Tag Archive for traffic fatalities

LA on track for record-setting traffic deaths — including 5 previously unreported bicycling deaths, and injuries continue

October 14, 2024 / / Comments Off on LA on track for record-setting traffic deaths — including 5 previously unreported bicycling deaths, and injuries continue
Just 77 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

The graph on the left is from Streets Are For Everyone; you can find a larger version on the link below. 

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The carnage continues.

And it’s getting worse.

Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, reports that Los Angeles is on track for its deadliest year on record, as we gear up for next month’s World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

For those commemorating this solemn occasion in Los Angeles, World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims stings a little more this year. In 2024, LA is once again besieged by traffic violence: 210 people have been killed so far this year on LA’s streets — more traffic deaths than this time last year, which was already the deadliest year for traffic fatalities since 2003, the first year that data’s readily available.

The group goes on to add this.

Crossing the street has never been more dangerous in Los Angeles: motorists killed 112 pedestrians in the first 209 days of this year, or a pedestrian was struck and killed by a motorist every other day — a 1% increase from last year, which was itself a record-setting year for vehicular violence against walkers.

Hit-and-runs also remain frighteningly high: of the 210 fatal car crashes so far this year, 74 of the drivers have left their victims to die in the street, a 10% increase from 2023.

Let that last one sink in.

In over one third of all fatal collisions in Los Angeles — 35.24% — heartless, cowardly drivers left their victims to die alone on the streets.

Unfortunately, the story’s not any better for bicyclists.

According to LAPD statistics, as of the end of August, 15 people have been killed riding their bikes in the City of Angels, a 15% increase over last year.

Most of those fatalities — 73% — have been in the department’s South Bureau.

And just as we expected, we haven’t heard about a number of those crashes. I showed just ten bicycling deaths in Los Angeles at the end of August. Which means either the police failed to publicly report a full third of all bicycling deaths, or the local press failed to report them.

Neither prospect is very comforting. Because if we don’t know what’s happening, we can’t do anything to fix it.

Let alone remember the victims.

But thanks to SAFE for keeping us informed, anyway.

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Which takes us to the latest bad news on our streets.

A 66-year-old Pasadena man was critically injured when he has struck by an unlicensed driver in a pickup truck while riding his bike in the city Thursday morning; at last report, he remained in critical condition with injuries including a fractured skull.

A teenaged La Mesa boy finally came from the hospital following three pelvic surgeries after he was run over by the driver of a trash truck last month; Caleb Carvalho insists he will walk again, but it could be a couple years before he’s back to normal. A crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $73,000 for his medical care.

Tragic news from Laguna Niguel, where longtime Laguna Beach High School golf coach Sean Quigley is paralyzed from the waist down, after suffering severe spinal injuries when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike, leaving him with just a 5% chance of regaining function in his legs; a crowdfunding campaign has raised over $75,000 of the $200,000 goal.

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No surprise here.

A Las Vegas court placed the case against 19-year old Jesus Ayala on hold after he was ruled unfit to stand trial.

Ayala was charged along with another teen for intentionally running down and killing former Bell, California police chief Andreas Probst as he rode his bike on a Vegas street.

The judge ordered the move out of an “abundance of caution” after evidence was presented that Ayala had suffered “significant” brain damage; he was sent to a maximum security psychiatric facility in Sparks, Nevada.

Meanwhile, another case was filed against Ayala accusing him of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and grand larceny auto. He’s also facing an attempted murder charge for a separate “extremely violent” group attack where another man was stabbed multiple times

So evidently, he’s not so brain damaged he can’t keep committing crimes.

Allegedly.

His 17-year old accused accomplice is scheduled to go on trial next month.

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They’re all one of us.

Gerard Butler took a stylish bike ride with a friend through the streets of New York.

Leonardo DiCaprio took a virtually incognito ride through the Big Apple with his girlfriend, model Vittoria Ceretti, and his niece.

Formula 1 star Valtteri Bottas rode a bike with his girlfriend while vacationing in Baja California during a break in the racing schedule.

Then there’s this.

And this.

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It’s now 299 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And an even 40 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.

Momentum says riding a bike in the city is turning into a culture war.

A road raging Tennessee driver faces charges for repeatedly trying to run down a man riding in a bike lane, before getting out of his car and throwing the victim’s bike at him — all because the victim tapped the car’s hood because he thought the driver was going to bump him.

Once again, a British bike rider has been the victim of an unprovoked attack, with the man suffering a broken arm when he was pushed off his bicycle by a passenger in a passing car, just for giggles.

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

A road raging 73-year old Utah man went off on a calm driver in his 20s, who recorded the whole incident, claiming the driver almost hit him and demanding that the police come and arrest him, at one point screaming “I have more rights than you.” Which isn’t true, of course. And sadly, almost hitting someone isn’t illegal — but disorderly conduct is. 

Police in Des Plaines, Illinois are on the lookout for a road raging bike rider who stabbed a motorist multiple times, after they got in an argument because the man on the bike was riding salmon.

A Montreal columnist says the city’s roads are still nerve-racking places plagued by reckless cowboys in cars, because their behavior is all better now — it’s the people on ebikes, e-scooters and other “e-contraptions” plaguing the streets now.

An Aussie bicyclist got into a fist fight with a postal worker, after punching the side mirror and the side of the van, complaining that the driver had cut him off and threw something at him. Seriously, violence is always the wrong answer. And even you’re in the right, you’ll get the blame as soon as you throw the first punch. 

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Local  

Streetsblog USA considers how to defeat car culture in the country’s deadliest city for pedestrians,                                                                                                                                                                                                            but other sources say we’re not even in the top ten per capita.

If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t ride your bike through the gated streets of Country Club Park in Mid-City, a writer for Afro LA does a deep dive into the cause. And the effects on the people who live nearby.

Streets For All offers their endorsements on two ballot measures, urging a yes vote on Measure A and Proposition 5, while Streets for All founder Michael Schneider explains why bike lanes often seem “empty” in LA.

Speaking of SAFE, the group is teaming the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council and Council District 13 to clean up debris and litter in the new Hollywood Blvd bike lanes this Saturday.

Yesterday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia leaves just two major open streets events remaining in the LA area this year.

 

State

Calbike urges you to Bike the Vote this November.

Streets For All offers their final update on the safe streets bills in this year’s state legislative session, for better or worse.

San Diego-based Juiced Bikes appears to be just the last ebike manufacturer to go belly up, with all products out of stock, and ghosting concerned customers.

Sad news from Alamo, in the East Bay, where a woman was killed when a driver pulled out from the side of the road, striking her bike.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a man riding a bicycle was killed by a suspected DUI driver.

 

National

Bike Magazine highlights the ten most scenic bike trails in the US, including one in Death Valley.

Velo offers a buyers guide to almost all the best bike lights.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A popular Bend, Oregon chef was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his ebike in nearby Medford; police arrested the driver shortly later for DUI.

Another Arizona mass casualty crash, when an SUV driver plowed into six members of the Major Taylor Phoenix Riders from behind as they road in a bike lane, sending three people to the hospital the hospital with serious injuries; no word on why the driver couldn’t see six people on bikes riding in an effing bike lane — or why the driver wasn’t charged.

Missouri bike thief busted while naked, stoned and armed with a chainsaw. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong?

Czech carmaker Škoda’s We Love Cycling website takes their bike love to the city that never sleeps.

 

International

A Cycling Weekly columnist blocks out the trauma of paying for his last bike, arguing that high prices put dream bikes in fantasy land for most of us.

Road.cc considers the problem inherent with calling a cyclists “cyclists.” Which is why I don’t. 

Momentum suggests eight of the best “affordable” commuter ebikes. Although affordable is a relative term. 

Momentum readers forward their picks for the world’s crappiest bike lanes, including two in San Diego.

An op-ed from Ontario, Canada’s minister of transportation says the province needs to rethink policies that leave drivers stuck in traffic, and should only place bike lanes “where they make sense.” In other words, not where they’ll get in the way of all those hard-working people in cars. 

Now you, too, can rent a home on the English street made famous in Ridley Scott’s 1973 Hovis ad.

A writer for Bike Radar takes a “near-perfect” two-week Scottish bikepacking with his partner, on “incredible island roads” marred by a mere 30 minutes of rain.

A British startup says their “perfect” handlebars will be a greatest aero advancement of the coming year.

An Irish writer explores why greenways are love by bike riders, but loathed by landowners.

Mumbai’s bicycling community continues to grow despite the city’s urban chaos, including a near-total lack of bike infrastructure.

A writer for AFAR spends five days riding through Rwanda, and explains why it’s the best way to see the country.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from the European Gravel Championships, where Italian masters cyclist Silvano Jane died of a sudden heart attack during the race; he was 69.

This one goes under the heading of bicyclists behaving badly, as former European ‘cross champ Eli Iserbyt stomped on a rival’s bike after a crash during an altercation in the first race of the season. Which does not bode well for the rest of the year.

No surprise here, as this year’s GOAT won Italy’s Il Lombardia classic, with Tadej Pogačar topping Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel and Giulio Ciccone in a long solo breakaway.

Pogacar responds to the rumbling that he must be on something, saying people don’t have trust in cyclists these days. And for very good reason.

 

Finally…

Pedal your way out of your next hospital stay. Your next bike helmet could inflate like an accordion.

And now you know what happened to your stolen bike.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

LA on track for massive Vision Zero fail, Glendale bike haters go berserk, and CA ebike incentive plan “screws the pooch”

August 2, 2024 / / One comment

This week certainly didn’t go as planned.

First this site went down for two full days, then I spent too much time researching and writing about the tragedy in Camarillo Wednesday night to write anything else — only to get a complaint from a member of the victim’s family that was probably better directed somewhere else.

On the other hand, I can understand the need to lash out at someone, after something like that. 

Which leaves us with a lot to catch up on. So let’s see how much we can get to before I have to pack it in for the night.

And it’s a sad commentary that I’m looking forward to shoulder surgery next week just so I can get a couple good hours of sleep.  

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Photo shows former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signing the city’s soon-forgotten Vision Zero plan behind his massive outdoor desk, courtesy of Streetsblog.

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Just 151 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

Crosstown LA reports the city is on track to once again record more than 300 deaths from traffic violence — a truly obscene total that should shame every city official into taking immediate and far-reaching action to halt it.

But if past is prologue, it probably won’t.

In fact, it’s most likely to be noticed as nothing more than just a blip in their busy schedules, if they notice at all.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Maybe we should replace the current city seal with one bearing the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. Although, now that I think about it, trained monkeys could probably do a better job building a safer city.

The site also reports that drivers in Los Angeles continue to flee from fatal crashes in ever-rising numbers, with 62 hit-and-run deaths in the the just first six months of this year alone — more than double the total of two last pre-pandemic years, with 28 in 2018, and 29 in 2019.

Meanwhile, Helsinki, Finland, with a population of 675,000, has managed to reduce traffic deaths to a number that can usually be counted on one hand (scroll down), with fingers left over.

Which would equate to roughly 10 to 12 deaths from traffic violence in a city of LA’s size, with nearly four million people.

And that’s a hell of a lot fewer than we’re likely to endure this year.

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This is who we share the road with.

A commenter at a Glendale City Council meeting freely admits that he thinks his time is more important than the life of someone riding a bicycle, and will gladly speed to cut you off.

Maybe someone should have cut him off.

Then again, they would have had to do a lot of cutting, because an Instagram page compiled the comments in opposition to Glendale’s proposed bike plan, showing the sheer numbers and ugliness of it.

You can see the full city council discussion below, beginning at item B. You know, in case you want to fast-forward through the other stuff.

Thanks to Erik Griswold for the links.

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This is who we share the road with, part two.

Family members are demanding justice, two months after a road-raging off-duty LAPD cop shot Hugo Cachua to death in a dispute that started with a fender bender.

Forty-five-year old Rigoberto R. Reyes was sentenced to 14 years and four months behind bars for the Temecula, California road rage stabbing that killed another man.

And topping this week’s Tour de Road Rage, two men in Highland, California pulled out guns and shot each other to death — in front of one victim’s kids, no less — after one man clipped the other driver’s car mirror while lane splitting on his motorcycle.

Which is all probably fair warning before you lose your top the next time a driver cuts you off or passes too close, because they may be armed and dangerous.

Then again, they’re already driving a multi-ton lethal weapon, anyway.

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People for Mobility Justice will host a “scenic bike ride highlighting local landmarks and celebrating the new bike/ped path on Slauson” from 6 to 8 pm this evening.

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Gravel Bike California marks this weekend’s Tour de Big Bear with a series of single-track jewels guided by local host and Dirty Bear organizer Robin Brown.

 

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It’s now 225 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 38 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

Meanwhile, Electrek examines how California “screwed the pooch so badly” in developing its own $30 million ebike incentive program.

A large part of the problem seems to come from issues with the program’s administrator, a program known as Pedal Ahead. It was selected under raised eyebrows by CARB back in 2022 and tasked with managing the program. However, (Streetsblog’s Melanie) Curr) insinuates that personal connections between a former CARB board member and the founder of Pedal Ahead may have led to its application being granted extra weight despite proposing a significantly different incentive program than that envisioned by the state…

But a slew of complicated issues still needed to be solved, ranging from how the vouchers would be distributed to what types of e-bikes would be eligible and whether online retailers would be allowed to participate, just to name a few.

Over a year was spent trying to work out answers to these questions and many more, often complicated by rethinking earlier decisions and creating new project proposals.

All in favor of just scrapping the damn thing and starting over say “aye!”

After a good criminal investigation or two, that is.

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

A Phoenix, Arizona man faces a second-degree murder charge after he was allegedly caught on video beating a homeless man to death and stealing his bicycle.

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

A Bend, Oregon family discovered the hard way that the law isn’t always clear-cut when it comes to ebikes, after a middle school student suffered a fractured collarbone and elbow when she was struck by a 17-year old boy riding one — and the cops said there’s nothing they could do.

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Local 

Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, asks if the new bike lanes mean formerly unsafe Hollywood Blvd is finally ready for its closeup. Which depends a lot on how well LA maintains it going forward. 

Ouch. Jalopnik says LA’s plan for a carfree ’28 Olympics was laughable when it was announced, and sounds even more laughable now after the city’s miserable failure to invest in bike lanes and other clean infrastructure.

KCBS-2 looks forward to the Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia when it returns to Hollywood and West Hollywood on August 17th

 

State

Good news from behind the Orange Curtain, as the Irvine city council voted to make this year’s inaugural CicloIrvine open streets fest an annual affair.

Researchers from UC Santa Barbara will use a $480,000 Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant to train AI to design a bicycle and wayfinding network for Santa Barbara County, while San Jose will get a similar, if considerably smaller,  grant from Toyota to use AI to improve traffic safety. Never mind that we’re talking about the same advanced tech that draws people with three legs, thinks some Nazi soldiers were Black, and suggests shows Netflix couldn’t pay you to watch. Or maybe that’s just me. 

 

National

Speaking of SAFE, as we did above, the LA-based traffic safety organization offers a recap of how the auto industry killed speed governors 101 years ago, as part of their series on Why the Auto Industry Opposes Safety Improvements.

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Chicago has now installed a spacious curb-protected bike lane on a deadly street where drivers killed two teenagers riding bikes in separate crashes recently, and is in the process of building a nearby neighborhood greenway.

Boston’s new CargoB bikeshare represents what is probably the nation’s first on-demand cargo bike system.

Join the nearly 2,000 people who ride their bikes to the iconic Newport Jazz Fest each day.

 

International

A new survey shows that while a third of UK residents now bike to work, up from just 19% last year, nearly half say they can’t afford a bike, and a quarter would have to save up for six months to buy one.

Copenhagen’s new ‘CopenPay’ plan rewards tourists for choosing green activities and transportation options, like bicycling. But the BBC questions whether it actually works.

Makes sense to me. Service workers at the international airport in Frankfurt, Germany get around the massive structure on bicycles. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

Amazon is expanding it’s e-cargo bike delivery program Berlin, which look like cute-little pedal-powered cargo vans.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 81-year old man from Goa, India could be one of the country’s oldest people to bike 100 kilometers — about 62 miles.

The widow of a fallen Aussie bicyclist has filed suit against the local government, claiming that a bare metal rail blocking access to a parking lot from a shared-use path was virtually invisible and camouflaged; it’s now been covered in yellow safety stickers.

 

Competitive Cycling

A writer for Cycling Weekly rode the cobbled Paris road cycling course on a 44-pound, three-speed bikeshare bike.

 

Finally…

When you’re carrying heroin and meth on your bike, and riding with an outstanding warrant, just put a damn light on it. Inflate your bike tires electronically, without deflating your wallet.

And when you’re a wanted fugitive riding your bike despite being on the lam for the last 30 years after escaping a Wisconsin rape conviction, put a rear reflector on it, already.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Masters champ Ethan Boyes killed by SF driver, complications of comparing traffic death stats, and Justice for Josh tomorrow

April 7, 2023 / / Comments Off on Masters champ Ethan Boyes killed by SF driver, complications of comparing traffic death stats, and Justice for Josh tomorrow

Heartbreaking news from San Francisco, where Masters champ and US record holder Ethan Boyes was killed by a speeding driver Tuesday afternoon.

Boyes was riding at a “treacherous” intersection in the city’s Presidio when a witness says the driver careened onto the wrong side of the road, hitting Boyes’ bike head-on.

Advocates have long called for protected bike lanes on Arguello Blvd where he was killed; it’s unclear whether that might have saved Boyes, depending on the type of protection used.

For a change, the driver was also injured, though his injuries weren’t considered life-threatening.

Photos show the San Francisco resident at the VELO Sports Center in Carson last September, and again in November.

https://twitter.com/VELOSportsCtr/status/1573736328767758336

Track cycling advocate and former US team member David Huntsman describes Boyes as “a friend to everybody.”

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Bicycling says comparing bicycling traffic death for American cities, and one year to another, is complicated.

The magazine considered the report we discussed yesterday, which showed Los Angeles was the second worst city in the US by one measure, and 16th by another.

Neither of which is anything to be proud of.

The magazine suggests that year-to-year comparisons can be misleading, since it takes nearly a decade to get an accurate sense of whether things are trending up or down.

Still, it’s troubling when data backs up the feeling many cyclists have, of hostility from drivers—the seeming inability to share roads and look out for more vulnerable users. Business Insider reported that in 2020, 938 people riding bicycles and other two-wheeled non motorized vehicles powered by pedals or riding tricycles and unicycles (referred to by the NHTSA as pedalcyclists) were killed in motor-vehicle crashes—9 percent higher than the 2019 figure, NHTSA reported. Several hundred other cyclists were killed in non-traffic accidents, according to the National Safety Council.

It’s easy to sense when a place feels kind or aggressive toward people on bikes. Even when nothing technically goes wrong, cyclists can tell when they’re around drivers who wished they didn’t have to share the road…

Of course, it’s not a simple story. To show a complete picture we would have to look at things like weather, unemployment, infrastructure, and other population statistics. But when so many people on bikes are killed by drivers in specific areas, it’s alarming to say the least.

Alarming, indeed.

Let’s hope LA city officials are paying attention. Because homelessness and housing unaffordability, while important, aren’t the only major issues this city faces.

As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

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SAFE, aka Streets Are For Everyone, forwards a reminder about tomorrow’s protest to demand justice for Josh Mora.

The teenager lost his right leg when he was struck by a hit-and-run motorcyclist while crossing Whittier Blvd.

 

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

No bias here. Key Biscayne, Florida approved escalating fines for repeat offenders who break the rules riding an ebike or e-scooter, while one councilmember said “As far as I’m concerned, I’d love to take them out all together.”

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

A Memphis man was responsible for a one man crime spree, as he used his bicycle to rob six people, including carjacking a pickup, then used the truck to rob a seventh person, all in 30 minutes; he bizarrely stole money and cellphones from two men as they ate lunch, then returned their cellphones, before coming back and taking them again.

A seven-year old British girl was left with multiple fractures when she was run down by a hit-and-run, bike-riding woman on a narrow pathway that bicyclists aren’t even supposed to use.

An English bike rider suffered a broken ankle when a man grabbed her handlebars and pulled her off her bike, in an apparent random attack.

Now we know why the UK woman below wasn’t using the spacious red bike lane, as Road.cc readers describe it as a “rollercoaster,” “littered with stones” and potholes that guarantee a flat, and filled with stops and starts.”

https://twitter.com/NathanielJHall/status/1643880941926903809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1643880941926903809%7Ctwgr%5E3ecb8a413784429906bc0470e89578dcd7f87e6f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fmailonline-accuses-cyclists-not-using-bike-lane-300449

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Local 

Los Angeles traffic safety PAC Streets For All is getting into bed with bikewear maker Cleverhood, offering a 15% discount on the brand’s rain gear with a Streets For All crest, with the PAC getting 20% of the purchase price.

 

State

San Diego Magazine offers a beginner’s guide to urban bicycling.

Writing for a San Jose website, the executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute calls for transition to a holistic, Safe System approach to stop the carnage on American roadways.

Sad news from Turlock, where a man in his 50s was killed when he was hit by a train while riding across the tracks, apparently going around the lowered crossing gates.

Kindhearted Sacramento cops arrange for a new bike for a 74-year old man after the bicycle he uses as his only form of transportation was stolen while he was in a market.

Plans for a new bike bridge over a busy highway will connect the north and south segments of West Sacramento.

 

National

Curbed reports problems at Lyft could “spell trouble for its near monopoly on the country’s bike-share market.” LA’s Metro Bike system is operated by Bicycle Transit Systems, so it shouldn’t be a problem here.

Gear Patrol considers how to pick the right class of ebike to meet your needs, while ABC News offers everything you need to know about ebikes, from battery safety to pedaling.

Mountain bike legend Gary Fisher is getting into the ebike business, with plans to offer a subscription service for around $100 a month.

A Portland bike shop owner is calling for change after his store was burglarized for the fourth time in less than a year.

Washington state officials are considering proposals to fund $2 million for ebike lending libraries, and another $5 million for an ebike rebate program.

A Houston TV station examines the case of a female Army vet who went for a bike ride four years ago, and was never seen again.

He gets it. A Chicago letter writer says instead of arguing about bike lanes, motorists should all just slow down and drive safely.

Life is cheap in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a 72-year old man got a lousy 30 days behind bars for veering his pickup off the road, and killing a 15-year old kid riding his bike just a block from his home, after prosecutors dropped two felony counts in a plea bargain.

An Indianapolis paper rides along with the city’s Black Girls Do Bike cohort.

A Connecticut transportation advocate calls on the legislature to approve the recommendations of the state’s Vision Zero committee, including legalizing speed and red light cams.

New York installs the city’s first double-lane bike lane, with enough room to comfortably pass another bike rider or hold a conversation while you ride side by side.

 

International

Cyclist says Trek’s new top-tier MIPS helmets are faster and airier, as the company ditches the Bontrager name.

Men’s Journal suggests seven “wild new mountain bike trails and destinations” in the US, France and Mexico.

A London writer calls for banning “horrid” e-scooters, saying the only good thing about them is that drivers probably “hate their riders more than us cyclists.”

Life is cheap in Wales, where a delivery driver was sentenced to just ten months behind bars for killing a rising cycling star, even as the judge said that video of the crash showed poor judgement and a lack of attention from the driver.

A bighearted Dublin, Ireland bike shop owner repaired nearly 1,900 used bikes and donated them to Ukrainian refugees.

French bike sales were up 50% last year over 2019 figures.

National Geographic recommends an ebike tour of Italy’s “spectacular” Sella Ronda region, allowing your bike to take the strain out of the uphill climbs.

Australian bicyclists continue to be at risk, nearly a decade after a coroner’s inquest into the death of bike rider called for sensors to eliminate blind spots on large trucks.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks at the Roubaix velodrome, the final point where the iconic Paris-Roubaix race could be decided after 161 miles of cobble hell.

The Dutch Jumbo-Visma cycling team will ride Paris-Roubaix with images of brains on their heads to promote helmet use.

VeloNews looks at the American pioneers at Paris-Roubaix, including George Hincapie’s second place finish in 2005, and Leah Thomas’ 12th two years ago on the women’s side. Once again, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Bicycling says you can stream the women’s Paris-Roubaix on Peacock tomorrow, assuming you’re willing to get up at 6 am Los Angeles time. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Cycling Tips says L39ion of Los Angeles pro Lance Haidet’s story is the story of modern American bike racing, as the 25-year old cyclist competes in road, gravel, ‘cross, and cross-country.

 

Finally…

We may have to deal with banks of LA drivers, but as least we don’t have to worry about riding into snowbanks. Now you, too, can own a vintage NFL bicycle hubcap — assuming your bike has hubs, that is.

And why wait until the bikes leave the shop before running them down with a bus?

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Happy Easter!

Chag Pesach Sameach to all observing Passover. 

And Ramadan Mubarak to all observing the Islamic holy month. 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Ped deaths skyrocketed in 2022, a call to keep bikes off sidewalks, and LA County supervisors to explore expanding board

March 1, 2023 / / 3 comments

Yes, the streets just keep getting more dangerous.

Despite the spread of Vision Zero in cities throughout the US, the number of pedestrian deaths on American roadways continued to skyrocket in the first six months of last year, rising at nine times the rate of population growth.

According to the latest fatality estimates from the Governors Highway Safety Association, a total of 3,434 people were killed by drivers as they walked through June of last year, an average of 19 per day.

Estimates for the full year will be released later this spring. There’s no word yet on the number of bicyclists killed over the same period.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

………

Speaking of pedestrians, frequent Coachella Valley contributor Victor Bale offered his own thoughts on a new bill that would issue a statewide ban on prohibiting sidewalk riding whenever there is a lack of bicycling infrastructure.

In addition to cycling, I walk. I walk a lot. I think nothing of walking 3 miles to my local coffee shop and another 3 miles back. In a typical week I walk over 30 miles. All this walking allows me to observe cyclists on sidewalks and here’s what I see much too often: Cyclists on cruiser type bikes with very wide handlebars, no lights, no bell, no helmet, going much too fast and often very distracted since autos are not a concern. And cyclists passing walkers without a verbal warning.

I’ve had close calls with cyclists passing me from behind. It’s dangerous for both of us because here in the IE many sidewalks are narrow and they don’t have a buffer between a walker and the curb. Cars are close enough and now add a cyclist passing from the rear and the danger to both of us has increased.

Adding a vehicle to a sidewalk where often families are strolling with young children and baby carriages is a very bad idea that endangers everyone.

As a frequent walker myself, I get his point.

I’m seldom happy about having to share a sidewalk with someone on a bike. And yes, they too often ride recklessly, which no one should ever do around pedestrians.

But I also recognize that there are times when I’m riding that the roadway just feels too dangerous, and I’ll briefly take to the sidewalk in an attempt to preserve my own life.

As has been said, no one rides on the sidewalk if they feel safe on the street.

So maybe there’s a compromise in there somewhere that would keep both bike riders and pedestrians safe .

………

While the motion to expand the LA County Board of Supervisors we mentioned yesterday failed, a motion to explore expanding it passed unanimously.

Currently, the five supervisors each represent around 2 million people — more than 2.5 times the size of a US Congressional district.

It matters because we’ve learned the hard way that nothing happens to support bicycling and traffic safety without political will. And the closer you are to your representatives, the better chance you have of making your voice heard.

And as we’ve seen with the Los Angeles City Council, too much power in too few hands invites corruption.

………

Following the turmoil at a number of bicycling websites — particularly the ones now under the Outside umbrella — some of the top bike reporters are founding Escape, a new membership cycling site launching this month.

It’s not clear yet if stories will be paywalled for nonmembers, but you can back their efforts by signing up for a $99 yearly membership on either link above.

And yes, I plan to when sign up I get a little more money in later this month, to help keep you informed.

………

The crowdfunding campaign for the victims in the Goodyear, Arizona crash that killed two people and injured 17 others has now raised more than $110,000 of the $120,000 goal.

………

Bicycling says a indigenous Guatemalan nongovernment organization is making ingenious use of pedal-powered machines to “simplify otherwise exhausting manual labor all while minimizing its carbon footprint and honoring its Mayan heritage.” As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

………

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

No bias here. Newspaper readers in Aberdeen, Scotland are debating whether bike riders should be required to wear hi-viz. I’m okay with that, as long as drivers have to paint their cars high-intensity yellow with reflective trim.

A British bus driver faces charges for punching a man to the ground in a road rage attack, after becoming impatient following the man and his 11-year old son on their bikes.

No bias here, either. A very auto-centric petition in the UK would require the removal of Low Traffic Neighborhoods and “underused” bike lanes if they lack public support; LTNs are somehow blamed for “demonizing motorists” instead of just making space for everyone else.

Or here. Cops in Scotland have apparently decided it’s just not worth tracking down the impatient driver who knocked a man off his bike. My apologies to whoever sent this one to me for losing your name today, but thank you for doing it.

https://twitter.com/AlanMyles8/status/1629990008064036865

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

Horrifying story from Key West, where a male reporter was threatened with rape merely for writing about a planned crackdown on ebikes and e-scooters in public parks.

………

Local 

Look who’s back! It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from the Militant Angeleno, who reports on his — presumably masked — experiences at Sunday’s CicLAvia, including a visit to the home of Daniel LaRusso in the original Karate Kid.

Urbanize takes a look at the three options for a Complete Streets makeover of Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock when the NoHo to Pasadena bus rapid transit lane goes in. Walk Eagle Rock recommends Option 2, with option 1 as a second choice.

 

State

California state legislators are exploring ways to heal neighborhoods severed by highway construction in the 50s and 60s, by finding a way to reconnect what were usually low income neighborhoods, predominantly filled with people of color. The easiest way is simply to tear down the damn freeways, and convert the space to parkways.

The CEO of the Orange County Transportation Authority, aka OCTA, defends the transportation agency against accusations that it’s too focused on highways at the expense of transit, bicycling and walking. Although he doesn’t address the last two, except in passing. 

A small group of Cal Poly SLO students are putting their education to work designing and building their own bicycles.

 

National

Cycling Weekly considers the best urban bike helmets for safer city riding, while Road Bike Rider answers the burning question of whether you need a seat bag on your roadie.

Cycling Weekly also features a Zwift fan who’s unapologetically ridden 55,000 miles without leaving his basement.

Squeezing in one last story for Black History Month, Bicycling examines the Black bicyclists who paved the way for sport and culture. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else online, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.

Hawaii is starting their ebike rebate program today, offering up to 20% of the purchase price up to $500. Just one more ebike rebate starting before California’s long-delayed rebate program, which would have been the first in the country when it passed the legislature. 

Now you, too, can ride your bike on a real Austin, Texas Circuit of the Americas race track. Making motor noises while pretending you’re a sports car is optional.

Great idea. A Catholic missionary is embarking on a planned 6,000-mile ride from New Orleans to the East Coast, then across the US to Seattle, and down to San Francisco, to raise funds to open a cafe to employ people with special needs.

Money well spent. Lidenhurst, New York is using a $7,500 grant to preserve two antique bicycles, an 1882 Penny Farthing and a 1900 direct-drive bike.

A Streetsblog op-ed writer says New York’s streets are so bad they should be illegal.

Sad news from Massachusetts, where a 19-year old man was found dead after he was last seen pushing his bicycle with a flat tire.

A couple dozen protestors temporarily blocked a Pittsburgh intersection to protest a crash that critically injured a bike rider 12 days earlier.

A Roanoke VA B&B owner explains how discovering bamboo bicycles changed her business model.

 

International

Bike Radar covers ten essential bike maintenance tips for beginning riders.

Condé Nast Traveler offers a guide to touring Vancouver’s indigenous heritage and natural beauty by bicycle.

The European Cyclists’ Federation has created a new online dashboard to determine how friendly various European cities are for cargo bikes.

Britain’s ill-considered breakup with the European Common Market, aka Brexit, is pushing a British children’s bikemaker into the red.

A new study from the UK shows e-scooter riders are less likely to wear a helmet and more likely to be seriously injured than bicyclists.

Swedish bike brand Balans is currently crowdfunding to build two bikes it claims will be the world’s most theft proof; the traditional 8-speed bike goes for around $1,671 while the ebike sells for about $2,732. including shipping to the US and Canada.

A new Spanish study analyzed the skid resistance on five types of bike lane surfaces, including asphalt pavement, concrete pavement, smooth and rough painted tiles, and cobble pavement, concluding that painted cobble and smooth painted tile pavements shouldn’t be used “due to their low and variable skid resistance, as well as the high vibrations they cause to users.”

Tragic news from India, where three boys were killed by a speeding driver as they rode a pair of bikes to school, with two boys sharing a single bicycle.

Fans of folding bikes set a new record for the largest Brompton gathering in Malaysia, with 631 of the bikes.

A Singaporean flight attendant is finally back on her bike, eight years after an unexpected turn on a mountain bike cost her most of her pancreas.

 

Competitive Cycling

Pro cyclist Antonio Tiberi, from the tiny Republic of San Marino, was fined the equivalent of $4,240 and suspended from the Trek-Segafredo team for testing out his new air rifle on the neighbor’s cat. And his neighbor just happens to be the country’s minister of tourism. Once again, you can read the second link on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

Sad news from Bangladesh, where a young cycling medalist was killed when he was struck by a signal bar while taking a selfie on a running train; he was returning home after winning two silver medals and a bronze medal in a youth competition.

Hundreds of pro and amateur cyclists from around the world are expected to turn out for this weekend’s 38th annual, three stage Tucson Bicycle Classic.

VeloNews examines the bright prospects for Kenya’s Team Amani in the wake of team leader Sule Kangangi, one of the country’s best-known cyclists, who was focused on “growing a professional East African cycling culture by fighting for more opportunities to race against the world’s best.” Once again, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. Which it probably will. 

 

Finally…

“Let’s ride to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys…” A new study from the University of Duh shows more people rode bikes during the pandemic bike boom.

And your next three-wheeled, egg-shaped car could be an ebike.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Die-in driven from news by mass shooting, LA Vision Zero a “totally unfunny self-parody,” and voters say no to De León

January 23, 2023 / / Comments Off on Die-in driven from news by mass shooting, LA Vision Zero a “totally unfunny self-parody,” and voters say no to De León

Three-hundred-twelve lives needlessly lost to traffic violence.

Most of them bike riders and pedestrians, many lower income, as Los Angeles set a record for the most traffic deaths in at least the last two decades.

Yet almost as heartbreaking as the lives lost to traffic violence in the City of Angels last year was the way Saturday’s die-in at City Hall to protest the deaths was shoved out of the headlines by yet another mass shooting.

The protest, which drew around one hundred participants, appeared to be covered by a number of news outlets.

Yet the only news story that’s been posted online so far came from Fox11.

And even they couldn’t be bothered to identify California Senator Anthony Portantino as the prone bicyclist shown gripping his handlebars in the story’s top photo.

Oops.

When your lead photo shows a state senator participating in a large protest, maybe it would be nice to identify him. Just saying.

 

The brief story attempts to put LA’s unacceptable rate of traffic deaths in perspective.

Yet somehow fails to mention that even one death is one too many.

How does that compare to other cities across the state, or even nationally? LA’s 312 traffic fatalities equate to just over eight deaths per 100,000, nearly twice that of San Francisco (4.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2022), but fewer than San Diego, which saw just less than nine traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2022. In Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago, there were roughly 7.8 traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2022.

It ends with an all-too-brief mention of just what the assembled protestors were demanding.

Protesters organizing Saturday, want the city to do more to help curb traffic deaths in LA. They’re asking Mayor Karen Bass to declare a state of emergency on traffic violence; for more funding for the LA Department of Transportation and initiatives like VisionZero; and the passage of legislation that would allow for automated speed enforcement on dangerous roads.

“Throwing only $50.6 million at road safety issues in a city this big, especially considering how many lives are being lost, is a joke,” SAFE’s report concludes.

All of which was great.

But in addition to failing to identify Portantino, the station also failed to mention that Assembly Transportation Chair Laura Friedman took part, as did CD3 Councilmember Bob Blumenfield.

Not to mention leaders from Streets Are For Everyone, Families For Safe Streets, Streets For All, LA Walks and BikeLA — formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition — among others.

Even then, the story was gone by morning, as LA’s news outlets went with wall-to-wall coverage of the Monterey Park shootings.

Leaving the reaction to the city’s horrendous death toll forgotten on the newsroom floor, just a blip in the weekend news.

I’ll have more tomorrow, after I have a chance to sift through all the many photos I took of the event.

At center is this photo, with the red bandana, is very good boy Max, who joined his owner in playing dead along with everyone else.

The top photo shows Assembly Member Laura Friedman addressing the crowd, flanked by state Sen. Anthony Portantino; behind her are LA Councilmember Bob Blumenfield and Streets For All founder Michael Schneider. 

Correction: Apparently suffering a major brain cramp, I somehow originally misidentified Streets For All’s Michael Schneider in the above caption as Michael MacDonald, evidently mistaking him for a member of the Doobie Brothers. He is, to the best of my knowledge, not a Doobie nor a rock star, but a street safety star instead. My apologies. 

………

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times Letters Editor Paul Thornton introduced responses to LA’s rising toll of traffic violence with a headline calling the city’s Vision Zero failure a “totally unfunny self-parody.”

All along, the city’s primary tool to achieving its Vision Zero goals has been redesigning roads to reduce vehicle speeds and allocate more and safer spaces to cyclists and pedestrians. What we’ve gotten since 2015 are bike lanes removed from street widening projects, quashed “complete street” proposals, a thriving Lincoln Heights street market shut down by the city, and a reopened 6th Street Viaduct used as a drag strip. Something tells me we’ll be much worse off on Vision Zero in 2025 than we were in 2015.

Although naturally, one letter writer felt the need to remind us that streets are for cars, and everyone and everything else doesn’t belong there.

Nope. No bias there.

And while we’re on the subject of letters to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, the expected complaints about ebikes in the paper’s recent article about their supposed invasion of Orange County Beach cities, a Huntington Beach man says what the outrage over ebikes really points out is the lack of safe bike infrastructure.

Well said.

………

No surprise here.

The LA Times is reporting that CD14 voters have turned sharply against incumbent Councilmember Kevin de León in the wake of his comments on a racist and otherwise offensive recording that has already led to the resignation of the former council president and one of LA’s most powerful labor leaders.

The turnaround comes just two years after those same voters overwhelmingly installed De León to replace disgraced Jose Huizar, who pled guilty to racketeering last week.

…By a wide margin, voters said De León puts his own political self-interest ahead of the people he represents. Even reliable supporters who voted for him in the past have lost faith, the poll found.

Only 23% of the voters surveyed approved of the job De León is doing, compared with 48% who disapproved, the poll found. Just over half think he should resign, compared with fewer than a quarter who want him to stay in office and 18% who were undecided; 9% did not answer the question.

If a recall were to qualify for the ballot — an effort to qualify one is currently circulating petitions — 58% would support recalling him from office, compared with 25% who would be opposed and 17% undecided, the survey found.

That comes after De León was heard on the leaked recording comparing the Black adopted son of former Councilmember Mike Bonin to a Luis Vuitton purse, and discussed how Latino councilmembers could mute the influence of their Black peers on the council, as well as their constituents.

Yet De León continues to ignore calls to resign, apparently thinking there is some pathway that will allow him to rehabilitate his image before facing the voters again in 2024.

Or sooner, if the recall petitions currently circling in his district qualify for the ballot.

De León had shown promise when it came to supporting bike and safety improvements in his district, including selecting the resident-designed Beautiful Boulevard option for the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit route through Eagle Rock.

But whatever good he promised came to a quick end the moment he was heard on that infamous recording.

It’s time for De León to read the writing on the wall — and in the pages of the Times — and resign.

CD14 deserves a leader who can more effectively represent all the people, including those of us who travel on two wheels.

………

This area has long been one of the most unforgiving areas for bicycling in all of the Los Angeles areas.

Although the long-delayed Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle Pedestrian Path over the new Long Beach International Gateway Bridge, better known as the replacement for the Gerald Desmond Bridge, should help.

Once they finally get around to opening it.

Meanwhile, this video of trying to find a safe route around the Port of Los Angeles plays like a one-man Marx Brothers routine.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1616589984206839808

………

Dr. Grace Peng forward news that an anti-bike lane Redondo Beach councilmember is facing possible loss of his license to practice law after allegedly misappropriating over a half million dollars of client funds.

Proving that corruption allegations extend far beyond LA City Hall.

………

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

The Chicago Sun-Times probably didn’t mean it when they placed an ad about the warning signs of dementia in a story about a man riding 60 miles across the frozen wintery city to meet with other similar-minded viking bikers. But still.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A road raging British driver was found not guilty of punching and choking a man riding a bike after claiming self-defense because the bike rider punched his car after the driver “clipped” him.

This is what “clipped” looks like, as an Australian truck driver sideswipes a bike rider, then keeps going, possibly unaware he’d even hit someone.

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

Seriously, if you’re carrying guns and a large amount or narcotics on your bike, make sure the damn thing is up to the vehicle code.

………

Local 

Streets For All is calling for more support for the heavy rail option to extend the Metro train system through the Sepulveda Pass, including a Metro station on the UCLA campus, at an in-person meeting on Tuesday and a virtual meeting on Thursday. Bel Air residents are demanding an impractical monorail through the center of the 405 because it wouldn’t, you know, inconvenience the rich people.

VeloNews has more on the nonprofit Bahati Foundation, formed by Compton’s own former national crit champ Rahsaan Bahati to change the lives of underprivileged kids through bikes.

Santa Monica-based Bird is selling their consumer ebike for 60% off right now, marking it down from $2,299 to just $899, including free shipping.

 

State

Twenty people got tickets during Goleta’s latest crackdown on traffic violations that endanger bike riders and pedestrians; unfortunately, there’s no breakdown on whether the tickets went to motorists, bike riders or pedestrian.

 

National

Washington’s governor pitched in on the first day of a new program to teach Seattle kindergartners how to ride a bike.

They get it. The Chicago Sun-Times says that it’s worth trying surveillance cameras and automated ticketing to keep drivers out of bus and bike lanes.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale is one of us, as he explains what happened when he fell off his bike and broke his wrist, which combined with Tommy John surgery and a broken finger to cost him most of three seasons.

 

International

Rouler explores the relationship between Italian bikemaker Cinelli and artist and former pro cycling wunderkind Taylor Phinney.

A travel site offers tips on exploring Europe’s over 27,000 miles of bikeways. Which would take the better part of two years if you averaged 50 miles a day. Works for me.

An insurance company issued an urgent warning to British bicyclists about the crumbling state of the country’s roads, as 21% of bike riders suffered pothole-related injuries. Although I imagine what they really mean is 21% of bicycling injuries are related to potholes. But what do I know?

Once again, a driver has claimed multiple victims, as a British driver faces charges for the hit-and-run death of two men who were riding their bikes, before abandoning his car and fleeing on foot. Although even more frightening is how the local weekly paper seems to accept the horrific crash, mentioning it almost in passing.

A history website tells the story of Peter Masters, an Austrian Jew who escaped the Nazis, then returned as a bike-riding British commando during the D-Day invasion.

Horrible story from India, where a 70-year old man was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike, then desperately clung to the drivers hood before he was thrown off and run over when the driver finally hit the brakes.

A New Zealand man’s planned three-day bike ride to babysit his granddaughter took a detour when his ride was interrupted by Cyclone Hale.

 

Competitive Cycling

British pro Simon Yates won an uphill battle to claim the final stage of the Tour Down Under, as Aussie Jay Vine took the GC title to win his first WorldTour race.

Bryan Coquard claimed his first WorldTour stage win in Saturday’s stage four of the Tour Down Under, 11 years after he joined the top pro circuit.

Rising Dutch ‘cross star Shirin van Anrooij had to sit one out after thieves stole her race bike from the parking lot while she was doing recon on the course in Costa Blanca, Spain.

Zimbabwean mountain biker Pressmore Musundi is aiming to compete in this year’s African Games, despite being born with no toes on either foot, following first and third place finishes in a pair of South Africa’s top mountain bike races.

 

Finally…

If a cop stops you for driving under the influence, try not to bite his finger off trying to get away. And we may have to deal with aggressive LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about leopard attacks.

Usually, anyway.

………

Happy Lunar New Year, whatever language you celebrate in! And my sympathy and prayers to all the victims of the Monterey Park shooting and their loved ones. May the new year finally bring an end to both traffic and gun violence. 

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

LA Times fans OC ebike mayhem panic, City Hall die-in this Saturday, and Slate questions efficacy of bike helmets

January 17, 2023 / / One comment

No bias here.

The Los Angeles Times reports on complaints about ebikes in Orange County, where they face bans and draconian speed limits on and near beach trails.

No, just the complaints.

At least until you reach the bottom of the story, by which time most Times readers have already moved on to Marmaduke.

Instead of reporting objectively, the paper settles for reprinting the long list of complaints from Orange County’s anti-ebike crowd, who seem to consider them the worst tech advance since Elon Musk bought Twitter.

Here’s how the paper frames the story, starting with a longtime Newport Beach resident who compares the local boardwalk to the 405 Freeway.

Three decades ago, Levine moved to what some refer to as the city’s “war zone,” a nickname given not because of crime but for the reputation of summertime rowdiness along the boardwalk, which now includes an abundance of electric bicycles. The strip’s 8 mph speed limit means nothing to some of these people, he said.

He’s watched people get mowed down, dogs hit and too many near misses to count, he said. City leaders for years have studied how to manage the proliferation of e-bikes along the route but have stopped short of banning them.

“What we’re witnessing on the boardwalk is mayhem,” Maureen Cotton, president of the Central Newport Beach Community Assn., told the City Council during a meeting urging officials to address e-bikes last year.

So, let me get this straight.

It’s been a war zone for decades. But ebikes have somehow ruined everything.

Sure, that makes sense.

Then the paper moves on to repeating the same tired and previously discredited stats we’ve been hearing for months from PR staffers at the local hospital trying to fan the flames of an anti-ebike pyre.

During the first 10 months of last year, staffers at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo documented 198 e-bike injuries. Doctors saw 113 injuries in 2021 and just 34 in 2020, according to data provided by the hospital.

Between January and October of last year, 78 of the 198 people who suffered an injury on an e-bike were not wearing helmets and 99 suffered some type of head injury, data show.

“My feeling about the whole situation with e-bikes is that we got a device a little bit too fast, and the culture is not completely set for it,” said Tetsuya Takeuchi, the trauma medical director at Providence Mission Hospital…

Where to begin.

Evidently, some people who got injured riding ebikes weren’t wearing bike helmets. But most were.

And half of the people who were injured riding an ebike suffered a head injury. Which may or may not have been the 40% who weren’t wearing helmets.

It may come as a shock to the kind and caring people at Providence that some people who ride regular bikes don’t wear helmets, either. And some of them get hurt, too, though not always with head injuries.

Which is just one of the great, inexplicable mysteries of bicycling, that some people who don’t wear bike helmets don’t suffer head injuries, and some who do, do.

Then there’s the exponential increase in ebike injuries. Which just happens to coincide with the exponential increase in ebikes.

That doesn’t mean ebikes are dangerous. Just that a lot of people are using them now.

In fact, I’d consider 198 injuries a relatively small amount, given the untold thousands of Orange County residents who’ve adopted them.

Lastly, let’s consider the question of speed, which has apparently gotten “a little bit too fast.”

Under California law, which has been copied in most states, Class 1 and 2 ebikes, whether ped-assist or throttle-driven, are limited to 20 mph.

Which virtually anyone could top with a decent effort on a decent road bike. Never mind today’s lightweight, technological marvels engineered for every higher speeds.

The bikes, I mean, not the riders. Though some of them have been engineered for speed, too.

Yet somehow, those bikes aren’t considered too fast. And no one has banned 27 speed carbon-fiber bikes or their spandex-clad riders from the boardwalk.

And just wait until the good doctors at Providence learn how fast cars can go, and the damage they cause.

In fact, my stats show 12 people were killed by drivers while riding bikes in Orange County last year, a drop from the obscene 17 killed in 2021.

Ebike riders killed somewhere around zero in Orange County over that same time period, to the best of my knowledge.

So which of these is actually dangerous?

Then there’s the way the paper takes about halfway through the story, after fanning the flames of ebike haters, to even mention that there are different categories of ebikes, and dozens of different types.

And even then, fails to mention that the faster Class 3 ebikes are banned from bike trails that aren’t attached to roadways, beachfront or otherwise.

Or that even people on regular bikes struggle to meet those ridiculously low 8 mph speed limits without falling over.

But once again, no one is seriously suggesting that regular should be banned.

The key, as they finally get around to mentioning just before the end of the story, is behavior.

Someone who is a jerk in a car — or on a skateboard, or with a shopping cart — is just as likely to be a jerk on an ebike.

And a kid who has never been taught to ride a bike safely — electric or otherwise — is going to ride a bike or bike like a, well, kid.

Just what they’re riding doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

So let’s put away the torches and pitchforks, and learn to live with all those scary ebike monsters. Because really, they’re not bad, just new and different.

And seriously, LA Times, do better.

Ebike photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels.

………

We’ll let Streets For All put things in perspective with their call to participate in the Saturday’s City Hall die-in to protest traffic violence.

If you’re a pedestrian or cyclist in Los Angeles, you’re probably used to hearing about traffic fatalities in our community. But 2022 was a record-breaking year — in the worst way. Last year, there were 309 traffic fatalities in LA, breaking the 300 mark for the first time in more than twenty years. This is a staggering increase of almost 30% from 2020.

These statistics are tragedies in and of themselves, but they’re made even worse by the fact that pedestrians and cyclists are impacted the most by every measure. Cyclist fatalities alone went up 40% between 2020 and 2022.

We can’t keep living like this. Join us on the steps of City Hall on Saturday, January 21st at 9:30am for a die-in protest. It’s time for our electeds to start paying attention.

RSVP for more details

………

A writer for Slate examine the limited efficacy of bike helmets, noting that “When it comes to the dangers threatening cyclists, wearing a helmet is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

They make the same argument I’ve been making for years — bike helmets are designed to protect against relatively low speed falls, not high impact crashes with motor vehicles.

Which is not to say you shouldn’t wear one.

The overwhelming majority of bicycling injuries result from falls, not crashes. Which is exactly what they’re made for.

I still credit my helmet with saving my grey matter, and possibly my life, during the Infamous Beachfront Bee Incident, and never ride without one.

But they should always be considered the last line of defense when everything else fails.

You’re a lot better off not getting hit by a car and its driver in the first place, rather than count on your helmet to save your life if you do.

………

In a related story, the Manhattan Beach Police Department tells teenage bike riders not to be melon heads, as they gleefully smash watermelons as a metaphor for helmet-less bike riders.

Even though watermelons smash much easier that teenage skulls, and most heads aren’t filled with seeds.

And yes, I said most.

………

Ted Faber finds a pothole that could be the gaping maw of the gates of Hell.

………

This is who we share the road with.

An alleged drunk driver in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood backs through a crowd of people trying to stop him from getting behind the wheel, then takes off, leaving injured bystanders strewn in his wake.

Thanks to How the West Was Woke for the heads-up. 

………

This is who we share the road with, part two.

An South LA man apparently angry about his pending divorce decided to take it out on his wife’s house, and all the cars in the neighborhood.

But sure, tell us again about those OC ebikes.

………

San Francisco Bay Area cyclist Nehemiah Brown is asking other people of color to join him in accepting the gift of gravel.

………

More proof of our auto centric world, as Irish Tic Tok’ers are shocked to see a man transporting a new flatscreen TV on his bike.

Even if he’s just using it as a cart.

@all_about_rosalilla

Who thinks this TV is making it home in one piece? #fyp #onlyinireland #tiktokireland #irelandtiktok #fypage #nanocelltv #whatsontelly #foryoupage

♬ Crash – The Primitives

………

And this video pretty well sums things up, I think.

………

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

No bias here. Plans for a Manhattan bike lane are being held up by judges who don’t want to give up their cushy curbside parking next to the courthouse, with one court official comparing their efforts to the French attempting to hold back Nazi Germany prior to WWII.

A road raging British driver is on trial for allegedly punching and choking a man riding a bike, after clipping the arm of the victim during a close pass; he blocked the victim’s path and got out of his car when the bike ride slapped it and called him an idiot.

Another road raging British driver gets a lesson in setting the handbrake before going off on a bike rider, who didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong.

 

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

A British runner justifiably blasts schmucks who park on the sidewalk to go mountain biking.

………

Local 

Longtime KPCC and LAist reporter Frank Stolze introduces the seven candidates who have qualified so far to run in the race to replace ex-councilmember Nury Martinez in LA’s CD6.

Speaking of Streets For All, Streetsblog reports on their call to transform current-day Mid City car sewer San Vicente Blvd into a linear park.

 

State

Orange County will install a new traffic signal at Oso Parkway and Coto de Caza Drive, just outside Coto de Caza, where eight-year old Bradley Rofer was killed by a pickup driver in September. As usual, the long-needed traffic fix only comes several months after Rofer was killed.

Former NBA great Bill Walton reacts to being harassed by homeless people while riding his bike through Balboa Park by suggesting all the city’s unhoused residents should get rounded up and sent to a camp on a military base — voluntarily, of course. Because that worked so well last time, apparently.

The CHP is looking for the hit-and-run driver who ran down a 22-year old Santa Barbara man riding his bike on PCH (scroll down) north of Ventura early Friday morning; there’s no description on the driver or vehicle, and no word on the condition of the victim.

 

National

Calvin, of “and Hobbes” fame, faces up to his greatest tormenters, including his bicycle.

Scott is recalling their 2022 Speedster road and gravel bikes due to a defective fork that could break during use.

Nonprofit group Black Girls Do Bike celebrates ten years of changing what the cycling world looks like by “providing welcoming, safe and fun opportunities for women of color to ride bikes.”

The Washington Post examines where cars outnumber drivers, let alone people. Surprisingly, California ain’t one of them.

In a report that should surprise absolutely no one, the Rhodium Group concludes that transportation is the leading source for climate damaging emissions for the sixth year in a row. To which bicycles contributed just this side of zero.

Apparently, not even Congresspeople are safe from traffic violence, as Oregon Representative Suzanne Bonamici and her husband were struck by a driver as they were crossing a Portland street Friday evening. Although CNN somehow manages to get through the entire story without mentioning that there was someone behind the wheel. 

A kindhearted Boise, Idaho group donated over 50 bikes to Ukrainian refugee children in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

This is who we share the country with. Wyoming, the state where even Liz Cheney wasn’t considered conservative enough, continued its race to the bottom when state legislators proposed banning electric vehicles in a childish tantrum to protect the gas and oil industries.

The fight continues over a $12 million Houston road diet and bike lane project, as a county commissioner pushes it forward while a city councilmember works to halt it.

A pair of kindhearted Texas cops surprised a young boy with a new bike, after they fixed the chain on his old beat up bike so he could make it home from school.

Boston readers freak out over a single still photo of a woman on what looks like a bikeshare bike trying to merge onto a local highway, with her shopping bag dangling from her handlebars.

The New Yorker talks with the daredevil behind the city’s infamous bikeshare-riding stunt crew, the Citi Bike Boyz.

A DC proposal would give ebike buyers a $400 tax rebate, with an extra $500 for e-cargo bikes; low-income buyers could get up to $1,200 plus the e-cargo bike bonus.

At least 80 bike riders turned out to honor a pair of Baton Rouge, Louisiana high school cheerleaders who were killed in a collision with a cop at the end of a high speed chase; the cop was arrested and could face charges.

Young Miami bike riders conducted their annual MLK Day Wheels Up Guns Down ride. But somehow, all the local press could focus on was the usual heavy-handed police response, and the 58 felony and 11 misdemeanor arrests — not the hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful riders and their message of hope. 

 

International

Havana, Cuba is installing their first public bikeshare dock, part of what promises to be a 300 bike fleet.

The former boyfriend of a Welsh woman killed while watching a mountain bike race in 2014 calls for more protection for bike race fans; she had come to see him compete.

Young “demon” ebike riders are accused of turning Amsterdam’s once angelic streets into a living hell, as they ride their souped-up ebikes at the unholdy speed of…24 mph. Which would make them relatively tame by Orange County standards.

India’s bike industry threatens a series of hunger strikes over a new requirement to install reflectors on bicycles; industry officials say the problem isn’t the mandate, but the penalties that would be imposed for failing to comply.

An Indian man was tied to a pole and viciously beaten and stomped after he was accused of stealing a bicycle. Look, I dislike bike thieves as much as anyone, but that’s going too damn far.

The bike boom continues, as Taiwan’s exports of bicycles and bike parts rose 23.11 percent annually to $6.15 billion. Or it could just means that more production is shifting to Taiwan from mainland China.

Gizmodo Australia misses the mark, insisting safety bikes came into widespread use about the same time cars did, and that bikes only enjoyed a few months as king of the roads before they were shoved aside by motor vehicles. Meanwhile, Adventure Journal marvels that bicycles were invented after the much more complex locomotives were. But as Carlton Reid makes clear in Roads Weren’t Built For Cars, bicycles were widely adopted around the world long before cars ruled the earth. And if you haven’t read it yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

 

Competitive Cycling

Australia’s Grace Brown kicked off the women’s cycling season by out-sprinting Amanda Spratt to win the Santos Tour Down Under, after Alex Manly led following the first two stages.

Sad news from the Netherlands, where 40-year old retired Dutch pro Lieuwe Westra was found dead, after suffering from depression for several years; nicknamed The Beast, Westra won stages at Paris-Nice, the Tour of California and Critérium du Dauphiné, as well as winning the Tour of Denmark and Driedaagse De Panne.

UCI is telling team cars to back off, instead of giving their riders an extra boost during time trials by changing the airflow behind the rider.

Former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman has formally lost his medical license as a result of his involvement in a doping scandal, when he was caught ordering testosterone gel for an unnamed male cyclist.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you try a 30-foot jump on an ebike — and nail it. Maybe it’s time to put this “slightly used” VanMoof out of its misery.

And if you’re going to ride a kid’s Barbie bike across an entire country, always choose a small one.

Country, that is.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

US traffic deaths down slightly, bike deaths up; CA not worst for bike riders; curb protected lanes coming to 7th Street

January 10, 2023 / / One comment

My apologies. 

I inadvertently posted this post and emailed it to subscribers before I had a chance to finish editing it.

So if you received a mistake-filled draft, I’m sorry for the mistake.

………

The Washington Post is reporting that traffic deaths fell slightly in the US in the first nine months of last year.

According to the paper, traffic fatalities were down 0.2 percent compared to the same period last year, a welcome if modest drop after record increases during the pandemic.

Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, showed nearly 31,800 people were killed in crashes from January through September. That follows increases of 7 percent in 2020 and 10.5 percent in 2021.

However, the news isn’t as good for bike riders and pedestrians. Deaths continued to climb two percent for pedestrians and eight percent for people on bicycles in the first six months of 2022; nine month figures aren’t currently available.

………

Hats off to Nebraska, which was named the nation’s safest state for people on bicycles, where just 15 people died in bicycle-related crashes over the past decade, even as the Bike League ranks it the second-least bike friendly state.

Neighboring South Dakota came in second in the NHTSA’s bike safety ranking, while placing fifth from the bottom in the Bike League’s assessment.

Not surprisingly, Florida and Louisiana ranked first and second from the bottom as the nation’s most dangerous states for bike riders.

California was apparently somewhere in the middle, since it doesn’t show up in the top ten states, or the bottom five.

………

Work is proceeding on the long-promised curb protected bike lane on 7th Street between Figueroa and San Pedro streets in DTLA, which was one of the conditions for approving construction of the 62-story Wilshire Grand Center.

………

LADWP is funding a half-million dollar program to rent out ebikes for up to nine months with a single $20 donation; however, the former Jump bikes used in the Pacoima program can’t be charged at home, and have to be taken to taken in to have the battery swapped.

………

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

No bias here. A Staten Island columnist complains about efforts to expand Vision Zero and speed cams throughout the state, taking away his God-given right to a) speed, and b) kill people with his car, apparently.

No bias here, either. North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is proposing a daytime ban on bikes at the beach this summer, with bikes prohibited from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. Because apparently, beaches are only for people in cars.

After a German bike rider slammed into the trunk of a turning car after being right hooked, The Sun newspaper tries to stir up controversy by asking who was in the wrong.

………

Local 

Let’s give a grateful thank you to Pasadena’s Lin Realty, whose staff built 150 bikes to donate to the city’s Boys and Girls Club.

The recently passed federal budget bill includes $22.6 million in earmarks for coastal cities, with $1 million of that budgeted to the Manhattan Beach Safe Cycling Project, which is intended to provide a safe bike route to the beachfront Marvin Braude Bike Trail by way of Highland and 45th Street.

 

State

The nationwide Black Girls Do Bike organization is celebrating its first ten years with a meetup in San Diego at the end of August, coinciding with the annual Bike the Bay ride. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

A Folsom man is suing the city over dangerous road conditions after he was struck by a turning driver while riding in a bike lane.

 

National

NPR talks with Cycling Savvy bicycle safety instructor John Schubert about how to safely ride a bike in the city.

Momentum Magazine examines three more American cities that have embraced bicycling. And no, Los Angeles is not one of them.

Bike Portland compares advisory lanes in the Oregon city with the ones in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where they originated.

Last year was a bad one for Las Vegas area bike riders and pedestrians, with 14 bicyclists and 72 pedestrians killed in Clark County.

This is what Los Angeles bike riders have to look forward to. An Austin, Texas bike rider recorded a self-driving General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi veering dangerously into a bike lane; fortunately, no one was riding in the bike lane at the time. Waymo is testing its autonomous vehicles in LA in anticipation of rolling out its robotaxi service; no word on whether they’re programed to respond to an extended middle finger. 

Tragic news from Houston, where a man riding in a bike lane with his wife was struck by a motorcyclist traveling at highway speeds on the surface street, killing both men in what a police spokesperson termed a “very avoidable’ crash.

That’s more like it. The Texas Department of Transportation announced plans to invest $250 million in bike and pedestrian projects.

The accused terrorist who killed eight people with a speeding pickup on a Manhattan bike path five years ago reportedly smiled to an FBI agent as he proudly confessed to his murderous rampage.

A Chattanooga, Tennessee woman is suing the local bikeshare provider for nearly $900,000 after she was knocked unconscious when she was thrown from what she says was a defective or poorly maintained bike.

Horrible news from Georgia, where an 11-year old boy was hospitalized after he was attacked by dogs while riding with a friend.

 

International

Good idea. Alberta mounties are using billboards in an effort to find the hit-and-run driver who killed a 45-year old woman riding a bike last July.

English actor Mark Williams is one of us, as the star of the popular Father Brown murder mystery series fell off his bike while filming; fortunately, he only hurt his pride.

Britain’s anti-bike lawyer who calls himself Mr. Loophole shocked visitors to his website by suggesting that drivers make it their New Years resolution to give bike riders more space when passing.

Dublin artists are concerned that plans for a separated bike lane could destroy a 40-year old tradition of an open-air art gallery, since the bikeway would mean they couldn’t park right next to the park fence they use to display their works. Because apparently, it’s impossible to park further away and use a dolly or some other device to transport their paintings another few feet.

An Irish court heard a 54-year old father riding a bicycle was killed by a semi truck driver who attempted to pass him just 20 inches from the victim’s handlebars — or the length of three or four soup spoons, as the prosecutor described it.

Hanoi will mark this month’s Tet lunar new year celebration by rolling out the city’s first bikeshare system.

Chinese bikeshare company Mobike’s Australian branch has gone into liquidation following a second failed attempt to crack the Aussie market, leaving over 1600 bikes worth about $1.3 million abandoned on the streets and in warehouses.

 

Competitive Cycling

The trial continues for two men accused of the masked home invasion robbery of British cycling great Mark Cavendish and his family, as Cavendish describes getting punched by a robber and having a knife held to his throat.

Forty-seven-year old Cat 3 cyclist Noslen Ruiz-Gutierrez received a four-year doping ban (scroll down) after a urine test revealed six — count ’em, 6 — banned substances; Ruiz-Gutierrez argued that his doping didn’t matter because he races for recreation, not competition. Sure, try telling that to the other racers he’s not competing against.

 

Finally…

At last, an ebike designed to move your anvils. And repeat after me — when you’re carrying meth on your bike at 2 am, put a damn light on it, already.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Still no Koreatown traffic signal after 3 years, Huizar rides 6th Street Bridge, and NHTSA boss calls for Idaho Stop

October 21, 2022 / / Comments Off on Still no Koreatown traffic signal after 3 years, Huizar rides 6th Street Bridge, and NHTSA boss calls for Idaho Stop

Good question.

It’s been three full years since a four-year old girl was killed by a left-turning driver while holding her mother’s hand in a Koreatown crosswalk.

Now LAist wants to know why nothing has been done to install the new traffic signal Koreatown residents were promised in response to Alessa Fajardo’s death as she was walking to school.

Alessa’s death highlighted a series of failures: by the driver who killed her and — more significantly — by the city of L.A., which long knew of dangerous conditions at the intersection where she was killed, but did not add (some) safety improvements until after her death…

But three years after Alessa was killed — and more than 30 months since LADOT recommended the signals be upgraded (with 4-way left turn signals) to make the intersection safer — the improvements have not yet been made.

Adding insult to literal injury, the driver apparently skipped town after initially stopping. There’s been an outstanding warrant for Indira Marrero since she failed to appear in court two years ago — despite the relative slap on the wrist of a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge.

Photo by Pixabay.

………

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from disgraced CD14 Councilmember Jose Huizar, who left office under the cloud of racketeering and bribery charges.

Apparently emboldened by the controversy swirling around successor Kevin De León, Huizar popped up yesterday to subtly remind everyone of one of his more popular accomplishments, even though it wasn’t completed until long after he was gone.

Like Huizar, De León refuses to resign despite repeated calls to step down.

Although as shameful as De León’s conduct has been, at least he doesn’t face decades behind bars for his actions, or the lack thereof.

………

She gets it.

The acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, is calling for approving the Idaho Stop Law.

She argues that data shows the law, which allows bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stops signs, provides additional safety benefits to people on bicycles.

It’s already in effect in a handful of cities and states, while a modified version known as Stop as Yield — which does not allow for treating red lights as stop signs — is law in several others.

Although not California, where Governor Newsom vetoed it — twice.

………

Today’s common theme is cops behaving badly.

A Canadian mountie faces charges for hitting a bike-riding suspect with his patrol car, after two men on a bicycles were seen making off with a large metal safe on a dolly.

And a 22-year old Aukland, New Zealand cop pled guilty to the off-duty death of a bike-riding man, while driving at well over twice the legal alcohol limit.

………

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

A white Illinois woman walked with probation after being allowed to plead down a felony hate crime charge to a single count of misdemeanor battery, for confronting three Black men riding their bikes along Lake Michigan, insisting their skin color meant they couldn’t be there without a permit.

Anger is growing in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a road raging driver was caught on security cam driving up on a sidewalk to hit a bike rider; both the driver and the victim left the scene afterwards. Always stick around to talk to the police after any assault, vehicular or otherwise.

A Toronto bike rider was lucky to escape from a road raging driver who swerved into him, before getting out of his truck to attack him. Laws may be different in Canada, but LAPD officers have told me that simply exiting a vehicle to confront someone is enough to subject a driver to assault charges.

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

Police in Springfield, Missouri are looking for a bike-riding woman and her companion, after they ignored No Trespassing signs to steal an 80 to 100-pound bench.

………

Local

Pasadena has received a $36,500 site grant to improve bike and pedestrian safety.

 

State 

Orange County sheriff’s deputies will host a pair of free, all-ages ebike safety classes in Rancho Santa Margarita over the next two months.

Santa Barbara is removing the green bike lane markings from the center of the State Street Promenade. The bike lanes were intended to separate bike riders and pedestrians, but were ignored by people walking; now bicyclists and pedestrians will be expected to share the carfree street.

Tragic news from Fresno, where someone riding a bicycle was killed in a collision near the Fresno State University campus.

Apparently missing the point of a quick-build bike lane, San Francisco business owners are calling for more study and complaining about a loss of parking, even though the idea behind quick-build lanes is to try them out to see if they work.

Great idea. A resident-led rapid response group is working to call attention to traffic violence in Oakland, quickly organizing protests following deadly collisions.

 

National

Lifehacker offers advice on how to ride your bike in the rain.

Thrillist talks to the “experts” for a list of 16 bicycling essentials every new rider should own. None of which are actually essential.

A Tacoma, Washington bike drive bought in 370 bicycles to be refurbished and donated to people in need.

Fast Company looks at Denver’s wildly successful and popular $4.1 million ebike rebate program.

An Oklahoma man was sentenced to life in prison for the random drive-by shooting that killed a man riding a bicycle; he reportedly killed a stranger just to impress members of a street gang.

An Ohio man wants his coke possession charge separated from charges for the hit-and-run death of a 13-year old boy riding a bicycle, arguing that the drug bust came the next day — even though he was on his way to buy it when he killed the kid.

A Martha’s Vineyard letter writer complains about the two-week closure of a bike path for a three-day music festival, arguing that families and children are routed onto deadly roadways instead.

Lonely Planet says yes, it is possible to be a tourist in New York on a bicycle.

New York is offering a paltry $5,000 reward for the hit-and-run driver who killed a 13-year old boy, who leaped in front of his sister to push her out of the way as they walked in a bike lane.

 

International

Road.cc’s Near Miss of the Day isn’t, after a bike rider’s bikecam catches a van driver actually sideswiping him.

In a major setback for Vancouver bike riders, the city plans to rip out a contentious bike lane through a city park, so cut-through drivers can resume zooming through after being banned during the pandemic.

The conservative Times of London makes a dramatic U-turn by concluding that two-wheels are good, just nine months after demanding licenses and liability insurance for people on bikes. Although they still think cargo bikes annoy drivers.

American Anne Sacoolas pled guilty to a reduced charge of causing death by careless driving in the 2019 head-on, wrong-way driving death of a 19-year old British motorcyclist outside an RAF airbase known to house American spies, where her husband had worked. Sacoolas was able to use her husband’s diplomatic immunity to flee the country; it’s unlikely she will return to the UK for sentencing.

Brussels, Belgium now bans motorists from driving through the city center if that’s not their final destination.

We Love Cycling offers advice on how to cross European borders on a bicycle.

 

Competitive Cycling

Ireland is making a bid to host the start of the Tour de France, possibly as early as 2026.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your new ebike could literally explode. Or when The Cannibal spent twice as long wearing yellow as Britain’s latest prime minister spent in office.

And why tote a bulky tent and sleeping bag on your next bike tour, when you can peddle your very own solar-powered ebike camper van for the low, low price of ten grand?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

1st quarter traffic deaths jump again, proof pickups and SUVs cause more deaths, and holding killer drivers accountable

August 18, 2022 / / One comment

No, it’s not your imagination.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported yesterday that more people have died on American streets in the first quarter of this year than any year in the past two decades.

Early NHTSA estimates show 9,560 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes through the end of March, a seven percent increase over last year, which saw the highest number of traffic deaths in 16 years.

In other words, we are going the wrong way, at an ever-increasing pace.

There’s a wide range of likely reasons, ranging from speeding and distracted drivers to trucks and SUVs with high, flat grills designed to kill.

None of which are beyond our ability to solve today.

We only need to get enough people to care enough about the lives of innocent victims to demand change.

But so far, that, too, has been beyond our reach.

………

On a related note, Ontario, Canada safety advocates say they have the numbers to prove pickups and SUVs cause more deaths, and have written the province’s chief coroner to request an investigation.

One of the studies, from 2021, estimates 8,131 pedestrians between 2000 and 2019 could have survived if they were struck by sedans instead of SUVs or trucks.

Another study, published in the Journal of Safety Research in June, found that while SUVs and trucks made up just 26.1 per cent of pedestrian and cyclist collisions, they accounted for 44.1 per cent of fatalities.  That study also suggested that because of their larger size, SUVs and trucks are more likely to hit vulnerable road users in the chest or head than a sedan.

Maybe they could write a few letters to US officials while they’re at it.

………

A writer for Outside takes a deep dive into the aftermath of a tragic New York bicycling collision that took the life of a young woman, to examine why drivers are so seldom held accountable for killing another person.

And what can be done about it.

As part of the story, he looks back to the magazine’s groundbreaking Cycling Deaths project, which attempted to document every bicycling traffic death in 2020, recording nearly 700 fatalities.

In most of the stories we gathered information on, there were no consequences for the driver or even scrutiny of their behavior. Law enforcement rarely issued a ticket to drivers who killed cyclists. Criminal charges for the crash itself were even less common, often occurring only when a driver was intoxicated. It was hard not to read through each case and wonder: Is that the way things should be? Does driving that results in someone’s death cross the legal threshold for punishment that infrequently?

It’s very hard to find comprehensive data on penalties issued after car crashes, but among the safe-streets advocates and legal experts I talked to, it’s generally taken as a matter of course that people who kill cyclists while driving—even recklessly, even illegally—are rarely held legally accountable for their actions. The big picture, those observers say, is that drivers are offered a kind of impunity that doesn’t exist in just about any other situation where a human kills another human. “The judicial system is applying laws in a way that results in widespread injustice to victims of traffic violence,” says Gregory Shill, a law professor at the University of Iowa. “I would go beyond courts—a common root of all this is that we have a high social acceptance of traffic deaths.”

As the story points out, drivers should automatically lose their license if they kill another person, but seldom do.

As Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt put it, a drivers license is too easy to get, and too hard to lose. 

If I had my way, killer drivers would be sentenced to work-release, required to serve in emergency rooms and morgues during the day to tend to the victims of traffic violence, before returning to their cells at night.

Although the courts would probably consider that cruel and unusual punishment to subject them to that kind of emotional and psychological torment.

Unlike, say, their victims and their loved ones, who have to suffer that pain for the rest of their lives.

………

This is who we share the city with, unfortunately.

Maybe they’re care more if it was 58. Or 59.

………

Time’s running out to score a great deal on a vintage bike, and support a good cause in the process.

………

Yes, your morning commute can be green, and actually make you happy.

Even in chilly Minnesota.

………

Remember this the next time you have to lock your bike up to a banged-up wheel-bender rack.

https://twitter.com/citycyclists/status/1559900618713612290

Thanks to Glenn Crider for the heads-up. 

………

GCN wants to help you improve your average speed on your bike.

………

Our German correspondent Ralph Durham forwards a photo of race walkers at the European Championships in Munich, where he’s working as a volunteer.

And points out that even they have to cope with race motos. Although the slower pace probably means they pose less risk to the racers.

………

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

That’s more like it. An Idaho driver has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars, with three years fixed, for chasing bike-riding kids through a public park with his pickup, then running over one boy’s bike after he jumped off. But it’s okay, because he’s really, really sorry. No, really.

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

LAPD officers shot a bike-riding young man waving a machete after he refused orders to drop the knife and allegedly advance on officers; no word on his condition.

Elderly London residents say they’ve stopped walking on a roadway that was closed as part of the city’s Low Traffic Neighborhood, the equivalent of a Slow Street in the US, out of fear of red light-running bicyclists and confusion over who has the right-of-way.

………

Local

The Eastsider reports city officials will make the temporary closure of Griffith Park Drive through Griffith Park permanent, after a traffic study showed the closure eliminated cut-through commuter traffic without increasing traffic on Zoo Drive (scroll down).

LADOT is bringing protected bike lanes and bus islands to a one-mile stretch of Central Ave in Watts.

 

State 

A California firm is working with Toshiba to improve the chemistry of ebike batteries to reduce charging times and the risk of battery fires.

A coalition of San Diego advocacy groups have endorsed Alternative D for the planned reconstruction of Park Blvd through Balboa Park, which calls for eliminating parking and installing bus lanes and a separated bike lane.

He gets it. A spokesperson for the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition says the problem isn’t that ebikes are unsafe, it’s a wakeup call to how unsafe the roads are.

Anson Williams, the 72-year old actor who played Potsie in Happy Days back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, is running for mayor of Ojai on a platform that includes expansion of bike paths and trails. He’s got my vote.

This is who we share the road with. A UC Santa Barbara cop was busted for a drunken hit-and-run in Solvang earlier this month; fortunately, his only victim was a parked minivan. Thanks to Ted Faber for the link.

A San Jose homeowner says he’s spent $30,000 to construct reinforced barriers to stop out-of-control drivers, after 23 drivers have slammed into his home since the 680 freeway opened 50 years ago.

 

National

Next City offers more on the recent NACTO report suggesting that bike laws aren’t keeping bike riders safe, while leading to over-policing of people of color.

Cycling Tips offers a beginner’s guide to what matters most in selecting entry-level road and gravel bikes.

More than 2,100 Denver residents have received ebike rebate vouchers up to $1,700 since the program began in April; most putting their ebikes to good use, with around half riding them on a daily basis. On the other hand, California’s fully funded ebike rebate program remains in limbo, apparently awaiting a chilly day in hell. 

Congratulations to Nebraska, which is no longer the nation’s least bike-friendly state; that dishonor now goes to Wyoming, which is unfriendly to bikes and Cheneys, apparently.

Chicago Magazine talks with Christina Whitehouse, the founder of Bike Lane Uprising, an app allowing bike riders to log the location and submit photos of vehicles illegally parked in bike lanes.

No bias here. Chicago cops responded to a protest over drivers running red lights by changing the traffic signal to green for a full five minutes, stranding everyone waiting to cross the street.

A kindhearted Pittsburgh cop bought a new bike and helmet for an eight-year old girl, after firefighters weren’t able to save her bike from a fire at her grandmother’s house.

TMZ offers more information on the death of Ironman triathlete and Norristown PA cop Brian Kozera, who allegedly ran a stop sign on his bike and crashed into the side of a pickup, before being run over by the truck’s rear wheels. As always, the question is whether there were any independent witnesses to the crash, or if investigators are relying on the word of the driver.

 

International

If you’re looking for a new business opportunity, you could do worse than a solar-powered food ebike.

They get it. Calgary, Alberta is installing a bike lane to remove excess road space and slow speeding drivers.

Pilot protected bike lanes on one of Toronto’s busiest streets saw up to a 193% jump in ridership over a single year, while resulting in a less than one minute delay in motor vehicle traffic.

A seven-year old British boy became one of the youngest people to ride from Paris to London after his father was killed in an industrial accident, raising the equivalent of over $42,000 for bereaved children on the 200-mile journey.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker says a proposal to requite license plates on bicycles in the UK makes bicyclists the latest target in the culture wars. The proposed regulations are reminiscent of North Korea, where people are required to pass a bicycle proficiency test and display a metal license plate on their bikes; that country also bans women from riding bikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

For nearly two decades, we’ve been supposed to pretend Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis never won the Tour de France. Now we’re supposed to pretend Nairo Quintana didn’t have a top ten finish in the Tour last year, after UCI stripped him of 6th place for using the prohibited painkiller tramadol; Quintana denies ever using it, of course.

Ramona High School graduate Gwendalyn Gibson, class of 2017, became the only American to win a World Cup mountain bike race this year, after taking first in a West Virginia race last month.

In case you missed it yesterday, NPR offers a good look at gravel racing, and the sport’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Thanks to Lionel Mares for the reminder.

This week’s 2022 Para-Cycling Road World Championships somehow slipped under the radar, even as the US is making a good showing.

 

Finally…

Evidently, bike mechanics hate triathletes — and not just because they wear speedos, evidently. That feeling when American tourists have no idea why there are so many bicycles parked at European train stations; thanks to Erik Griswold for the tip.

And now you, too, can have your very own DIY beer stabilization system to avoid spilling your suds as you ride around Burning Man.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Wisconsin tragedy mars World Day of Remembrance, Move Culver City opens, and a peckish wheel pecking parrot

November 22, 2021 / / One comment

This is the cost of traffic violence.

It was heartbreaking to learn that, on the World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Victims, five people were killed and over 40 injured when a driver plowed through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

It almost doesn’t matter why.

As I write this, there’s no word on whether this was a terrorist attack, some other intentional act of vengeance, or just another everyday traffic “oopsie.”

Because, even under the best of circumstance, with the best of intentions, people operating cars can turn deadly in an instant.

36,096 dead in 2019, the last year on record. An average of 99 people a day.

Every day, without end.

Graphic by tomexploresla

What happened in Waukesha was unusually horrific. And will undoubtedly become even more heartrending when we learn more about the victims, dead and alive.

So far, all we know for sure is that a Catholic priest was one of the victims, along with some Catholic school kids who were apparently watching the parade.

Both before and after the news broke, I scoured Google and Twitter for any remarks from any Los Angeles official, city or county, commemorating the World Day of Remembrance, without luck.

I can’t say no one said anything. But if they did, I couldn’t find it.

Which says as much as anything else about the sad state of LA streets, and LA government. As well as elected officials who promised change when they needed our votes, but turned their backs on the people of Los Angeles once they got into office.

Because traffic violence effects all of us.

Sadly, things like this will continue, here in Los Angeles and throughout the country. Whether it takes the form of mass casualty events like Waukesha yesterday or the San Monica farmer’s market nearly 20 years ago.

Not to mention Kalamazoo, Las Vegas, Show Low, Waller County or Liberty County, just to name a few.

Let alone the the constant trickle of traffic deaths and injuries too ordinary to make the news.

And nothing will change until enough American’s finally say “enough!”, like the Dutch did 50 years ago.

Because clearly, this is one issue where our leaders don’t have the courage or political will to lead.

Which leaves it up to us.

That means you. And yes, me.

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At least he gets it, anyway.

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Culver City opened the Move Culver City project on Saturday, with quick build bus and bike lanes on three streets in the downtown area.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1462170796487368707

https://twitter.com/sydneykamlager/status/1462186471293472775

As to why things like this don’t happen in Los Angeles, our risk-averse department of transportation would first have to study the proposed project for months, and continue to water it down until they’re sure they’re not taking any chances and won’t run the risk of offending anyone.

Then the city would hold a series of meetings where the usual assortment of NIMBY homeowners and angry drivers would scream about how it would inconvenience them a little, after which our elected officials would promise to change everything they screamed about.

Then the plan would make its way into the circular file, while the city makes a few minor safety improvements, and declare the problem solved.

But other than that, there’s no reason why it can’t happen here.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the video tweet.

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When is a bike lane not a bike lane?

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1462124642081017859

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When I saw this Instagram post over the weekend, I assumed the parrot was just examining the damage.

Au contraire, mon frère.

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This is, by far, my favorite photo of the weekend.

And the guy on the bike doesn’t have to be slow; those little buggers are fast.

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This one is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

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Steve Martin is one of us. Or was, anyway.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1462318696483856384

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This Harley ebike video made me laugh more than I did the rest of the day. Or maybe the entire weekend.

Seriously, this might just be the best 8 minutes and 39 seconds of your day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAGrrtDf8KE

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

Sentencing was delayed in the case of the Las Vegas minivan driver whose passenger fell to his death after leaning out the window to push a woman off her bicycle, killing her as well, because someone in the detention center forgot to bring him to the courtroom to be sentenced.

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

The man dubbed LA’s “Western Bandit” was convicted on two counts of murder, as well as shooting at several other people, in a bike-born crime spree; the DA said every pedal stoke on the way to commit his crimes counted as premeditation.

A bike-riding burglar was busted by LA County sheriff’s deputies while riding away after he was allegedly caught on security cam breaking into a La Canada Flintridge home on Friday.

A Ventura man has pled guilty to being the man on a bicycle who sexually assaulted a woman walking on a bike path, as well as flashing a woman who was walking with her grandson while riding his bike (scroll down).

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Local

An unhoused Black man complains about the original headline of a recent LA Times column about a man reclaiming his stolen bikes from a bike chop shop in a Mar Vista homeless camp, accusing them of doxing the homeless encampment.

A West Covina man was found shot to death along the LA River bike path Friday morning; no word on whether he was riding a bike, or was there for some other reason.

 

State

An estimated 600 people were expected to turn out for the first Oxnard Peace Ride on Saturday to promote bicycle safety and awareness of gun violence.

Palo Alto’s long-gestating bike and pedestrian bridge over Highway 101 isn’t mythical anymore.

A Bay Area bike rider was caught on video weaving unsafely in the fast lanes on the Bay Bridge; a bike lane extends across the eastern span, while bikes are banned from the rest.

 

National

WaPo looks at the US Bicycle Route System, which has expanded by nearly 3,000 miles in the West and Midwest.

Your next ebike could come complete with a built-in laptop stand. Unfortunately, it’s not designed so you can work while you ride, or I could write this while cruising under the moon.

A Maui councilmember says it’s time to rein in the popular bike tours that race down the island’s Haleakala volcano, while a letter writer calls the tours a disaster waiting to happen.

A Seattle woman got 28 months behind bars for operating a sophisticated embezzlement scheme that bilked over $150,000 from the unnamed high-end mountain bike company where she worked as an accountant and bookkeeper.

A former prosecutor said Nevada state troopers missed obvious signs truck driver Jordan Barson was high on meth at the time of the crash that killed five bicyclists outside Las Vegas.

A Colorado bike mechanic is raising the alarm about planned obsolescence in the bike industry, as more manufacturers are making low-end, unfixable and disposable bicycles designed to only last a few years.

San Antonio’s bikeshare system is going all in on ebikes.

The Texas A&M student newspaper argues that the state should adopt the Idaho Stop Law, aka Stop as Yield. Which California’s governor foolishly vetoed last month.

Massachusetts bike riders mark the World Day of Remembrance by calling on the legislature to pass bicycle safety bills, including a bill to require side guards and other safety devices on large trucks.

Connecticut Magazine looks at the history 50-year history of Cannondale, which began business in 1971 hawking a bike trailer called The Bugger.

Durham, North Carolina is fighting traffic congestion and climate change by offering people who work downtown the free use of an ebike, along with a helmet and free maintenance. Thanks again to Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

Despite earlier reports that a Palm Beach, Florida boy had apparently died falling off his bike, the death of the 14-year old victim has now been ruled a homicide; he disappeared after going out for a bike ride last week.

 

International

A writer for Cycling Tips recommends ten products that inspired him to say “Take my money, please!”

Clearly, traffic violence isn’t just the US, as a hit-and-run driver knocked four English teenagers off their bikes; fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

Good luck fixing the bicycle shortage anytime soon, as a British bikemaker calls the current supply chain issues plaguing his company an “absolute clusterfuck.”

The Irish Times complains about the lack of oversight and quantifiable costs for the country’s bike to work program, which allows employers to provide workers with a tax-free bike and accessories to be repaid through salary deductions, and unfairly benefits most the high-income workers who need it the least.

A 72-year old Limerick, Ireland man “miraculously” got his 40-year old vintage stolen bike back through the power of social media. My original 1981 Trek is exactly that old, and covered in dust until I have the money to restore it. But I’d hardly call it vintage yet.

The rich get richer, as bike riders in The Hague now have a new, museum-like bike parking garage with space for 8,000 bicycles, directly across from a busy railway station.

A former “passionate” Indian bicyclist says he’s given up riding since a longtime friend ended up in the ICU after he was hit by a speeding driver while riding his bike; now he only recommends offroad mountain biking and using a trainer indoors.

NIMBYs keep telling us that bike lanes hinder handicapped people. But a Wellington, New Zealand bike network would benefit a bike-riding mother with multiple sclerosis, who discovered she can bike easier than she can walk, and tows her service dog in a trailer behind her.

 

Competitive Cycling

Mark Cavendish had to abandon the Six Days of Ghent after a hard fall, withdrawing in fourth place on the final day. Kenny De Ketele and Robbe Ghys ended taking the overall classification. Meanwhile Cavendish says he knew he had it in him to get back on top this year, after his own team thought he was washed up.

A local website offers photos from Saturday’s El Tour de Tucson.

We’re lucky to have this great facility here in Los Angeles. Well, Carson anyway.

https://twitter.com/LAVeloRacing/status/1462517848702480387

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could be a Croatian Porsche. Inside the mind of a pedestrian when someone on bike says “On your left.”

And wait for the guy on the bike, who wisely beats a hasty retreat facing a barrage of snowballs.

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden_/status/1461239899122765828

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A special thanks to frequent contributor Robert L for his generous donation to kick off this year’s 7th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive four days early! So save your nickels and dimes, because the corgi’s getting ready for her closeup, and we’ll be begging for them to keep her in kibble later this week.

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

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,
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