Day 211 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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A 24-year old man will spend the next 13 years behind bars for killing a Santa Ana man to steal his bicycle five years ago.
Jose Luis Salgado was sentenced after pleading guilty to felony voluntary manslaughter and misdemeanor street terrorism, along with sentencing enhancements for being a gang member.
He was convicted for being primarily responsible for the killing 31-year-old Pedro Morale Chocoj, as part of a gang attempting to take the victim’s bike.
Co-defendant Jesus Gonzalo Ibarra was sentenced to just a year behind bars after pleading guilty to multiple felonies for the same attack.
I don’t know how many times we have to say it — no bicycle is ever worth a human life.
Period.
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels.
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Fullerton police have made an arrest in an alleged intentional crash that left a man riding a bicycle hospitalized.
Twenty-two-year West Covina resident Christian Diaz is charged with attempted murder for making a U-turn to slam head-on into the 31-year old victim on the afternoon of July 20th.
Even if KTLA-5 somehow portrays it as a simple wrong-way hit-run, burying the apparently insignificant detail that police believe Diaz acted deliberately deep in the story.
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LADOT has finally closed the long-missing link on Imperial Highway in what passes for a protected bike lane here in Los Angeles, even though it would be called a separated bike lane in any more rational locale.
Because those flimsy little plastic bollards ain’t gonna protect anyone.
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They get it.
Santa Monica police are joining other cities in cracking down on ebikes.
But thankfully, they know enough to distinguish between legal ped-assist ebikes, and illegal e-motorbikes designed for off-road use, impounding a dozen Sur-Ron style bikes at a beach charging station.
Thanks to David and Ellectrek for the heads-up.
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Ukrainian soldiers used a drone to deliver an ebike to a wounded soldier trapped behind enemy lines.
Then used another one, which finally allowed him to escape, after first one was blown up by a landmine when he tried to ride to safety.
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That feeling when your downhill ride is interrupted by a cattle crash.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
There may be justice after all. An Ontario judge blocked the removal of a trio of Toronto bike lanes, ruling it was unconstitutional because “removal of the target bike lanes will put people at increased risk of harm and death, which engages the right to life and security of the person.”
A Malaysian website says recent headlines have given the impression that bike riders are a nuisance on the roads — if not outright enemies.
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Local
A Hollywood cinematographer is planning to make a full-length documentary about Jose Yanez, inventor of the bicycle backflip, who spread the move across the country with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, before ending up homeless in Phoenix.
WeHo residents voiced their anger and concern over deadly Fountain Ave at the West Hollywood Public Safety Commission meeting, demanding action as the Sheriff’s Department offered an update on traffic safety on Fountain. Or rather, the lack thereof.
Mark your calendar for the Culver City meets Venice CicLAvia on Sunday, August 17th, connecting the two cities by way of Mar Vista. Meanwhile, Streets Are For Everyone is looking for volunteers to help work the event.
Long Beach’s dangerous Pacific Avenue is getting a major makeover, including a road diet and protected bike lanes — some of them curb-level — to fix the street LAist calls long “blighted by speeding and deadly crashes.”
State
Calbike will host an online summit session on August 20th to discuss bicycle highways, as a bill to make it easier to build them awaits the return of the state legislature from its summer recess.
A sleek new ebike from Fremont, California startup Morelle claims to recharge in just 15 minutes, rather than hours like other ebikes.
National
Momentum offers a look at ten “amazing” urban bicycling trails in the US they say are perfect for exploring cities. None of which are in Los Angeles, of course, although San Francisco’s Wiggle and Sacramento’s American River Parkway made the cut.
Momentum also lists six reasons businesses want bike-riding customers. Or rather, why they should, since merchants too often oppose the very bikeways that could boost their business.
Bloomberg’s CityLab says we should all be biking along the beach, questioning why beachfront bike paths are so rare in the US when they help relieve beach traffic and mitigate the ill effects of over-tourism.
A woman writing for Cycling Weekly says you can’t call yourself a bicycling community without fat Black women on bikes.
Life is cheap in Seattle, where a cop with an extensive history of preventable traffic collisions walked with a lousy written reprimand and additional training after lying about crashing into someone riding a bicycle, initially saying he came to a full stop before admitting he ran the stop while looking at his onboard computer.
This is the cost of traffic violence. Hundreds of people turned out for a memorial to remember a 37-year old mother of two who was killed by a Denver dump truck driver while riding in an unprotected bike lane six years ago; a protected was built there afterwards, too late to save her life.
A $5,000 reward is being offered for the hit-and-run driver who killed a couple downed in the roadway, after another driver had knocked them off their bikes.
A Great Lakes website takes a deep dive into why Americans don’t bike like the Dutch yet. Short answer, if more people felt safe riding a bike, we would. Longer answer, speeding, drunk and/or distracted drivers need to stop killing us, and traffic engineers need to stop loading the damn metaphorical gun for them, already.
A crowdfunding campaign is intended to help a Memphis restaurant owner, who was left lying in the street with broken ribs and a punctured lung when a heartless coward fled the scene after crashing into his bicycle.
No surprise here, as New York cops ticketed far fewer drivers in the second quarter of this year, as they shifted their focus to far less dangerous bikes and ebikes; The Sun says the crackdown on bike riders is really a “war on people.”
They get it, too. A Greensboro, North Carolina newsletter says cars are king in the city and they’re killing people, as local groups lead efforts to be more bike and pedestrian friendly.
That’s more like it. A Florida woman will spend the next 15 years behind bars for fleeing the scene after injuring a teenager riding a bicycle, and running from police — all with her kids in the car. Although it’s disconcerting that the state can only take her license away for a maximum of five years.
International
Finally, a list of relatively snappy retorss to all the common complaints against bike lanes.
A new study in Nature compares the relative severity of ebike and e-scooter injuries, concluding that e-scooter crashes result in more and worse head injuries, particularly because so many riders are intoxicated.
Singer Lilly Allen is one of us, riding her bike through London’s Notting Hill neighborhood, even if all the press cared about was the new ring on her finger.
If you want to be named the UK’s cop of the year, just borrow a bicycle from a bystander to chase down a jewel thief.
A writer for a travel website takes a bicycle tour of Copenhagen.
Helsinki, Finland proves that Vision Zero is achievable, as the city of over 650,000 people goes a full year without a traffic death.
Bicycling is up 14% in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, over just two years.
Competitive Cycling
Mauritian cyclist Kim Le Court reclaimed the yellow jersey by winning stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes by mere inches, after a premature celebration nearly cost her the race.
Some of the favorites are already out or the women’s Tour.
A pair of team managers may resort to pistols at 20 paces, with a war of words continuing in the wake of a crash that injured Dutch pro Demi Vollering, even though she was able to continue.
Six-time world champ Ellen van Dijk will call it a career at the end of this season; the 38-year old Dutch cyclist has 70 win in all categories so far.
Newly crowned four-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar says he doesn’t see himself continuing in the sport “much longer,” and may start considering retirement in 2028. Which would give him a chance to equal Lance’s non-record for ex-wins.
Former Guernsey pro cyclist James McLaughlin has filed a lawsuit asking for the equivalent of over $1.3 million, arguing his attempt at a comeback was derailed when a 2020 London dooring left him suffering from depression, memory loss, fatigue and PTSD, and he now requires an emotional support dog.
Tour de Big Bear starts tomorrow and continues through Sunday, including the national mountain biking championships.
Finally…
You know ebikes are making a splash when even Fox News gets on board. It’s not a bike lane, it’s an open air ice cream market.
And this may just be the best DIY traffic sign yet.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
