August 28, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: Man riding BMX on sidewalk killed by wrong-way, hit-and-run driver in South LA’s Florence-Firestone neighborhood
Nope.
Nothing suspicious here.
A man was struck and killed by a wrong-way, hit-and-run driver while riding his bike on a South LA sidewalk early Thursday morning.
According to Fox-11, the man was riding on the 7900 block of Alameda Street in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood just after 1 am Thursday, when an unknown driver jumped the curb on the opposite side of the roadway, traveling against traffic, and striking the victim on the sidewalk.
The driver sped off following the crash, leaving the victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, to die at the scene.
Video from Fox-11 shows the victim’s blurred body lying on the sidewalk, next to his backpack and cellphone, with his BMX bike in the street nearby.
There’s no description of the suspect vehicle at this time, let alone the person behind the wheel.
But considering that the driver struck someone on a raised sidewalk, on the opposite side of a two-way street, it suggests they may have lost control at high rate of speed, or while driving distracted or under the influence.
Or that the crash may have been intentional.
Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
This is at least the 35th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the tenth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
Thirteen of those SoCal deaths have come at the hands of heartless cowards who didn’t have the basic human decency to stick around afterward.
Or if CicLAvia seems a little too formal for your last, the Los Angeles edition of the World Naked Bike Ride rolls tomorrow. Tip: Bring lots of sunscreen. And a few disinfectant wipes if you’re using a bikeshare bike.
………
Evidently, some people just don’t like separated bike lanes.
Or what Los Angeles insists on calling “protected,” even though the usual flimsy plastic car-ticklers wouldn’t stop a Yugo, if you could even get one running.
She explains how she was never a fan of bike lanes. Until moving to California, that is, when she got to experience her first wide buffered bike lane.
But some people insist on ruining those “good enough” buffered lanes by adding little white plastic bendy posts and other assorted permeable and semi-permeable barriers.
In her opinion, anyway.
Imagine my horror at seeing a movement to convert these bike lanes to “separated” bikeways by adding barriers such as flex posts, bollards, curbs, and a host of other innovations.
I get the desire to feel protected from cars, but at what cost? First of all, “feel protected” is all you get. Posts and curbs will not stop a moving car. They will, however, cause a bicyclist to crash. This is a known hazard which causes actual casualties, including serious injuries. Yet, these crashes don’t show up in national crash data, because it counts bicycle crashes only if they involve a moving motor vehicle.
She also takes issue with the stat up there on the right from the Federal Highway Administration.
The research behind the FHWA’s claim didn’t include junctions, only mid-block segments.
The only relevant crash type is a mid-block overtaking crash, around 5% of total crashes for all roads, including ones with no bike lane. The majority of overtaking crashes are actually sideswipes in narrow lanes (the motorist misjudges the space). We have a robust dataset from Mighk Wilson’s crash analysis in Orlando. In it, overtaking crashes on streets with bike lanes were 1.5% of crashes. The majority of bike lanes in the area are narrow and non-buffered. Paul Schimek’s study in Boston came to a similar conclusion.
I get what Caffrey is saying. And it’s worth reading to get a different perspective from what we usually share here.
My personal take is that separated bike lanes aren’t for confident bike riders like her who are comfortable riding nearly anywhere. They’re for the people who would like to ride, or ride more, but are afraid to mix it up with the people in the big dangerous machines.
Although calling them protected does a disservice to everyone by overpromising on safety.
………
Any kind of separation or buffer might have helped those Texas bicyclists who were run down by a drunk driver in a crash caught on bike cam earlier this week.
Which could explain why your bags always seem to get lost or crushed beyond all recognition.
Thirty-one-year old Benjamin Hylander has been booked on two counts of intoxication assault with a vehicle causing serious bodily injury, accident involving injury, and driving while intoxicated with a BAC greater than 0.15.
Meanwhile, the victim shown getting run over by Hylander’s SUV after the initial impact, retired physician Tom Geppert, credits his bicycle with saving his life. And allowing him to walk away — if that’s the word for it — with “just” a concussion, injured left hamstring, a fractured rib and a severe laceration.
The other victim, Deborah Eads, suffered a severe laceration as well.
We can only be grateful it wasn’t much worse.
Maybe someday, carmakers will be required to use already-existing technology to ensure intoxicated people can’t get behind the wheel.
April 24, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: Innocent bike rider becomes collateral damage in South LA police chase; victim identified as Colombian man
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
We’ve seen a number of police chases in recent years that resulted in close calls with people riding bicycles, with riders nearly struck by fleeing drivers.
The incident began when the suspect allegedly tried to break into a vehicle near East 48th and Central Streets in South LA, and attempted to flee in his car with the owner of the vehicle in close pursuit.
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was sent flying through the air, landing next to his badly damaged bicycle. A witness description suggests that he likely died instantly upon impact.
The driver lost control after the crash, smashing into eight other vehicles before rolling his car, coming to rest upside down in the street. He reportedly attempted to flee on foot before being taken into custody.
He will likely face yet to be determined felony charges, according to police.
One of which should be murder.
This is at least the 14th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the third in the City of Los Angeles.
And yet another tragic reminder of the dangers police chases pose to innocent bystanders.
A GoFundMe page set up by loved ones describes Monsalve Rojas as a father of five who left Colombia in search of a better life and had a dream, they said, of curing his daughter’s liver disease.
“Imagine, a regular morning now turned into a day we’ll never forget,” the campaign organizer wrote. “David touched lives in ways that words can barely capture. A soul so deeply devoted to his children.”
So far, the crowdfunding page has raised less than $700 of the modest $5,000 goal.
Meanwhile, the speeding driver who struck Rojas with her Chevrolet Suburban SUV was ID’d as 23-year old Germaine Smith.
Smith is being held on $327,000 bond after being booked for felony evading causing death, as well as additional outstanding warrants,
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Traffic Group Detectives at 213/486-0690; information can be provided anonymously online or by calling 800/222-8477.
My deepest sympathy for Jose David Monsalve Rojas and all his loved ones.
April 16, 2024 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Help identify unconscious Boyle Heights bike crash victim, LA backing out of HLA, and South LA ebike lending library
Just 260 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re now up to 1,095 signatures, so let’s get it over 1,100 today! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
Anyone with information is urged to call Licensed Clinical Social Workers Brian Dillon at 323/409-3134 or Cristol Perez at 323/409-4317.
This offers yet another reminder to always carry ID with you whenever you ride — preferably in a form that isn’t likely to be stolen if you’re incapacitated.
………
It looks like Los Angeles may already be attempting to back out fulfilling their new obligations to build out the city’s mobility plan, which is now required anytime a street is resurfaced by the passage of Measure HLA.
Not a good sign: after I @JoeLinton used an East Hollywood segment of Virgil Avenue as an example where @BSSLosAngeles would soon add bike/walk upgrades under Measure HLA, BSS erased that segment from their online repaving map. Below are yesterday and today's screenshots pic.twitter.com/Vf7FDmF0m7
LADOT will host a ride this morning to celebrate the 250-bike program sponsored by South Central Power Up, which will allow local residents to borrow an ebike free-of-charge for up to seven months. Or possibly longer with an additional fee.
Which would make far more sense than California’s bizarre plan to provide a larger voucher to a relative handful of the limited number of low-income residents who qualify, and which is likely to get far fewer people out of their cars than a broader plan open to everyone.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The local DA says a Pennsylvania driver was justified in shooting a male bike rider who tried to forcibly enter the shooter’s car; the victim reportedly chased the driver, who had honked at him for blocking a line of backed-up vehicles, before opening the passenger door and trying to get in. Thankfully, the victim is expected to make a full recovery. Although I don’t suppose the driver considered just locking the door before getting out his gun.
………
Local
Urbanizelooks forward to Sunday’s Venice CicLAvia. You’ll have to go without me this time; I’ll be home nursing a torn rotator cuff while looking after my wife’s broken shoulder.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department will conduct a bicycle and pedestrian safety operation in West Hollywood tomorrow, ticketing anyone who does something that could jeopardize people walking or biking, regardless of who does it. Which means the usual protocol applies, so ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets written up.
Beverly Hills has launched a six-month traffic calming pilot program on Clifton Way, installing curb-cut extensions and a pair of traffic circles, which should make the residential street safer and significantly more pleasant alternative to Wilshire Blvd. Assuming local drivers can figure out how to navigate it, of course.
Apparently, the San Diego Padres aren’t fans of bicycles after the club banned bicycles from Gallagher Square, aka the Park at the Park, as part of a new renovation, despite being allowed for the past 20 years at the ostensibly public property. Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the link.
Sad news from Modesto, where a 49-year old woman was killed when she reportedly rode her BMX bike around a railroad crossing barrier, and into the path of an Amtrak train east of the city.
A San Francisco business owner is going on a 30-day hunger strike to protest the centerline Valencia Street protected bike lane, which he claims is killing his business. The point of a hunger strike is being willing to risk death to call attention to the problem; a hunger strike with a limited duration is more like wanting to lose weight after the doctor refused to prescribe Ozempic.
Outside columnist Eben Weiss sings the praises of cotton clothing for bike riding, calling it the original performance fabric. As long as you don’t mind riding with sweat-soaked fabric clinging to your skin. And as for the original performance fabric, wool and silk might have something to subject.
Witnesses blamed an ebike rider for blowing through a red light, after the victim was struck by a New York cop in a marked patrol car. Seriously, if you’re not going to pay attention to the traffic light, at least look for the police before you blow through the intersection.
This is who we share the road with. A 28-year old New Zealand man has been drastically undercharged for attempting to use his car to kill a 15-year old boy, who is fighting for his life after the man repeatedly, and intentionally, ran over him — yet the driver only faces a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
October 30, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Avalos charged with murder for South LA dragging hit-and-run, a successful Arroyo Fest, and Malibu’s killer highway
The 66-year old driver fled the scene with Gonzalez still trapped under his van, as Avalos twisted and turned for nearly a mile in his efforts to escape, before Gonzalez’ body was finally dislodged in Compton.
The murder charge suggests investigators were able to confirm witness accusations that the crash was intentional. Or maybe the DA’s office just decided that dragging a man’s body for almost a mile demonstrated intent.
Avalos will be due back in court on November 9th to set a trial date, although that date is subject to change.
………
Evidently, a good time was had by all.
Sunday’s Arroyo Fest gave LA County residents a rare chance to take to a local freeway without having to encase themselves in a couple tons of glass and steel. Or having to dodge the usual overly aggressive, speeding, distracted or otherwise generally reckless drivers.
That is, when the crush of cars doesn’t turn it into a parking lot.
For four glorious hours, cyclists and pedestrians had a chance to safely explore six miles of the 110 Freeway between Los Angeles and Pasadena, a stretch of roadway that opened in 1940 and typically carries more 100,000 daily motorists who brave its winding turns and scary entrance ramps.
Aside from events such as Sunday’s 626 Golden Streets ArroyoFest and other bike celebrations, such as CicLAvia, cycling in L.A. County is not for the faint of heart. The road network was built for automobiles. Bicyclists are often left to vie for space alongside cars on congested, poorly maintained streets. Fatal bike crashes are an intractable problem in the county, and efforts to build dedicated bike lanes have been spotty…
This was the reality for the cyclists who joined the crowd of thousands in Northeast L.A. on Sunday…
The paper goes on to talk to a number of bicyclists who participated in the event about what they love about bicycling in greater Los Angeles, and what they’d change about it.
Which might have been the wrong way to frame the question, since the freeway closure likely brought out a number of people who would normally be reluctant to ride on city streets.
And during the event (about 10:30am), the streets around were all pretty lightly trafficked. If you needed to drive somewhere, wasn’t a big deal to avoid the 110. We should do this every Sunday like they do in Bogota pic.twitter.com/RhlGrhSE4y
And by extension, some of the other iconic LA-area roadways too many drivers seem to think were built for high-speed thrills.
In Los Angeles, it isn’t just PCH that’s treated like a cinematic backdrop with often fatal consequences. After being featured in “The Fast and Furious” franchise, streets in Angelino Heights roiled with the type of street racing that has plagued other parts of Los Angeles for years. Angeles Crest Highway remains a draw for reckless driving too; despite increased Highway Patrol presence, there are yearly incidents of motorists taking its curves too fast and driving over steep cliffs.
So yes, Malibu definitely needs speed cameras, sidewalks and more signs reminding motorists that they are entering a residential area. Perhaps, as some including Shane suggest, those 21 miles of PCH that cut through Malibu should be designated as a boulevard rather than a highway, with all the traffic-law changes it would require…
There is no reason on God’s green Earth for anyone who is not involved in a professional auto race or being chased by actual monsters to drive more than 80 miles an hour, never mind 100. “The Fast and the Furious” is a film franchise; James Bond is a fictional character; and PCH is, in many places, a treacherous road that should be driven with care even if the Beach Boys are playing.
If you need the exhilaration of speed, go on a roller coaster.
Armstrong was the subject of an international manhunt when she fled the country after allegedly shooting Wilson, who she saw as a romantic rival for the affections of professional cyclist Colin Strickland..
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
News broke over the weekend that a New Zealand TV star erupted into a bizarre rant when a bike advocate approached him about allowing a bike path to pass through his estate earlier this year, calling her “the enemy” and saying she needed to “have her head cut off and brain replaced.”
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Sad news from Fresno, where a man riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a train after apparently waiting for one train to pass, without realizing there was another coming from the opposite direction. One more reason why you should always wait for the crossing gates to go up before riding across the tracks.
The driver who killed BMX champ Nathan “Nate” Miller in Las Vegas last month was somehow still on the road, despite receiving at least 19 tickets for driving without a license, registration or insurance. Just one more example of officials keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late; he should have been in jail, or had his car impounded, at the very least.
October 24, 2023 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Update: 65-year old man riding bike killed in Willowbrook hit-and-run; victim dragged a mile under van in possible murder
As if that was gruesome enough, witnesses report the crash appeared to be intentional, as well.
The victim was riding on Broadway at 117th around 9:15 Tuesday morning when he was struck by the driver of an older van; security cam video shows the driver continuing south on Broadway without slowing down.
KABC reports the victim’s mangled bicycle was found at the scene, and his shoes were strewn about on the street outside of Bo’s Mini Market at the initial point of impact.
A police spokesperson would not confirm that this is being treated as a murder investigation, saying only that they need to speak to the suspect first. Because of course he’ll just admit to doing it intentionally.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD at 877-LAPD-247. As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
This is at least the 46th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, the 12th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, and the seventh in the City of Los Angeles. It’s also the 16th time someone riding a bicycle has been killed in a hit-and-run since the first of the year.
And it’s the third time a person in SoCal has apparently been run down intentionally while riding a bicycle, after bike riders were murdered in Dana Point and Huntington Beach earlier this year.
Evidently, leaving someone to die alone in the streets of Los Angeles just isn’t news anymore.
At least, that was the case Wednesday night, when a 50-year old man riding a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver in South LA’s Hyde Park neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the silence from the mainstream media was deafening.
According to the story from CNS, the victim was riding east on Vernon Ave at 6th Ave when he was read-ended by the driver, who continued on without stopping.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
At this time, there is no description of the suspect or the vehicle used to kill the victim, and no other information available.
This is at least the 36th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, the eighth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County, and the fifth in the City of Los Angeles.
That’s just more than half the SoCal total for this time last year, and compares to 21 bicycling deaths in the county at the start of last October.
Either we’re having an exceptionally good year, or there are a lot more crashes that we’re just not hearing about.
I’d put my money on the latter.
This is also at least the 13th fatal hit-and-run involving someone on a bicycle since the first of the year.
Update: The victim has been identified as 51-year old Jacinto Ayala Gurrola. There’s still no word on where he lived, or any description of the suspect vehicle or driver.
My deepest prayers and sympathy for Jacinto Ayala Gurrola and his loved ones.
The victim, described only as a possible minor, died at the scene. The station reports a bicycle was lying on the sidewalk afterwards, next to a tent in the street covering the victim’s body.
Unfortunately, that’s about all we know.
There’s no word on how he may have been killed, or any description of a possible suspect.
Assuming this was a hit-and-run, there is a standing $50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the driver for any hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
This is at least the 19th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the eighth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; four of those have been in the City of Los Angeles.
It’s also the eighth fatal hit-and-run involving a SoCal bike rider this year.
In it, Linton takes the Los Angeles Planning Department to task — deservedly — for producing what he calls “an astonishingly vacuous report” that’s ostensibly a status report on implementation of the city’s mobility plan.
Yet one that he says ignores all the multimodal facilities included in Planning Department’s own plan.
Almost as if they are, in reality, the LA Lack of Planning Dept.
According to Linton,
In 2015, the city approved the Mobility Plan, with hundreds of miles of new bus and bike lanes, pedestrian improvements, and a Vision Zero policy to end L.A. City traffic deaths by 2035. Safe streets advocates loved it. Reactionaries hated the plan so much they sued to block it.
Yet the Planning Department somehow gives itself an undeserved pat on the back, claiming to have accomplished 76% of the mobility plan’s Action Programs.
While that may sound like they’re making real progress, those Action Programs have nothing to do with putting paint on the street. Let alone the long-promised barriers and networks that might actually provide some protection and connections for people on bicycles.
Instead, Linton describes them this way.
“…a sort of obscure plan appendix that lists 173 tasks assigned to various city departments. The Action Plan includes things like: roadway safety outreach, wayfinding, analysis of unpermitted mountain biking in city parks, and periodic updates of LADOT’s Manual of Policies and Procedures.”
He ties their massive success in rearranging the massive pile of papers on their collective desks back to last year’s fiasco with the city council’s non-approval of the Healthy Streets LA initiative — which does nothing more than require the city to live up to its commitments, and build out the mobility plan they already passed when streets in the plan get resurfaced.
That’s it.
But evidently, that’s just a bridge and resurfaced roadway too far for the city.
He describes how the city council, led by now-disgraced racist Council President Nury Martinez, voted to adopt their own ordinance mirroring Healthy Streets LA.
One that wouldn’t contain the requirement to build out the mobility plan, but would, in actuality, leave it up to the council to decide whether or not to actually fulfill their obligations.
And you can probably guess how that would go, if you’ve been paying attention so far.
Last August, the council made it sound like the ordinance would happen right away. Then-president Martinez stated that city staff would “report back on my motion within the next few weeks.” Councilmember Nithya Raman spoke of the council “match[ing] the urgency that I hear from all of you [safe streets advocates] today.”
That’s exactly what the city’s bicycling community heard from an LADOT official within weeks of the 2010 bike plan’s passage, which was later subsumed into the city’s mobility plan.
We were told, while still celebrating our hard-fought victory, that the whole damn thing was merely “aspirational.”
Something the city has more than lived up to by living down to their extremely limited aspirations.
As Linton mentions above, we’re still waiting for that draft ordinance mirroring Healthy Streets LA to come back for a reading, let alone a vote, a full eight months — not weeks — after it was promised.
There was hope after the last election that the city’s new progressive councilmembers would light a fire under our sleepy governing body, and we might actually see some action on our streets.
But it seems just the opposite has happened. And the council has managed to douse whatever fire they might have had.
As I said, it’s a must read. So what are you waiting for?
No description was available for the suspect or their vehicle. Or for the victim, apparently.
As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injuries in the City of Los Angeles. Although there’s not a lot to go on this time.
But there may be hope, according to The Thousand Oaks Acorn.
The survey found that 75% of drivers empathize with cyclists’ frustrations, such as being overtaken too closely, while 81% of cyclists said they understood the challenges that drivers must deal with while navigating busy local streets.
So there’s that, anyway.
………
Gravel Bike California stops to sniff, if not the roses, the superbloom of flowers brought on by the recent rains on the Carrizo Plain.
When you hear superbloom, California thinks #CarrizoPlain:
— Gravel Bike California (@GravelBikeCal) April 13, 2023
Thanks to Zachary Rynew for the heads-up.
………
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.
San Francisco Streetsblog says a proposal for bike lanes on a commuter route and tourist attraction between Sausalito and San Francisco is already seeing a bikelash.
After a British bicyclist is understandably outraged and profane when a van driver cuts him off in the country’s left-handed equivalent of a high-speed right hook, the driver threatens a defamation case when he gets review bombed. As if you can somehow be defamed over something you actually did.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An Edinburgh columnist applauds anyone who has the courage to ride a bike on the city streets, but begs bike-riding men to cover their butt cracks. Or “bahookie” in the local parlance, apparently.
No bias here. A WeHo paper says the city wants to take away your “right” to make a right turn on a red light, while saying the maneuver is a factor in just 1% of crashes. Which means it’s responsible for around 400 deaths every year, which probably matters to the victim’s families, even if it doesn’t matter to them. And I don’t recall right on red being included in the Bill of Rights, but maybe I missed that day.
A San Diego TV station reports city council members responded to a recent hit-and-run by continuing to discuss the city’s Vision Zero Plan “to eliminate but also prevent traffic collisions, bicycle and pedestrian injuries and deaths,” which seems to be the same thing. Although I would be overjoyed just to hear Vision Zero discussed in the Los Angeles council chambers.
The San Jose Mercury News’ Mr. Roadshow explains why bicyclists don’t pay for the roads the same way drivers do. But then the paper hides it behind a paywall as “premium” content, reflecting a basic misunderstanding of how the internet works. Although you can read it for free if you’re willing to accept their daily emails.
The most dangerous intersections in Los Angeles are in South LA.
LA’s Vision Zero High-Injury Network has already revealed that many of the city’s deadliest corridors were located in South LA.
Now, after examining nearly 14,000 collision reports from 2020 to 2022, MoneyGeek has counted 86 Los Angeles intersections which have had ten or more deaths or serious injuries over the three-year period.
Four of the top five were in South LA — including three on deadly Manchester Blvd.
S. Vermont Avenue and W. Florence Avenue (19 injury crashes)
W. Manchester Avenue and S. Normandie Avenue (18 injury crashes)
Victory Boulevard and Lindley Avenue (18 injury crashes)
W. Manchester Avenue and S. Vermont Avenue (18 injury crashes)
E. Manchester Avenue and Avalon Boulevard (18 injury crashes)
The company also crunched the numbers on the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, with DTLA coming out on top with over twice the number of intersection crashes of any other neighborhood.
Just more evidence of the failure of LA’s vastly underfunded and unimplemented Vision Zero program, which has just two years left to meet its goal of ending traffic deaths by 2025.
Along with the lack of regulation that puts us all at risk.
An article of faith among proponents of autonomous vehicles is that the vast majority (94 percent is the figure often cited) of traffic crashes are caused by human error. Cyclists make up a relatively small portion of overall road deaths in the United States, but they’re killed at higher rates than vehicle occupants. Aside from a slight dip in 2020 when we drove less early in the pandemic, cyclist fatalities have risen for over a decade, and in 2021 the annual total jumped five percent to an all-time high of nearly 1,000, according to preliminary data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
He goes on to look at the death of Elaine Hertzberg, who was walking her bike across a Phoenix street when she was run down by one of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles.
Although blame for the crash was put on the human operator, who was distracted watching videos on her phone, rather than the road ahead.
Zoom out more, and the data tells a similar story. Uber’s ATG test fleet had driven more than two million autonomous miles before Herzberg’s death. Waymo claims that it has surpassed 20 million miles total. Altogether, autonomous vehicles in California drove more than four million miles in 2021. That’s tens of millions of miles driven over years of testing, with one death. That may sound impressive, but the most recent fatality statistic for human driving in the U.S. is 1.33 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Autonomy literally has a long drive before it can show that it can match, let alone exceed, human safety performance, even such as it is.
And outside of those sporadic data disclosures and California’s reporting system, there are few ways to monitor progress. Without federal regulation, there’s not even a widely accepted benchmark for how safe autonomous vehicles should be to use as a target. “I understand there’s a balance between innovation and regulation, but right now that oversight isn’t happening,” says Homendy, herself a cyclist. “It’s disappointing.”
One point in favor of autonomous vehicles, though, is the complete and total lack of road raging drivers.
So at least if one of those runs you down, you’ll know they probably weren’t aiming for you.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
This is why people keep dying on the streets. A British driver walked without a single day behind bars for chasing a 16-year old boy with her car, then intentionally knocking him off his bike, all because one of the boy’s friends accidentally clipped the wing mirror on her car.
Readers of the Los Angeles Timesagree that LA drivers are getting worse, though one letter writer blames the paper for encouraging less enforcement of minor infractions.
Christian singer Amy Grant says she leaned into her faith after suffering a significant traumatic brain injury going over her handlebars in a Nashville crash last year.
Vice examines how Dutch bikemaker VanMoof made ebikes cool. Except a) not everyone thinks ebikes are cool, and b) VanMoof is just one of literally hundreds of ebike makers with varying degrees of coolness.
Evidently, some people just don’t like separated bike lanes.
