BikinginLA

Deadly del Mar just got deadlier.

Just four miles long, Playa del Rey’s Vista del Mar is, mile for mile, one of the deadliest streets in Los Angeles; according to the Washington Post, eight people have lost their lives on the beachfront street in the past ten years — a fatality rate nearly equal to the death toll on PCH on a per-mile basis.

Or maybe even worse now, after a 25-year old man and a 1-year old child were killed in a head-on hit-and-run collision early Sunday morning.

A woman was also hospitalized in critical condition, while another man was taken to the hospital with unknown injuries. KABC-7 identifies them as the father and aunt of the one-year old child.

The crash occurred at 4:34 am near the intersection of Vista del Mar and Culver Blvd, when a southbound vehicle crossed into the northbound lane and struck the other vehicle head-on.

The driver of a white Jeep fled on foot, as the victims in the other car can be heard in an apparent Ring video screaming in shock and pain.

If the street sounds familiar, it’s because it received lane reductions in 2017 to slow traffic and improve safety after a 16-year old girl was killed crossing the street — only to be ripped out when then-LA Mayor Eric Garcetti caved to angry pass-through commuters and shock jock radio hosts, who blamed the nonexistent bike lanes.

Since then, the death toll has continued to mount. Now you can add two more innocent victims, who were just on their way home to Van Nuys after a night at the beach.

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This is who we share the road with.

Heartbreaking news from Orange County, where 81-year old Vietnam vet Ed Ashman died Thursday, two weeks after he was struck by a 14-year old boy who was popping wheelies on an electric motor bike in the middle of a Lake Forest street.

The next day, the Orange County DA’s office upgraded charges against the boy’s mother, Tommi Jo Mejer, to involuntary manslaughter. 

She had originally been charged with child endangerment and accessory, because she had been warned that the bike required a license, the kid was too young to legally ride it, and he was doing so in a dangerous manner.

And she faced criminal charges if she kept letting her son ride it, which was 16-times more powerful than a standard ebike.

Now elderly man is dead, and a mom faces up to four years behind bars.

No word on whether the kid will face charges, too.

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A Los Angeles LGBT newspaper highlights the $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the hit-and-run driver who killed a bike rider in LA’s Jefferson Park neighborhood last month.

The reward is part of the city’s standing reward program for hit-and-runs, ranging from $1,000 for simple property damage, to $25,000 for hit-and-runs resulting in serious injuries and $50,000 for fatal crashes.

The victim in the crash was identified Saturday as 37-year old Melvin Salgado.

The only description of the suspect vehicle is still just a dark-colored Jeep Wrangler, with no model year given.

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Metro Bike is holding a free Bike Month drawing for one-year bikeshare pass and swag, as well as offering free rides on Bike Day May 21st.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. The London Times says that despite recent panicked stories that 1,300 bike riders were caught jumping red lights in the city last year — an average of 3.5 a day — drivers get caught running red lights an average of 380 times a day.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Um, no. A British Columbia letter writer and 60-year bicyclist says there’s no shortage of bad drivers and bad bicyclists, but there’s more of the latter, since drivers have to pass a test. Except studies have shown both break the law in equal measure, but most drivers break the law for convenience while most bike riders break the law out of perceived safety — and drivers who do pose a far greater risk to others. 

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Local 

Los Angeles is preparing to toss out the baby with the bath water, as the city council instructed the city attorney to draft an ordinance banning ebikes from the city’s outdoor trails, restricting legal Class 1, 2 and ped-assist bikes along with somewhat less-legal e-motos and dirt bikes, like the one the 14-year old in Orange County was riding.

Streets For All wants to know why it costs $10,000 to install two curb cuts in Beverly Hills, $15,000 for Caltrans — and $50,000 to do the exact same thing using the same materials in Los Angeles.

Hundreds of runners took part in Saturday’s Finish the Run in Griffith Park in honor of Regan Cole Graham and her unborn baby daughter Ophelia, both killed by an elderly driver while biking in Playa del Rey, just blocks from where yesterday’s victims were killed; several hundred bicyclists were expected to take part in yesterday’s Finish the Ride in their honor, as well.

The owner of Boyle Height’s Esquina Bicycle Shop is volunteering his time and skills, along with other volunteers, to refurbish nearly 280 bicycles abandoned in the basement of LA’s long-shuttered General Hospital, giving away 45 bikes to mark last month’s Earth Day. Read it on Yahoo if the paper blocks you. 

BikeLA, Los Angeles Walks and Sunset For All are teaming with LADOT and Metro Bike to host a bike ride to Clockshop’s Kite Festival at LA State Historic Park on Saturday.

The West Hollywood City Council will vote today on hosting July’s Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia, which apparently isn’t a done deal yet. So show up at the 6 pm council meeting or contact your councilmember before then to urge them to sign off on it. 

The Signal highlights the Santa Clarita bike trails, as well as the city’s new. bike park, saying they offer a variety of terrain for every type of rider.

Santa Monica kicked off Bike Month by deploying California’s first AI-powered cams to enforce illegal parking in bike lanes, which will be mounted on parking enforcement vehicles.

The Press-Telegram highlights Bike Month events in Long Beach, from tomorrow’s Pedal to the Metal May Ride, to a Bike to Work Week popup on the 15th and a nine-mile Moonlight Mash bike ride on the last day of the month. But you’ll have to get past the paper’s paywall to read it. 

 

State

An annual bike ride honoring the memory of Shannon Morris, a 21-year old woman who died from suicide, raised $32,000 for UC Irvine’s Psychological Services Center in just its third year, more than twice what the ride brought in last year.

Coronado’s Pedal Beach Tours nonprofit e-pedicab service is fighting the city’s one-size-fits-all ebike ban, after the city refused to renew the company’s permit, jeopardizing their annual Christmas giving program for people in need. Sometimes I feel like I’m beating a dead horse — or a dead ebike — but that’s the problem with ebike bans and restrictions that don’t differentiate one type of ebike from another, which is like banning all cars because people in sports cars are speeding. 

A 12-year old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when his ebike was struck by a driver as he tried turning left from the westbound bike lane on Del Mar Heights Road onto Old Carmel Valley Road in San Diego’s Carmel Valley neighborhood, and was struck by a Tesla driver traveling in the same direction, the boy required emergency surgery for a broken collarbone and multiple brain bleeds.

A Victorville bike rider was hospitalized after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver, who fled on foot, Saturday afternoon; no word on his condition, but it appears his bike was flattened when the driver ran it over.

Tragic news from the town of Atwater, in Central California, where a ten-year old boy was killed when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike — although the local TV doesn’t bother to mention that the truck had a driver until the last of 17 paragraphs.

 

National

PeopleForBikes says the next two to three months will determine what bike infrastructure funding and policies — if any — make it into the final federal transportation bill. The GOP has seemed more focused on a return to highway funding since Trump got back in office, so we may have to fight for every scrap we can get.

The runner-up on The Traitors TV game show is one of us, as Rob Rausch ended up with facial cuts and a concussion after going over his handlebars when dog ran out in front of him — and after he had loaned his helmet to a friend he was teaching to ride a bike.

Seattle will pay a whopping $9.25 million settlement to a 25-year old man who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury that his lawyer blamed on a bad bike lane design resulting in a blind spot, which led to a driver turning in front of him.

Forbes makes the case for why you should try gravel riding, calling it the hottest trend in bicycling.

Speaking of PeopleForBikes, the bike industry advocacy group looks to an Iowa City, Iowa bike library to make the case for how and why bike libraries increase bicycle access for everyone.

Roughly 32,000 people fought their way through strong winds to take part in Sunday’s 48th annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour in New York City, while New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani became the first sitting mayor to ride the tour and stop in all five boroughs.

 

International

A New Brunswick woman has given away thousands of bicycles and tricycles over the past 14 years, including 400 in the last year alone, just to see the joy on kids’ faces.

The London-based bicycle and ebike subscription service Buzzbike is selling their bikes to subscribers at a substantial discount, as the company shuts down after the collapse of its largest shareholder.

A travel site considers Europe’s best bike trails, from the Atlantic Coast to the Black Sea.

A judge told a 27-year old woman to expect a long prison sentence after she pled guilty to killing a 27-year old music student as he was riding a bicycle in London, while she was high on nitrous oxide and doing 52 mph in a 20 mph zone; the judge criticized her for not taking any responsibility until she walked into the court, and worried she wouldn’t afterwards.

A British husband and wife team is setting off on an 18,000-mile bikepacking trip, attempting to set a new record for riding around the world in a 150 days or less.

Even as war continues in her homeland, a 35-year old Iranian woman is riding more than 3,700 miles across Asia with a message of peace.

Dozens of Wellington, New Zealand bicyclists stood in the street to form a human bike chain — aka a people-protected bike lane — to protest infrastructure cuts in the city. Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

Ebike sales have seen a three-times increase in Darwin, Australia, as Aussies struggle to cope with the rapid rise in gas prices resulting from the war in Iran.

 

Competitive Cycling

Sad news from Italy, where former Formula 1 and CART race car driver, and paracycling champ Alex Zanardi died suddenly on Friday; after losing both of his legs crashing in the US CART series in 2001, Zanardi took up hand-cycling, winning four Paralympic gold medals, as well as 12 rainbow jerseys. He was just 59.

Not only is LA native Sean Quinn competing on the WorldTour, he’s also creating his own beats along the way.

The Tour du Rwanda relies on an elite bike mechanic named Jean de Dieu Rafiki Uwimana, better known as Rafiki, to keep the cyclists’ bikes humming.

A Missouri newspaper looks back fondly to the only world championship held in the area — an 1887 bike race on a 20-mile road course, using ordinary bikes, or what we’d know as a Penny Farthing.

 

Finally…

Your next bike camper trailer could feature a built-in toilet. Who says you can’t ride a bike with a bag over your head?

And somehow, you know bikes got the blame for this.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.