Day 7 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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The LAPD is looking into a viral incident that occurred over the weekend.
An impatient road-raging driver in a Mercedes Benz forced his way through a group of teenage bike riders on Olympic Blvd.
The kids appeared to be taking part in a rideout, taking up every lane on one side of the roadway.
While the law allows them to take the full right lane, they can’t legally occupy the entire roadway unless they’re riding at the normal speed of traffic.
Something the cops seemed to be more concerned with than the driver who dangerously and illegally swerved in and through them, sometimes running red lights and driving on the wrong side of the road, all while blaring his horn.
Or at least that’s how the single quote cited by the Los Angeles Times makes it appear.
The LAPD responded to a call for service at Olympic Boulevard and Highland Avenue around 1:30 p.m. Saturday, but when officers arrived the caller wasn’t there , according to LAPD Officer Rosario Cervantes.
“We’re aware of the video, but detectives are investigating exactly what occurred,” Cervantes said. “There shouldn’t be that many bicycles on the road blocking traffic, so that would be unsafe, but I don’t know exactly what transpired.”
Never mind that the driver could have easily killed someone with his dangerous antics.
On the other hand, video appears to show a violent mob attacking the same car in a parking garage a few minutes later, repeatedly stomping and kicking the Mercedes, and shattering the windshield as a man appears to flee while covering his head.
Which is another way of saying no one appears to be entirely innocent here.
Thanks to Dr. Grace Peng and Steven Hansen for the heads-up.
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That’s more like it.
A Lancaster, California man will spend the next 12 years behind bars after killing a man riding in a Camarillo bike lane last July, as he was fleeing from police at speeds up to 100 mph.
Or make that six years, since California inmates seldom serve more than half their sentences.
Makare Darnell Toliver was being pursued by Ventura County Sheriff’s deputies on July 27th, suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint in a hotel parking lot, when he slammed into Ventura resident Robert Pierret while swerving into the bike lane on Central Ave to pass a slower car.
Pierret died after being taken to a local hospital.
Toliver continued to flee after hitting Pierret’s bicycle. He and his passenger were finally taken into custody after crashing into another car.
Ventura’s KEYT-TV reports Toliver pled guilty to a host of charges and sentencing enhancements, including 2nd degree robbery and assault with a semi-automatic weapon, as well as hit-and-run and evading police, both while causing a death.
Although the plea bargain makes it seem like armed robbery and fleeing from the cops were a bigger deal than the death of an innocent human being.
Hopefully Toliver will turn his life around behind bars. Because needlessly throwing away one life is enough.
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Apparently, the Coachella Valley is no safer for people in golf carts than those on bicycles, after a 78-year old man was killed when the golf cart he was operating was struck by a driver as he crossed an intersection.
Although the local NBC station bizarrely considers that a vehicle versus pedestrian crash.
Just like the two men who were killed while riding bicycles in the area last week, who also weren’t pedestrians.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
An Arizona candidate for Father of the Year faces charges for beating up two ebike-riding kids and stealing their cellphones, after evidently becoming enraged watching them swerve between vehicles — all while his own son watched from the car. Something tells me that kid is really proud of his dad right now. Or maybe not.
No bias here. The host of a new BBC report questions whether “ebikes are a new menace in need of tighter regulation,” after previously penning a column complaining that e-cargo bike prices are just too darn high.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Florida sheriff’s deputy used his patrol car as a weapon to take down a fleeing suspect on a bicycle after the man flashed a gun at him while riding. Although someone should tell the Miami Herald it was the deputy, not the patrol car, who actually decided to ram him.
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Local
The Sierra Club celebrates the 40 people who joined them, Active SGV and Amigos de los Rios for a “16-mile community bike ride for all ages and skill levels.”
State
Chula Vista has closed a two-mile segment of the popular and scenic Sweetwater Bicycle Path & Promenade due to construction of a new convention center.
National
A new book from a 9/11 fire captain relates his journey by bicycle across the US to raise money for Ukraine, after recovering from knee replacement surgery on both legs.
The Wall Street Journal says the problem with building bicycles in the US is a reliance on parts made in China, which could be subject to Trump’s threats of even higher tariffs.
The head of a Hawaiian bike advocacy group hopes new laws will help improve safety for people on bicycles — even though all the proposals focus on the potential victims, rather than the people in the big, dangerous machines.
Seattle police detectives discover no one can surveil and take down an armed drug trafficker like the city’s bike cops.
Police in Vail, Colorado recovered nearly 20 high-end bicycles stolen from across the state, all because one theft victim had AirTags secreted on his bikes.
Cleveland is building the city’s first protected bike lane in the downtown area, part of their efforts to build a more comprehensive bike network.
A new Tennessee survey — from a conservative group, no less — finds fully half of the state’s voters support bike lanes on the streets, with only 24% opposed.
International
That’s more like it. Officials in an English town rejected complaints by drivers by offering a spirited defense of a new curb-protected bike lane, while some local suggested that anyone complaining should get driving lessons.
A writer for TechRadar tries the new ebike converter kit from the UK’s Skarper, and finds he’s the one converted.
This is why people keep dying on the streets. A 56-year old British driver walked without a day behind bars for the hit-and-run crash that left a 17-year old boy with life-changing injuries — despite having 128 previous traffic convictions and lying to the cops about selling his car — after the judge concludes he’s too old for the current state of the country’s prisons.
The massive investment Paris has made in reshaping the streets to make them more welcoming to bike riders and pedestrians has resulted in a doubling of bicycling rates in just a single year, and the curve is still rising.
Competitive Cycling
Good news from Moneywise, which reports that LA-based former pro Phil Gaimon, creator of the popular Worst Retirement Ever videos, thinks he’s finally beaten the outrageous $250,000 in medical bills he received after a 2020 track racing crash that resulted in multiple, potentially life-threatening fractures — something that’s now prohibited by a federal bill protecting consumers from unexpected out-of-network medical bills.
Olympic cycling gold medalist Kristen Faulkner offers her advice for success in business and bike racing, saying to face your fears and focus on what you can control.
Seriously? Pro cyclist Puck Moonen preaches body acceptance, diet and mental health on her Instagram page, but a celeb website reporting on it seems more concerned with her “amazing body.”
Finally…
Your next bike could have massive, oversized wheels, with a name like a dinosaur. If you’re going to insult someone, put the damn apostrophe in the right place.
And that feeling when you pop your own dislocated shoulder back in using your bike seat.
More than once.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
