Day 184 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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I’m dealing with a sick migraine as I finish this, so please excuse any mistakes this time since I’m not up to proofing it.
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Look, I don’t have to tell you that tomorrow is the 4th of July. Or that there’s no better way to get to or from the fireworks than riding your bike.
Unless you live in my neighborhood, where it already sounds like a war zone from all the illegal fireworks.
Just remember that drivers are more likely to be focused on their kids or finding a parking spot than they are to be looking for you on a bicycle.
And three-day weekends tend to bring out the worst in drivers, including making a beer or hot dog run after drinking all day. Or imbibing some other substance, legal or otherwise.
So whenever wherever you ride, do it defensively. Assume every driver you encounter is under the influence or otherwise distracted, and prepare in advance.
Twenty-seven-year old Kamille Agustin and 23-year old Anthony Phan turned themselves in to traffic investigators at the San Diego Police Department on Wednesday, accused of fleeing after they both struck the 31-year old victim in separate vehicles.
The victim still has not been publicly identified.
A New Hampshire public radio station offers tips on how bike riders can stay say on the road. Which mostly make sense as far as they go, although it’s hard to make eye contact with a speeding distracted driver.
Where, by their telling, people on bicycles in Paris are entitled hipsters who endanger old people, while the humble bicycle itself is seen as “a symbol of aggression, every-man-for-himself and urban chaos.”
Of course it is.
And of course, it’s all part of the proverbial war on cars.
But it is the behaviour of the cyclists themselves and their apparent disdain for the code de la route that appears to be provoking many Parisians.
Many drivers, already resentful at losing precious road space to dedicated cycle lanes, dismiss those on two wheels as bobos, a catch-all term for privileged hipsters. Matters have been worsened by the proliferation of delivery riders, usually under time pressure and often astride heavy electric machines that can go at 30 mph or more.
Never mind that the European Union limits ebikes to just 15.5 mph.
Then there’s this.
Nine out of ten cyclists (88 per cent) admitted to having broken traffic rules in a survey in Paris and nine other French cities last October. Some 75 per cent confessed to riding on pavements, 55 per cent to turning without signalling and the same number to running red lights.
Young riders appeared the most reckless: three quarters said they did not wear helmets or reflective clothing, and a quarter admitted pedalling without lights.
Because as everyone knows, French drivers are the most courteous, respectful and law-abiding motorists on the Continent.
Right?
But at least they get this part right.
But is an unequal battle: cars and other motor vehicles were responsible for the overwhelming majority of the 451 pedestrians and 222 cyclists killed in France last year, according to provisional official figures from the French Road Safety Observatory.
By contrast, three pedestrians were killed by bicycles and six by electric scooters. Though tiny in comparison, this was higher than in previous years.
Although maybe the fact that bicycle and e-scooter ridership has boomed in Paris since the mayor began reconstructing the streets to build a bike and pedestrian friendly 15-minute city.
So an increase in injuries and fatalities is to be expected — especially when electric motorbikes continue to be misidentified as bicycles.
But maybe, with traditional British disdain for their Gallic neighbors, the problem isn’t the bicycles.
It’s that the riders on them are, yes, French.
Perhaps, though, it is not the town planning that is the main problem.
Chantal from Nancy said that the cyclists were just as bad in her home city. “They’re all French,” she said. “The French mentality is that even if something is banned, you still do it and it doesn’t matter.”
Then again, it always helps when you get find someone from France to complain about the French.
Kind of like a self-identified cyclist complaining about bicyclists.
Although another way to look at it is the driver was likely passing closer than the three-foot distance required to pass a bike rider under California law, or they probably wouldn’t have made contact.
Chances are, blame could also be placed on a poorly designed roadway that required her to leave the bike lane in the first place.
Maybe someone from San Diego could tell us more. But at first glance, this one doesn’t seem to pass the smell test.
New bike path at the Griffith Park tennis courts. This is great . I didn't like riding through tennis players. This is an excellent solution. Also maybe I broke in before it's ready. pic.twitter.com/N3ugaz25C1
— Let's Get Neighborhood Approval to Save the Planet (@ChrisByBike) June 15, 2025
Ouch. Legendary cyclist Eddy Merckx chats with his old rival Roger De Vlaeminck, as the two men trash the current generation of riders, arguing that they don’t race often enough or hard enough, and get dropped too easily.
French cyclist Romain Bardet called it a career after 14 years, including two podium finishes in the Tour de France, as the pro peloton showed its respect.
He was bleeding from the nose and mouth when the woman, identified as Claire Viriyavong, moved his hand to perform CPR.
But despite their efforts, and the efforts of first responders, he was declared dead before being moved from the trail.
He was found near a rock, and an SDFD battalion chief said he appeared to have landed face down, suffered traumatic injuries despite wearing a helmet and other protective gear.
Which is yet another sad reminder that nothing offers complete protection.
This is at least the 15th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Police report the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding in the westbound bike lane when he veered left for some unknown reason and was hit by the westbound motorist, who continued without stopping.
He died shortly after being taken to a local hospital.
Video from the scene shows damaged car parts and a Lectric ped-assist bicycle lying in the center of the three through traffic lanes.
Despite the efforts of first responders and medical personnel, Lupola’s condition continued to decline, and he was disconnected from life support on Tuesday, March 18th, with his wife at his side, and his organs donated.
There’s no description of the suspect vehicle at this time; a crowdfunding page put up by Lupola’s aunt says the driver was doing an estimated 65 mph in a 35 mph zone.
Although you’d think a crash at that speed would have left debris that could identify the vehicle, unless the driver stopped to pick it up.
Note: A comment below from a man identifying himself as Lupito’s uncle says the crowdfunding campaign was not authorized by his family. So maybe hold off donating until I learn more.
This was at least the tenth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
Lupito was also the third SoCal bike rider killed by a hit-and-run driver since the first of the year.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jonathan Joseph Akahito Lupola and his loved ones.
March 10, 2025 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on $2000 e-cargo bike voucher for San Gabriel Valley residents, and San Diego man seriously injured in hit-and-run
Day 69 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
The 46-year old victim was hospitalized with spine, collarbone and rib fractures following the Friday night crash in the city’s Clairemont Mesa West neighborhood.
A San Diego nonprofit is encouraging homeless people to ride a bike, and will give them a refurbished bicycle, along with a helmet, lock, lights, saddlebag and some maintenance items after they’ve completed 100 miles on a bike; 76 people have completed the program to earn one in the last five years.
In a Santa Barbara op-ed, a man makes the case for changing the city’s ordinance prohibiting sidewalk riding, arguing that bike riders shouldn’t have to contend with high-speed traffic on the streets. Bicyclists should have the option, even though studies have shown the apparent safety of sidewalks in an illusion, as reduced sight lines actually increase the danger for people riding on the sidewalk.
A want to be like him when I grow up. A Turlock paper remember a former octogenarian fitness role model, who didn’t let diabetes and neuropathy interfere with his love of bicycling; Ray Houlihan was 93 when he died following a brief illness.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has told DC Mayor Muriel Bowser that the city’s street murals are dangerous, and gave them 30 days to identify “roadway noncompliance” and develop a plan to deal with them — even though they’ve caused zero crashes, and studies show street art makes roads safer. A Republican lawmaker also threatened the city’s transportation funding if they didn’t paint over a “Black Lives Matter” mural.
Despite a well-earned reputation for bullying people when he was competing, America’s only seven-time ex-Tour de France has been there for British eight-time Olympic medalist Bradley Wiggins since he retired nearly a decade ago, helping him recover from a drug problem and deep debt.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding in the bike lane on Camino Del Sur at Casey Glen around 6:50 pm Saturday, when a 50-year old woman headed west on Camino Del Sur drove into the bike lane shortly after crossing Casey Glen.
He died at the scene.
Police say alcohol was not a factor in the crash. However, there’s no word on why the driver went into the bike lane, whether she was distracted, or how fast she was going at the time of the crash.
Anyone with information is urged to call the San Diego Police Department at 858/495-7800, or cal Crime Stoppers at 888/580-8477.
This is at least the 53rd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 12th that I’m aware of in San Diego County; it’s also the eighth in just the last 18 days.
To assess the risk posed to cyclists by rigid bollards, DEKRA conducted two identical collision tests at its Crash Test Center in Neumünster, Germany, with a three-wheeled e-cargo bike driven at a speed of 25 km/h (about 15-16 mph), one against a flexible post and the other against a rigid one.
“In the test against the rigid post, there was a strong deceleration [slowing down] that threw the dummy from the saddle towards the handlebars. The bollard buckled and then acted as a ramp. The rear of the bike was lifted up, throwing the dummy off and causing the bike to tip over.”
“In a real-life situation, the person riding the bike would have suffered serious injuries,” Egelhaaf said.
On the other hand, flexible plastic bollards — like the car-tickler bendie posts preferred by LADOT — allowed riders to simply roll over them, with little or no risk of serious injuries.
But flexible bollards also do nothing to keep inattentive or uncaring drivers out of the bike lanes, and are often flattened within weeks, if not days, of their installation.
So the question becomes whether the risk of falls outweighs the risk posed by motorists and their big, dangerous machines.
I don’t know how to answer that.
The only way to get a actual answer would be to try a real world test on comparable roadways, and measure the rate of injuries on both after six months and a year.
And to the best of my knowledge, no one has done that. Or plans to.
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This is who we share the road with.
A Santa Monica collision resulted in unexpected tragedy after a pickup driver collided with a motorcyclist on the 1400 block of Cloverfield Blvd, near the Specialized bike shop at Cloverfield and Santa Monica.
Witnesses said a driver seemed to intentionally crash into the victim’s motorcycle, after the motorbike rider waved a gun as the two men argued moments before the crash.
The driver claimed he accidentally hit the motorcycle while attempting to flee from the gunman — then he did flee immediately after the crash, turning a road rage incident into a fatal hit-and-run.
All because video showed a driver correctly slow down behind the recumbent rider to wait for a safe opportunity to pass, before a truck driver slammed on his brakes to avoid running up the driver’s ass, and nearly hit an oncoming car headed in the other direction.
And somehow, they managed to conclude this was all the bike rider’s fault.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here, either. A Boston bike commuter says the city’s new bike lanes are a metaphor for the Democratic Party, since they were built to appease a “small, highly vocal minority,” a “depressing number” of whom consider the resulting traffic congestion a benefit, not a trade-off. Tell us you don’t understand traffic calming without saying it.
If you’re going to hate on bicycles, might as well do it poetically, as a British letter writer pens an ode to the local city council’s “absurd” and “crazy” “cycle crusade.”
They get it. A Pasadena study session will consider how to revitalize North Lake Ave and turn it into a Complete Street to make it more inviting to bike riders and pedestrians, as it currently “suffers from excessive space allocated to cars.”
Costa Mesa will host Micromobility America, a trade show for ebike and e-scooter makers, and others in the micromobility industry, this Thursday and Friday.
Sad news from Sacramento, where a 32-year old woman was killed when she was stuck by a driver while trying to ride across the street; naturally, the CHP blamed the victim for riding directly into the car’s path, without mentioning whether the driver may have been speeding or gone through a traffic signal.
Bicycling considers how to say goodbye to the rider you used to be. A lesson I’ve struggled to learn myself. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
That’s more like it. An Illinois driver faces up to 61 years in prison for the drugged-driving crash that killed a man riding a bicycle, after he was convicted on four counts of aggravated DUI causing death and one count of reckless homicide.
Life is cheap in Wales, where an 84-year old driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a bike rider after claiming he just couldn’t see the victim, he was apparently spared jail time by virtue of being old. And once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, if you can’t even see a grown man on a bicycle.
Cyclist looks back to Connie Carpenter’s — now Connie Carpenter-Phinney — win in the first women’s Olympic road cycling race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 40 years before the next American woman would take gold at this year’s Paris Olympics.
October 3, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on A $7 million SD safety fail, U-T sharrows fail, and taking a pass on what passes for record CA traffic safety investment
Just 88 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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L’Shana Tova to everyone celebrating the new year today!
And apropos of nothing, I’m happy to report I wrote today’s entire post wearing a T-shirt with a bear riding a bicycle, as bears are wont to do.
Just saying.
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Call it a $7 million fail — one that ultimately cost the life of a San Diego bike rider.
That’s the amount the city paid out to the family of Marc Woolf, who died 17 months after he was struck by a pair of drivers and paralyzed from the next down, dying of sepsis 17 months later.
Woolf was on his way home from his job at the San Diego zoo in May, 2021 when a driver coming out of a blind driveway backed into him, knocking him onto the other side of the street, where he was hit again by second driver.
But instead of blaming the drivers, Woolf’s legal team accused the city of creating and maintaining poor road conditions.
The case highlights the potential dangers of “sharrows,” marked bike routes that require cars and bicycles to share portions of roadway instead of giving cyclists areas reserved only for them.
I’m no fan of sharrows, which studies have shown to be worse than nothing when it comes to protecting the safety of bike riders.
But that’s a discussion for another day.
The paper was clearly mistaken, at best, in blaming any and all sharrows for this particular crash, rather than the poorly designed and implemented sharrows on this one particular street.
I’ve heard that some San Diego bicyclists have called on the paper for a retraction.
And they may have a point this time.
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California is making a record investment in traffic safety and enforcement as traffic deaths continue to rise, according to the Governor’s office.
The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) is awarding a record $149 million in federal funding for 497 grants that expand safe biking and walking options and provide critical education and enforcement programs that will make roads safer throughout the state. This is the third consecutive year of historic funding, exceeding last year’s amount by $21 million.
Yet that record spending to “expand safe biking and walking options” includes just $13 million for bicycle and pedestrian safety programs, up a modest 12% from the previous grant cycle.
Even though bicyclists and pedestrians account for most, if not all, of the recent increase in traffic deaths.
Meanwhile, a whopping $51 million will go to law enforcement agencies to conduct what’s described as “equitable enforcement targeting the most dangerous driving behaviors such as speeding, distracted and impaired driving, as well as support education programs focused on bicycle and pedestrian safety.”
In other words, more daylong — or usually, just a few hours — enforcement actions targeting violations that could put bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them.
Which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been proven to do a damn bit of good reducing deaths or serious injuries among either group.
So if that’s what passes for a record investment, I’ll pass.
Never mind that the city’s barely competent and very conservative City Attorney’s Office continues to drag its feet on crafting guidance for city departments regarding the measure, nearly seven months after it went into effect after passing overwhelmingly.
And remember, lane-miles means they count each side of the road separately, so we’re only talking a measly 11.25 miles of actual street.
Then there’s this.
While there is some year-to-year variation, and some lag time between project planning getting underway and on the ground upgrades, the first full fiscal year does not look like a promising start for Mayor Karen Bass. Bass has prioritized critical housing issues and not paid much attention to safer multimodal streets – at least not yet. FY2024 did see Mayor Karen Bass appoint Laura Rubio-Cornejo to head the city Transportation Department (LADOT). Rubio-Cornejo replaced interim GM Connie Llanos last September.
No shit.
If anyone has heard Bass even mention safer and/or multimodal streets, let me know. Because I sure as hell haven’t heard it.
Then again, the city’s freeze on resurfacing projects to avoid implementing HLA hasn’t helped.
The CHP has received a $1.55 million federal grant for year-long initiative focusing on “educating the public and enforcing traffic safety laws for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.” Maybe they could spend some of the money on educating their patrol officers a little better on bike law and how to investigate collisions involving bicyclists.
Momentum offers ten “amazing coastal cities” in the US for bicycling; Santa Barbara is #9 on the list, while Huntington Beach is #2 — even though three people lost their lives riding in the city in just the last 12 months.
An editorial from a local Boston paper says bicycling isn’t safe in the city. Then again, the same could be said in virtually any city in the US. Los Angeles included.
September 25, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on San Diego TV station almost gets why no one’s using bike lane, and man turns himself in for San Marcos hit-and-run
Just 96 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
What they found were white car-tickler plastic posts that were already broken and bent, commercial trucks parked in the bike lanes, and shopping carts and other debris blocking them.
Then they wondered why they only saw five people using them in the two midday, mid-week hours they happened to be watching.
Of course, they also heard the usual complaints from drivers who couldn’t figure out the new streetscape, or where they could possibly park if they can’t store their cars on the street directly in front of their destination.
Never mind that the bike lanes were built in anticipation of new apartment buildings currently under construction, which will add hundreds of housing units and the people who will live in them, and who will have to get around somehow.
Preferably not by driving.
Hence the bike lanes.
But it’s true that few people will bother to use them if they’re not safe, or safely rideable. Which is pretty much what the station saw.
Now maybe they can come back at rush hour or on the weekend, after they’re cleaned up and the trucks are gone.
Then they could do a far better story about why flimsy plastic bollards don’t protect anyone.
Not to mention that the nearly one-week delay in turning himself in gave him plenty of time to sober up after hitting the boy’s ebike.
If he’d been under the influence at the time of the crash, of course.
The driver, Alan Edmundo Reyes, is being held on $80,000 bond on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and reckless driving resulting in injury.
He’s likely looking at a maximum of 30 months behind bars for the two counts, though that will probably be bargained down to a slap on the wrist if he accepts a plea.
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Unlike the foot-dragging we’ve seen from the City of Los Angeles, LA County passed a new Measure HLA-type law to speed up building the county bike plan as streets get resurfaced.
We’re putting LA County on a path to move faster & smarter when it comes to building the bike infrastructure our communities deserve.
Focusing on communities disproportionately impacted by traffic violence, we’re supporting Vision Zero’s goal of no roadway fatalities by 2035.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Conservative member of the British Parliament proposes re-introducing legislation to let bicyclists know they’re not above the law, and let the “small minority” of dangerous bike riders know there are responsibilities they can be prosecuted for. At least he recognizes that it’s just a few people who need to be held accountable.
We’re still waiting for Gavin Newsom to sign SB 961, which would require all passenger vehicles to give an audible warning if the drivers go more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Or not.
A Colorado woman wonders about a strange “very short” mile-long bike lane. Even if that’s a lot longer than a lot of the bike lanes here in Los Angeles, and just as disconnected.
The New York Timestalks with the city’s Blue Angels who found a way to game the bikeshare system to score thousands of dollars a month.
International
It turns out that Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman, Pink, Sheryl Crow, Reggie Miller, Rush drummer Neil Peart, Zac Efron, J-Lo and Arnold are all one of us, too.
The co-founder of All Bodies on Bikes and co-host of the All Bodies on Bikes podcast shares her non-racing bike heroes, including a Paralympian physical therapist and the founder of Black Girl Joy Ride.
