Day 157 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
………
Life is cheap in New Zealand.
A road raging driver got just two lousy months of community detention — think curfews and electronic monitoring — and a year of probation for brake-checking two-time paracycling world champ Eltje Malzbender as she was training with a friend on a three-wheeled bike in 2020.
Brian David Mills pled guilty to cutting them off with his van and jamming on the brakes, after yelling “get off the road you fucking bastards,” then fleeing without stopping.
Malzbender took the brunt of the impact on her head, but was lucky to escape with relatively minor injuries.
The judge imposed the lenient sentence, despite what was described as Mills’ “sporadic history of careless driving and violence offenses” stretching back to the late 1980s.
Mazbender recovered in time to compete in the Tokyo Paralympics a year later.
She used paracycling to recover after she was left for dead on the side of the road by another hit-and-run driver in 2016, suffering a traumatic brain injury that left her with lasting injuries including loss of short term memory, co-ordination and the ability to speak.
There’s a special place in hell for anyone who would deliberately injure any disabled person, regardless of what a judge says.
Or should be, anyway.
………
Sad news from Italy, where Enzo Staiola, who played the soulful-eyed son in the 1948 Italian cinematic masterpiece Bicycle Thieves, died in a Roman hospital.
Just because they let the kids walk a whole two blocks without adult supervision — for the first time.
But the 76-year old driver gets a walk, because police said it was just an “oopsie.”
“In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children,” police said in a statement.
As long as the adult in question isn’t operating a motor vehicle, apparently. Or responsible for designing a dangerous roadway.
………
Gravel Bike California explores the bike culture at the Cub House LA Invitational Bike and Car Show + Swap Meet.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Ab Oklahoma City man was apparently murdered by a road raging driver, after the 37-year old driver was found dead in the street with a gunshot wound, as police concluded he was killed after a confrontation while riding his bicycle.
A pair of San Francisco petitions are calling for protecting transit funding from Newsom’s budget cuts, and keeping the currently car-free Market Street from reverting into a “traffic-choked car-sewer” after the mayor allows driverless Waymo vehicles in.
A “modern-day Paul Revere” plans to ride his bike to every Boston Dunkin’ today, eating a Dunkin’ Munchkin at all 92 locations, and covering 80 miles while consuming 5,000 calories to mark National Donut Day.
A group of British conservation volunteers are accused of leaving a forest a mess, while sending a message that bikes and kids aren’t welcome, after digging up an unauthorized mountain bike track in a Sheffield nature preserve.
The milk of human kindness must be running low in Singapore, where Facebook users were quick to blame a bike-riding victim after she was struck by a left-turning driver, whose view was obscured by a stopped delivery van.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re now up to 1,057 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
………
My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. Diabetes, a bum shoulder and a bad back, and suddenly becoming a full-time caregiver for my wife and my dog, all combined to knock me on my ass Tuesday night. And it probably won’t be the last time.
Yet the 77-year old Florida woman who hit them — who already walked without criminal charges — faced absolutely no consequences, after tickets for failing to maintain her lane, no proof of insurance and unknowingly driving with a suspended or revoked license were dismissed.
Why?
Because the damn state highway patrolman who wrote them couldn’t be bothered to show up in court.
Which means the slap on the wrist she was facing turned into a pat on the back. And the people she seriously injured won’t see any justice, period.
The Florida Highway Patrol said the woman had either a seizure, epilepsy or blacked out at the time of the crash, but somehow never bothered to determine which one.
Which means she shouldn’t have been driving with a condition that could cause that, which may have been why her license was suspended in the first place.
Never mind that no one ever bothered to test her for drugs or alcohol.
So if you ever wonder why people keep dying on our streets, this is a damn good place to start.
A Winnipeg, Canada city councilor spent yesterday backpedaling without a bike after coming under withering and well-deserved criticism for saying bicycle Nazis want to “take away all the lanes and the cars,” apologizing for making the statement at a city council meeting.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
LAistlooks back at LA’s elevated, wooden bicycle freeway, which never quite made it all the way to Pasadena before cars took over in the early 1900s; the route now forms the basis for the Pasadena freeway.
The two executives from North Hills-based Hope the Mission have made it to Oklahoma City on their cross-country bike ride to raise attention to the plight of homelessness. Meanwhile, my brother has made it to eastern New Mexico on his cross-country ride, after encountering several weather delays.
Boston bicyclists will return at midnight Sunday for the 16th annual, officially unofficial and unsanctioned 26.2-mile ride along the Boston Marathon route, before the race runs later that morning. The same thing used to take place every year in Los Angeles — until the city made it an official event, then cancelled it, ostensibly over insurance concerns.
Florida man strikes again, as a 73-year old man was arrested for pulling a knife on a boy for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, instead of a bike lane, telling police he thought his life was in danger because the kid was riding right at him.
Life is cheap in Australia, where a 23-year old driver got just six to sixteen months behind bars for killing a bike rider, despite using Instagram on her phone while driving at least 50 mph. And not surprising, ays she never saw the entirely innocent victim she killed.
August 30, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Pasadena Transportation chief to head LADOT, soft launch for CA ebike rebates, and lousy $500 ticket for AZ sideswipe
Which is pretty much a given in a city where most councilmembers are loathe to rock the boat.
Rubio-Cornejo, who previously led Metro Countywide Planning, replaces underperforming former LADOT and NACTO chief Seleta Reynolds, who left for greener pastures at Metro a year ago.
Despite sky high expectations, Reynolds was largely a disappointment at LADOT, where her hands were tied by risk-averse city officials, and never appeared to have the full backing of former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Whether Rubio-Cornejo fares any better remains to be seen.
We are currently launching a multi-phase California E-Bike Incentive Project soft launch which includes retailer onboarding and training, community-based organization (CBO) outreach and community engagement, and the website launch. The next one to two months will be focused on retailer and CBO outreach, which will be happening concurrently leading up to the application window opening.
The soft launch will focus on four regions in California and we have already begun introducing the program to local CBOs and identifying retailers in the regions to make sure they are fully supported with the appropriate program support, trainings and resources.
So, at least another month or two before we can expect to see any action outside of a few select, unnamed areas. And before we can start seeing more ebikes replace smelly, dangerous, climate-killing cars here in the late, great Golden State.
Anyone who’s been holding their breath waiting for this is probably dead by now.
………
You’ve got to be effing kidding.
Life is cheap in Arizona, where the driver who sideswiped a bicyclist taking part in a club ride, sending three people to the hospital, walked with a ticket for an unsafe pass carrying a lousy fine of up to $500.
By his standard, if you earn money riding a bike — like delivery riders — you’re a cyclist. But if you just ride to work once a year, or ride to the park with the kids, you’re just riding a bike.
Then there’s this.
If you routinely spend every Sunday morning rolling en masse along a beachside boulevard, pumping the blood as much as you are metaphorically pumping your fist at an imaginary Le Tour stage gate, then you are a cyclist too and you should probably pay for registration.
You’re on the road. You’re using the infrastructure. You are at risk from other cyclists and you are a risk to pedestrians. Plus, I can’t be the only person to have seen riders sail through red traffic lights…
Never mind that people taking part in group rides are usually in the traffic lane, not using bicycle infrastructure.
Or that splitting hairs must be easier down there, as he somehow expects police to tell whether someone on a bike rides every weekend, or just this once.
Or whether that guy riding to the park with his kids may have just finished a fast half century with the club.
Although his primary concern — I say his, since it has a man’s byline, but is so self-contradictory it could easily have been generated by AI — appears to be forcing bicyclists to carry insurance and get some skin in the game.
As with all these adjustments in the way we live our lives, we need the powers that be to arrange a little quid pro quo. Remove vehicle lanes to encourage more bike riders, so why not extend the reach of the third-party insurance that is included with motor vehicle registration to cover you when on your bike? You’ve paid the fee, does it really matter what vehicle you are using?
After all, you can’t drive and ride at the same time…
Plus, if we want less cars and more bicycles, taxation has to come from somewhere. Surely it would be better to recognise a contribution of your bicycle registration than to just have everything else ratcheted up to account for the gap.
It’s likely this piece is nothing more than an effort to create a little controversy to drive traffic to the site, while signaling to car shoppers that they’re on their side.
But they may find out the hard way all those weekend warriors on bikes buy cars, too.
For the moment, the power to decide what teenagers may or may not ride falls to a nongovernmental authority: parents. Across the country, they are expressing a mix of enthusiasm, contrition and uncertainty about the trendy mode of transportation.
Because apparently, no child was ever injured riding a bicycle without a battery.
The question they fail to answer, as they build their anecdotal case, is whether there have been more more, or more severe, crashes on ebikes than would have been expected on regular bicycles.
Unless and until they can provide that, their entire campaign should be seen as nothing more than anti-ebike fear mongering, with the possible exception of calling out the increased fire risk due to lithium ion batteries.
Since regular bikes hardly ever burst into flames.
………
The Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee has now been around for 50 years.
Although it continues to remain strictly advisory, instead of being given the regulatory authority of a commission it should have received years ago.
Last Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council celebrated 50 years of the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), which was first established by Mayor Tom Bradley in 1973. Learn more about the history and accomplishments of the BAC at https://t.co/2gslLeA8FOpic.twitter.com/xxAfnjTH77
Phil Gaimon responds to the critics, and arms bicyclists with responses to the 1% of hostile motorists who seem to make up most of the commenters online.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A year and a half after Matt Keenan was killed while riding his bike in Mission Valley, Melissa Gonzalez was sentenced for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.
Not the felony she should have been charged with for driving on the wrong side of the street around a blind curve. Let alone the distracted driving charge she likely deserved.
The kindhearted judge took pity — not on Keenan’s widow, or even his toddler son who will grow up without father, but on the woman who killed him.
In addition to four lousy days in jail, Gonzalez received a single year probation, 150 hours of community service, and had her license suspended for three years, as the judge bizarrely ruled she didn’t deserve a punishment that would wreck her life.
Never mind that she wrecked the lives of Keenan’s friends and family. Let alone literally wrecking, and ending, Matt Keenan’s.
If you ever wonder why people keep dying on our streets, this is exhibit A.
We can only hope San Diego voters will remember this one when the judge comes up for re-election.
Police are looking for a flatbed truck with a white cab, and a distinctive yellow logo on the passenger door. Not to mention the heartless coward behind the wheel.
As always, there is a $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
Thanks to KCAL-9 anchor Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.
You must assert your voice when you are talking to someone who approaches you in sketchy areas, because strangers don’t really come up to you to have a friendly conversation about the weather like we do in Australia. In America some people might come up to you to try to come up. #streetsmart#streetsmarts#safety#safetyfirst
Always helps to have co-workers nearby if you get run down by a drunk driver. Especially when they’re paramedics.
A Denver paramedic who was struck by a suspected DUI driver while riding his bike home from work says two of his co-workers happened to be responding to a call nearby and saved his life. @DenverChannelpic.twitter.com/I8aDO8MSNh
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police arrested a Denver man who rode his bicycle into a car wash to fatally shoot a driver who had just pulled onto the lot, and injuring the car’s passenger; he fled the scene on his bike before changing clothes twice in a homeless camp, hacking off his hair, and hiding in a hole under the train tracks.
More on the Florida crash that critically injured Dartmouth football coach Eugene “Buddy” Teevens, who was run down by a driver while riding home from a restaurant with his wife in St. Augustine; police reports blamed the victim, saying he didn’t appear to have lights on his cruiser bike, and was crossing the state’s coast highway outside of a crosswalk or designated crossing area. Even though bike riders aren’t expected, let alone required, to use crosswalks.
When Metro re-industrialized the downstream end of Taylor Yard, siting a Metrolink yard there, community groups sued Metro for not following environmental law. In a 1992 settlement Metro agreed to pay for several community benefits, including a pedestrian bridge. For decades, the promised bridge project suffered from false starts. Ultimately Metro paid for the $25 million dollar bridge, which was built by L.A. City’s Public Works Department’s Bureau of Engineering.
Never mind that three decades of delays meant it ended up costing over five times the original $5.3 million estimate.
And no, Linton didn’t get an invitation, either, despite reporting on the bridge even longer that we have. But he ended up crashing it on a bicycle, ignoring both the lack of invitation and the admonition to arrive by car.
No, really. The city wanted everyone to drive to the opening of a bike bridge.
The good news is, the bridge is open at last, providing safer and more convenient access between Frogtown and Elysian Valley to the south, and Glassell Park and Cypress Park to the north.
A previous public opening was cancelled at the last minute, with the city doing such a crappy job of getting the word out that would-be attendees who showed up anyway were left wondering where everyone else was. No explanation was ever given for the cancellation.
Maybe they were afraid people from the bike community might actually show up.
Because this is how Linton ended his piece.
Cedillo and O’Farrell have histories of being hostile to bicyclists. O’Farrell’s bike antipathy has been more subtle, other than his notoriously snide anti-bike safety tweet in 2018. Cedillo’s anti-bike stance has been more overt. Both have canceled approved bike safety projects in their districts: Cedillo on North Figueroa Street and on the North Spring Street Bridge, and both colluded on the cancelling of a Temple Street road diet. Both are Democrat incumbents facing elections this year, with challengers to their ideological left. It is a sad state of affairs that it now appears that they fear allowing the public – including the press and those pesky cyclists – to celebrate the opening of a really great thing they have done for bicycling in L.A.
And yes, I was the one on the receiving end of that snide O’Farrell tweet.
Today’s photo is the invitation you didn’t get to the bridge opening, even though you — and the rest of us — paid for it.
Ryane Linehan pled guilty to negligent homicide, admitting she was texting when she killed the man and seriously injured his wife and adult son.
Yet she still got just an 18-month suspended jail sentence, along with six months of home confinement, three years of probation and 100 hours of community service.
Maybe it’s just me, but a lousy six months sitting at home watching TV and eating bonbons seems more like a staycation than punishment.
The only good news is she won’t be allowed to drive for the next 15 years. Which isn’t nearly long enough.
………
Good question.
If LA streets had facilities like this, how many more people would choose to bike over drive, especially for 50% of trips <3 miles in LA? https://t.co/46bQFr6aKT
That’s more like it. A 19-year old Florida man got 15 years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a seven-year old boy riding his bicycle. Although anyone so heartless they could leave a little kid to die alone in the street deserves a lot more than that.
No irony here. Toronto NIMBYs are demanding the removal of a protected bike lane by claiming it makes it too hard for ambulances to respond to injured bike riders, because all the cars get in the way.
Life is cheap in Wales, where a 71-year old man walked with probation and a 15-month driving ban for yelling racist comments at a group of bike riders and telling them to go back to England, before backing his car up and crashing into them; fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
Or rather drive, in his mangled pickup truck, after mommy and daddy showed up at the crash scene he caused, in a failed attempt to envelop the riders in a cloud of exhaust by rolling coal.
Never mind that four of those six riders weren’t able to walk, drive or ride anywhere, after they were rushed to the hospital — two evacuated by helicopter due to the seriousness of their injuries.
Authorities wouldn’t say if charges will be filed at a later date, or if they’ll simply let a bike-hating little criminal escape justice.
The police chose to let the young adult go home without arresting him. I bet they even let him drive his truck… pic.twitter.com/GkLrIfTwDI
A graphic from Momentum Magazine puts bike safety in perspective.
Riding your bike on a protected bike-lane poses just 1/10th the risk of riding on a major street with on-street parking. And the health benefits of riding bikes FAR outweigh the risks, by at least 9 to 1 with some estimates as high as 96 to 1. Via @MomentumMagpic.twitter.com/0RGo9KgFSx
This is what a protected intersection looks like in practice.
And we could use a lot more of them here in Los Angeles, too.
I love this protected bicycle intersection in Chicago. If you can do it in the Loop, you can do it anywhere. If @IndyDPW built more of these, we might not have as many dead pedestrians.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
The driver in the Las Vegas instant karma crash has pled guilty, nearly a year after a passenger in his van leaned out the window and pushed a 56-year old woman off her bicycle — then fell out of the window himself, tumbling 150 feet along the roadway before slamming into a streetlight. Bike-riding victim Michelle “Shelli” Weissman and her killer, 23-year old Rodrigo Cruz, both died at the scene.
A Texas DA has dropped sexual assault charges against the then 18-year old son of ex-Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, even though the underage victim allegedly recorded him confessing to having sex with her, and four of the six people she told remembered her saying it was nonconsensual.
Talk about leaving a dangerous person on the street until it’s too late. A British man will likely walk out of jail for time served after being sentenced for a hate crime for attacking a man who caught him trying to steal his bicycle, while insulting the victim’s Islamic faith. He was sentenced to just 14 months behind bars, despite 33 previous convictions for 75 offenses.
He then returned 40 minutes later, and rear-ended two men riding their bikes in the opposite direction.
But despite being arrested two days later on suspicion of three counts of felony hit-and-run, prosecutors concluded they couldn’t prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
So why even try, right?
Which means that a dangerous driver is once again allowed to remain on the roads.
And drivers are once again reminded that the authorities don’t take hit-and-run any more seriously than they do.
………
CD5 Councilmember Paul Koretz teams with fellow Councilmember Bob Blumenfield to introduce a motion calling for a climate emergency response in spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “fierce urgency of now,” in response to the recent fires and mudslides.
Which means he will undoubtedly reverse his position and approve bike lanes on Westwood Blvd and elsewhere on LA’s Westside, to provide a safe alternative to driving and reduce greenhouse gasses.
However, given that one of their primary requirements is that the chosen city must have a good bicycle network, LA can probably look forward to getting a participation trophy.
No irony here. Mar Vista’s dermatologist, neighborhood council member and self-appointed planner says LA needs to approach planning as engineers, rather than social justice warriors. Except when the engineers at LADOT do exactly that, neighborhood NIMBYs and pass-through drivers reject it because it’s not the kind of social engineering they want.
This is pretty much the definition of NIMBY. Five Encinitas residents are suing the city to block officials from opening a park gate to give kids a safe route to their elementary schools; they complain that it will be used by people who don’t live in their neighborhood to enter the park.
Visually impaired people from across the US are in Chula Vista for a para triathlete training camp to learn how to be guided by a sighted triathlon partner.
Bicycling talks to badass winter bike commuters from five cities with tough winters. Although they somehow left out Los Angeles, where riders are sometimes forced to endure partly cloudy days and temperatures in the 60s.
A Canadian letter-writer says money spent building a bike boulevard would have been better spent providing education for the bike-riding public. Which would do little to protect them from dangerous drivers.
Peter Flax does his best to do just that, and to explain to us, the incomparable loss to family and friends when someone doesn’t come home a ride.
In this case, a husband and father. A Baltimore bike builder named Tom Palermo.
It was a case that made news around the world. Not because of who he was, but because of who took his life.
The assistant Episcopal bishop of Maryland.
Heather Cook had previously been convicted of DUI, at over three times the legal limit, but was still on the road after convincing the court she had completed rehab and installed an interlock device.
She ran Palermo down from behind, fleeing the scene as a bicyclist gave chase before returning to turn herself in, long after her lifeless victim had been taken away.
Despite being charged with a litany of crimes that could have added up to nearly four decades behind bars — including DUI, hit-and-run and distracted driving — she accepted a plea to just four charges, the most serious of which was vehicular homicide.
She was sentenced to seven years.
Now she could be out in just 18 months.
Because of a quirk in Maryland law, which says that people convicted of violent crimes have to serve at least half of their sentence before being considered for parole.
But in Maryland, vehicular homicide isn’t considered a violent crime. Not even when the driver was nearly three times the legal limit, texting, and fled the scene.
Or when two little kids will have to grow up without their father.
It’s not fair. It’s not right.
But Heather Cook will have a hearing next week that could let her back out on the streets. And maybe kill someone else’s husband or father. Or wife, mother, sister, brother or child.
It’s a heartbreaking story. One that will probably leave you outraged.
Los Angeles police are looking for a man rode his bike up behind another man near Crescent Heights and Wilshire Blvd, got off and whacked him in the back of the head with a hard object in an apparent random attack; the victim is currently in a coma.
The Ventura County Fire Department is unveiling their first public bike repair stand, attached to a fire station in Newbery Park. Great idea; attaching it to a fire station could help prevent the vandalism that is common with stands like that.
This is who we share the streets with. A Seattle pedestrian was harassed by a group of men in a car before one got out, pointed a gun at her as she tried to get a photo of the car’s plates, and shot at her. Hopefully they’ll find the guy and lock him up for a very long time. But it’s a reminder to always be careful, because you never know who you’re dealing with.
This is why people continue to die on our streets. A Kansas man was arrested for reckless driving, after serving just 60 days for killing a bike rider two years ago; he was out on a three-year suspended sentence.
That’s one way to get votes. A Pittsburgh councilwoman — and current candidate for mayor — was caught on video honking at a bike rider and yelling at him to get in the bike lane. Even though there wasn’t one.
September 21, 2016 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: 300 days in Moorpark distracted driving case; applications now open for Great Streets grants
The good news is, we’ve figured out what caused the problem with email notifications for new posts. Now the problem is figuring out how to fix it. Hopefully we’ll have it working again soon.
Hill received an unwarranted gift when the Ventura County DA inexplicably filed the case as misdemeanors, rather than the felony charges recommended by CHP investigators.
She’ll begin her sentence November 4th, and will most likely serve just a fraction of that time before she’s released from county jail.
On the other hand, we should probably be grateful she got any time at all.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton suggests walking, expanded bikeshare and bike valets as possible solutions to the transportation crunch getting to the Rams games at the Coliseum. Improved bike lanes would also help, while benefitting USC students and local residents on non-game days.
The 626 Golden Streets ciclovía postposed due to last June’s brushfires in the San Gabriel Valley has been rescheduled for March 5th; the 19-mile open streets event will allow people to walk, jog, skate and bike through eight SGV cities.
State
Seven years after being paralyzed from the waist down in a dirt bike crash, a California man is able to ride a recumbent under his own power after receiving an electronic spinal implant.
Only eight tickets have been written in the entire state of California for violating three-foot passing law since it went into effect in September 2014; out of 10 drivers asked about the law by a San Francisco TV reporter, not one knew it even existed.
Laguna Beach plans to deal with safety problems on PCH by somehow moving cyclists off the deadly roadway instead of building the bike lane recommended in a recent safety study; as always, the real reason appears to a preference for parking spaces over human lives.
Sad news from Santa Maria, where a bike rider was killed when he allegedly turned left in front of a car.
North Carolina approves a four-foot passing law, while allowing drivers to briefly cross a center line to pass cyclists when they can see far enough to do it safely.
The Ottawa trucking official who caused a stir by saying cyclists should have to stop half a block back from intersections so they don’t interfere with turning trucks doubles down, complaining about the complaints he received, while noting we all just want to get home safely. Never mind that in any crash with a bicyclist, the truck driver probably will, while the bike rider, not so much.
A London man describes a fist fight between a road raging cyclist and his equally road raging Uber driver, while getting billed for the driver’s trip to the hospital.
Iranian women continue to ride their bicycles, despite a religious edict from the country’s supreme leader banning the practice because it “exposes society to corruption” and “contravenes women’s chastity.” Because we all know bike riding makes you a slut, right? And that goes for men, too.
As predicted as soon as the LA County Sheriff’s Department inexplicably insisted on investigating itself in the death of cyclist and former Napster Exec Milt Olin, no charges will be filed against the deputy who killed him.
And as long predicated by myself and others, the immediate cause of the collision was the deputy’s use of the patrol car’s onboard computer while traveling on a winding road at 48 mph.
It was clear that the Sheriff’s Department was attempting to downplay their investigation — if not coverup the results — when they announced late on the Friday before Memorial Day that it had been turned over to the DA’s office for evaluation over a week before.
Then, nothing.
Not a word from the District Attorney for over three months, until news broke late this afternoon that the deputy responsible, Andrew Wood, would not face charges.
Surprisingly, it actually appears the Sheriff’s Department recommended a charge of vehicular manslaughter; not surprisingly, the DA declined to file, saying they did not feel they could prove the deputy was negligent, which would be required for a conviction.
As we have discussed before, the case hinged on CVC 23123.5, which prohibits using electronic communication devices while driving — but exempts police officers and other emergency service workers in the performance of their duties.
According to the DA, that exemption applied in this case, as Wood was typing a response to a query from another officer when he drifted into the bike lane and rear-ended Olin’s bike without ever braking.
As often happens in such cases, Wood initially claimed Olin swerved in front of him in the traffic lane, and he only went into the bike lane in an attempt to avoid him. That is, until physical evidence and witness testimony proved him wrong, at which point his story changed to say he never saw Olin prior to the collision.
Yet somehow, the mere fact that Wood was driving at nearly 50 mph — in a bike lane — with no idea what was on the road directly in front of him is not sufficient evidence of negligence as far as the DA’s office is concerned.
Simply put, there are only two options.
Either the deputy was at fault for driving distracted — even though he could legally use the computer, he is still required to drive in a safe and legal manner.
Or the Sheriff’s Department itself is negligent for a policy allowing its officers to use the onboard computer in a manner that places everyone else at risk, as they will undoubtedly be found responsible for in the civil suit filed by members of the Olin family.
Either way, thanks to the complicity of the DA’s office, no one will ever be held accountable for the death of an innocent man, whose only crime was going for a bike ride on a sunny afternoon.
And a dangerous, if not deadly, policy will never be changed.
Update: The afore mentioned Brenda Gazzar offers a detailed look at the case and the DA’s decision not to file charges in the LA Daily News, including this:
Eric Bruins, planning and policy director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, said he was disappointed to see a clearly distracted law enforcement officer escape charges on what he called a technicality.
“Just because the law allows someone to do something while driving doesn’t mean they are allowed to do something unsafely while driving,” Bruins said. “Hitting someone from behind is very clear evidence that whatever was going on in that car was not safe and should have been considered negligent.”
It’s definitely worth a read to get the full story.
