Tag Archive for Mentone

Redlands cycling coach killed in Mentone crash, charity Burbank bicyclist killed in NorCal crash, and Taylor Swift is one of us

August 1, 2023 / / 3 comments

Note: Today’s post covers a number of sensitive stories and tragic events. So no one will fault you if you’d rather just skip it and come back tomorrow. 

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Yesterday I wrote that I had heard of a possible second bicycling fatality in the Highland/Mentone area over the weekend.

Sadly, that rumor was confirmed with the news that the victim was well-known Redlands cycling coach Bruce Elliott.

Commenter GregW left word that he saw the crash, which apparently happened when a driver turned into the left turn bay Elliott was waiting in while on a group training ride, striking him head-on.

I’ll update the story when I know more.

Graphics by tomexploresla.

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Graphic by tomexploresla

As if the past weekend hadn’t been bad enough, news also broke yesterday that 60-year old Burbank-based professional trumpet player and long-distance bicyclist and runner Roy Wiegand was killed riding his bike in Monterey County on Saturday.

Wiegand was on the final leg of a month long, 2,500-mile cross-country ride to raise funds for the Navajo Water Project, to help bring clean running water and solar power to the Navajo Nation, when he was reportedly run down from behind by a pickup driver outside of Salinas.

Wiegand was riding by himself after his riding partner had turned back, opting to take a bus back to LA.

Wiegand leaves behind a wife and two children, after raising more than $28,000 on the ride.

Thanks to Paul Thornton for the heads-up. 

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More information is emerging about the death of rising junior cyclist Magnus White, who was killed by a driver near his Boulder, Colorado home on Saturday.

The 17-year old national junior ‘cross champ was on a final training ride in preparation for traveling to Scotland with the US team for next week’s world championships in Glasgow.

For those who know the area, White was riding the Diagonal Highway, aka Colorado 119, when he was run down from behind by a 23-year old woman who had drifted onto the shoulder of the roadway where White was riding.

He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Police have ruled out intoxication and speed as factors in the crash, but were still investigating the possibility that the driver’s rightward drift could be explained by distracted driving. Although if speed — legal or otherwise — wasn’t a factor, White would still be alive.

A competitive cyclist since age eight, White had recently expanded his skillset into mountain biking and road cycling, and was planning to speak to representatives of professional cycling teams in Glasgow.

Now he’ll never get the chance.

A crowdfunding campaign has raised over $108,000 of the revised $110,000 goal.

Maybe someday, instead of just giving money, Americans will decided they’ve finally had enough of sacrificing our kids to the four-wheeled god, and demand real changes on our streets.

Maybe someday.

Note to NPR and other American media, White was struck with a car, not by a car; the car did not have autonomy. And several stories have noted that White was wearing a helmet, which only matters if he suffered a head injury since bike helmets don’t protect any other body parts, despite the magical thinking so many media sites seem to suffer from. 

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Today’s common theme is bike riders getting run down by cops, who will often admit to being the worst drivers on the road.

And are too often right.

A 15-year old boy riding a bike was left crossed by a Chicago cop, who apparently failed to yield to the bicycle traveling through the intersection; needless to say, the local press blamed the victim.

An Indianapolis bike rider was critically injured when a cop responding to a reported home invasion swerved to avoid another car, and crashed head-on into the victim riding in the opposite direction.

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Streetsblog’s Streetfilms takes a tour of the amazing new cycletracks in Alameda CA.

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Evidently, Tay Tay is one of us, too too.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

The New York Times continues their anti-ebike campaign, arguing that the youth-oriented, ped-assist Super73 ebikes are just motorcycles for children.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two-wheels behaving badly.

Police in Tokyo have recommended that the state minister for eduction should be prosecuted for crashing his bicycle into a woman crossing a street without traffic signals.

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Local 

A bike giveaway by One Bicycle Foundation donated twenty-four new bicycles to former foster kids who are now students at Pasadena City College; LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, a PCC alumni, spoke in support of the nonprofit group.

Streetsblog questions whether the new door-zone sharrows on Slauson Ave in LA’s Del Rey neighborhood are the city’s worst, in a city with no shortage of sharrow shame.

South Pasadena broke ground on a series of “transformative” street improvements to benefit connectivity, including traffic calming devices for the city’s slow streets program.

Traffic deaths continue to rise in Long Beach, despite the city’s Vision Zero program’s commitment to end traffic deaths by 2026.

 

State

There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run driver who ran down three Bakersfield kids as they rode their bikes in a left turn lane; two of the children were sent to a local hospital, one with life-threatening injuries.

Six Stanford students rode their bikes across the US, teaching students along the way.

 

National

A senior research scientist for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety writes that smartphones could be more than a distraction behind the wheel with sufficient buy-in from automakers and tech companies, such as an app that can inform drivers when they’re speeding.

A new research study shows the presence of an Interstate highway contributes to a significant increase in pedestrian deaths, which occur disproportionately in Black communities. Maybe because that’s where they built the freeways. And what affects pedestrians usually affects people on bicycles, too.

A Honolulu bike rider was the victim of a violent armed robbery when a man deliberately drove his car into him, then got out and stole the victim’s backpack as he lay in the roadway.

Houston is on pace to set a new record for bicycling deaths, after passing last-year’s already too-high total with the city’s 12th person killed riding a bicycle this year.

As most of us can testify, there’s no better way to leave work pressures behind than going for a bike ride, as President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden did in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Monday. And no, he didn’t fall off this time.

A Florida woman turned herself in for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle, after abandoning her car in the grocery store parking lot. And giving herself plenty of time to sober up — assuming she’d been imbibing, of course.

 

International

Momentum says North American cities need to push for more, and more secure, bike parking.

Wired says Specialized’s new $2,800 Globe Haul ST light utility ebike makes up for the loss of VanMoof to bankruptcy, although the dormant Dutch ebike maker may not be completely dead yet.

 

Competitive Cycling

Demi Vollering won the equivalent of nearly $55,000 by claiming the yellow jersey in 2nd Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the biggest payout in women’s cycling — and still just ten percent of what Jonas Vingegaard got for winning the men’s race.

The president of the professional cyclists union spent 5,172 Czech korunas out of his own pocket — the equivalent of about $240 — in an effort to develop a laser-based sensor to keep bike riders from crashing into race motos. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

The AP says American cyclist Chloe Dygert has overcome overwhelming obstacles to have a shot at another world championship, from undergoing several rounds of surgery for injuries suffered crashing her bike into a guardrail, to heart surgery required to treat supraventricular tachycardia, as well as extreme fatigue caused by the Epstein-Barr virus.

 

Finally…

That’s one way to enjoy a snack on your bike, as long as you can steer with your butt.

And that feeling when you ride in the tire tracks of greatness.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Update: Bruce Elliott, captain of Don’s Race Team, killed in Mentone collision Saturday; 2nd area bike death in two days

July 31, 2023 / / 7 comments

Sometimes it’s just bad news on top of bad news.

And this one is going to hit a lot of people very hard.

I’ve just gotten confirmation that there was, in fact, a second bicyclist killed in the Highland/Mentone area over the weekend.

The CHP reports that a bike rider was killed by the driver of a Chevy SUV on SR-38 and Garnet Street in Mentone around 9:35 am Saturday.

He died at the scene.

I’m told the victim was well-known cycling coach Bruce Elliott of Big Wheel Coaching and Don’s Race Team, though that has not been officially confirmed.

Elliott was reportedly on a group training ride at the time of the crash; no other details are available at this time.

His death came just 13 hours after, and less then a dozen miles from where a 68-year old man was killed crossing a street in Highland on his bike Friday night.

He was also the third person killed riding a bike in Southern California in less than 24 hours, following another fatal crash in Hawthorne on Saturday.

This is at least the 30th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in San Bernardino County.

This has got to stop.

Update: Commenter GregW reports that he saw the crash on Saturday.

I was a first hand witness to the fatal crash in Mentone on Saturday. An SUV struck the cyclist head-on after entering into their oncoming left turn lane. I was with the cyclist until emergency services arrived. If anyone has more information regarding the man’s identity I’d like to get in contact with his family to give my condolences.

Update 2: The San Bernardino County Coroner confirmed the victim was 55-year old Redlands resident William Bruce Elliott, who was pronounced dead at 10:21 am at Loma Linda University Medical Center, despite the coroner being called to the scene.

They place the location of the crash at Mills Creek Road and Highway 38, instead of at Garnet Street; however, that appears to be the same roadway.

I am told the group was setting up for a left turn from Hwy 38 onto Garnet Road, which is a downhill.

There is no traffic light, though there is a dedicated left turn lane. Traffic goes fast through there and often the oncoming traffic will cross over the lane lines as there is a slight S turn bend. It was a head on collision that threw Bruce into other riders, who then attempted CPR.

Update 3: A memorial service will be held at 2 pm this Sunday, August 6, at The University of Redlands Memorial Chapel. All friends and family wanting to honor Bruce Elliott and support his family are welcome.

Elliott’s family has requested that contributions be made to a crowdfunding campaign in lieu of flowers. The funds will be split between the nonprofit Bikes for Kids Foundation and the Grand Teton National Park; at this writing, it has raised over $9,000 of the modest $12,500 goal.

Update 4: The Redding Record Gazette confirms Elliott was the “captain of Don’s Bikes Race Team and part of Big Wheel Coaching, a group that mentored area riders,” and was well-loved in the local community.

“Bruce was an extraordinary guy,” said Scott Welsh, the Redlands Bicycle Classic media director. “He was very positive and energetic and had a good outlook on life. The cycling community can be an interesting cast of characters, but he was a bright, positive light and a natural leader.”

In addition to his love of bicycling, Elliott was a revered physical education teacher at Bella Vista Elementary School in Desert Hot Springs.

Bruce Elliott was also remembered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where he served as the head of the Hopkinton Public Schools Health and Wellness Department for six years, from 2012 to 2017. 

According to the Hopkinton Independent, 

“He was a wonderful guy, such a hard worker, so positive,” (Hopkinton High School principal Evan Bishop) recalled. “He always had a smile on his face, always willing to roll up his sleeves and do whatever he was asked to do. He understood the stress that a lot of students were feeling and was just a really dependable, kind, caring, supportive colleague and leader of his department.”

Jeanne Reimonn was a Hopkinton neighbor and friend and remained in contact with the Elliott family after they moved. Bruce and Cindy Elliott have two grown children: a son, Wyatt (who graduated from HHS), and a daughter, Ainsley…

Reimonn noted the dangers of cyclists sharing the road with motor vehicles and said Hopkinton’s new downtown bike lanes are the type of thing that should be promoted.

“Bicycling infrastructure is something that we need more of,” she said. “It would help prevent some of these accidents.”

Photo from Spotfund page

My deepest sympathy and prayers for William Bruce Elliott and all his family and loved ones. 

Thanks to Jeffrey Rusk for the heads-up.

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , ,

NY Times misses the mark on ebike critique, witness refuses to report hit-and-run driver, and sharrows ain’t bike lanes

July 31, 2023 / / 3 comments

Before we start, I’ve received a secondhand report that someone riding a bicycle may have been killed in Mentone on Saturday.

It’s possible the report could have been referring to a fatal crash in nearby Highland on Friday, which the police were quick to blame on the bike-riding victim crossing the street outside of a crosswalk.

Even though there is no requirement or expectation that bike riders use one, and many police agencies mistakenly interpret state law as banning bikes from crosswalks.

But whether it refers to the same crash, or a second crash a dozen or so mile way, it’s yet another tragic reminder to always ride defensively, and stay safe out there.

Because you can watch out for dangerous drivers, but there’s no guarantee they’re watching for you.

Thanks to Jeffrey Rusk for the heads-up.

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No bias here.

The New York Times, which should really know better, published an exceptionally one-sided screed on the dangers of ebikes for teenaged users.

But somehow forgot to mention that the real danger didn’t come from the bikes the victim’s were riding, but from the drivers and motor vehicles that killed and maimed them.

The e-bike industry is booming, but the summer of 2023 has brought sharp questions about how safe e-bikes are, especially for teenagers. Many e-bikes can exceed the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit that is legal for teenagers in most states; some can exceed 55 miles per hour. But even when ridden at legal speeds, there are risks, especially for young, inexperienced riders merging into complex traffic with fast-moving cars and sometimes distracted drivers.

“The speed they are going is too fast for sidewalks, but it’s too slow to be in traffic,” said Jeremy Collis, a sergeant at the North Coastal Station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Brodee’s accident. The investigation is ongoing pending a medical examiner’s finding.

The Brodee in that reference was 15-year old Brodee Braxton Champlain-Kingman, who was killed when he was rear-ended by a driver while changing lanes on his ebike.

Something that could have just as easily happened if he’d been riding a regular bike, and may have had nothing to do with the ebike he was riding. And never mind that he’d still be here if not for the driver who ran him down, regardless of his judgment, or the lack thereof, in changing lanes.

Even though it resulted in nearly universal knee-jerk condemnation of teenagers on ebikes, if not ebikes in general — including a proposed law to ban younger ebike riders and possibly require a license to ride one, regardless of age.

The Times follows it up with a second article discussing just what an ebike is, while considering how safe they are.

Or in their eyes, aren’t.

Here’s how Electrek responded to the stories.

The article even explicitly lists the biggest danger that played a role in that crash, explaining that the boy’s bike “had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit.” And yet the article seems to imply that the e-bike’s presence was the compounding issue, instead of reading into the author’s very own sentence to realize that the true problem was that the road didn’t have anywhere safe for cyclists to ride. There was no protected bike lane.

By all accounts, the e-bike rider was correctly and legally using the roadway in the only way he could. In fact, according to eye-witnesses of the car crash that killed the e-bike rider, he “did everything right,” including signaling his turn…

As Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School David Zipper pointed out, every single e-bike crash listed in the article was a collision between a car and e-bike. None were simply e-bike crashes without the added of a car. “All could’ve been avoided if e-bike riders were protected from cars (or if there were no cars)”, Zipper explained on Twitter.“Fight the real enemy.”

The Electrek article goes on to add this about the second Times story.

Amazingly, the article uses a statistic pointing out how dangerous cars are, but flips it around to imply that because studies have proven that faster moving cars are dangerous, that means e-bikes shouldn’t travel too fast, presumably to also reduce the danger of these small and lightweight machines.

It’s right there. The answer is literally in the body of the NYT article. Unprotected road users (pedestrians and cyclists) are much more likely to be severely injured by cars as the car speed increases. And yet this statistic is used to imply that e-bikes shouldn’t be used at speeds of over 20 mph.

Thanks to Yves Dawtur for the heads-up. 

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Marcello Calicchio forwards news of a (insert negative descriptor here) Nextdoor user who claims to have witnessed a hit-and-run by an aged driver, but refuses to contact the police, somehow thinking a Nextdoor post is good enough.

Um, sure.

And somehow thinks she’s a victim, because commenters piled on telling her to fulfill her legal and moral duty to report what she saw to the police.

So if you were the victim of a hit-and-run on San Diego’s Highway 76 on Saturday, you know who to contact.

Or better yet, who to have your lawyer contact.

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Speaking of those new bike lanes/sharrows on Doheny in Beverly Hills, as we were last week —

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Make it safe and convenient to ride a bike, and people will.

In droves.

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More than once I’ve found myself singing “The harder they come, the harder they fall,” as I scraped myself off the pavement.

Those times I’ve still been able to sing, that is.

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That feeling when a mountain biking god, and one of your lifelong biking heroes, is having dinner with his family just walking distance from your Hollywood apartment.

And yes, I would have dropped everything if he’d said to c’mon over.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here, either. A Minneapolis cop used his loud speaker to order a group of bicyclists to ride in single file — in a public park.

Once again, someone has tried to sabotage a bikeway, this time dumping screws and nails on a controversial new bike lane in Victoria, British Columbia. This should be treated as terrorism, since it’s a deliberate attempt to kill or injure innocent people for political ends. But won’t be. 

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Local 

LADOT wants your opinion on bikeshare, and is willing to give you a shot at a $100 gift card to get it. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the tip.

 

State

A Fullerton writer asks if the city’s bike plan is in danger of being nibbled to death. Although that may be better than simply ignoring it, like a certain megalopolis to the the north.

The Newport Beach Police Department is using mounted cops to crack down on illegal ebikes.

Some residents of San Diego’s Serra Mesa neighborhood are upset about new lane reductions and buffered bike lanes, accusing them of causing traffic congestion and frustrated drivers, even as the traffic in the background continues to move smoothly.

Sad news from the Bay Area, where a 51-year old Santa Rosa man was killed when a pickup driver crashed into his bicycle leaving a parking lot in Rohnert Park.

 

National

Bicycling reports that a new survey shows the Congressional E-BIKE Act, which would cover 30 percent of the cost of a new ebike, is supported by 70% of Americans living in major cities, and nearly half would be extremely likely to buy one if the bill passes. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Even bikes that don’t move can cause dangerous falls, as Peloton recalls more than two million of their popular exercise bikes.

Auto Evolution says the new European-style ebike from America’s last remaining Tour de France winner fits perfectly with the Barbenheimer zeitgeist.

Life is cheap in Arizona, where the “driver” who was behind the wheel watching videos on her phone when a self-driving Uber test car ran down Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a Tempe road with her bike walked without a day behind bars, after copping a plea to just three lousy years of supervised probation. Which is three years more than Uber got, while Herzberg got the death penalty just for crossing the damn street.

Tragic news from Colorado, where a motorcyclist was killed, and a couple riding a tandem bike were seriously injured — the man severely — when the motorcyclist crossed the centerline in a winding canyon, and slammed into their bike before sliding off the roadway; a Boulder paper suggests the motorcyclist was attempting to flee the scene when he crashed a second time.

The Associated Press says the massive RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa puts small town America into focus.

An op-ed from the advocacy director of a Chicago active transportation group says the city may be near the bottom of PeopleForBikes ratings for bikeability, but public support could help make it the nation’s best city for bicycling. Then again, we could say the same about Los Angeles. 

Gothamist says last week’s bloody scooter crash on the Manhattan Bridge bike path has left four people injured and the cycling community shaken, as riders of traditional bicycles compete for space with motor-scooter riders illegally using it.

A Virginia man’s dream European cycling vacation was saved when his stolen bike was recovered by using an AirTag, as well as bugging the hell out of the airline. Thanks to David Drexler for the link.

 

International

Momentum offers a beginner’s guide to learning to ride a bicycle later in life.

A 48-year old Welsh driver has been charged in the death of triathlete Rebecca Comins as she was taking part in a bicycle time trial last year.

London’s Daily Mail describes how a deaf and endearingly daft bike-riding cat became an instant Instagram star.

A retired French school teacher has created his own job, riding his recumbent bike across the country personally delivering handwritten letters “to friends of friends and soon-to-be new ones.”

NPR reports that Berlin bike riders are standing up to the city’s new conservative mayor, forcing him to backpedal on a campaign pledge to standup for the city’s poor, downtrodden drivers.

Life is cheap in India, where an Army doctor got a single year behind bars, seven years after the speeding crash that killed the father of a young child while he was riding his bike.

A nine-year old Guyana junior cycling “prodigy” made waves in her bike racing debut, following in the footsteps of her late father, three years after the former national cycling team member was killed by a drunk driver on a training ride.

This is who we share the road with. After a Singaporean school bus full of kids nearly ran over a bicyclist before smashing into three cars, the bike rider realized there was no one driving the bus, because the driver had apparently fallen out.

 

Competitive Cycling

Gut-wrenching news from Boulder, Colorado, where 17-year old rising cyclist Magnus White, a member of the US Junior Men’s National Team and the 2021 Junior 17-18 Cyclocross National Champ, was killed when he was struck by a driver while training for the world junior championships in Scotland next week; a crowdfunding campaign in his memory has raised nearly $60,000 of the $70,000 goal. We’ve got to stop murdering our children. Let alone so many of our best and brightest.

Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering won the second edition of the revived women’s Tour de France on Sunday, after demolishing her competitors on Saturday’s Tourmalet climb.

Rising American cyclist Veronica Ewers was sent home with a broken collarbone after crashing hard and flying into a ditch on Friday’s stage of the Tour.

The Los Angeles-based Bahati foundation is sponsoring the Ghana Cycling Federation to help groom young cyclists to compete in major international events.

 

Finally…

Forget carb loading and chug a bicarb, instead. Bicycles get blamed for crashes, even when no one is riding them.

And who needs a moving van when you’ve got a bicycle?

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 
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