April 29, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 69-year old man riding bike killed in Simi Valley right hook crash; 32nd SoCal bicycling death already this year
There just doesn’t seem to be any end to the carnage on Southern California streets this year.
According to Ventura County Star, 69-year old Simi Valley resident Stephen Wright was riding his “10-speed style” road bike north on Sycamore Drive, south of Los Angeles Ave, when he was right hooked by the driver of commercial flatbed truck around 12:15 pm.
He died at the scene.
The driver stopped following the crash and cooperated with investigators. Police don’t suspect he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
A police commander notes Wright was wearing a helmet, which clearly didn’t do any good in this case. Nor would it be likely to in a collision like that.
Anyone with information is urged to call Simi Valley Traffic Officer Bryan Sarfaty at 805/583-6189 or email bsarfaty@simivalley.org.
This is at least the 32nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in Ventura County.
That puts us on a pace for nearly 100 bicycling deaths this year — almost twice the average from just a few years ago.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Stephen Wright and all his loved ones.
February 25, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on CHP gets bike law wrong after 13-year old right hooked, Phil Gaimon gets it, and gravel bull buffoonery in Bakersfield
Once again, the CHP gets basic bike law completely wrong.
As any pedestrian can tell you, sidewalks are bidirectional, with no requirement to walk one way or the other.
The same holds true for riding a bike — assuming sidewalk riding is legal there. The requirement to ride with traffic only applies if you’re riding in the street.
If the CHP can’t manage to teach their officers that, maybe they shouldn’t be investigating bike crashes.
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Phil Gaimon gets it.
His latest video calls for everyone who rides a bike in LA to sign the Healthy Streets LA ballot petition, which would require the city to build out the mobility plan whenever a street on it is repaved.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Florida driver will apparently get away with killing a man riding his bike on the shoulder of a highway, despite veering all the way off the roadway to strike the victim, who police say did nothing wrong. And despite the driver’s long record of traffic violations and license suspensions. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.
A Metro board motion once again reaffirms that funding for the now cancelled 710 Freeway extension will go for multi-modal and safety enhancement projects, rather than the auto-centric projects the head of Metro’s Highways Program keeps insisting on.
A Portland website tells the tale of the city’s 1890s bike factory, which was originally opened to build an ether-powered bicycle, which was dropped when they couldn’t keep up with demand for pedal-powered bikes.
Despite drawing over 300,000 spectators, hosting the Grand Depart of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, England has shown no lasting financial benefit.
The victim was riding with a group of bicyclists on the city’s Rickenbacker Causeway when the officer pulled the patrol car out from the shoulder ahead of the group with red lights flashing, then cut right across the bike lane without warning.
A @CoralGablesPD officer’s turn on the Rickenbacker caused a crash within this large group of cyclists. One rider is in the hospital w/ an injury to his pelvis. The cyclists say it was unnecessary & reckless. Cops say they were trying to pull another rider over. @wsvn#Exclusivepic.twitter.com/ljQWL92pRL
While police say the officer was trying to pull over a bike rider ahead of the group, there’s no sign of that as he turned onto the shoulder and drove back up the other way on the grass.
So here’s my take. And feel free to disagree.
The cop was careless in entering the roadway in front of the group of bike riders, and made no effort to ascertain whether it was safe to turn in front of them.
And if he knew he was going to turn off onto the shoulder, he should have driven on the bike lane, safely following any riders ahead of him, to ensure he did not endanger the riders behind him.
But the people on the bikes also bear responsibility, since they should have maintained their distance while a patrol car had its red lights flashing, rather than closing in behind it.
Now the victim is hospitalized with a broken pelvis.
And the police department is looking at a lawsuit.
While such provisions may sound inconsequential, some of the Manual’s provisions have far-reaching, even deadly, consequences. They prioritize vehicular speed over public safety, mobility over other uses of public space, and driving over other modes of mobility. With these car-centric priorities, the Manual has helped generate a nearly constant and fast-moving stream of vehicle traffic that renders road users like pedestrians, wheelchair users, and cyclists vulnerable. Moreover, by giving preference to driving over other modes of transportation, the Manual has indirectly facilitated a rise in transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions that are the single largest contributor to climate change…
This Essay explains how the Manual biases transportation behavior in dangerous and inequitable ways. It urges the FHWA to use its emergency powers to rescind its most damaging provision — the so-called 85th Percentile Rule, which legalizes dangerously high speeds of traffic — and to undertake a complete rewrite that follows a scientifically sound, evidence-based approach; prioritizes safety, access, equity, climate action, and prosperity; and incorporates feedback from diverse stakeholders.
As you’d expect, it’s not exactly light reading.
But if you care about safety on our streets, it matters.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
Guardian Angels founder and New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa vows to end the city’s entirely imaginary war on vehicles by removing bike lanes and speed cams. So if there’s a war on cars, why are the only victims on the other side?
He gets it. A Boston Globe columnist takes “cranky” Providence RI to task over complaints that bike lanes are “destroying the fabric of the city, ruining small businesses, and terrorizing innocent walkers who just want to take selfies on the pedestrian bridge without getting run over by Mayor Jorge Elorza on his Huffy.”
We may have to deal with dangerous LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about hungry lions, after a Zimbabwean woman disappeared while riding her bicycle, and was later found after apparently becoming a lion’s dinner.
A New Zealand writer perfectly captures the fear and frustration bike riders feel, where we’re blamed and threatened just for being on the road.
Or maybe on the planet.
Discrimination based on stereotypes and assumptions is unacceptable, whether it’s racism, sexism or speciesism. Hatred of bike riders is another -ism, and there’s no justification for it. It’s bullying. It incites drivers to harm or intimidate people on bikes. Whether it’s a shock jock on talk back or The Daily Blog, hating on bike riders is dangerous and can endanger peoples’ lives.
When you ride a bike, it’s like you have a target painted on your back. Every day, when I get on my bike, for fun, fitness and transport, I become a target for people who suddenly irrationally hate me– because maybe they saw someone on a bike who ran a red light once, or something. But I don’t suddenly turn into a bad person on my bike – to the contrary, I’m very happy!- I’m just someone trying to do my bit for the planet, who wants to get home alive…
It’s not rational to hate cyclists even though it seems to be a national sport, whether you’re a driver or not. So give us a break. Car drivers don’t actually own the road. People on bikes aren’t some foreign species undeserving of the right to life. We’re mums and dads, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunties. We’re loved, and we love life. But every time you hate on us, condemn us for riding, you risk us staying alive.
In this case, the man on the bike is delivering Narcan to a halfway house to help prevent opioid overdoses in San Francisco’s wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood, when he’s accosted by a man questioning what he’s doing there.
As if bike riders of color don’t belong in the overwhelmingly white community.
And yes, driving and biking while Black or brown is a real thing.
Or walking, for that matter.
And not just in the Bay Area.
LACBC supports efforts to reimagine the relationship between police and residents, finding ways to make Los Angeles a safer and more enjoyable place to call home, especially for Black and brown people. pic.twitter.com/c0lTdQX9Lk
— Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (@lacbc) June 6, 2021
Although you may want to take your dramamine first.
Unless maybe you’d rather ride in Utah.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A surfing writer admits to fantasizing about running down bike riders on PCH, and says ultra-surfer Kai Lenny reveals a sadistic side by embracing the pain that comes with surfing and his newfound love of road cycling. Apparently he’s confusing sadism — inflicting pain and suffering on others — with the self-inflicted suffering of masochism.
A New York state legislator calls for requiring helmets, operator’s licenses and registration plates for every bike and scooter rider in the state, regardless of age — because he nearly killed a bike rider “who came out of nowhere” while he was driving. Even though all of those requirements have been show to be ineffective or counterproductive, at best. And maybe he’d be better off paying more attention to the road, because no one ever comes out of nowhere.
Team USA BMX Cycling champ Brooke Crain was censored by administrators when she was invited to talk to students at her Visalia alma mater, who refused to let her share her coming out story while calling for suicide awareness and prevention, following the death of her own father at his own hand.
Philadelphia’s edition of the World Naked Bike Ride will return this August, with riders expected to wear as much or little as they’re comfortable with. Just make sure you get the date right, otherwise it’s frowned upon. Thanks once more to Keith Johnson.
An English writer schools himself when he discovers, despite his own biases, that the overwhelming number of bike riders use bike lanes, rather than taking to the sidewalk as he suspected. But he never bothers to find out if there’s a reason why some people ride on the sidewalk, instead.
Something doesn’t add up, though, as Scottish drivers call for scrapping popup bike lanes in light of the country’s 30% drop in bicycling rates over the past year — despite the pandemic bike boom, and the overall jump in bicycling in the UK.
Police in Berlin shut down streets in half the city to make room for over 10,000 people on bicycles, who rode to the Brandenburg Gate to demand faster implementation of a plan to build a citywide network of protected bike lanes and safer intersections, as well as reducing the number of deadly crashes. If Los Angeles could ever turn out even half that many bicyclists we might finally see some real action here, too.
This is who we share the road with. After the pandemic shut down the world of dance, a Kolkata, India dancer and choreographer took a job as a food delivery rider to make ends meet — and got hit and threatened by an allegedly drunk motorcycle cop after just two days. Although he may have been on a motor scooter, since the Indian media doesn’t usually distinguish between bicycles and motor cycles.
The head of India’s opposition Congress party promises to take care of the family of the famed Bike Girl, who pedaled across the country carrying her sick father on the back of her bicycle at the beginning of the country’s lockdown, so she can continue her studies and her passion for bicycling after her father’s death from Covid. Which is great, but what about the countless other less famous Indian families that have been left destitute by the virus?
December 5, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Westbound PCH closures for fire repairs, CiclaValley gets right hooked, and more ‘Tis the season
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Anything you can give helps, and is truly and deeply appreciated!
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Don’t plan on riding PCH anytime soon.
Caltrans will be closing sections of the right lane and shoulder on a 20-mile stretch of the westbound PCH in Malibu between Coastline Drive and Decker Canyon Road to repair damage caused by the Woolsey Fire.
The work will take place between 8:30 am and 3:30 pm, Monday through Saturday; no word on when they expect to be finished.
The state will also close one lane in each direction on PCH between Puerco Canyon and Corral Canyon roads to work on a median project.
And in less happy news, a Cape Town, South Africa bike shop was vandalized and looted in the wake of a festival kicking off the holiday season; authorities were able to get four of the stolen bikes back.
The former head of the Chicago and DC departments of transportation says the solution to quickly and easily accommodating e-scooters and other forms of micromobility is restriping streets to create narrow “slow lanes.”
Oregon police use a bait bike to bust four bike thieves. That’s something that the LAPD still doesn’t use, despite the city’s soaring bike theft problem, due to the City Attorney’s office fears of entrapment.
The LA Times recommends a seven-day bike tour through the Arizona desert, beginning and ending in Tucson, for the low, low price of just $2,995. Or you could just, you know, go to Tucson, get on your bike, and start riding.
Now that’s more like it. A DC-area county has approved a new bike plan calling for an additional 750 miles of paths, trails and separated bike lanes, to go with 250 miles already on the ground; as usual, they just need the money to pay for it.
An Irish writer politely notes that some bicyclists are “bending the rules,” perhaps because the explosive growth in bicycling is outpacing bike infrastructure. Or it could be that some people are just jerks, whether on two wheels or four.
The Daily Breeze posted, then removed, a story reporting next year’s Amgen Tour of California would end with a stage from Santa Clarita to Pasadena. So maybe you now have advanced word if they took it down because they jumped a news embargo. Or not.
They’re onto us, comrades. A Palo Alto writer says a plan to add bus lanes and protected bike lanes on a major street is just a scheme to increase congestion.
Founders of Moscow’s massively popular bike parades say the city’s Department of Transport is muscling in on them with a goal of taking them over and shutting them down; the three-times a year rides attract as many as 30,000 people each time.
Transgender world masters track champ Rachel McKinnon is still facing a backlash — including death threats — a month after winning the title. I’ll leave it up to others to determine if being born male gives her an advantage or not — but she followed the rules, and beat cyclists who had previously beaten her. And no one deserves that crap, especially over a damn bike race.
October 12, 2016 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Woman injured by cyclist in Elysian Valley, and sidewalk cyclist injured in WeHo right hook
My apologies for the continued lack of email notifications for subscribers. We’re still working on it.
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This is why you always have to ride carefully around pedestrians.
This past Saturday, a senior citizen, a mother, grandmother, active member of the Jardin del Rio Community Garden and a beautiful EV neighbor sustained life threatening injuries while on her morning exercise walk on the Elysian Valley Pedestrian/Bike path. She is said to have been struck from behind by a speeding cyclist at or around 8:00 AM, near the Riverdale Ave. street access to the path. Minutes ago, I visited her at the USC Medical Center with her son, where she is in ICU (intensive care unit) with head injuries that have her intubated and with a “no bone flap on right side” of her skull.
The Elysian Valley Neighborhood watch has called for safety on the path and necessary City correction from the inception of the bike path, a flawed design that neglected area historical pedestrian use and that today has a beloved neighbor battling for her life. The decision by City officials to favor the cycling community and to respond to area calls for safety improvements with bandaid approaches makes the city complicit in this injuries and grossly negligent.
Unfortunately, there’s no word on whether the rider stopped following the collision, or just fast he or she was actually traveling.
It’s always possible the victim may have stepped into the path of the rider without looking, something familiar to many of us who have used shared pathways.
But regardless, it’s up to all of us to ride in a safe and careful manner around pedestrians, to slow down and give them as much passing room as we’d expect from a motor vehicle. And give some kind of audible warning before passing to avoid tragedies like this, whether it’s “passing on your left” or a cheerful “good morning.”
Because this is what can happen if we don’t.
However, the writer goes on to call for immediately closing the bike path to cyclists until improvements are made — even though no one would ever demand all cars be banned from a street if a driver hit someone.
Let’s hope this woman pulls through, and makes a full and fast recovery.
And that the local community will work with bicyclists to find solutions that will benefit everyone.
Thanks to Patrick Pascal and Colin Bogart for the heads-up.
This should be a reminder to always use extreme caution when entering an intersection if you’re riding on the sidewalk. Or better yet, ride in the street; statistics show you’re actually safer on the roadway where you’re more visible to everyone.
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You’d think for $12,000, the wheels would stay on.
DTLA’s Metro Bike Share will expand to Pasadena next summer with at least 400 bikes in 34 stations; however, most of those stations will be south of the 210 Freeway, potentially underserving the poorer communities to the north.
The Daily Breeze reports on Palos Verdes Estates’ decision to overrule the PVE Traffic Safety Committee and not place “Bikes May Use Full Lane” signs on the city’s streets, saying it would cause confusion since they aren’t posted in other cities on the peninsula. Even though those signs only clarify to drivers what bicyclists are already allowed to do under state law.
Construction has been completed on the fully separated bike path on the east span of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, although it won’t open for another few weeks. And even though it only goes halfway across the bay.
The Minneapolis Bike Coalition questions whether bicyclists are being stopped for biking while black, after stats show nearly half of the tickets written to cyclists went to black riders in the overwhelming white city.
Unbelievable. Police blame a Canadian cyclist after he’s hit by a city road patching truck, even though he was walking his bike in a crosswalk after suffering a double flat.
An Irish writer says she nearly killed three cyclists in just the last week because they were dressed in black and riding dark bikes, insisting it’s a disgrace that helmets and reflective vests aren’t mandatory. She’s got a point about riding with lights, although if she’s had that many close calls in a single week, the problem may not be with the people on the bicycles.
The head of Ireland’s no-frills Ryanair goes off on cyclists once again, ranting that Dublin’s city council had destroyed the city center through “nonsensical pandering to bloody cyclists;” it was only five months ago he said cyclists should be shot.
Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge visits an American-style bike co-op in the Netherlands, helping kids work on a bike wheel despite her haute couture outfit.
Thanks to Samuel Kuruts for his generous donation to support this site. If everyone who visits this site today donated just $10, it would fund BikinginLA for a full year.
In retrospect, I should have been further out into the lane.
Instead, I tried to be polite and let cars move up next to me, not anticipating that one incredibly impatient driver would deliberately right hook me.
She couldn’t wait two seconds — literally — for the light to change. And it was worth it to her to risk the life of a total stranger because I didn’t get the hell out of her way.
I don’t recommend flipping off anyone.
But this one earned it.
If I’d gone when the light turned green, I’d be in the hospital right now.
After awhile, you get to know the streets you ride.
Like this intersection on eastbound Ohio Ave, one block west of Sepulveda. I’ve learned to slow down there in anticipation of right hooks, as drivers stuck in traffic make a sudden decision to turn right without checking the bike lane first.
But I’ve never been right hooked from the left lane before.
Last week’s failure to ticket the driver who right hooked Melanie Freeland as she biked to work — despite being witnessed by two police officers — quickly went from bad to worse.
As Freeland questioned why the driver wasn’t ticketed for failing to signal and yield the right-of-way as required by law, it quickly devolved into a desk officer arguing with her and refusing to put through her call to the bike liaison for the Central Traffic Division.
And led to an explanation from the Watch Commander on duty at the time of the collision that made it appear that most police officers are prohibited from writing traffic tickets, even if they witness the incident.
Or maybe not.
That bike liaison in question, LAPD Central Traffic Division’s Sgt. Laszlo Sandor, went to great lengths to clarify matters at last night’s regularly scheduled bike liaison meeting, which evolved from the department’s long-standing bike task force.
First off, the officers who witnessed the collision could have written a ticket on the spot. The reason they didn’t wasn’t that they didn’t have specific training in traffic law, as Freeland had understood from the Watch Commander’s explanation. It was that they were due in court, and had to hand the case off to someone else to avoid the wrath of an angry judge.
Or worse, having their case dismissed.
Secondly, Freeland reported that the Watch Commander had described a Catch 22 that would seem to prevent most patrol officers from writing a ticket in virtually any situation.
She stated that in order for a traffic citation to be issued two criteria must be met. An LAPD officer must witness the incident and be trained in traffic laws (taken the special course in traffic). Because the [traffic officer] didn’t witness the incident it did not meet the two criteria. Secondly, the officer who did witness the incident is not trained in traffic laws, so again it does not meet the criteria.
In other words, as she understood it, in order to issue a ticket at the scene, an officer must 1) actually witness the infraction, and 2) have specialized training in traffic investigations.
Which counts out the overwhelming majority of officers on the street.
Well, almost.
As Sgt. Sandor explained, there are two ways a driver — or a bike rider or pedestrian, for that matter — can be held accountable for an infraction.
The first is the one we’re all familiar with.
Someone commits an infraction, like running a red light, for instance. An officer sees it, fires up the lights and sirens, and tickets the violator on the spot.
Or in this case, can write a ticket after actually witnessing a collision. Which these officers could have done, but didn’t, for the reason explained above.
The second way is what the Watch Commander evidently tried, and failed, to explain. A driver can be ticketed after the fact if the investigating officer can conclusively determine what actually happened based on witness statements and the evidence at the scene.
But in order to do that, the officer must have specialized training in traffic investigations.
So any officer can write a ticket for any infraction they witness. Or an officer with specialized traffic investigation training can write a ticket or make an arrest after the fact, based on the totality of evidence.
In addition, there are two ways a driver can be held accountable for an infraction.
Again, he or she can be ticketed or arrested, depending on the severity of the infraction. Or the investigating officer can find the driver at fault in the traffic report, in which case the driver won’t face a fine or jail time, but will be charged points against his or her license by the DMV.
That appears to be what happened in Freeland’s case.
The officers at the meeting suggested that, in some ways, it’s better to have the driver found at fault and have points charged by the DMV, since, unlike a ticket, it can’t be fought in court or dismissed if the officer is unable to attend the hearing.
Although if the driver is convicted, he will still have points charged against his or her license, as well as face additional penalties from the court.
As for the argument with the desk officer, Sgt. Sandor suggested that the officer was actually trying to help, since he — Sandor — was out of the office for several days.
But in the end, we all agreed that it would have been better to simply send the call to his voice mail, rather than appear to screen the bike liaison’s calls.
On the other hand, all of the department’s bike liaisons at the meeting agreed that email was the best way to contact them, rather than calling. Email leaves a written record of the conversation that they can refer to later. And they receive emails on work computers as well as on their personal devices, regardless of whether they are in the office.
And one more thing.
This morning I received an email from Melanie Freeland, who reported that she was back on her bike and once again riding to work, exactly one week after she was hit by the car.
Now that’s good news.
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Thanks to Sgt. Sandor for looking into the matter and clarifying a very confusing situation. And thanks to the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s Colin Bogart, who worked with the LAPD and city officials to assist Freeland in this case.
The LACBC doesn’t often trumpet its victories or the work it does to help individual bike riders — perhaps to its detriment.
But as in the case above, I’ve often witnessed their staff members fighting behind the scenes for the rights of bike riders, whether collectively or on an individual basis. And whether or not they’re members of the coalition.
It’s an organization I’m proud to support and be a part of.
Meanwhile, writing on LA Streetsblog, an LA attorney offers advice on what to do if the police fail to adequately respond to a collision.
