Sad news from Palm Springs, where a San Diego father died from heatstroke earlier this month after mountain biking outside the city.
According to San Diego’s 10 News, Paul Fox, a 53-year old father of three from the city’s Del Cero neighborhood, met a friend at the Palm Canyon Epic Trail south of Palm Springs in late April for what was planned as a three-hour ride.
However, despite GPS, they took a wrong turn somewhere along the trail, and ran out of water as three hours turned into six in temperatures up to 105°F.
Fox reportedly stopped suddenly and stepped off his bike acting dazed and confused, before collapsing and rolling down a hill.
He died in the hospital May 9th from complications due to heatstroke.
Fox, who a friend described as kind, funny and brilliant, worked as a computer network security specialist, including a four-year stint at the White House in the mid-2000s.
There’s no information at this time about the victim, or how the crash occurred. Police are still unsure if either the driver or victim were under the influence.
The county, which has averaged nine bicycling deaths per year for the past three years, had already suffered six deaths, less than three months into the year.
The driver remained at the scene, and was not suspected of being under the influence; needless to say, no arrest was made and no one was ticketed at the scene.
There is a narrow paved shoulder on Indian Canyon, a painted stripe the only protection from drivers speeding by at — or more likely above — the posed 55 mph speed limit.
There’s no other information available at this time. No word on which direction they were both traveling, or why the driver wasn’t able to avoid someone on a bicycle in the early morning darkness, over an hour before sunrise.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Traffic Division of the Palm Springs Police Department at 760/323-8125.
This is at least the 24th bicycling fatality in Southern California already this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Riverside County.
Which is too damn many.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his or her loved ones.
Police are looking for a dark-colored compact with likely front-end damage; the driver fled south on Palm Canyon. There’s no description on the driver or make of car.
Jaime’s family called on the driver to turn themself in.
Someone’s sitting at home knowing that they hit someone, they hit a person, and they know that they killed him. They know that; there’s no way on God’s green earth can they not know,” said Jeanette Jaime, Raymundo’s aunt and godmother. “I can understand the fear in them, but it just sickens me that someone can just do this to another person, to a human being.
He leaves behind his wife and a four-year old daughter.
“She is going to grow up without a father,” Jaime said. “It means that she will cry herself to sleep. They had a very awesome relationship.”
As well as clarifying that while this site is about advocacy, I’ve been the only one behind it since the Corgi died.
We might have started out with this observation.
Two girls, one about eight, the other about six, rip along in the middle of streets on motorized scooters that — and I am not making this up — zoom along at a solid 10 miles an hour.
Now, 10 mph may not seem like a lot if you’re tucked safely in a car. But hitting the asphalt at 10 miles an hour can destroy flesh, bone and skull, especially if a child is struck by a vehicle.
Yet that’s not what terrifies me.
What terrifies me is that these kids don’t wear helmets, an occurrence I see more and more.
I would have pointed out that, yes, anyone under 18 is required to wear a helmet on a scooter, just like on a bicycle.
There’s good reasoning for that. Children’s skulls and brains are still developing, and they lack the judgement to make an informed decision on whether or not to use a helmet.
Then the conversation might have moseyed along to this study.
Rosenthal and Kreeger is a California law firm that specializes in injuries, but also does actual research that tilts toward actually saving lives.
“Since helmet laws have been instituted in the majority of states, at least for children the death rate for that age group has decreased,” the firm points out. “But research shows that over half of adult bicyclists still do not use a helmet at all.
However, there have been studies that suggest the reason bicycling death rates have declined for children is simply that fewer children are riding bikes these days, as parents ferry them to and from school and soccer practice. And everywhere else.
Some people blame helmet laws for that decrease, saying it makes bicycling seem dangerous.
I’m not sure I buy that argument; I think the reason is the just the dangers on our streets, real and imagined.
But that would have led to discussion of the mandatory, and much hated, bike helmet laws in Australia and New Zealand.
Using bikeshare is often a spur of the moment thing, and no one wants to cart around an awkward helmet all day on the off chance they might rent a bike or scooter.
That would lead us to this discussion.
Between 2010 and 2017 (the latest year available), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports cycling fatalities increased by a whopping 35%.
In 2017, nearly 800 people were killed riding bicycles. Not surprisingly, there has been a corresponding increase in bicycle injuries — many of which are never reported.
I’ll add that California has one of the highest death rates in the nation, and Los Angeles and San Francisco made the top 10 list for the most deadly cities.
Yet there is no helmet law for adult cyclists.
Yes, the increase in bicycling fatalities is frightening, and has to be addressed.
But banning SUVs, with their deadly flat grills, and preventing cellphones from working in moving vehicles for anything other than directions and calling 911, would probably be more effective at reducing deaths than putting a bike helmet on every head on two wheels.
The problem with citing figures like that is that we have no way of knowing how many of the people who died were wearing helmets, or how many suffered head injuries.
We can project that from various studies, but at best we can only achieve a very rough estimation.
We also have no way of knowing if those people died as a result of head injuries, or if those injuries would have been survivable if they’d been wearing a bike helmet. Or if they suffered other injuries that would have cost them their lives anyway.
And that’s the last point I would have made.
Because bike helmets aren’t designed to protect against crashes with a car going 70 mph. Or 30, for that matter. And they don’t protect against injuries to any other part of the body.
Even the most expensive helmets are only required to withstand relatively minor impacts.
In other words, a fall off your bike, not a collision with a bus.
They also do nothing to protect against a traumatic brain injury, as I learned the hard way, unless you spring for the more expensive MIPS or WaveCel models.
And the jury is still out on those.
So yes, a bike helmet may help reduce the force of impact in a collision, as well as the severity of any head injury.
Or they may not, depending on the speed of the vehicle and angle of impact.
That’s if the straps don’t break and the helmet stays on. And if it’s still effective, and not degraded due to age or previous impacts.
A bike helmet is a single use device. Hit the pavement or bounce off a bumper just once, and it needs to be replaced.
That’s when I’d tell Whiting that I never ride without mine.
But I also recognize its limitations, and don’t count on a bike helmet to save my life. A helmet should always be seen as the last line of defense, after everything else — from street design to defensiveriding skills — have failed.
There are also arguments that they actually increase the danger to riders, whether as the result of closer passes from drivers and riskier behavior by riders, or the dangers of rotational injuries.
Regardless of my own choices, however, I respect people who have made the decision not to wear a helmet, and I respect their right to choose.
Which is what adult bike helmet use should be.
A choice. Not a law.
So I would have ended by saying I respect you, David. I think you’ve done a lot of good for the bicycling community.
A San Francisco letter writer says forget cars rolling stop signs, the real problem is people on bicycles. And apparently has a speed gun built into his glasses. Seriously, if you’re not going to stop, always obey the right-of-way, especially around pedestrians. And ride carefully around people on foot, who can be unpredictable, and are the only ones more vulnerable than we are.
Life is cheap on an Albuquerque Air Force base, where a truck driver got two and a half years for a) running a stop sign, while b) talking on his cellphone, and c) killing a man riding his bike.
Heartbreaking story from Aukland, New Zealand, where an 18-year old champion track cyclist will never be the same after a driver ran a stop sign and slammed into his bike, leaving him with a major head brain injury and nearly costing his life.
October 23, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: LA Vision Zero fail, bike & pedestrian deaths up in US — and LA, and possible bike death in Palm Springs
While overall traffic deaths are down in three of the four LAPD traffic divisions, pedestrian and bicycling deaths continue to make up 60% of all road deaths in the City of Los Angeles.
And in that fourth division, in West LA, traffic deaths are up a whopping 75%.
Not that the city isn’t doing anything about it.
According to L.A. Department of Transportation spokesman Colin Sweeney, the city has been picking up the pace on safety improvements.
“In 2019 alone, we introduced over 700 improvements to increase visibility of crosswalks — more than 2017 and 2018 combined,” Sweeney told LAist, adding that 77 speed feedback signs and “dozens of traffic signal and street design improvements” have also been installed.
But despite those efforts, preliminary traffic collision data from the Los Angeles Police Department shows that, with roughly 10 weeks left in 2019, the number of people seriously injured and killed by vehicles while walking L.A. streets this year is keeping pace with 2018’s figures.
If you want to observe a wasted effort in action, just stand next to one of those traffic feedback signs, and count how many people observe the speed limit. And how many drivers actually slow down.
Chances are, you’ll have more than enough fingers left over to let the city know what you really think about it.
Not surprisingly, LADOT was quick to demonstrate how little the city seems to understand what the hell Vision Zero even is.
When we asked LADOT about the increase, spokesman Colin Sweeney cited the improvement work the department had completed this year and added that while the city can re-engineer roadways, the other component to safer streets is safer behavior by motorists.
“Drivers need to realize the responsibility they take when they get behind the wheel,” he said. “That means avoiding distractions and slowing down on surface streets which are a shared public space — even 5 mph slower can save a life.”
Traffic fatalities fell for the second-straight year in 2018, the agency said, and the downward trend continues, with traffic deaths down 3.4 percent in the first six months of this year…
There also were fewer fatalities resulting from speeding and alcohol-impaired drivers. Additionally, there was a 10 percent reduction in the number of children killed in crashes.
That’s the good news. As long as you get around safely wrapped in a couple tons of glass and steel.
But while overall traffic fatalities were down, more pedestrians and bicyclists were killed on U.S. roads last year, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all traffic deaths.
According to NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System data, 6,283 pedestrians and 857 people on bikes or similar nonmotorized vehicles were killed in 2018, increases of 3.4 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively. Federal officials said the rises were concentrated in urban areas.
Maybe someday we’ll have elected leaders who care enough to make the hard choices to put human lives over the convenience of motorists.
People who live in the area say the victim was riding a bicycle, but there’s no mention of that in the story, and no confirmation yet through other sources.
Metro Bike is waiving the standard fee for unlocking their ebikes through Halloween.
⚡ The unlocking fee for Electric Metro Bikes is waived until 10/31! ⚡
Starting 11/1, the unlocking fee for e-bikes will be $1 for casual riders and Pay-Per-Ride pass holders. 30-Day, 365-Day, Business and Reduced Fare pass holders can ride e-bikes for no additional fee. pic.twitter.com/vOaoiijpGy
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
A British man is under arrest for pulling up next to a bike rider in a car, and fatally stabbing him as he rode his bike. Police are looking for two other men who ran away from the crime scene, and say the attack did not appear to be random.
A 74-year old San Diego driver hit a man who riding his bike legally, and what should have been safely, in the bike lane, then just kept going because he thought he hit the curb. Which is prima facie evidence that maybe he shouldn’t be behind the wheel.
A resident of a small Iowa town insists the city has been recruiting Chicago “thugs” to get funding for low income housing. And offers as proof backpack-wearing people riding BMX bikes at 2:30 am. Which just happens to be half an hour after the bars close, when employees who don’t have cars would be making their way home from work. Just saying.
Another Riverside County bike rider has been killed, the third in the past month.
The Palm Springs Desert Sun reports a 49-year old man was struck by a big rig truck at 4:48 am yesterday on East Ramon Road west of Paseo Dorotea.
He was pronounced dead at the scene four minutes later.
The Riverside County Coroner’s office identifies him as Eddie Galindo of Palm Springs, while placing the site of the collision as approximately 208 feet west of Paseo Dorotea.
It’s unclear just how the collision may have occurred.
The Desert Sun reports that police concluded Galindo was riding north when he was struck by the eastbound truck. However, a satellite view shows a six lane divided highway with no obvious crossing points west of Paseo Dorotea.
Meanwhile, KESQ-2/3 says he was riding east on Ramon, which would suggest he was rear-ended by the driver of the truck.
It’s possible he may have been attempting to cross the eastbound lanes to make a left turn, which is the only explanation that would appear to fit both descriptions.
Police don’t believe drugs or alcohol were involved. And no word on whether the victim had lights and reflectors in the early morning darkness.
Galindo’s death follows the hit-and-run death of Forrest Holmes in Jurupa Valley, and that of a Hemet man who has still not been publicly identified, both earlier last month.
This is the 60th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth in Riverside County. That compares with 56 in SoCal this time last year, and five in the county.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Eddie Galindo and all his loved ones.
A bad weekend just keeps getting worse, as a bike rider was killed in a solo fall in Palm Springs this morning.
According to Palm Springs Patch, the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding on a bike path on the 3100 block of East Palm Canyon Drive around 8:38 am when he somehow lost control of his bike. He veered down an embankment, and landed head-first on the pavement at the bottom.
A satellite view shows a separated bike path on the east side of the street, with a drop off leading to the parking lot next to it.
No word on whether the victim was wearing a helmet. However, relatively slow speed falls, like this appears to be, are exactly what bike helmets are designed to protect against.
This is the fifth bicycling fatality this year; remarkably, it is already the third death in Riverside County — or four if you count Phil Richards, who died yesterday of injuries he suffered in a Calimesa hit-and-run December 29th.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
This story breaks my heart. And it scares the crap out of me.
Last spring, Donny McCluskey was waiting at a red light when he became collateral damage in a violent vehicular collision.
He did everything right. He was exactly where he was supposed to be, and obeying the law in every way.
And yet he still died when a speeding driver ran a red light, and was broadsided by a drunk driver who was crossing on the green, sending the van tumbling into him.
The pickup driver who was otherwise obeying the law was arrested on the spot for DUI. Yet the driver who caused the collision and took the life of an innocent cyclist got a relative slap on the wrist, charged with a single count of misdemeanor vehicular homicide.
The victim’s family thought they’d see justice and get closure at his hearing. They were mistaken.
I’ll let his sister, Patti McCluskey-Andre tell the story.
No JUSTICE
Update on Donny McCluskey’s case with opening court date completed on February 13, 2013. It appeared to be held in Indio traffic court where most of the crimes were DUI, not showing up for DUI work (warrants) or driving without a license. After hearing these cases, there was Donny’s case: MISDEMEANOR vehicular manslaughter. No bail, no driving suspension, no reason to even show up in court for the driver (Armando Gomez of Cathedral City) who killed Donny-HE NEVER has to go to court because as the judge said several times: he was only charged with a misdemeanor (never mentioned manslaughter again) and he hired an attorney to represent him.
The judge explained the charges and the law as the DA had but the DA had no way of knowing he had hired a lawyer. As a family, we believed we would see the man and have some kind of closure. We agreed it was a terrible tragic accident caused by one man’s inattention and selfishness but not intentional. Yet, after court we realize the man who killed my brother, NEVER HAS TO GO TO COURT. Court was imagined as a form of cathartic movement for us to check off our grief list. We know there is no bringing Donny back, no matter what our actions are. We left the court in disbelief as to what kind of message are these charges delivering? Donny’s life was not worth more than paying a lawyer and going on with your life without much ado?
I could literally feel my 82 year old dad’s heart break as he sat next to me. I sensed him using sheer will to keep on breathing through the impersonalization and lack of importance attached to the death of his son. He also had to go home to tell Donny’s wife and mom what occurred. My heart breaks for everyone. My sister, my dad and I came to INDIO as we felt it was Donny’s day in court and since he was dead, his family would represent him.
Seems there are no laws protecting cyclists who die from gross vehicular operation unless the driver was texting, drunk or leaves the scene. Mr. Armando Gomez ran a light and accelerated an additional 30 mph when he realized it. Unfortunately, Mr. Gomez and his van were hit by a truck traveling through a green light resulting in his van flipping and skidding into my brother causing massive life ending injuries (Donny was following ALL the laws).
Mr. Gomez’s lawyer actually stated it was possibly the OTHER man’s fault. Now that is taking responsibility for your actions. I don’t know what the green light man did, but he was arrested at the scene for being under the influence. Maybe he could have stopped, if he was not under the influence but he was not the root cause of the accident. I am sure this driver will have more profound consequences.
Meanwhile, we grieve and acknowledge every month that goes by without our amazing husband, brother, son and uncle. Today is the 10 month anniversary. February 28th would have been his 50th birthday.
We need to change CA law. A car is a weapon and when not following laws that govern their use, even if you did not intend to kill someone and you do, then there needs to be consequences. It could be you or someone you love next time!
We need guidance on how to change these laws!
Patti McCluskey-Andre
The scary thing is this could happen to any of us. The actions of a careless driver can cause a chain reaction that can put us at risk; I’ve jumped the curb myself to avoid a car careening from a collision.
And if it does, the driver will probably get off. Or face the most meagre of charges, despite the damage he or she may cause.
Patti’s right.
The law has to change to ensure lawbreaking drivers who kill or maim innocent people face consequences equal to their actions.
