Day 104 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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This is who we share the road with.
A former LAPD cop pled guilty to three counts of murder on Friday for a drunken freeway crash that killed three people.
At 150 mph.
Yes, you read that right.
Thirty-four-year old ex-cop Edgar Verduzco copped a plea to killing three people while driving his Chevy Camaro at a whopping 150 miles per hour on the 605 Freeway in Whittier, causing a horrific crash that killed a 19-year old college student and his parents.
He continued on after rear-ending the victims’ car, crashing into a second car and injuring a mother and her infant child.
And yes, he was still an active duty cop at the time of the crash, losing his job sometime after the crash, although personnel regulations prevent the department from explaining why he was fired.
Although we could probably guess.
Verduzco also pled to charges driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury and driving with a 0.08% blood-alcohol content causing injury for the crash, which came just hours after he posted a video with the hashtag #dontdrinkanddrive.
He faces three well-deserved terms of 15 years to life behind bars, along with a separate term of three years; however all four terms will be served concurrently.
Which means he could walk out after just 15 years for taking three innocent lives while driving drunk at 150 mph.
That doesn’t exactly sound like justice to me.
But what the hell do I know?
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.
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Just call it Car Brain.
Dr. Grace Peng took a deep dive into the concept of Motonormativity, aka Car Brain, for the LA Voter Newsletter, the concept that cars are so accepted as the norm that the unconscious bias towards them, and the problems they cause, become invisible to most people.
…Indirectly, through air pollution and involuntary inactivity by making active transportation (walking, cycling) dangerous, cars may be the top killer of people in the developed world of all ages.
Transportation, mainly private automobile use, is the largest contributor of CO2 emissions in Los Angeles County and the largest source of PM2.5 pollution (except in the occasional years when particulates from wildfire smoke affects populated areas of LACO.)
Yet, all this is invisible to most people and especially law and policy makers. In California, it is legal to kill with a car as long as you were not intoxicated, were not speeding, and stayed at the scene of the death. This applies even if a driver kills a cyclist in a crosswalk.
Peng goes on to note that riding the subway is 30 times safer than driving, while taking the bus is 66 times safer. Transit is so safe, in fact, that a 1% increase in transit use would result in a 2.75% reduction in road deaths.
Yet cars remain the unchallenged default mode of our elected leaders, as well the general public, as anyone who has ever tried to criticize car use on social media can tell you.
It’s worth taking a few minutes to read the whole thing. Because this is mentality driving our entire society these days.
Pun intended.
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It’s time for another round of California’s deliberately throttled ebike incentive applications.
The California E-Bike Incentive Project in releasing funding for approximately 1,000 vouchers, which represents roughly one percent of the people who tried to apply for the first round of vouchers — most of whom never even got the chance.
And just 0.01% of Californian’s who are financially qualified to apply for the program.
Anyone see the problem there?
Evidently, the California Air Resources Board, which is running things themselves now after shitcanning San Diego nonprofit Pedal Ahead, does. Because now they’re promising that everyone who queues up will get a chance to be entered into a lottery to apply.
Yes, you’ll have to queue up once agin, this time just to have a chance to win a chance to apply for a voucher.
Anyway, it’s all scheduled for April 29th, if anyone who still has the patience to deal with this mess.
Lord knows, I don’t, as much as I could use one.
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Streets Are For Everyone makes the case for SB 720, a proposal in the state Senate that would authorize automated red light cameras.
The law change red light tickets from a traffic violation to a civil violation, similar to a parking ticket, while also decreasing fines to just $100, with no impact to a driver’s record or insurance rates.
In addition, the bill would eliminate the requirement to clearly identify the operator of the vehicle, instead sending the ticket directly to the registered owner.
Let’s just hope these tickets aren’t as easy to ignore as parking tickets.
Personally, I’m not sold on the idea that the tickets wouldn’t affect a driver’s record, which only enables bad drivers to stay on the roads.
But if it gets more cities to install red light cams, and more drivers to actually obey red lights, it might be worth it.
On the other hand, I’d like to see more being done to keep people from using plexiglass covers over their car’s license plates, which is nothing more than a blatant attempt to avoid responsibility for tolls and traffic violations.
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Speaking of SAFE, they’re asking you to vote for walkable, bikeable streets in the latest round of the LA2050 Grants Challenge.
https://twitter.com/StreetsR4Every1/status/1911197388049682585
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A new petition calls for installing protected bike lanes on Prospect Ave in Redondo Beach.
Hello #RedondoBeach / #SouthBay friends – please consider signing and sharing this campaign for protected bike lanes along Prospect Ave in Redondo
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
A Salina, Kansas man faces multiple charges for allegedly using his pickup as a weapon, crossing the centerline to swerve at a bike rider traveling in the opposite direction. Although one of the charges is for violation a restraining order, so he may have known and targeted the victim.
Seriously? A Redditor “sparked outrage” by posting a picture of a driver parked in an ostensibly protected Chicago bike lane. Which is a photo you could replicate in virtually any city in this country with protected bike lanes.
There may be hope for Toronto’s threatened bike lanes after all, after the provincial government says it may be open to compromise in the face of a massive backlash from angry bike riders.
No bias here. A road-raging British driver honked at a man riding his bike with his child on the back, as her passenger yelled at him to “get out of the way and move your fucking bike,” insisting they were rushing to the hospital because the passenger was “bleeding to death” — even though the hospital was less than a mile back in the opposite direction.
Oops. A French driver deliberately slammed his car into what he thought was a bike thief riding his bicycle, only to learn the man on the bike was actually the cop who had just busted the thief, and was riding it back to the owner.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Tragic news from Long Island, where a 68-year old Long Beach man died hours after he was struck by a man riding an ebike as he was crossing the street; the rider remained at the scene after the crash.
British tabloids are suitably appalled after Britpop star Harry Styles was spotted momentarily looking down at his phone while riding an ebike sans helmet. Because apparently, everyone should carry a bike helmet everywhere just in case they happen to spontaneously decided to use a dockless bike.
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Local
UCLA Transportation announced new bike lanes and speed cushions on Westholme Blvd, as they continue to make the bike-friendly campus safer for everyone.
State
Encinitas pulled the plug on a proposed uphill bike lane on Birmingham Drive in the face of opposition from local residents, who claimed the street is too dangerous for bikes. Which is oddly the best argument for building it.
Cycling Weekly offers a first look at the latest tech from the Sea Otter Classic.
National
People For Bikes reports more people rode bicycles in the US last year than ever before, as 112 million Americans — 35% of the population over the age of three — rode a bike at least once in 2024; juvenile bicycling rates also rose from 49% to 56%.
Anywhere from 500 to 2,000 people were expected to turn out for an eight-year old Portland bike race featuring a 500-lap relay ride around a local traffic circle, with no one keeping track of laps or time, let alone who’s winning; for the first time, organizers got permits to block off neighboring streets.
Singletracks highlights the five best mountain bike trail in Utah, ranging from dry, rocky deserts to high alpine ridges.
A pair of bills in the Texas legislature would allow cities to lower speed limits to 20 mph without conducting expensive traffic studies, and require a three-foot distance to pass someone on a bicycle, or six feet if they’re driving a commercial vehicle.
A Texas bikemaker complains to Fox News that Trump’s tariffs are affecting his ability to source needed parts from China and keep production moving.
The New York Times takes a look at how little Bentonville, Arkansas, with a population just a shade over 41,600, became an epicenter for bicycling, with an assist from the family behind Walmart.
A Michigan man turns his own lifelong passion for bicycling into a campus-wide movement at Michigan State University.
Travel + Leisure says come to Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park for the waterfalls, and stay for the local wine — and the 87-mile Towpath Trail bikeway along the former Ohio and Erie Canal.
AutoEvolution suggests the people who got screwed out of their purchase of the world’s first hubless ebike may have been the lucky ones; the website says the roughly 150 people who received the $3,349 Reevo ebike from Delaware — or maybe Seattle — based Beno Technologies got “a deathtrap at worst and the worst e-bike in the world at best.”
International
Momentum considers ways ebikes can boost your mental and physical health.
European bicyclists made their annual pilgrimage to Dursley, England, home of 19th Century bikemaker Mikael Pedersen, inventor of the unique diamond-frame Pedersen Bike.
A retiring British toy shop owner takes a ride down memory lane with a 97-year old bike catalog, featuring one of the country’s first drop bar racing bikes.
Paris is transforming more than just the streets, as the changes the city has made to encourage walking, transit and bicycling over the past two decades has cut air pollution levels in half.
Three young Black men are nearing the end of their nearly 1,000-mile journey by bike from Limpopo to Cape Town, South Africa, which has inspired the country while calling attention to gender-based violence.
Taiwan safety authorities called for mandatory bike helmet laws to reduce the number of fatal head injuries. Even though studies have shown that any reduction in head injuries from helmet laws likely results more from a reduction in ridership.
An Aussie researcher discovers that most bike lanes in inner Melbourne have less than 40% tree cover, and getting worse. Although that’s probably better than here in sunny Los Angeles.
Speaking of motonormativity, Brisbane, Australia offers a prime example, after a bridge pathway relied on by bike commuters was shut down without notice, forcing people either into a long detour or back into their cars.
Competitive Cycling
French star Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the Paris-Roubaix Femmes in a solo breakaway on Saturday, while 37-year old Dutch legend Marianne Vos countered world champion Lotte Kopecky to take third.
Mathieu van der Poel won his third consecutive Paris-Roubaix after rival Tadej Pogačar crashed with about 28 miles to go during their dual breakaway.
Despite the victory, van der Poel was furious after he was struck in the face by a water bottle that appeared to have been deliberately thrown from the crowd of spectators about 20 miles from the finish.
Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay survived the cobbles on his first Paris-Roubaix with a strong ride to finish 15th.
British reigning world champ Evie Richards is now the most decorated female short-track cross-country rider in history after back-to-back wins in Brazil.
Finally…
Your next tires could inflate themselves. Your next road bike could have a double top tube and cantilevered seat post.
And we may have to deal with feral LA drivers, but we hardly ever get stalked by wild cougars when we ride.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
