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.
Briones would allegedly ride his mountain bike up to the unwary victims and slash them in the face with a knife or some other sharp object, then ride off before they had time to react.
And hopes to raise an additional $100,000 for No Kid Hungry over the summer.
This summer I'm going on a 3-month van tour to ride bikes, make new friends all over the US, and make videos. The goal is a @strava KOM every day, and $100k (1 million meals) for @chefscycle@nokidhungry, sponsored by @veloguide @ShoAirCG and lots more. pic.twitter.com/caeYHZOjLX
The San Diego bike rider seriously injured in a crash with a scooter user was reportedly riding salmon on the boardwalk near Belmont Park; he suffered several fractured vertebrae and two broken ribs.
Hundreds of Lime dockless bikeshare bikes ended up stacked in a Reno scrapyard after the company was unable to reach an agreement to continue its contact with the city. Evidently, there are no poor or homeless people up there who could have put the bikes to better use, or kids who could use a new bike.
A Texas bar is being sued for serving a man who got behind the wheel after getting extremely intoxicated and plowed into a group of bicyclists, killing one and seriously injuring another; naturally, the bar’s owners blame the victims for throwing themselves in front of a drunk. Unfortunately, California law prevents bars from being held accountable for the actions of their customers, no matter how drunk they help them get before driving home.
A Maine man will spend just 48 days behind bars for riding his bike up to a man in a drug store parking lot, threatening him with a knife and demanding money. Note to centralmaine.com — Seriously? Was the thief’s mode of transportation really his most important identifying feature? Would you describe a criminal who drove there as a motorist under the same circumstances?
Life is cheap in Japan, where a 26-year old man walked with probation following a conviction for attempted murder; he got angry during a fight with a relative, and threw a bicycle off the 12th floor of a building, striking a 76-year old woman walking in the courtyard below. Fortunately, she escaped with just a nearly six-inch gash in her forehead.
The suspect is described as an 18- to 30-year-old Latino man with short hair, about 150 pounds and 5’6″ to 5’8″, wearing a dark-colored T-shirt and pants, and riding a black and green mountain bike
Let’s hope they catch this guy before he does some serious damage.
Current wording exempts riders from the requirement to stay to the right when the lane is too narrow to share, which is the case with most right lanes in Southern California.
Not only is it not a significant change, it doesn’t change the rights or responsibilities of bike riders at all. Just simplifies the wording, bringing it in line with statutes in other states.
Yet somehow, AAA still opposed it.
Just one more example of the organization’s mindless, knee-jerk opposition to almost any legislation regarding bikes, including their fight against the three-foot passing law.
Even when it doesn’t infringe on their members’ God-given right to go “vroom, vroom” to their hearts content.
I cancelled my membership several years back when I got tired of the organization using my dues to lobby against laws intended to protect my own life.
And that of everyone else who rides a bike.
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The war on cars is a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.
This is who we share the roads with. Ten percent of drivers told AAA they “always or frequently” use their smartphones illegally while driving, while nearly 50% admit to doing it at least once. And those are just the ones honest enough to give a truthful answer; the real total is probably somewhere north of that. Far north.
A Scottish man on an around the world bike tour has picked up a passenger, adopting a stray kitten in Bosnia; he modified his bike to give it a space up front.
April 2, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Nipsey Hussle was one of us, and kindhearted cop replaces 91-year old Tarzana woman’s stolen bike
No surprise here. Encinitas bicycle advocate and local leader Roberta Walker and her husband have filed a claim against the city for the crash that left her with critical injuries last December, arguing that the signage and sharrows she was riding on were confusing and contributed to the crash. And that there should have been a bike lane, instead.
A pair of Napa parents are committed to promoting bicycle safety after their 11-year old son was seriously injured when he was struck by a driver while crossing the street on his bike; naturally, the driver wasn’t charged.
National
Outside discusses five insects everyone can eat. Most bike riders have probably eaten a few before learning to ride with their mouths closed.
Looks like Seattle is retreating on its bike-friendly reputation. A week after pulling the plug on a long-planed bike lane, Seattle scratches plans for 22 proposed bikeways, requiring an update in the city’s Bike Master Plan.
Grand Junction CO makes a big deal over their new sharrows, saying they show where bicyclists are allowed to use the full lane — before noting that they don’t actually change anything.
A group of bike-riding teenagers swarmed Boston’s former Big Dig tunnel, taking over two lanes of the freeway on the O’Neill Tunnel until they were herded out by police. Although I’m more concerned by the driver who used a handheld cellphone to record them.
They’re some of us, too. US Magazineshows bike-riding celebs around the world. Depending on how you define celebrities, of course. Although I like Lea Michelle, who said she kept a bicycle on the Paramount lot to bike to the set and back.
The BBC’s Piers Morgan insists that bike riders should be licensed and insured, accusing riders of being “completely unaccountable,” “invisible people marching around anonymously on your bikes creating havoc.” Maybe someone should explain to him how bicycling works, because marching ain’t it.
April 1, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: LA approves memorial signs instead of fixing streets, BAC agenda, and Yerba Buena Road closed
I honestly don’t know what to think about this one.
The signs can be requested by the families of fallen bicyclists, memorializing the victim while offering a general nod to bike safety.
They’ll stay in place for five to seven years, after which families can pay to have them replaced.
However, a maximum of just 20 signs will be installed each year, which will barely keep up with the number of riders killed on an annual basis in Los Angeles.
In an interview withKPCC’s Take Two, (Councilmember Bob) Blumenfield explained how the idea for the signs was borne out of a tragedy in Woodland Hills last April. On Easter Sunday, 15-year-old Sebastian Montero was struck by a car and killedwhile riding his bike on Burbank Boulevard.
Blumenfield was in contact with the boy’s family, as well as local police officers— together, they discussed ways to prevent future tragedies.
“I’ve been to too many of those ghost bike ceremonies, and they’re heartbreaking,” Blumenfield said.
After one officer, Duke Dao, suggested the idea for the memorial signs, Blumenfield ran with it.
I’m told be someone who worked closely with Blumenfield on the proposal that he’s absolutely sincere in wanting to do something to both remember the victims of traffic violence, and keep it from happening again.
But a simple sign’s not going to do that.
Blumenfield is one of the city’s better councilmembers on traffic issues, and is working to get a bike lane installed where Montero was killed.
But many of his peers have taken active steps to block desperately needed, potentially life-saving bikeways.
Despite the unanimous vote to establish the memorial program, we have to wonder how many of the councilmembers voted for memorials to fallen bicyclists instead of taking active steps to prevent their deaths.
Because it’s a lot easier to put up a small memorial sign than to fix the roads to avoid the need for them.
Among those voting yes,
Gil Cedillo has blocked road diets on North Figueroa and Temple Street, as well as trying to remove his entire district from the bike plan.
All voted to approve the memorials, while helping create — or at least not alleviate — conditions likely to require them.
Meanwhile, there’s a reasonable fear that the memorial signs will just blend into the streetscape, no more noticeable than the street signs indicating where police officers have been killed.
And if you haven’t seen those, that’s exactly my point.
Ghost bikes are intrusive and evocative. Granted, many drivers don’t know what they are. But once they do, they notice them every time they pass, and that drives the meaning home.
I’m not sure that will happen with these.
Especially if the limit of just 20 a year stays in place. It should be expanded to include not just those riders killed in the future, but the many riders who have needlessly lost their lives in the past.
And it should include pedestrians, as well, since they die in much greater numbers on LA’s mean streets than we do.
Maybe if hundreds of these memorial signs started to appear every year, blanketing every part of the city, people might finally get it. And realize that too damn many people are getting killed just because they rode a bike or went for a walk.
Then the council might finally do more than put up a sign.
Maybe.
Thanks to everyone who sent me links to this story.
No word on whether the alleged speeding driver who killed him was ever charged.
Photo by Steve S
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The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee will hold its bimonthly meeting this Tuesday. As always, the meetings are open to the public, and you are encouraged to attend.
The LA City Bicycle Advisory Committee meets Tuesday 4/2/19 7pm in Hollywood to consider a number of topics including Vision Zero update, LADOT's on-street wayfinding sign project, dockless scooters and bicycles in LA +more. See agenda for more details. Bring your bike inside. pic.twitter.com/ErIQrh5wr5
I’d like to think that might actually make someone think twice before getting behind the wheel after drinking, smoking or downing pills.
But the threat of the death penalty hasn’t seemed to stop anyone from murdering other people.
So there’s that.
Thanks to Evan Burbridge for the link.
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Local
LAistnotes the problems with LA’s troubled Vision Zero program, including a lack of social media presence for the past seven months. What the city doesn’t seem to get is that most of us really, really want to support Vision Zero LA — if they ever get their shit together.
The San Francisco Chronicle complains about the mythical war on cars, exemplified by a discussion of congestion pricing. Never mind that congestion pricing is intended to help improve traffic flow, which is hardly anti-driver. Or that nearly 100% of the roads are already dedicated to motorists, and the rest of us are just hoping for a few crumbs.
Two Kansas men were killed when a driver slammed into their bicycles from behind. No word on why the driver apparently didn’t see a couple grown men on bikes directly in front of him, but I’m sure we could all take a pretty reasonable guess.
An Oklahoma man learned the hard way not to wear a skull mask while carrying meth and weed on his bike. Although his lawyer might want to argue that simply wearing a mask, scary or otherwise, on a public street is not probable cause for a traffic stop. Which makes everything that followed moot.
The upstate New York jerk who wrote a ten-year old boy a letter of non-apology after a judge let him off easy for sideswiping the boy’s bike will now have to perform community service.
Taking a cue from LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s playbook, Baltimore’s mayor decides to rip out a protected bike lane, and says no way to a planned road diet. Although to be fair, she’s replacing the protected lane with a painted green lane. And she gave it four years, while Garcetti removed the non-protected bike lanes and road diets in Playa del Rey after just one month of driver complaints.
Only after he passed away at the ripe old age of 93 on Saturday was it revealed that a Montreal man was the secret “Mr. Bike Man” who gave away over 1,700 bikes, helmets and locks to children in the Montreal area for the past 34 years.
French drivers are apparently vandalizing speed cameras, costing the country the equivalent of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. And it may have contributed to a jump in traffic deaths.
Sydney, Australia residents rise up against what they term a “nonsensical” bicycle superhighway, fearing it would somehow jeopardize pedestrians more than all those cars zooming past. Seriously, why is it that people continue to fight bike lanes that have repeatedly proven to be a net benefit to the surrounding community, regardless of any loss of parking?
Thanks to Matthew R for his generous monthly donation to support this site, and keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
He’s described as a dark-skinned Hispanic man in his 30s with a shaved head, and wearing black clothing. He was last seen riding a black bike with mountain bike frame and oversized wheels.
A neighborhood greenway — aka bike boulevard — through a historically black Portland neighborhood has been moved over two blocks to appease residents who want to keep driving to local businesses.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a bicycle from the yard of an Ohio couple, who had kept it there as a memorial to their late son for the last 15 years; the world-class cyclist and nuclear engineer was killed in a collision 25 years ago.
Talk about victim blaming. After the NYPD charged the driver of an oil tanker who killed a bicyclist with a pair of misdemeanors — even though he drove off after the crash, which is a felony — the company he works for said it was the victim’s fault for wearing dark clothes and riding after dark. Neither of which are against the law.
After New Orleans bike advocates installed temporary protected bike lanes to connect segments of the city’s bike network, traffic speeds dropped 26%, while ridership nearly doubled. And 87% of local residents wanted to make them permanent.
Shocking story from Taiwan, where a man riding a bicycle and playing Pokemon Go discovered a baby abandoned by migrant workers. The shocking part isn’t the abandoned baby; it’s that anyone is still playing Pokemon Go.
