A Pennsylvania man has now been in jail for over a year awaiting trial on charges of repeatedly obstructing traffic by riding his bicycle on a local highway, and violating a judge’s order prohibiting him from riding his bicycle, on the highway or anywhere else.
Let that sink in.
He’s been jailed for a full year without bail or a trial for a traffic infraction. Something a driver would have gotten a simple ticket for.
Never mind that he has a legal right to take the lane if it’s too narrow to share with a motor vehicle, which is exactly what bike riders are taught to do.
And never mind that the judge may not have legal authority to prohibit him, or anyone else, from riding a bicycle, any more than she would have the authority to ban him from walking.
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Most bike riders spend less time worrying about avoiding roadkill than becoming it.
And even less about zombie entrails flying through the sky.
Like the Pasadena car dealer who says the city should forget about all those bike lanes and trying to be a green city, and just install more parking spaces and make it more convenient to own a car. Because really, you just can’t have enough places to park a car. Or drive one.
Metro wants to know about your Bike Month events. And no, popping a beer in front of the TV while you watch the Tour of California after finishing your ride doesn’t count.
Life is cheap in Britain, where a careless driver walks with a suspended sentence for killing an 83-year old ebike rider, despite fleeing the scene and coming back to watch the investigation while pretending to be a casual observer.
An English antique shop owner is told to remove the yellow bicycle he puts outside to direct people to his shop because it gives “the wrong image of the town.” But parking a car in front would probably be just fine.
April 25, 2017 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Dangerous driver — and pedestrian — tricks, and willfully indignorant* bike-hating writers
The war on bikes goes on.
A Macon GA pedestrian was convicted of misdemeanor assault for body-checking an Air Force chaplain who was riding his bike on a base fitness trail, insisting “the trail is not for bicycles.”
Or as Tom Vanderbilt put it, a driver’s license is too easy to get, and too hard to lose.
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Then there are the writers who just don’t get it. And seem damn proud of it.
A Davis columnist doesn’t seem to like the idea of an Idaho Stop Law, because, in his observations, virtually no one on a bike stops for a stop sign anyway, while every single driver comes to a full and complete stop. No, really, you can stop laughing now, that’s what he said.
On the other hand, an Australian columnist gets it, saying licensing bicyclists isn’t the answer, and that only a change in the attitude of all road users will prevent future tragedies.
The Better Bikeshare Partnership looks at the Team LACBC Diversity program to encourage more people to take part in the annual Climate Ride, beyond the usual white male suspects.
Caught on video: A Skokie IL cop pulls over a driver for tailgating a bike rider, telling them both “I want you to know that I care.” Although it’s kind of scary that the rider didn’t know he was being followed that closely.
Caught on video three: A bike-raging Toronto cyclist smashes the side mirror of an SUV, accusing the driver of laughing after nearly hitting him; a local advocacy group rightly condemns vigilantism while noting that something clearly led up to the incident.
Horrific story from London, where police are looking for a gang of masked thugs who hacked a teenage bike rider to death for no apparent reason, after harassing people earlier in the evening.
A new Dutch system uses bunnies and turtles to tell you whether you need to speed up or slow down to make the next green light. And a cow to say just give up, already.
The battle to reclaim Mosul from ISIS rebels has resulted in a unique bicycle culture, as cars and motorcycles are banned from moving in the west side of the city, and bikes are more practical in the rest.
April 24, 2017 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: More on Vision Zero funding, bike theft goes unpunished, and Merced driver topples nine riders
The mayor’s proposal instead calls for using Measure M return funds to repave 60 lane miles of streets — just 30 actual miles — in the High Injury Network, while making safety improvements at the same time.
Meanwhile, his proposal to boost Vision Zero spending to $16.6 million would still represent just a small fraction of what New York spends each year to reduce traffic fatalities. Even though Los Angeles leads the nation in pedestrian deaths.
The LACBC’s Tamika Butler suggests tapping police and fire departments budgets to make up the difference.
Tamika Butler, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, said the city could find other ways of securing more money for Vision Zero. One option, she said, would be to tap police and fire department funding.
“When you’re looking at the important work these departments do, it’s all about saving lives,” Butler said. “Vision Zero is about saving lives, too.”
The LAPD is chronically understaffed, with the smallest police force per capita of any major American city, while struggling to protect one of the largest patrol areas. As it is now, police have more cases than they can handle, and relatively minor crimes — like stolen bikes — often don’t get investigated.
And the fire department is just recovering from the drastic staffing cuts during the last economic downturn that increased response times to unacceptable levels, putting traffic victims and others in need of emergency care at needless risk.
Yes, we need to find the money to fix our streets somewhere, as well as dramatically increasing spending on Vision Zero to eliminate traffic deaths.
But taking funding from the police and fire departments is the wrong way to go about it.
A big part of the problem has been changes in the law a few year back that reclassified any theft below $1,000 as a misdemeanor, while preventing people convicted of misdemeanors from receiving any real jail time.
And since most bikes fall under that threshold, police put less effort into investigating those thefts, since they know the thief will be back on the street in a few days even if they manage to get a conviction.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t still try to return bikes to their rightful owners when they can. In fact, a detective in the West LA division reported at last week’s meeting of the department’s bike liaison program that they had recovered three bikes in recent months using Bike Index.
You can put this one directly on Governor Brown’s doorstep.
Unlike some other states, California’s three-foot passing law does not allow drivers to briefly cross the center line when safe to do so to pass people on bicycles, because Brown vetoed an earlier version of the bill that would have permitted it.
The result is drivers who try to squeeze by bicyclists unsafely rather than risk a ticket for briefly having two wheels over the yellow line.
So it’s the people on bikes who pay the price, instead.
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Thanks to Megan Lynch for forwarding this newsreel view of Nazi occupied Paris in 1944, filmed in part using a camera hidden in a bike basket.
Newport Beach pulls back on plans to widen the Coast Highway at Mariner’s Mile to three lanes in each direction, as residents call for revitalizing the street to make it more attractive to bike riders and pedestrians, instead.
They’re onto us, comrades. A San Diego letter writer insists the nefarious bike lobby is running the city government, indoctrinating fourth graders, and forcing poor, put-upon drivers to plod through potholes while we luxuriate in bike lanes. Although he doesn’t begin to compare with the Michigan woman who thinks having to obtain a license to park on the street is just as bad as the Holocaust.
A man returns home to his English hometown seven years after he left on a 43,000-mile around the world bike tour that raised the equivalent of nearly $13,000 for charity.
Bicycling is growing in popularity in South Korea, where beautiful mountains and lakes are just a short ride from Seoul, and the roads have bike lanes.
A new Portland video asks people how many traffic deaths and injuries would be acceptable for their own families, then asks if that should be the goal for everyone.
A bighearted 11-year old Wyoming girl won a new bicycle at an Easter egg hunt over the weekend. But instead of riding it home, she turned around and gave it to another girl who needed one.
Three Michigan police agencies deny charges in a federal report that they could have done more to prevent the Kalamazoo massacre, despite failing to respond to three calls warning about the stoned driver as he careened down the road for 22 minutes before the fatal crash.
Caught on video too: A British bike advocate’s camera is stolen as he’s recording cars parking in a bike lane, then smashed to bits by the thief after a brief chase.
I usually don’t finish reading them, for that matter. Let alone share them on here. But I’m making an exception this time, to give you a chance to ride the Left Coast for a good cause.
Pablove Across America (PAA) is a pro-plus experience with a world-class support crew and the energy of 50 cyclists riding for a cause. Cyclists will have the opportunity to ride down the beautiful California Coast, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles. This race was started a few years ago when Jeff Castelaz and Jo Ann Thrailkill lost their six year old son to a rare form of cancer. In order to cope with the pain Jeff rode his bike from Florida to LA and it started in 2009. When friends and family heard of this news a family friend set up a fund and began collecting donations for his ride and for the family. Before they knew it there had over $250K in their account and from there this ride turned into an annual fundraising event to celebrate the life of Pablo and the Pablove Foundation was created to raise money for pediatric cancer.
The Pablove Foundation helps kids with cancer live a love-filled life today, and a cancer-free life tomorrow. Pablove’s mission is to invest in under-funded, cutting-edge pediatric cancer research and improve the lives of children living with cancer through the arts.
The event takes place October 1-7 and is unlike the others – you can see all the 5-star details below. If riders want to participate in just one day of the race (either the sendoff in SF or arrival in LA) they can also do that. And when riders arrive in LA there will be a special party for them at Trancas Country Mart — just north of Zuma/Malibu. The party will include a live musical performance (big name to be confirmed soon) with great food and drinks for all. Locals can also attend to participate in the festivities and welcome in the riders.
Riders are asked to raise at least $7,500 to receive a professional-grade experience, including:
Pro-race support to roll behind the peloton and perform daily maintenance on your bike
Soigneur services to keep your body in good working order through massage
Nutritious meals and on-bike food and drink
A double-occupancy hotel room (upgrades to single rooms available for $100/night, dependent on availability)
A training plan and individualized coaching
Pablove cycling kit with short-sleeved jersey and bib shorts
A New York man suffered a broken arm and jaw after he was knocked off his bike and jumped by a road raging driver and his passengers, because he wouldn’t get the hell out of their way so they could go around a double-parked car; no arrests have been made, even though police got their license number from two separate sources.
Then there’s the road raging driver who pulled his car over to harass a group a cyclists, then provoked an altercation with a second group and apparently pepper sprayed them — then was stupid enough to post the video on Facebook. I don’t know where this occurred, but this appears to be damn good evidence of felony assault; regardless of who attacked whom, he pulled his car over in order to provoke a confrontation. Thanks to Cyclist’s Rights for sharing the link.
Streetsblog takes an initial look at LA’s new interactive Vision Zero map, which appears to be still working the bugs out. What’s missing from the map is any word on what happened in response to the fatality; whether the driver was charged or if any changes were made to the roadway following the crash.
Newport Beach will be conducting a bike and pedestrian safety operation through Monday; as with similar programs in other cities, ride to the letter of the law as long as you’re in the city so you’re not the one ticketed.
A San Diego man who took off with a Border Patrol agent hanging on for dear life in the back of his truck after the agent tried to stop him from stealing a bicycle was sentenced to five years in prison.
Congratulations to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which saved 14 bike riders from themselves in a crackdown aimed at preventing crashes involving motorists, pedestrians and cyclists, but could only manage to find a single scofflaw driver to ticket.
An alleged drunk driver has been arrested for critically injuring a five-year old Sacramento boy as he rode his bike Tuesday evening. There’s something seriously wrong when a little kid can’t ride his bike without being endangered by some jackass who can’t manage to stay the hell out of his car after drinking.
Apple Maps now includes bikeshare docks, but only in New York, London and Paris. After all, the LA area is so unimportant in the greater scheme of things, right?
The National Transportation Safety Board says the Kalamazoo massacre might have been avoided if there had been better communication between the three police agencies in the area; the initial call warning about the stoned driver came 22 minutes before the crash that killed five riders.
The Daily News mostly gets it, calling on the NYPD to stop confiscating ebikes and target reckless cars, instead. Although Disney movies aside, most cars are only as reckless as the drivers in them.
You can carry anything on a bicycle — even a body. Probably not the best idea to bike away from a known drug house if you’ve got outstanding warrants, and drug paraphernalia and meth in your backpack.
It’s starting to get rough in LA’s 1st Council District.
A columnist for Downtown News says it’s just a matter of time before the mud starts to fly in the CD1 council race. Although he confuses Gil Cedillo’s massive lead in fundraising with community support, since most of his money has come from outside the district.
However, it appears to be much ado about nothing; agreements like this are made in virtually every runoff election to gain the support of a former rival. And the agreement not to build bike lanes on North Figueroa without community consensus is a non-issue, since there was community consensus in favor of the bike lanes before Cedillo pulled the plug.
Correction: I originally identified the former candidate as Jesse Rojas, not Rosas. Thanks to Walt! for the correction.
Don’t forget that bike lanes are on the agenda of tonight’s meeting of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council Transportation Committee, 6 pm at the Hollywood Methodist Church, 6817 Franklin Avenue.
If you live, work or ride in the Hollywood area — or would like to if it felt safer — you owe it to yourself to attend.
An 18-year old high school senior from Fayetteville AR with Type 1 diabetes is training with the Team Novo Nordisk junior team as he tries to break into the pro ranks.
An Isla Vista pedestrian was robbed of his wallet by a fixie-riding gunman. Impressive observational skills; most people couldn’t tell a fixie from a geared bike, let alone under duress.
An Isla Vista pedestrian was robbed of his wallet by a fixie-riding gunman. Impressive observational skills; most people couldn’t tell a fixie from a geared bike, let alone under duress.
A Wyoming mayor opposes a bike lane in his city because he doesn’t know whether a right-turning driver or a cyclist would have the right-of-way at an intersection. Never mind that question has been settled for about as long as there has been a right-of-way.
An Aussie writer calls for legislation to end the war on cyclists after a 23-year old triathlete is sprayed with industrial lubricant from a passing car. Although the one-meter passing distance he calls for — the equivalent of our three-foot laws — would do little or nothing to prevent harassment like that.
The plan includes appointment of a bike czar, creation of bicycle traffic ticket diversion schools, and bike education for all fourth graders. As well as requiring that 6% of all transportation funds be spent on bicycle projects.
All of which would be great ideas for LA. And none of which are currently under consideration.
A bike rider in a pedal powered velomobile has to pull the statutes out to school the cops who pulled him over about bike law. And who then decide maybe they have better things to do. Thanks to David Wolfberg for the heads-up.
Call it a six week, 12,000 foot high ciclovía, as Colorado’s Trail Ridge Road opens to bicycles through Rocky Mountain National Park; the road will remain closed to vehicles until the end of May.
A Minnesota letter writer takes a local paper to task for its bicycle safety suggestions while getting nearly everything wrong; he argues that bike riders are safer on the sidewalk, and that sharrows don’t indicate where people are supposed to ride.
Once again, New York police respond to the death of a bike-riding woman, who was doing nothing wrong, by cracking down on bicyclists.
Bike lanes in Johannesburg go largely unused due to lack of an interconnected network and blocked or poorly maintained lanes, as well as safety concerns. The story could be about Los Angeles — including the argument that bike lanes are a benefit for the wealthy, which was one reason given by CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo for blocking bike lanes in his largely working class and immigrant district. Never mind that lower income students and workers often rely on their bikes for transportation.
Three whole blocks, that is. With no plans to extend them in any direction.
In other words, yet another in LA’s dystopian non-network of disconnected bike lanes that don’t go anywhere or connect to anything.
They just are. Which may be very Zen. But it’s also just this side of worthless.
More troubling is why.
Why not extend bike lanes further south on Glendale to Downtown and north to Silver Lake? Apparently that would involve far more than restriping the road.
“Extending bike lanes north would require Caltrans involvement as [Glendale Boulevard] becomes a State Highway (Route 2) north of Berkeley,” Fremaux explained. “On either end, the existing width would not allow for the extension without removing lanes and/or parking. Exploring such an effort is not in our near-term workplan.”
Let that sink in.
They’re more than happy to install a bike lane as part of a repaving project, but only as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone.
As far as the city is concerned, your life and safety are less important than a parking space. Let alone your comfort and convenience on the road.
Which is the exact opposite of Vision Zero.
And the opposite of what cities like New York, Portland and Vancouver are doing by narrowing roads and removing parking spaces to make room for bike lanes. And resulting in not just better safety, but improved traffic flow, increased livability and better sales figures for businesses along the routes.
We expected better from Mayor Eric Garcetti and LADOT General Manager Seleta Reynolds. But until they’re willing to make the hard choices and stand up to local opposition and sometimes recalcitrant councilmembers, we’re not going to get it.
So we’ll have to settle for a disconnected non-network of three-block long bike lanes that don’t go anywhere.
There’s an election in Pasadena next Tuesday for the last remaining seat on the city council between incumbent Andy Wilson, who supports the new Union Street cycle track and the coming bikeshare system, and challenger Phil Hosp, who complains about being stuck in traffic caused by the Gold Line.
It was a case of instant karma in Santa Rosa, when a driver who circled around to harass a bicyclist lost control of his car and crashed into a parked truck. Although someone should ask the Press Democrat what the hell difference it makes whether the bike rider was a transient.
Sad news from Fresno, where a bike rider was killed when a driver ran down his allegedly lightless bicycle from behind.
A new solar powered bike lock offers a double locking mechanism making it twice as hard to pick, and will notify you by Bluetooth if someone tries to break it.
A DC man has been charged with disobeying a traffic signal for killing a Kiplinger’s editor as she was crossing the street when he crashed his bike into her. He’ll be lucky if he avoids more serious, and possibly deserved, charges in the case.
Like whether the victims’ intoxicated state had anything whatsoever to do with the crashes that killed them.
The report implies pedestrians stumbling drunk into the path of oncoming motor vehicles, or weaving bike riders blowing red lights to meet their demise.
Yet it’s just as likely that a drunk pedestrian could have been hit while walking legally in a crosswalk, or that a bike rider may have been rear-ended while riding in a bike lane, despite having a couple beers.
As LAPD officers have repeatedly drilled into my head, intoxication is never the proximate cause of a collision. A driver may run a red light or veer onto the wrong side of the road because she’s drunk, but the cause of the crash is the traffic violation, not the DUI, which is considered a separate offense.
And never mind that a drunken bike rider or pedestrian is a danger to him or herself, while drunk drivers pose a danger to everyone around them.
So yes, the public should be made aware that walking or riding a bike after drinking can put you at serious risk. And taking transit or ordering a Lyft may be a better idea if you’ve had too much.
But seriously, everyone will be better off if you do anything except get behind the wheel.
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Another new study shows building bike lanes compares extremely well to other interventions designed to protect health, resulting in significant health cost savings and benefits to society at minimal expense.
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The LACBC is asking you to turn out next Tuesday to support bike lanes in Hollywood, which currently has none.
The Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council Transportation Committee will be discussing transportation issues including cycling. A public show of support for bike infrastructure is needed so that the committee will prioritize bike safety issues. In particular it would be helpful if cyclists were able to speak about The Hollywood Boulevard commercial district/corridor, Vine Street, Cahuenga Blvd, and/or Highland Avenue as they are all heavily trafficked and precarious for daily cyclists.
When: 6 pm Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Where: Hollywood Methodist Church located at 6817 Franklin Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90028
As someone who lives and rides in the area, I can attest to the need for major changes, since there’s currently no safe way in or out of Hollywood in any direction.
Let alone that we’ll be throwing tourists to the wolves once Metro’s bikeshare comes here in the next few years.
An Alhambra man was critically injured when he was hit by a car while walking his bicycle across the street; for a change, the driver stayed at the scene.
Oceanside puts a planned crosswalk on hold as the city questions plans to install a road diet that would protect the lives of kids walking and biking to school.
The new Copenhagen Wheel, which promises to turn any bicycle into an ebike, is finally available for purchase. With starting price of $1499, it costs more than most bikes it might be used on.
A Massachusetts town votes to remove two whole parking spaces to sort of make way for a bike lane, because removing the four spaces that were actually needed was just too much to ask.
The drunken hit-and-run Baltimore bishop who left a bike rider to die in the street is now eligible for parole, despite serving just 18 months of her seven-year sentence, because Maryland doesn’t consider vehicular manslaughter a violent offense. I’m sure her victim would beg to differ.
A Georgia driver faces multiple felony charges, including aggravated assault and hit-and-run, for turning around and intentionally clipping a cyclist after honking and yelling at the group of riders as he passed moments earlier.
Irish police sergeants and inspectors say the country’s streets are too dangerous, so they call for making helmets and hi-viz mandatory for bike riders instead of making the streets safer. At least wiser heads prevailed on a plan to force pedestrians to wear fluorescent clothing.
While the schools were approved by the state legislature in concept in 2015, they have been slow to catch on with the courts in the state. Hopefully this will help change that.
Sign up here. And maybe you’ll learn how to set up that topless comedy bike traffic school you’ve always dreamed of.
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It turns out Bicycle Day is less about honoring bicycles than the trips taken on them. Or rather, one in particular, inadvertently taken by LSD inventor Albert Hoffman.
A fellow competitor remembers Mike Hall, the endurance cyclist killed near the finish of Australia’s 3,400-mile Indian Pacific Wheel Race, calling him the man who inspired a world of cyclists.
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Local
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Roscoe Blvd gets a road diet and LA’s first pavement-embedded crossing lights in West Hills, at an intersection where two women were killed, along with their dog, crossing the street last year. Now if they could just figure out how to do it before someone gets killed.
Overstating the obvious, the Coronado newspaper says there’s not much chance the $210 million bike and pedestrian tube under the Coronado Bay Bridge will actually be built. Although citing induced demand creating bike and pedestrian congestion as a argument against it seems pretty ridiculous.
A Santa Barbara writer says if you think the proposed Idaho Stop law unfairly favors bicyclists, get out on your bike to add some data points to your thinking.
A bighearted Las Vegas cop buys a new bicycle for an eight-year old boy after his was stolen about six weeks ago; the kid had to get up early to walk to school since he couldn’t ride there anymore after his bike was taken.
BYU students create a special adaptive pedal allowing a boy with one leg longer than the other to ride his bike using both legs for the first time.
A Virginia man riding his bike to Canada faces a murder charge for allegedly beating a Pennsylvania man to death with a shovel after breaking into his home to steal $8.75 and some canned goods, telling the judge he was starving and just trying to survive. He could get three meals a day now, for the next 40 years to life.
So much for atoning for his sins. The head of an African faith group is asking for his conviction to be overturned for fatally running down a Zimbabwean bike rider while speeding and driving negligently.
