Day 157 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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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.
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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.
The 85-year old Staiola was just eight-years old and had never acted before when the director literally plucked him off the street to star in the film.
He retired from acting just seven years and a dozen films later, performing with stars like Gina Lollobrigida and Marcello Mastroianni, as well as in the iconic Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner.
Staiola’s death was attributed to complications from a fall.
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You’ve got to be kidding.
The parents of a seven-year old North Carolina boy have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, after he was killed by a driver while walking home from a nearby grocery store with his ten-year old brother.
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.
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Gravel Bike California explores the bike culture at the Cub House LA Invitational Bike and Car Show + Swap Meet.
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Metro Bike reminds you about their free half-hour bikeshare rides this weekend.
https://twitter.com/BikeMetro/status/1930656190490427703
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Mercedes-Benz unveils their new ebike.
No, literally.
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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.
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Local
Long Beach may have a speed limit on the city’s popular beach bike path, but there’s no record of police actually enforcing it for the past five years.
State
The Bike East Bay advocacy group installed a popup safety project to reimagine safer streets in Berkeley.
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.
Sacramento is proposing a lane reduction for a street on the city’s High Injury Network, removing two lanes to slow traffic while adding a center turn lane and bike lanes; the city is also planning a two-mile bike and pedestrian project along another street.
National
Wired recommends the best bike lights.
A Detroit children’s charity is partnering with Target to give away 180 bicycles to kids in need.
Good for them. A couple of Michigan men are planning to ride 3,400 miles from Grand Rapids to Los Angeles, hoping to raise $50,000 to benefit LA firefighters.
Kentucky bike shops are already getting hit with Trump’s tariffs, with prices climbing 10% to 30% in recent days.
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.
Lyft will install speedometers on New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare in response to the mayor’s “emergency” order imposing a 15 mph speed limit for ebikes, but will leave it up to riders to actually obey it. Meanwhile, a letter writer says the crackdown was needed, because you can’t expect New Yorkers to look both ways before crossing a street.
It takes a real schmuck to steal the bike a Florida teenager inherited from his dead father.
International
Sixty-four-year-old former pro cyclist Luis “Lucho” Herrera voluntarily appeared before Colombian prosecutors yesterday to answer allegations from two former paramilitary members that he paid them about $9,700 to kill four of his neighbors 2002, because the four men refused to sell him their farmland; Herrera won the 1987 Vuelta, and was the first Colombian to win a stage in the Tour de France.
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.
Competitive Cycling
Cycling News offers a streaming guide to watch pro cycling in the US this month.
Canadian cyclist Derek Gee celebrated his 4th place finish in the Giro by spending the next three days in bed, but with the added confidence of knowing he can now ride with the best.
Finally…
That feeling when you have to pay 50 bucks for your free bike storage — okay, make it five. Or when a bike lane becomes a garbage lane.
And tell the jury they can come in late, because there’s a bike ride going on.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
