Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding a public meeting with LA Mayor Karen Bass to hear the dangers we face just walking and biking on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
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Bad news from Burbank, where a 77-year old man suffered life-threatening injuries when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle.
KCAL News reports the crash occurred around 7:20 Tuesday morning near Clybourn Avenue and Oxnard Street.
He was reportedly riding south on the east sidewalk, on the northbound side of Clybourn, and was struck by the driver of an eastbound black sedan as he attempted to cross Oxnard.
As we’ve pointed out before, sidewalks are bidirectional, and there is no right direction on a sidewalk or crosswalk, painted or otherwise.
Anyone with further information is urged to contact Burbank Police investigators at 818/238-3103.
Let’s hope he makes a full and fast recovery.
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A UCLA report indicates scooter injuries saw a huge jump over a recent five-year period, along with a similar increase in severe injuries, according to Santa Monica Daily Press.
With the rise in riding comes a tangential, and substantial, increase in scooter injuries. According to new UCLA-led research, scooter injuries nearly tripled across the United States from 2016 to 2020, along with a similar increase in severe injuries requiring orthopedic and plastic surgery over the same period. The study, published January 9 in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Surgeons, compared national trends in scooter and bicycle industries as well as the implications of these injuries on the healthcare industry…
Scooter-related injuries led to major operative interventions 56% of the time, compared to 48% for bike-related injuries. Scooter riders were also shown to have higher odds of experiencing long bone fractures and paralysis than bicycle-related injuries. Both groups were similarly likely to suffer traumatic brain injuries.
However, the study did not differentiate between e-scooters and regular scooters.
It also doesn’t appear to take into account the rapid growth in e-scooter usage over that same period, which could easily equal or exceed the rise in injury rates.
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A writer for The New Yorker offers an extremely tongue-in-cheek essay on how to make the city more car-friendly, including these notations —
⬩ Every year, thousands of pedestrians (drivers on the way to their cars) are injured or killed at crosswalks. We must remove all crosswalks before anyone else gets hurt.
⬩ Take out the two bad traffic lights under the green one.
⬩ Why do bicycles (slow cars with no windows) have entire lanes dedicated to them? What’s next? Lanes for skipping rope? Hopscotch lanes? Lanes dedicated to pugs with GoPros riding skateboards? Sounds a little silly to me.
It’s well worth the few minutes it takes to read the whole thing, although some items are very Gotham-centric.
Until you realize that it’s not that different than what you hear from some of the entirely serious motoring groups.
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28 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 30 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 Canadian woman was injured by a speeding driver while on a charity ride around Lake Ontario, her insurance company filed suit — not against the driver, who was convicted of killing another victim in the crash, but against the group organizing the ride and her own father, who founded it.
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Local
The Malibu Times reports that PCH isn’t the only deadly roadway in and around the coastal city, as the area’s popular canyon roadways cause increasing concern. As anyone who has ever encountered a speeding driver taking a wide turn on a canyon road can attest.
Congratulations to Pasadena, as PeopleForBikes ranked the city’s Union Street Complete Streets project as the 6th best new bike lane in the US; Santa Monica’s 17th Street project was rated 16th. Needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t make the list.
A 20-something Kiwi tourist raves that Los Angeles is all it’s cracked up to be, including a bicycle tour around Hollywood and Melrose, which she calls her favorite LA experience.
State
After criticizing cuts to the state Alternative Transportation Program budget, Calbike crafts their own alternative People-First Mobility Budget, a transportation spending plan “that gives residents more mobility options, improves health, increases equity, and helps us meet our state climate goals.”
The Press Democrat says the area where a San Jose woman was killed crashing into a fallen tree after failing to negotiate a curve on her bike is known for deadly crashes.
More bad news from Northern California, after a Sacramento driver was arrested for the hit-and-run death of a 55-year-old woman, who died a day after she was run down as she rode her bike.
National
Despite receiving just 1.5 inches of snow, New York bike riders faced treacherous commutes after officials failed to clear snow and ice from the city’s bridges. Which also puts a lie to the common myths that no one will ride a bike in the winter, or in bad weather.
She gets it. Former New York transportation chief Janette Sadik-Khan told a local public radio station that “Death and injury on our streets aren’t just unconscionable. They’re avoidable.”
A DC letter writer says the city must step up to prevent more traffic deaths, in the face of the mayor’s “indifference to tackling the carnage on our streets.”
International
Shockingly, those little car-tickler plastic bendy posts aren’t enough to keep cars out of a London bicycle superhighway, or keep it from being the city’s most dangerous intersection for bike riders.
More on the nearly eight in ten women who say they experience verbal, physical and sexual harassment and intimidation at least once a month while riding their bikes in London, as more that one in five report giving up bicycling as a result of the abuse.
The hit-and-run epidemic has reached London, climbing to a record high 7,708 incidents in 2021, up 14% from the year before.
The UK bike market is bouncing back from its recent slump, with new bicycle sales predicted to climb 12% this year to 2.1 million bikes, with total sales reaching the equivalent of nearly $1.27 billion.
A new Swedish study says it will take more than better bike lanes to get people on their bikes, as too many of today’s bikeways are geared towards people who already ride, instead of encouraging new riders.
Latvian bike riders younger than 16, and e-scooter riders under 17, will now be required to wear bike helmets.
An African website talks with pro cyclist Kenneth Karaya, the first Kenyon to podium in an ultra-distance race.
Pro cyclist Rohan Dennis was directed to enter his late wife’s funeral through the back door, after he was arrested for fatally running Olympic gold medalist track cyclist Melissa Hoskins as she clung to the hood pf his pickup.
Competitive Cycling
Twenty-year old rising Mexican cycling star Isaac Del Toro made a “brilliant” solo attack in the last mile to win stage two of the Tour Down Under.
Twenty-two-year old US national road champ Quinn Simmons is using the Tour Down Under as a springboard to the spring cycling classics, including the Strade Bianche.
The head of the CPA pro cyclists union says they don’t have the resources to defend every cyclist accused of doping, so they won’t help anyone. So you’re on your own if you get busted for putting a little something extra in your water bottle.
Finally…
That feeling when the phrase crappy bike path becomes all too literal. Or when no one knows what the hell those bike lane markings mean.
And how to ride to work without becoming a cyclist.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
