensen was actually riding downhill in the street, and swerved to avoid a car stopped in the lane. He crashed into a sign for a smog test center that was in the street illegally, and hit a tree on the sidewalk.
The badly dented sign is still there, visible inside the fence for the smog test center.
The question is whether they’ve learned anything, or if the sign will go back out in the street in the morning.
Update 3: Apparently bad bike infrastructure played a significant roll in this crash, as well. LA’s typical disappearing bike lane design at intersections may have helped cost Jensen his life, forcing him into the traffic lane after gaining speed on his descent.
I now have a ghost bike in my neighborhood. I ride this section of Foothill often. Westbound is full of dangers. The hill his steep. Speed gathers quickly going down, and just then the road narrows, the bike lane vanishes, and your out 'in the lane' like it or not. https://t.co/ebkNl1uvfd
April 25, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Red Solo Cup protected bike lanes Friday, CiclaValley leaves LACBC, and more on Sunnyvale attack
Oh the joys of diabetes.
I’ve been on a blood sugar roller coaster for the last 12 hours, spiking, then crashing, then spiking and crashing again.
I’ve done my best to fight through it and finish today’s post, despite the swimming head and uncontrollable full body shakes that come with it.
But I finally have to throw in the towel.
I’m about two-thirds through what promised to be another epic post. So instead of holding off posting anything until tomorrow, I’m publishing what I’ve got so far.
I’ll catch up on the rest after I’ve managed to sleep off this awful feeling.
Which could take awhile.
………
Get your red plastic Solo Cups out on Friday. And make your very own protected bike lane.
Just head down to your local store, buy a bag or two, and place them on any bike lane you want turned into a protected lane.
Maybe if enough of us do it, in enough locations around the city, our civic leaders might actually get the point and do something about it.*
We can dream, can’t we?
Meanwhile, a DC paper looks at the long journey the ghost bike for Salovesh took to get to the street, including the city’s long-time failure to improve safety that led to his death.
*I’m using us here, when I really mean you. Unfortunately, there are no bike lanes in Hollywood close enough for me to hobble to with my cane. So go out and mark one for me. And let’s hope someone finally gets around to striping a few around here before I regain my mobility, grab some spray paint and make ’em myself.
………
It looks like the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition is going to be even more short handed for awhile.
After the departure of three staff members due to a budget shortfall caused by the bike coalition’s previous, short-lived executive director, now comes word that Zachary Rynew, aka CiclaValley, is leaving after four years.
When pressed for the reasons behind his departure, he said he was making himself available for today’s NFL draft, in hopes of being the oldest and most seriously out of football playing shape player taken in the first round.
If he said he was declaring for the NHL draft, I might believe him.
His departure leaves the LACBC seriously understaffed, and with a loss of experience and knowledge that will take some time to replace. Which is compounded by the board’s decision to implement four-year term limits, leading to a significant loss of institutional knowledge.
It’s not unusual to have staff turnover when a new ED comes in, as various people decide they don’t fit with the new leadership. Or have that decision made for them.
Let’s hope the new leadership can keep the coalition on track and active in the streets while they deal with all these staff changes.
Because frankly, we need them if we’re ever going to improve safety on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
A London driver yelled at a man on a bike to get to the side of the road, even though he was waiting legally at an advanced stop, then intentionally rammed his bicycle before driving off. Which other kindhearted and concerned drivers immediately responded to by honking at the bike rider to get up off the road and out of their damn way.
No bias here. An Arizona newspaper writes about the problem of “rampant cyclists” on the town’s streets, as one woman calls for rumble strips or speed bumps to slow the riders down — even though that could result in countless crashes and serious injuries. But hey, that would slow them down, right?
Yes, Complete Streets in the former Biking Black Hole.
The newly bike-friendly, though decidedly anti-scooter, city is even proposing enhancements to its nascent bicycle, pedestrian and transit networks.
Which is something no one who participated in bike plan talks ten years ago would have expected, when city leaders effectively blew off anyone who showed up for meetings on two wheels.
And scheduled those meetings for times when bike riders who wanted to participate couldn’t.
Things have changed.
But as we’ve seen in Los Angeles, it only takes a new election cycle or a handful of angry drivers to lose that newfound support for active transportation.
So add your comments to the plan.
And keep up the fight until the lines on the map turn into paint on the street.
………
I don’t even know what to say here.
In a truly bizarre ruling, the US 6th District Court of Appeals concluded that marking the tires of a car to track how long it’s been parked constitutes an “unreasonable search,” and lacks probable cause.
Even though it’s just marking the outside of the vehicle, which is open and in full view of the public.
It doesn’t seem likely stand up on appeal. And only applies to the 6th District, which is made up of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
But it’s one more example of the privilege drivers enjoy.
Reservations are required if you want to take part. And the first 100 people to confirm will receive free VIP passes to the Final Friday Foodtruck Festival,
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Bike Culver City discovers fresh Kermit on Overland Ave.
Thanks to Robert Leone for forwarding news of a new study from UC San Diego confirming that “talking on a cellphone while driving quadruples the risk of a crash even when a driver is using a hands-free device,” while texting results in an eight-times higher risk.
Just a tad bit of roadie bias here. Women Fitness offers “must-have tips for girls who love bicycling.”Although it may come as a shock to them that many women somehow manage to ride a bike without spandex and clipless pedals.
A new study shows Americans are still sitting too much. Blame me for skewing the results; I’m still spending most of the day flat on my ass when I’m not rehabbing my new knee.
Bike lawyer Bob Mionske says states are finally coming around to Stop as Yield Laws — aka the Idaho Stop Law. And that’s a good thing. Maybe if enough states adopt it, we can finally stop hearing the tired refrain that California is not Idaho. Because evidently, they don’t think we know that.
A Colorado paper says Denver’s 20-year transportation plan will solve traffic congestion — if drivers don’t rise up against it. Then again, that’s what they said about LA’s mobility plan, which is gathering dust after the city backed down in the face of angry drivers.
An Illinois man faces up to 12 years in prison for the drunken hit-and-run crash that seriously injured a bike rider; he told police he knew he hit the man, but panicked and drove home instead of stopping. Sure, let’s go with that. Because no one would just try to sleep it off, then turn himself in once he sobered up, right?
You’ve got to be kidding. A plainclothes Miami-Dade FL cop is being investigated by internal affairs after swearing at a bike-riding mom and her two kids to get out of the road, insisting — incorrectly — that it’s against the law for them to ride their bikes in the street. Then the cop intentionally doored her 14-year old son, knocking him off his bike.
A special thanks to Steve S for getting me back online after software issues locked me out of this site for over an hour last night. Without his help, you wouldn’t be reading this today.
Although I’d probably be sleeping instead of writing right now.
April 23, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Roads closed in Griffith Park, Lyft fights dooring, and bike transponders aren’t the answer
You might want to put off that Griffith Park ride for a few weeks.
Or maybe find another route.
The roads leading to and around the famed Griffith Observatory will be closed to all traffic for the next two weeks for construction work.
Great idea. In addition to rating cities for bike friendliness, People for Bikes is now providing user generated bike routes in cities around the US. You can download the app here. Do I really need to mention that the bicycle advocacy group ranks my hometown as the country’s best bike city. Which only happened decades after my last ride there.
Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus explains why Oregon should adopt the Idaho Stop Law the third time around. The same argument holds for California. And pretty well everywhere else.
No bias here. After a woman drives onto the shoulder of a highway and kills a man on a bike, the Idaho state police feel compelled to point out that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, as if that somehow contributed to the crash. And at highway speeds, a crash like that probably wouldn’t have been survivable, with or without one.
Speaking of Houston, there’s a special place in hell for the bike-riding man who stole a 94-year old woman’s wheelchair. Fortunately, her neighbor was able to record the theft, and chase the man down to get it back; police recognized the man in the video, and made a quick arrest.
The case against a Virginia landscaper will go before a grand jury; he’s accused of helping one of his employees coverup the hit-and-run that killed a bike rider, fixing the company truck and telling his staff to swear it was a deer. And to stick to their stories.
Once again, dozens of dockless bikes end up in a trash heap, after a bikeshare provider in Kingston, Ontario replaces them with a newer model. And once again, dozens of kids and low income people who could have put them to good use won’t.
Except this time it happened the worst possible way.
Like a number of other people, I’ve followed Dave Salovesh, aka @darsal, for some time. And vice versa, for reasons only he knew.
The extremely popular DC bike advocate has been an outspoken supporter of protected bike lanes and safer streets, as well as taking action now to fight climate change. I’ve enjoyed his humor and insights, and learned a lot from him over the years.
Food delivery drivers will get their own dedicated parking spaces in front of two restaurants in downtown Santa Monica for a three-month trial to keep them from double-parking in the bike lane. Now maybe they can do something about the FedEx and UPS drivers who park in the bike lanes on Ocean and San Vicente on a daily basis.
In a horrifying story, the CHP is looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a Merced woman to die on the side of the road after crashing into her bicycle; her body was found at 1 pm, hours after she was struck the previous evening. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know if she would have survived if she had been found sooner. Or if the coward who hit her had stopped to get help.
Talk about not getting it. A Texas man will spend the next ten years behind bars after repeatedly violating the terms of his probation for the hit-and-run death of a bike rider; he had originally gotten out after serving just 17 days of a two-year sentence thanks to a loophole in the law. You’d think someone would have enough sense to keep their nose clean after a gift like that. But apparently you’d be wrong.
Anyone with information on the hit-and-run is urged to call the LAPD at 877/527-3247. And as always, there is a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver in any fatal hit-and-run crash.
This is at least the 19th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the fourth in the City of Los Angeles.
Update: The LAPD is now saying the victim was a pedestrian who was walking across the street outside of a crosswalk. Still no ID on the victim, and no explanation for why witnesses said he was riding a bicycle.
Update 2: Family members have identified the victim as Samuel Hernandez; sadly, he won’t be there to witness his daughter’s graduation from Cal State Northridge next month.
They also clarified that he was walking his bike across the street when he was killed.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Samuel Hernandez and his loved ones.
Samuel Hernandez’ daughter at the ghost bike installation with Zachary Rynew; top photo: people attending ghost bike installation with finished ghost bike
Then again, so was just about other every straight male who knew a derailleur from domestique.
She won my heart, and so many others, when she claimed the ’83 Coors Classic stage race, followed by a silver medal in the road race at the ’84 Olympics, finishing second to her American teammate Connie Carpenter.
And followed that with a pursuit bronze medal in ’92.
Twigg, 56, agreed to share her story to convince the public that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol; that there are many like her, who have struggled with employment and are “confused,” as she said she is, about what to do next with their lives. She did not want to discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more seriously in Washington.
“Some of the hard days are really painful when you’re training for racing,” Twigg said, “but being homeless, when you have little hope or knowledge of where the finish line is going to be, is just as hard.”
She ended up homeless after two failed marriages, and struggling to fit into a workplace where she felt she just didn’t belong.
It was a familiar position, after her mother had kicked her out at 14, and she settled into the nomadic life of a bike racer.
Sadly, it’s not unusual for athletes to struggle after retiring, having spent a lifetime training and competing in a highly structured world.
And the article hints at another possible reason, mentioning a Texas crash that resulted in 13 stitches to her head — and probably a concussion.
Likely not the first one either. Or the last, in those pre-helmet, leather hairnet days.
But the saddest part of all is that Rebecca Twigg been forgotten by the cycling world she sacrificed her youth for.
And allowed to fall through the cracks, and onto the streets.
Let’s hope this news wakes up women’s cycling and bike racing’s governing bodies. So that someone, somewhere gives her the hand up she needs to get her life back together, and off the streets, once and for all.
And gives her the job she deserves in the sport she used to love, and knows so well.
Photo from Wikipedia.
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Once again, a bike rider was the hero.
An Anaheim man went on a wild crime rampage in Lake Forest on Wednesday, breaking into a home, stabbing a woman multiple times, jacking her car, crashing it into another woman walking on the sidewalk, threatening some Good Samaritans, and trying to jack a couple more cars.
All in just nine minutes.
It all came to a burning end when 56-year old bike rider Eric Young pepper sprayed the man after nearly getting run down by him and witnessing the crime spree.
After four or five doses of pepper spray, the one-man crime wave sat down on the curb and waited for police to take him into custody.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
Then again, people on bikes aren’t always the good guys. A New York woman was punched in the face by a man on a bike, who shouted “This is my bock, bitch!” before riding off. Shockingly, the NYPD didn’t seem to care, despite their usual policy of siding with anyone against people on bicycles.
The man who stole a $5,000 bicycle from Costa Mesa’s Cyclist bike shop returned it because his face had been plastered everywhere, and he was hoping to get the $1,000 reward.
In a bizarre ruling, a California appeals court barred the unacknowledged daughter of fallen OC cyclist Amine Britel from suing the woman who killed him, ruling she didn’t have standing because she wasn’t a legal heir since she didn’t establish paternity until after he died. And didn’t suffer a loss because she never knew him anyway. Thanks to Jeffrey Fylling for the heads-up.
A teenage boy is a key witness in the case against a Minneapolis cop accused of shooting a woman who had called police to report a possible sexual assault behind her home, although his credibility was questioned after admitting he had smoked weed and downed several shots of whiskey before getting on his bike.
Vision Zero appears to be working in Boston, where the crash rate has gone up, while fatalities were cut in half. People often misunderstand the purpose of Vision Zero, which isn’t to prevent crashes, but to redesign roadways so those crashes don’t kill anyone.
A New Orleans bike thief is caught on video entering an unlocked gate to steal an unlocked bicycle, then ghost riding the new bike away with his own in tow. But at least he had the courtesy to shut the gate after him.
Life is cheap in Ottawa, Canada, where a driver walked on charges of fleeing the scene after killing a man riding a bike, and covering up the crime by fixing his truck and hiding out at a motel. The judge bought his explanations that he 1) fell asleep while driving, 2) hadn’t been drinking, and 3) fled the scene, hid out from police and destroyed the evidence because he was afraid of racist cops. And no, the judge’s name wasn’t Gullible. But maybe it should be.
April 16, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Bike the Vote LA endorses in CD12, Watch for Me in NC, and the war on bikes keeps going on
It’s a light news day, after today’s bike news apparently got crowded out by the tragic burning of Notre Dame Cathedral.
The good news is, however, until John Snow learns to ride a bicycle, or Cersei starts driving, this will continue to remain a Game of Thrones spoiler-free zone.
And before we move on, I hope you’ll join me in thanking Josh Cohen and Cohen Law Partners for renewing their sponsorship of this site for a sixth consecutive year.
626 Golden Streets looks forward to nine upcoming open streets events in the LA area. Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss this spring’s events, including the Wilmington CicLAvia at the end of this month, but should be back on my bike in time for the Hollywood/West Hollywood CicLAvia in my own backyard later this year.
State
A Bakersfield letter writer gets as proprietary as any privileged motorist, saying bike trails are for people on bicycles, not people walking or their dogs. Except under California law, any separated pathway without a parallel walkway is considered a multi-use path, regardless of what it’s called.
A new survey from the National Safety Council shows that most Americans support lowering speed limits slightly, installing speed and red light cameras, and conducting more sobriety checkpoints. All of which would save lives. And all of which entitled drivers will undoubtedly fight.
A Missouri man got his bike back after spotting it for sale on Craigslist. Except after arranging a sting, the cops got diverted to a domestic disturbance on the way — which just happened to be at the thief’s home, finding the man’s bike inside after the suspect ran away.
Although that news is tempered by the LAPD’s conclusion that the driver wasn’t at fault, after security video showed that Vega was crossing against the light.
Now if we could just get fast action like that before someone gets killed.
Which will undoubtedly come as a huge blessing to his desperately poor family, after losing Woon’s income that helped pay for half their rent and expenses.
This is who we share the roads with too. An Orange County man got 15 years behind bars for killing two road workers in a drunken crash when he slammed into their truck as it was stopped in a bike lane; he was arraigned on a previous DUI in 2014, but never bothered to show up to court.
So much for U-locks. A pair of Denver bike thieves are caught on video using a grinder to cut through a Kryptonite U-lock and steal the bike in just 12 seconds, start to finish. And when the owner opened the app for his Tile tracking device, he found two years worth of weak battery notices and no clue where his bike was.
A Cleveland site asks if Vision Zero is the answer, saying the city’s bicyclists and pedestrians need more than a little paint on the street. The clear answer is yes — if, and only if, political leaders fully commit to the program, and have the courage to stand up to angry drivers. Unlike a certain SoCal metropolis we could name.
Maybe you should check under your bed. A Boston family did, and discovered a long-lost masterpiece by a Nigerian artist that hadn’t been seen since it was first exhibited in 1961. The painting, worth an estimated $100,000, shows four children on bicycles swerving out of the way of a truck. Something we can all relate to.
No bias here. A New York TV station sounds the alarm about “two-wheeled terrors” racing along a Hudson River path, after a four-year old girl was left bloodied when she was struck by someone on a bike. Somehow, the reporter seemed shocked when other bike riders refused to offer a collective mea culpa for the actions of one person. But we all need to slow down and ride safely around pedestrians, especially kids.
In yet another example of keeping dangerous drivers on the road until it’s too late, a woman in New York state killed a man on a bike in a drunken crash, despite six previous license suspensions. A driver should lose their license for at least a year after their first DUI. And have their driver’s license revoked after a second offense — and the car impounded so they can’t keep driving it anyway.
No bias here, either. A witness told a Louisiana TV station that a bike rider collided with the front of a car, which had the green light. Unless the rider rode head-on into the car, the driver hit the bicyclist. And chances are, the “witness” was inside the car at the time, since they described the victim as coming out of nowhere, which is an unlikely observation from someone on the street.
Apparently taking a clue from Los Angeles, mostly white-haired St. Petersburg residents rise up against “lane loss,” as the city moves forward with its Complete Streets program. Because why would you want a street that safely serves everyone when you can continue to go “vroom, vroom,” instead.
Lance talks doping to Rice University students, saying he started because everyone else was doing it. And would have won even if he hadn’t doped. Which kind of begs an obvious question...
Unfortunately, we have to start with bad news today.
I’ve received an unconfirmed report from a credible source that a bike rider was killed in a collision with the driver of a big rig truck in Gardena yesterday.
Update: I’ve been informed that the crash actually occurred on the other side of the 110 Freeway at South Broadway near 157th in unincorporated West Rancho Dominguez.
However, there’s still no official confirmation, and nothing in the news.
Curbed catches up with LA’s new plan to create permanent memorials for people killed on bikes. But fails to mention that the city will only post 20 year. So unless Vision Zero succeeds in lowering the city’s rate of bicycling fatalities, someone will be left out.
E-scooters finally invade DTLA. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, they have on Downtown’s docked Metro Bike bikeshare.
A Nogales AZ man has gone from being a bike skeptic to a bicycling evangelist in just a few years, founding a weekly ride that started with three people and building to over 100. And they don’t take excuses from prospective riders, providing bikes, helmets and lights to anyone without them.
Ouch. A Pittsburgh woman is suing REI, alleging that they failed to properly install or adjust the stem on her bike, causing her handlebars to drop while she was riding and throwing her into a concrete barrier.
I want to be like them when I grow up. A bike club composed of riders ranging from 68 to 94 is taking to the streets around their North Carolina retirement community. Not to mention these bike-born AARP badasses call themselves the Cyclepaths.
No bias here. After a Baton Rouge LA bike rider was found lying dead in a ditch just a block from his home, police concluded that he was the victim of a traffic collision. But insisted there was no foul play, even though the driver who apparently killed him was nowhere to be found. Evidently, leaving someone to die alone in a ditch just isn’t considered foul in the Pelican State.
We need this here. A German app not only names and shames drivers by posting photos of their vehicles blocking bike lanes, it automatically notifies the appropriate authorities to — hopefully — do something about it.
This is the cost of traffic violence. Five members of the Bahrain National Cycle Team were seriously injured by a distracted driver while on a training ride, with three suffering what was described as severe injuries, when the texting driver swerved into the peloton — even though the team’s coach was following the group with a danger sign.
