We’re back, more or less.
I’ve been out for over a month after surgery to replace two tendon and fix a number of tears in my right shoulder. I’m now looking at a long recovery, with six months of rehab before I’m back to normal, let alone get back on a bike.
Or whatever passes for normal at my age.
I’ll do my best to keep this site going on a regular basis, but may face some issues going forward depending on how well rehab goes.
Before we move on, though, let’s take a moment to consider that the new tendons holding my shoulder together came from caring people who donated their bodies after death.
We tend to think of organ donation as involving hearts and lungs, livers and kidneys. But corneas, skin, bones and yes, tendons, also stem from that same kindness.
And I couldn’t be more grateful for them.
So if you haven’t signed your organ donor card, what the hell are you waiting for?
Now let’s catch up on some of the bigger stories we missed over the past 34 days, before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
Photo by Tembela Bohle from Pexels.
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Just 113 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
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Let’s start with the biggest — and worst — news of the last month.
It was just over a week ago that 31-year old NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his 29-year old brother Matthew were killed by an (allegedly) extremely drunk driver while they were riding their bikes in New Jersey.
The brothers were run down on a rural road in Oldmans Township on Thursday, August 30th, the night before they were supposed to be groomsmen in their sister’s wedding.
Needless to say, the wedding is off for now.
They were run down from behind after the driver, identified as 43-year old Sean Higgins, passed one car on the left, then attempted to pass an SUV on the right when it moved left to go around the Gaudreaus.
Higgins failed a field sobriety test, telling police he had five or six beers before the crash, and that his drinking probably contributed to “his impatience and reckless driving.”
He was arrested at the scene, and charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.
Higgins serves as a Major in the US National Guard, while working for a nonprofit substance abuse treatment center. Which means he should have known the risk of driving under the influence.
A crowdfunding campaign for Matthew Gaudreau’s wife, Madeline, who is pregnant with their first child, has raised nearly $645,000 — over 21 times the $30,000 goal.
Meanwhile, USA Today points out that the NHL star was just one of hundreds of bicyclists killed in the US each year — make that over 1,000 in 2022, actually — while Streetsblog says the real story is the systematic failures that led to the Gaudreau brothers deaths.
And the BBC issued a non-apology, saying they were sorry a bicyclist “did not appreciate” their headline which called the crash an “accident.”
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Streetsblog offers an update on transportation bills on the governor’s desk after being approved by the legislature, including:
- SB 960 requires Caltrans to follow their own Complete Streets policies
- SB 961 is a severely watered-down version of the bill which would have forced automakers to prevent drivers from speeding more than ten miles over the speed limit; the law now just requires an audible warning
- SB 1297 extends the states speed cam pilot program to PCH in Malibu
- SB 1261 limits the placement of sharrows to streets with speed limits of 30 mph or less
- SB 689 eliminates the need for a separate Coastal Commission study in order to convert a traffic lane to a bike or transit lane
- SB 1271 requires that only ebikes with UL or EU certification can be sold in the state
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While we were gone, the Glendale City Council narrowly approved the city’s draft transportation plan, along with safety improvements to La Crescenta Ave, after an extremely contentious debate.
Meanwhile, Glendale will consider a a proposal to build the nine-mile Arroyo Verdugo Greenway at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
In 2021 the City began a high-level study which envisioned the Wash as a nine mile green space from its confluence with the LA River up to Crescenta Valley Park. It includes bike and pedestrian trails with access to business and entertainment venues, and connects several important city centers, services and a multitude of neighborhoods that make up a large core of Glendale.
Walk Bike Glendale urges you to attend or call into the meeting, or email the individual council members in advance.
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Streets For All is hosting a virtual Mobility Debate with the candidates for the Burbank City Council Thursday Evening.
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Once again, the Los Angeles County Sheriff department demonstrated how little their deputies know about bike law, when former LA-based pro Phil Gaimon — star of the Worst Retirement Ever videos on YouTube — had to educate one on why the ticket he was about to get was against the law.
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It’s now 263 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 39 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
After a 14-year old boy was seriously injured by a garbage truck driver while riding to school in La Mesa, California, the city’s NBC station demonstrated how to get the story wrong, with a headline suggesting the boy collided with the truck, rather than the other way around. Nope, no bias there.
A road-raging 19-year old Zion, Utah woman chased down a bike rider and rammed him with her car as he tried to flee, after arguing and spitting at her when she ran a stop sign and nearly hit him. Evidently, she felt a crashing need to finish what she’d started.
When a road raging driver attacked a group of Black Baltimore bicyclists with bear spray, the community responded with a love ride.
Police in Dublin, Ireland are investigating an apparent road rage attack by a driver who pushed a bicyclist up against a barrier and repeatedly hit him with his fists as bystanders tried to stop the attack.
A 59-year old German man was arrested for sabotaging mountain bike trails by stringing wire across them to fell unwary riders; for once, the charges fit the crime, booked on suspicion of attempted murder. Velo says attacks like that are not something you need to fret about, though.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A bike-raging New York bicyclist was busted for allegedly punching a woman jogger in the face after they argued when his handlebars made contact with her as she ran in the opposite direction on an Eastchester bike path.
A British woman says it made her ashamed to ride a bicycle when another rider crashed into her after jumping a red light, and called her a “stupid bitch.”
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Local
The New York Times considers whether Los Angeles can really pull off a carfree Olympics just four years from now. Short answer, no. Longer answer, hell no.
Caltrans is still conducting its Pacific Coast Highway Master Plan Feasibility Study to determine just what safety improvements people want — or rather, are willing to tolerate. So if you bike, walk or drive along PCH in Malibu, you owe it to yourself and everyone else to take part.
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton examines the first six months since Measure HLA passed with overwhelming support, mandating the city to build out the eight-year old mobility plan whenever a street gets resurfaced. So far the news isn’t good, with work on Reseda Blvd moving forward while everything else stalled out — including the city’s workaround on Vermont Ave in South LA to avoid triggering HLA.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge summarily denied a CEQA lawsuit from Friends and Families for MOVE Culver City to keep Culver City from removing the protected bike lanes through downtown, calling it “the weakest petition (he’s) ever seen in an environmental case;” the group vowed to appeal.
WeHo Times reports on a “tumultuous” community meeting to discuss bike lane designs on Willoughby, Vista/Gardner and Kings Street; as usual, most of the complaints centered on parking and outreach. The city also accepted an $8.2 million grant for transportation and safety improvements, including Fountain Ave, where protected bike lanes are planned.
Santa Monica is dropping speed limits on over 30 miles of streets to improve safety.
The southwest San Gabriel Valley is moving closer to a Metro-funded improvement project linking the First Street, Riggin Street and Potrero Grande Drive corridor, including 5.3 miles of bike lanes through Rosemead, South San Gabriel, Montebello and Monterey Park.
LA County received over $60 million in grants for safety improvement projects, including projects in Long Beach, Palmdale and South LA.
The LA Times picks up the story of how Bike Index’s Bryan Hance uncovered an international bike theft ring on his own when authorities didn’t give a shit show any interest.
State
Calbike talks with Wes Marshall, author of the new book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer.
The Voice of OC questions whether deadly Beach Blvd will ever be safe for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Family members are urging any witnesses to come forward who may have seen the hit-and-run crash that critically injured 71-year old Bob Hilborn as he rode his bike in Chula Vista last month.
San Diego is conducting a survey to get input on the forthcoming bicycle master plan.
A man riding his bike on Highway 1 suffered several injuries — and got a couple traffic tickets — after falling over 100 feet when he ignored “road closed” signs and a warning that he would probably die by attempting to ride across a rock slide that shut down the highway. And he nearly did.
National
A new bill in Congress would finally mandate federal standards for hood height and visibility in order to protect pedestrians, bicyclists and other people outside the vehicle, after research showed SUVs and trucks with high front ends and blunt profiles are 45% more likely to kill pedestrians in a crash than smaller cars and trucks.
A recent study from Oregon State University shows that the Idaho Stop Law, aka Stop as Yield, does not result in dangerous behavior by bicyclists or drivers; Velo says of course it’s safer for bicyclists. Gavin Newsom vetoed two bills that would have legalized it in California.
A new book from Rob Walker of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy looks at 20 Apps, Ideas, and Innovators Changing the Urban Landscape.
Apple TV+ premiered Ghost Bike, a short film about a mother who meets a stranger in a Greek diner, who may hold the key to solving her son’s untimely death — apparently on a bicycle.
A writer for BuzzFeed offers 22 very tongue-in-cheek reasons why wearing a helmet is “literally one of the absolute worst decisions a person can make.”
Your next ebike could be a Ford Bronco. Or maybe a Mustang.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz is accused of holding up a bill to improve ebike battery safety in a misguided attempt to halt regulations he thinks could lead to a ban on gas stoves.
The New York Times examines what the city could learn from the recent reimagining of the streets of Paris.
A Miami man is on trial for murder for chasing down and fatally shooting a man as he rode in a club peloton, although the defense insists it was self-defense after he was attacked by armed bicyclists with guns that were apparently secreted in their spandex kits and mysteriously disappeared afterwards; a Key Biscayne paper somehow described the incident as occurring in “the ultra-machismo world of the Miami cycling community.”
International
Momentum recommends the world’s most beautiful bicycle routes; just three of the 30 routes are in the US, with none in California.
Fifty-five-year old former Canadian IndyCar driver and 2003 ChampCar World Series champion Paul Tracy suffered a dislocated shoulder and three broken vertebrae when he was struck by an SUV driver while riding his bike last week.
A 29-year old British drug dealer was sentenced to a well-deserved 14-years behind bars for the hit-and-run crash that killed a bike-riding man, before driving off to make his weed deliveries.
It turns out the ever-feuding Gallagher brothers from the newly reunited British band Oasis are two of us; Road.cc lists other bicycling musical greats and songs about bikes.
Ireland’s Finance Minister justifiably complained about a new bike shed that cost the equivalent of $372,000 to hold just 18 bikes, when a competitor could have built it for $22,000.
A new German report says distracted bicycling is on the rise, blaming it for a significant, but undetermined, increase in crash risk. Never mind that many of the 10 to 17% of bicyclists who use their smartphones while riding are probably just using navigation or bike apps.
A new Chinese study shows how ebikes are changing the landscape of transportation, including reduced reliance on motor vehicles and improved mobility for people of all ages.
Competitive Cycling
A Parisian website recounts all the paracycling medal winners from the Paris Para-Olympics.
Bicycling writes that America’s Kristen Faulkner was told she had just a 6% chance of winning gold in Olympic road cycling, just before she did it. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.
Olympic bronze medalist Wout van Aert is done for the season, after a knee injury suffered in a major crash required a series of transfusions to prevent infection.
Sad news from Las Vegas, where five-time Venezuelan Olympic cyclist Daniela Larreal Chirinos was found dead in her home during a welfare check, at age 51, after not being seen for several days; she apparently died from choking on her food.
Six bicycles “beyond any monetary value” that were ridden by Peter Sagan, Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe and Egan Bernal were stolen from the Netherland’s Shimano Experience Center last week.
Finally…
We may have to dodge LA’s flighty drivers, but at least we don’t have to duck dive-bombing magpies — then again, we don’t have to worry about herds of leaping deer, either. Now they’re out to get us on beachfront bike paths, too.
And that feeling when wild horses couldn’t stop your ride. Thanks to Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette for that one.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
