Tag Archive for traffic violence

LA Councilmember calls for action while another “reassesses,” this is LA’s darkest hour, and safe passing laws don’t work

February 10, 2026 / / Comments Off on LA Councilmember calls for action while another “reassesses,” this is LA’s darkest hour, and safe passing laws don’t work

My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence.

After writing about two fallen bike riders in a single night — never mind downing two doses of migraine medication — I was done. 

Maybe it goes back to when I started riding, and there weren’t that many of us.

But I feel like everyone I write about is my brother or sister, and every loss feels like a death in the family. 

My heart just can’t take writing about so many, so often. Let alone asking you to read it. 

And for that, I apologize as well. 

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay. 

………

That’s more like it.

Sort of.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports that CD5 Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky called for immediate safety improvements in the wake of the 99 Ranch Market massacre, where an elderly driver killed three people crashing into the Westwood market after hitting a bike rider.

According to Linton,

At last Friday’s council meeting [video – remarks start minute 1:26], Yaroslavsky adjourned the meeting in remembrance of the Westwood crash victims. Yaroslavsky questioned, “Why does it feel like safety improvements take forever even after we know where the risks are?” She noted the current LADOT process for Westwood, pledging to accelerate, “I am calling on LADOT to return with an accelerated timeline for Westwood Boulevard – including immediate quick-build safety measures while longer term work continues.”

“We shouldn’t be waiting years for basic interventions while Angelenos die.”

Meanwhile, CD11 Councilmember Traci Park offered a typically weak-kneed call for “reassessment” after a seven-month pregnant mother of two was killed while riding a bike in Playa del Rey with her toddler son in the seat behind her.

The Playa del Rey killing also saw some response from its City Councilmember Traci Park. Via her email newsletter, Park stated she had visited the crash site and was working with city departments “to re-assess the area for additional lighting and speed safety improvements.” Park noted that bike improvements there were installed and removed in 2017, and that “it’s time to re-open that conversation.” She listed two bike/safety projects she is working on nearby.

The entire Playa del Rey area needs a lot more than a mere “reassessment” of Pershing Drive, where the crash occurred, as well as Manchester Blvd, which has been a frequent site of traffic violence, and Vista del Mar — aka Deadly del Mar —  the site of eight traffic deaths in just the last ten years.

………

In a must-read from Streets Are For Everyone founder Michael Schneider, he responds to the needless traffic deaths Play del Rey and the 99 Ranch Market, calling it LA’s darkest hour.

All of this is in the context of the city being beyond broke. Part of the reason is a record number of liability payouts due to people getting hurt on city infrastructure that the city knows is dangerous but hasn’t fixed or won’t fix. Additionally, the city continues to slow walk Measure HLA implementation — the exact kind of implementation that would make streets safer.

As a safe streets advocate, it’s hard not to take it personally when someone dies while walking or biking in the city, because I often walk or bike around the city, often with my kids. Living in a city where a pedestrian is injured every 5 hours and killed every 2 days is deeply painful. To have two horrific crashes claim lives on streets that the city was supposed to make safer — but hasn’t yet, or even worse, backtracked after installing safety improvements — is beyond the pale.

Meanwhile, LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who is running for re-election this year, puts the deaths in their proper context.

………

No surprise here.

A new Aussie study shows that safe passing laws don’t really work, because — wait for it — drivers don’t follow them.

The country requires a minimum of roughly three feet, and roughly four and a half feet on roads with speed limits over 44 mph. Which might actually keep bicyclists safe if drivers didn’t keep violating it.

Instead, researchers recommended infrastructure improvements like protected bike lanes, traffic calming and more road space, which would do a lot more to improve safety for people on two wheels.

………

If you need a good laugh, the Desert Sun says a driver and an 18-year old on a bicycle “collided into each other in Cathedral City,” but only the kid on the the bicycle got hurt.

Never mind that the kid got right hooked. Or that it’s almost always the person on two wheels who gets injured, rather than the person surrounded with a couple tons of steel and glass, seat belts and air bags.

Or on second thought, maybe it’s really not that funny at all.

………

Okay, so why is Caltrans refusing to make a lousy three blocks in Santa Monica safer for bike riders?

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/2020562040075821418

………

They get it.

https://twitter.com/heybikela/status/2020950735048020448

………

Streets For All is hiring.

………

First, they confiscate the bicycles.

https://bsky.app/profile/coolbikeart1.bsky.social/post/3mecadmgnts2v

………

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

Advocates in Iowa call a proposed bill that would ban bikes on most public roadways “the most anti-biking bill in history;” the good news is that backlash from bicyclists helped drive a stake through its heart.

No bias here. The head of London’s Licensed Taxi Drivers Association launched into a tirade blaming the “white, middle-class cycling lobby” for a proposal that actually came from a representative for Lime to time traffic lights so they create a “green wave” for bicyclists.

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

Although you could make the case that the kids were just “liberating” the 101 Freeway, dangerous and illegal though it may be.

Speaking of bad behavior, Strava has deleted millions of KOMs because people cheated by using ebikes and cars.

………

Local 

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole an adaptive bike from a nine-year old Los Feliz kid with Down syndrome and autism; a crowdfunding campaign to replace it has surpassed the modest $7,000 goal by over $2,000.

The LA Bureau of Engineering will host a virtual meeting this evening to consider the Glendale Hyperion Bridge Improvement Project, intended to improve earthquake resilience, restore the bridge’s historical appearance, and improve circulation and safety for people driving, biking, walking and rolling.

Advocacy group Santa Monica Spoke and SaMo city staff will host a guided bike ride highlighting recent First/Last Mile safety improvements in the Bergamot Area this Sunday.

 

State

A coalition of San Diego transit and bicycling advocates is asking the city to improve access for people who don’t drive, rather than fighting with drivers who don’t want to pay for parking.

Palm Springs secured nearly $900,000 in increasingly rare federal funding to build a safe pathway to get people to the new CV Link bike and walking path.

Bicyclists fought to save San Mateo’s Humbolt Street bike lanes at last week’s city council meeting — which were threatened by drivers who wanted more free curbside parking — and won.

Sad news from Marin County, where a bike rider was killed when they were struck by a driver in a massive SUV. But at least the driver stuck around and tried to do CPR.

 

National

CyclingSavvy offers advice on how to avoid predawn crashes.

Good advice. If you find yourself in Seattle and are planning to go to the Seahawks victory parade, ride your bike. And if you’re in New England, feel free to ride your bike anyway.

A Phoenix man says he hit and killed a woman riding a bike because he fell asleep behind the wheel, then apparently fled the scene and drove home without waking up — but swears he’d trade his life for hers. The problem with that it’s always too late once someone feels that way. 

A bike thief in Las Cruces, New Mexico was shot and killed after engaging in a gunfight with an off-duty cop who tried to stop him.

Hats off to the crew of Albuquerque Fire Engine 11, who not only took a bike rider who fell off his bike to the hospital, but also gave his bike a safe ride home.

My bike-friendly Colorado hometown will join cities across the country in celebrating Winter Bike to Work Day this Friday. Although a certain bike-unfriendly SoCal megalopolis we could name won’t be participating, despite having some of the country’s best winter weather. 

Chicago is hosting the city’s 28th annual Bike Winter Art Show, with bicycle-themed art that that doesn’t ignore local and national issues.

A Chicago chef is back to cooking, two and a half years after a collision while riding his bike left him on the brink of death.

A Massachusetts woman has figured out a way to get drivers attention that works a hell of a lot better than hi-viz, riding her bike topless, albeit with pasties, to make the case that women should be allowed to shed their tops just like guys do. All titillation aside — pun intended — there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to. Period.

A kindhearted North Carolina cop gave a seven-year old boy a new bicycle after he had two bikes stolen in just months. And perhaps more importantly, gave him a lock, too.

A Florida man faces charges for hit-and-run after injuring someone on a bicycle, then abandoning his truck in a creek; he was already on probation vehicle theft, drug possession and failing to appear, and had an active warrant for skipping out on his sentencing for a DUI case. Sounds like a prince.

 

International

Travel + Leisure calls Mexico’s 1,700-mile Baja Divide Trail one of biking’s best kept secrets.

A British Columbia writer says his wife was seriously hurt in a collision with a driver while riding her bike, but she was one of the lucky ones.

A writer for The Independent goes bikepacking on Scotland’s “stunning” National Bike Network. And encounters a massive bicycle sculpture, complete with bike rack and U-lock.

London’s Cycling Mikey may be the city’s most hated and controversial bicyclist for using his helmet cam to keep drivers honest, and turning them into the cops when they’re not. Although video evidence generally isn’t accepted for traffic violations and misdemeanors in this country.

Bike Radar says there are still three performance bike brands being made in the UK.

Dublin will test out letting bike riders make the equivalent of right on red, in a country where drivers can’t. But only when it’s safe.

An Irish man rode over 1,860 miles from Ireland to Australia, traveling across three continents and 28 countries.

Australian bicyclists say a crucial Sydney bicycling route has become a nightmare since the city’s new Fish Market opened, forcing bike riders to compete for space with crowds spilling over from the market.

 

Competitive Cycling…

Meta talks with Olympian and pro cyclist Kate Courtney.

The Athletic profiles Sepp Kuss, calling him the “best American cyclist of his generation.” Although that one may be hidden behind a paywall. 

Elvis star Austin Butler will play America’s favorite seven-time ex-Tour de France champ in a new biopic. ‘Cause he ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. Lance, that is. 

Three-time Tour de France champ Chris Froome was lucky to escape unharmed when an impatient hit-and-run driver totaled his bike.

Jonas Vingegaard “lost the man who mentored him to grand tour superstardom,” after his longtime cycling coach Tim Heemskerk left the Visma-Lease a Bike team “with immediate effect.”

Colombian track cyclist Martha Bayona Pineda has been banned for 18 months for failing to report her whereabouts, but hasn’t failed any actual drug tests.

A Zimbabwean mountain biker says who needs toes, anyway?

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can get coaching from an actual knight. Now your kid can make the Costco run with their very own cargo balance bike.

And when you’re drunk as a skunk, maybe don’t yell at a cop ticketing a driver as you ride by on your bike. Or run over a bike cop’s bicycle with your car, for that matter.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

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

Nationwide Unity Rides Saturday to honor Alex Pretti, and accused hit-and-run killer of 6-year old Hudson O’Loughlin arraigned

January 28, 2026 / / One comment

Alex Pretti was one of us.

The 37-year old Minneapolis VA nurse, who was fatally shot — okay, murdered — by ICE agents on Saturday was a lover of the outdoors, and an active mountain bike rider.

Which is just one reason the bike community is rallying behind him.

Minneapolis’ Angry Catfish bike shop, which claimed Pretti as a frequent customer, is helping to organize memorial Unity Rides rides across the country for this Saturday, starting with Minneapolis.

The Radavist is calling for the entire bicycling community to come together for healing and to honor Pretti, who he says could have been any of us. Although I’m not sure how many of us would have stepped up to help a stranger at the risk of our own lives.

Meanwhile, Minnesota-based Salsa Cycles is urging bike riders to contact their legislator and join in a Unity Ride to protest the recent fatal shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

According to Cycling Weekly,

“Our neighbors are being unlawfully detained, harassed and murdered at the hands of the federal immigration enforcement agents,” Salsa Cycles wrote in its statement. “Now is the time to speak up and stand up…”

“Community is important in times like this,” Salsa Cycles states. “Alex Pretti was a member of our local cycling community…We encourage you to come ride with us, host a ride in your community, or simply go ride in solidarity on Saturday.”

Bike Portland reports other rides have been announced for Portland, Oregon, Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia; Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, Texas; Bellingham, Washington; San Francisco, California; Wichita, Kansas; and Memphis, Tennessee.

West LA Bicycle will host a Unity Ride here in Los Angeles (click here in case the Instagram link below doesn’t embed properly).

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUCoEbDjDuR

Anyone interested in organizing a ride can contact Community@angrycatfishbicycle.com for more information.

Let me know if there are any other rides planned for Los Angeles or Southern California.

I honestly don’t care what your politics are.

No one should be killed for legally, and peacefully, exercising their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights.

………

Ten years hardly seems like enough.

Thirty-two-year old Tiffany Sanchez was formally indicted Tuesday on felony charges of vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run for killing six-year old Hudson O’Loughlin as he rode his bike with his family on a Pacific Beach sidewalk January 18th.

The former carries a maximum of six years, while the latter has a max of just four years, thanks to California’s lax hit-and-run laws.

And that’s only if she is convicted on both charges, and gets the maximum penalties, to run concurrently.

Anyone want to give odds on that?

Sanchez is accused of knocking Hudson off his bike as she turned right into an alley, stopping briefly, then fleeing the scene and driving over the boy as he lay helpless on the ground.

According to 10 News San Diego,

“The defendant did not stop, she did not render aid, she did not assess the situation or try to help out, she didn’t, she did not call 911,” said Cassidy McWilliams, deputy district attorney.

Never mind that she hasn’t had a valid driver’s license for nine years, and shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place.

She was ordered into custody on $150,000 bond, and will be required to wear an ankle monitor and forbidden from driving if she manages to post it.

………

A new map from the San Francisco Chronicle shows the most dangerous streets and neighborhoods for bicyclists and pedestrians, based on traffic deaths from 2020-2024, as reported by law enforcement agencies to the Transportation Injury Mapping System at UC Berkeley.

According to the paper,

This analysis includes people walking, biking, using wheelchairs or riding personal conveyances such as rollerblades or skateboards. In total, nearly 6,500 people were killed while walking or biking across California during this five-year period, a toll that includes about 800 cyclists.

Fatalities climbed steadily for nearly a decade across the state, reaching a peak of 1,429 deaths in 2022, before receding to 1,208 in 2024. In comparison, the Bay Area has remained relatively stable. The number of fatalities has ranged between 150-180 deaths per year.

The map pinpoints the location of both pedestrian and bicycling deaths, while blocking out high-fatality hotspots.

The latter of which makes Los Angeles look like the hot mess it is.

………

Active SGV is hosting a free Learn to Bike class in El Monte on Sunday.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/2015903927703646291

The group is also hosting an easy ride to Whittier Narrows next weekend.

………

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

A New Jersey legislator is “backpedaling” on his own proposal to require a $50 annual bicycle registration fee to make bike riders contribute to the cost of their own infrastructure, with public comments running 61% against. Because apparently, people who ride bikes don’t pay taxes like normal folks, and the proven societal and health effects of bicycling are worth nothing. And no, drivers don’t pay their own way; the overwhelming cost of building and maintaining roadways comes from general tax funds.

The simple act of bicycling without a helmet or hi-viz clothing could soon become a criminal offense in Ireland if a new government proposal is enacted; the president of an Irish bicycling organization calls it “performative policymaking,” arguing “there is no credible evidence” that it would significantly reduce collisions or fatalities. Meanwhile, an English author and columnist writing for the Irish Times says that “Anyone who thinks cyclists ‘come out of nowhere’ should not be in control of a vehicle.”

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

Carpenteria is becoming the latest coastal California city to crack down on ebikes without distinguishing ped-assist bikes from the electric motorbikes and illegal ebikes causing the problems, although they are capping ebike speeds at 28 mph, mirroring state law.

………

Local 

Metro will mark the birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks next Wednesday, aka Transit Equity Day, with free rides throughout the system, including Metro Bike; the agency is also conducting a survey to better understand the needs of neurodivergent riders.

UCLA is now requiring that every ebike and e-scooter kept on campus be UL-certified and registered with the school transportation department.

A Canyon Country bike rider was hospitalized with minor injuries as a result of a hit-and-run crash with a truck driver leaving a movie set. Which means the driver shouldn’t be too hard to find. 

He gets it. A personal trainer from Signal Hill says Long Beach residents don’t need another fitness trend, because all they have to do is go outside to enjoy one of the city’s most effective health resources, including the beachfront bike path.

 

State

Once again, a bike thief has been busted in Orange County, after stealing a bait bike worth over $2,000 in Huntington Beach, which makes it a felony. Meanwhile, the LAPD still won’t employ bait bikes because a former city attorney feared it could be construed as entrapment, even though similar charges have held up in other cities that do.

Laguna Beach city leaders are debating potential locations and designs for a pump track, though they haven’t made a commitment to building one yet.

A 71-year old man was critically injured when he was struck by a pickup driver in Indio Tuesday morning and knocked under the truck, suffering “significant” injuries; shockingly, the driver was unharmed. And yes, that’s sarcasm. 

Congratulations to San Jose, where traffic deaths dropped for the second straight year, declining ten percent from 2024 to the lowest level since 2012.

Bike-friendly Davis has released a new citywide bike map. Granted, it’s easier to build a connected bike network in a small city, but at least Davis has one. Los Angeles doesn’t. 

Sad news from Lodi, where a 78-year old retired physician was killed by a driver while riding his bicycle in Amador County, southeast of Sacramento; he was called The Lone Rider by his bike club because he rode so much after his retirement 23 years ago.

 

National

Gadget Review ranks the fifteen best bikes from last year. Some of which actually are. 

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The assets of bankrupt Seattle ebikemaker Rad Power Bikes were auctioned off in a fire sale for $13.2 million, following its recent Orange County warehouse fire — a 99.2% drop from its high valuation of $1.65 billion.

Once again, someone riding a bicycle has been collateral damage in a police chase, when a bike rider was killed by a speeding driver fleeing from the cops in Tucson, Arizona, who also crashed into a pedestrian before being shot by state troopers; the driver was hospitalized, while the pedestrian suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Winter bicycling rates are skyrocketing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, increasing over 400% in the past ten years, thanks in part to the city plowing snow from bike lanes.

South Carolina authorities are searching for a 15-year old boy who disappeared under “unusual” circumstances after leaving his grandfather’s house for a bike ride a week ago, and hasn’t been seen since.

 

International

A writer for Cycling Weekly says like it or not, of course there are barriers to bicycling for female riders, from the cost of an entry level bike to products designed for male riders, and threatening behavior from other road users.

A new Canadian study shows that nearly 3,600 kilometers — roughly 2,200 miles — of high-quality bicycling infrastructure was added across the country, but the increase largely bypassed areas with more children and older adults, which could benefit most from it.

The London Times asks if 2025 was the year London became a bicycling city, as even Timothée Chalamet embraced the city’s ubiquitous Lime bikes.

British Transport Police have reversed their recent announcement that they wouldn’t investigate the theft of bicycles left at train stations for more than two hours.

A British man completed a six-month, 14,000-mile trip from Melbourne to Melbourne, the former in the UK and the latter in Australia.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a man’s wallet when he fell from his bike after leaving a nightclub in Turin, Italy, and was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while he was on the ground.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard was lucky to escape serious injury when he crashed on a training ride, after he tried to drop an amateur cyclist who repeatedly tailed him and wouldn’t back off; amateur Pedro García Fernández posted video to Strava showing him riding on Vingegaard’s wheel, saying he couldn’t understand the pro’s anger at being followed by a fan. It used to piss me off when some stranger drafted off me, and I’m not even famous.

Chinese bikes have made it to the WorldTour, with the Quick Pro brand signing a new sponsorship agreement with the Euskaltel-Euskadi cycling team, after more than 30 years using Orbea bikes.

Ouch. Aussie Jay Vine finished the Tour Down Under riding with a broken wrist after getting caught up in the infamous kangaroo crash.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you give five grand from your insurance settlement to the driver who knocked you off your bike because the crash cured your back pain. We may have to deal with rabid LA drivers, but at least we hardly ever run into potentially rabid baby bats. Who needs a bike seat when you’re Ryan Seacrest?

And honestly, who wouldn’t want their very own lobster bike?

Ok, who has $200?seattle.craigslist.org/see/gms/d/se…

— Cold vermin winter of our discontent (@sciencehippies.bsky.social) 2026-01-24T20:52:56.370Z

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

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

Mayor Bass, City Council no-shows up for traffic deaths die-in; and how can LA build a subway if it can’t fix poop spray?

January 26, 2026 / / Comments Off on Mayor Bass, City Council no-shows up for traffic deaths die-in; and how can LA build a subway if it can’t fix poop spray?

People are dying to stop people from dying on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

Figuratively, anyway.

The Los Angeles Times reports on Saturday’s die-in on the steps of LA City Hall, saying dozens feigned their deaths to protest the 290 traffic deaths last year in the City of Angels, and the adjective failure of Vision Zero.

“We’re out here today because the city of Los Angeles signed Vision Zero as a directive in August 2015 to prioritize saving lives on our roads — to achieve zero traffic fatalities by 2025,” said SAFE founder and executive director Damian Kevitt, who lost his right leg in a violent traffic incident in 2013. “Not manage or reduce [them] but eliminate traffic fatalities. We are a decade later and we are at 290 traffic fatalities. … It’s a 26% increase in traffic fatalities since the start of Vision Zero…”

“The city has tools, it’s just not using them,” Kevitt told The Times. “In 2024, voters approved measure HLA by a two-thirds margin. It requires the city must follow its own mobility plan … to make roads safer for cyclists, for pedestrians, for better transit.” He also cited state measure AB 645, which in 2023 authorized a pilot program for speed cameras in a handful of California cities including Los Angeles, as “a tool the city could be implementing — it’s speed safety systems.”

In a perfect illustration of just how unserious the city is about ending traffic deaths, CD 13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez was the only member of the city government who bothered to show up.

But hey, Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement.

No, wait. Her office did.

Apparently Mayor Bass had better things to do.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office said in a statement that Bass, who took office in December 2022, “has made street safety a priority by accelerating the implementation of hundreds of new speed humps, signage and intersection treatments which help ensure drivers are traveling slowly and with control near schools. Vision Zero started in 2015 and requires intensive coordination across departments.”

The office pointed to Bass’ October 2024 executive directive to facilitate street repairs, clean parks and infrastructure and city services enhancements ahead of the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympic Games in L.A.

So, evidently, we need a World Cup or Olympic Games to justify saving human lives.

Oh, and clean parks.

Got it.

Kevitt had one parting comment for The Times: “Don’t use the word traffic ‘accident’ when writing about this,” he said.

“In the road safety arena, it’s ‘crash’ or ‘collision,’” he said. “ ‘Accident’ implies non-responsibility. It’s just an ‘oops.’ But when you’re driving drunk or distracted, that’s a choice. If you hit and kill or severely injure someone, it’s not an ‘oops.’ We’re trying to say: This is preventable.”

There’s a lot more to the article, and it’s worth a few minutes to read the other comments from people who have lost loved ones. Or fear exactly that.

Particularly since the Times appears to be the only media source that even bothered to cover it.

Evidently, our deadly streets are no more important to the people who report on them than they are to the people we elect to fix them.

Looks like the joke’s on us.

Because nothing will ever change until city leaders care enough to do something about it.

And the media, and the people, care enough to hold them to it.

………

Good question.

Circling the News asks how LA County expects to build a subway under the Sepulveda Pass if it takes three years to even repair a washed out bridge on the beach bike path.

Or fix the noxious “poop spray” fouling it, for that matter.

………

Former NFL star Marshawn Lynch is one of us, riding a Lime ebike across Seattle for Sunday’s game between the Rams and the Seahawks.

Which did not end well for the Rams.

https://twitter.com/Schultz_Report/status/2015554538099605571

Then again, my beloved Broncos finished a broken ankle and a snow storm short of the Super Bowl, too.

………

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

No bias here. A Scottish city lived up — or maybe down — to its reputation as “hostile to anyone outside of a car” by scrapping plans for a bike lane through the town center because it would put the “economic vitality” of the town “at serious risk” due to the loss of six whole parking spaces. Yes, six. Never mind that studies have repeatedly shown sales go up when protected bike lanes go down.

An Irish writer says anyone who thinks bikes should be registered is “deeply unserious or misguided.” No, seriously. Tell us what you really think. 

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

A British man is charged with careless bicycling after crashing into a woman when he tried to pass her on a pathway, but he says it was the woman who stepped into his path.

………

Local 

Bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd, Fairfax Ave and San Vicente Blvd in West Hollywood are getting a fresh coat of Kermit, with a shade of green specially formulated to enhance safety without overly annoying Hollywood filmmakers.

LAist examines Long Beach’s Vision Zero failure, as traffic deaths in the beachside city climb to their highest level in a decade. Although the public radio website may require your email address to read it. 

 

State

Solana Beach will use a $300,000 state grant to help fund a $1.075 million extension of San Diego County’s Coastal Rail Trail to the Encinitas border.

Megan forwards news that a UC Santa Barbara student bike committee has secured $1.4 million to build a new bike path on campus.

In a surprising example of rationality, researchers at San José State University say the state’s ebike problem may actually be an e-motorbike problem.

What a long, strange trip it wasn’t. A local leader of San Francisco’s World Naked Bike Ride was arrested when he and several other people showed up naked for a tribute to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, in the mistaken assumption their bare bodies would be seen as a tribute to the band.

A Manteca resident claims the honor of being the only person to ever kick Greg LeMond out of a bike race — when America’s last remaining Tour de France winner was 14.

 

National

Your next ebike could get a whopping 600 mile range on a single charge.

A homeless man in Florida was been convicted of 2nd degree murder in the death of a 14-year old boy who disappeared while on a bike ride in 2021 — even though the judge had ordered an emergency mental health evaluation days earlier after a bizarre, rambling statement on the stand by the man, who had been ruled competent to stand trial despite a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

 

International

Cycling Weekly talks with a woman who used riding her bike through the Scottish Highlands as an escape from a difficult marriage, then rode through her bereavement, and used riding to recover from an illness that cost her 60% of her lung function.

A new study shows that Britain’s “transformational” Place to Ride program has saved the country’s National Health Service the equivalent of nearly $18 million, while resulting in $136 million in ‘social value’ across the UK.

The Republic of Ireland is considering a proposal to mandate compulsory bike helmet use and hi-viz clothing for all bicyclists and e-scooter users. Even though other helmet mandates have been show to reduce head injuries mainly by reducing riding rates, while preventing children from even learning how to ride. And if hi-viz was the answer, no one would ever crash into a fire hydrant, road sign or emergency vehicle. 

Parts of the Netherlands are banning the heavy, fat-tired electric bikes they call fat bikes, and we would call electric motorbikes.

A team of British club riders are following the route taken by the Prophet Muhammad from Makkah to Madinah in Saudi Arabia over 1,400 years ago to raise funds to fight pediatric heart defects.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 94-year New Zealand man who survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Holland will attempt to set a new age-group hour record, after already exceeding the record time on his own.

 

Competitive Cycling

In what has to be one of the most bizarre endings ever to a WorldTour race, Aussie Jay Vine won the Tour Down Under stage rage on Sunday — but only after getting knocked down when a pair of kangaroos hopped through the peloton, crashing into several cyclists, and forcing three riders out of the race; Vine rejoined the stage after switching bikes, but one of the kangaroos had to be put down.

https://twitter.com/SBSSportau/status/2015295885203165577

 

Finally…

That feeling when a self-driving car parks in a bike lane, and the company tries to blame the driver. Or when an F1 star takes part in a gravel ride wearing only a banana hammock.

And of course a certain Pasadena kid grew up to be one of us.

Rocker Eddie Van Halen takes a spin on a mountain bike in 1989#BicycleBirthdayJanuary 26 (1955-2020)

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T05:22:46.323Z

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

 

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

Long Beach traffic deaths doubled since 2015; LADOT installed pathetic 30 lane miles of bikeways, ignores Vision Zero

January 22, 2026 / / Comments Off on Long Beach traffic deaths doubled since 2015; LADOT installed pathetic 30 lane miles of bikeways, ignores Vision Zero

Welcome to our world.

Traffic fatalities in Long Beach have more than doubled in the ten years since the city vowed to eliminate traffic deaths within a decade, rising to the highest level in the last ten years.

That corresponds with the City of Los Angeles, which adopted a Vision Zero program that promised to end traffic deaths by last year.

And you know how that worked out.

Now LA’s Vision Zero is a forgotten program, trotted out only when the city wants to assure us that they are really, truly doing something to reduce traffic violence, without actually holding themselves accountable for it.

Like Los Angeles, most of Long Beach’s traffic deaths have been inflicted on people who weren’t encased in a couple tons of steel and glass.

According to the Long Beach Post story in the above link,

Their greatest toll has been on people outside of cars. Last year, 32 people were killed while walking, biking or riding an e-scooter. That eclipses the number of people murdered here last year: 29.

At least in LA, it’s only the total number of traffic deaths that exceeds the city’s murders.

Photo by Zariflavin from Pexels.

………

LADOT has released their 2026 Annual Report, touting their usual list of successes for the past year, modest though they may be.

Including a rather underwhelming, if not pathetic, total of 31 lane miles of new bikeways installed during the last fiscal year. Which includes 1.3 lane miles of sharrows, which studies have shown are literally worse than nothing.

So make it a little less than 30 miles.

And since lane miles count each side of the roadway separately, that amounts to less than 15 miles out of the city’s 6,642 miles of city streets.

Just 0.23 percent.

I also challenge you to find a single mention of Vision Zero anywhere in the report.

If you can, you’re a better reader than I am.

………

Interesting idea.

An Idaho legislator is trying to close a loophole in the law, after a judge dismissed a case where a driver hit an ebike rider.

According to the judge, the law in Idaho defines a bicycle as a “human-powered” vehicle, and it wasn’t clear to his or her honor if an ebike is actually human powered.

And that’s the problem. Some ebikes are human powered with an electrical assist, while others are strictly throttle controlled, or a combination thereof.

So defining an ebike as human powered could be the solution to the current dilemma of cities cracking down on ped-assist ebike riders for the problems caused by people on electric motorbikes and dirt bikes.

Something which was made clear by New Jersey’s new law that requires a driver’s license and registration to ride even the slowest ped-assist bike.

Meanwhile, Vermont legislators say the state’s ebike laws can’t keep up with technical advances leading to ebikes that can easily exceed the state’s 28 mph limit.

………

We mentioned last month that you can, in fact, use an HSA/FSA — Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account — to buy an new bicycle or ebike, as well as bike gear, using pretax dollars, resulting in an average savings of 30%.

Now Marvin forwards word that Trumed will be the source you’ll have to use.

He adds,

The reason I really like this is because it supports the middle class. if I was poor, I could get help purchasing an e-bike. If I was rich, I could get help purchasing an EV. Finally, with FSA/HSA benefits, I can finally qualify for something that helps me.

The only downside I see is that no one can establish a new or add to an existing FSA/HSA until Nov 2026.

………

Streets Are For Everyone will hold a die-in on the steps of City Hall this Saturday to protest the unacceptable level of traffic violence in this city.

In 2025 alone, 286 people were killed on our streets — deaths that were preventable.

This Saturday, SAFE and partner nonprofits will gather to honor lives lost and demand action after a decade-old City pledge to eliminate traffic deaths was missed.

4th Annual Die-In for Safer Streets
📍 LA City Hall Steps, 232 N. Spring Street
🕙 Saturday, January 24 | 10:00–11:00 AM

Signing up is appreciated, but walk-ups to the event without signing up are also welcome.

Lives are on the line. Inaction is no longer acceptable.

………

Streets for All invites you to register for all their upcoming mobility debates/discussions this month.

………

Local 

The LA Chinatown Firecracker will be back for the 48th consecutive year on weekend of February 28-March 1, marking the lunar new year with running, walking, bicycling and dog walking events.

Glendale is very slowly moving forward with plans for the Glendale-Los Angeles Garden River Bridge Project, a landscaped bridge, currently in the environmental review stage, connecting with Griffith Park across the LA River.

Santa Monica police will conduct yet another bicycle and pedestrian safety operation tomorrow, as usual, ticketing anyone who commits a violation that endangers either one — even if you’re only endangering yourself, at least in their eyes.

 

State

A San Diego bike shop owner is still trying to cope with Trump’s tariffs, after a near year of uncertainty.

Residents of San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood are calling for safety improvements following the death of six-year old Hudson O’Laughlin, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he and his family were riding bikes on the sidewalk — even though all the previous traffic calming measures introduced in recent years were removed following complaints from residents.

A travel website says Northern California’s Forest of Nisene Marks State Park is “a rather secluded and uncrowded haven” for hiking or biking surrounded by towering redwoods.

 

National

A nine-year old Washington State boy got a new bicycle from a local group after his broke down, nominated for his leadership and friendship to others — and he immediately named it for his favorite soccer star.

A Texas family is coping with the grief of losing a baby by attempting a long-distance bike ride to raise funds to support families facing high-risk pregnancies. Although how long they consider long-distance isn’t clear.

That’s more like it. Students, faculty and employees of Cincinnati’s Xavier University can now use the city’s bikeshare system for free.

 

International

Road.cc recommends the year’s best road bikes.

Cyclist offers recommendations on the best insulated water bottles. Which I misread as “the best insulted water bottles,” which would make for a much more interesting article.

Tragic news from Peru, where 29-year old Florian Berg was killed by lightening on Saturday when the German climate activist was caught in a severe thunderstorm in the Andes, after more than a year spent riding around the world.

Next City says Victoria, British Columbia is one of the best bike cities not traditionally known for it, after tripling its rate of bicycling in just 11 years. Although they can’t seem to spell Victoria correctly. Or British, for that matter. 

A Scotsman resigned from the rat race, quitting his high-stress job as a communications director for a renewable energy company for a much calmer career fixing bicycles. As I know all too well after a career in advertising, the problem with the rat race is the rats usually win. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Denmark’s Tobias Lund Andresen outsprinted the sprinters to win the first stage of the Tour Down Under.

Bike Radar asked the pros at the Tour Down Under how to make pro cycling safer, and was told the solution is slower bikes and safer courses.

The first stage of India’s Tour of Pune was temporarily halted due to a crash involving around 30 riders; fortunately, no one was seriously injured, though three riders were forced to withdraw.

French cyclist Simeon Sebastien Green is still competing at twice the age of many his competitors.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you’re a legendary British DJ, and the best bike ride of your life started in West Hollywood. Or when the local golf club is infested with ebikes of the non-bicycle variety.

And waxing eloquent about a blue touring bike bought on an informed impulse — for the equivalent of just 270 bucks.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

NY congestion pricing works while LA keeps studying…and studying, and making a moral commitment to human life

January 6, 2026 / / Comments Off on NY congestion pricing works while LA keeps studying…and studying, and making a moral commitment to human life

Congestion pricing works.

Despite predictions that it would make Manhattan a ghost town, after a full year in place, New York’s congestion pricing is working according to plan.

The program, which charges $9 a car for each trip into the city’s Central Business District, has raised $700 million in tolls in its first year. The money has gone to support transit, including upgrades to subway lines and station, as well as Metro bus lines.

At the same time, vehicle entries into the district have dropped, although the void was quickly filled by ride-hailing vehicles. Foot traffic is up. Pollution levels have dropped across all five boroughs, bus speeds have increased slightly, and both collisions and traffic injuries dropped.

As Charles Komanoff put it in Vital City,

Before the first-in-the-nation plan went into effect on Jan. 5, 2025, proponents promised that the policy would bring entrenched Manhattan gridlock to heel, while foes predicted far-reaching economic and environmental harm. Gov. Kathy Hochul, fearing electoral consequences, delayed its implementation. The then-incoming Trump administration promised to kill the program in the crib…

But, contra the sky-will-fall predictions, congestion pricing is producing no noticeable social injury. Manhattan businesses haven’t fled. The city’s economy hasn’t contracted. Putative spillover areas like the South Bronx aren’t seeing more trucks and dirtier air. Mirabile dictu: the birth of a major public policy initiative has been attended by little if any disruption.

Those same benefits could accrue right here in Los Angeles, including the possibility of free transit, if Metro hadn’t backed down on this city’s congestion pricing proposal.

Instead, we did what LA does best, conducting yet another study instead of actually doing anything.

That was five years ago.

It will be another two years before we can expect it to be completed. If ever.

Maybe someone can explain why it takes seven full years to conduct one damn study.

But even then, if and when they actually complete the study, does anyone really believe the spineless Metro board will somehow find the courage to stand up to LA’s infamous angry drivers.

And if you thought the whole Playa del Rey road diet fiasco pissed local drivers off, just wait until they have to pay a toll to enter certain parts of the city or use specific roadways.

Thanks to Megan for the video. 

Photo by Kaboompics from Pexels. 

………

He gets it.

The VP of the Napa County Bicycle Coalition Board of Directors considers Vision Zero, and choosing safety over speed and convenience.

Some may dismiss Vision Zero as being uniquely achievable in Europe given different cultures. But here in the U.S., Hoboken, New Jersey — a city of almost 60,000 with a Vision Zero approach — has recently had a seven-year streak with literally zero traffic fatalities.

And Hoboken is no outlier; many U.S. jurisdictions have adopted Vision Zero policies. Napa County happens to be one of them. But as noted in a recent Washington Post investigation, Vision Zero policies are meaningless without moral commitment to making human life paramount and without commensurate political and economic investment in proven life-saving infrastructure and systems.

Which is exactly why it failed so miserably here in Los Angeles, where traffic deaths are higher now than they ten eleven years ago when it became official city policy.

Never mind that traffic deaths were finally supposed to be a thing of the past over a year ago. Or that the most recent Vision Zero news on the city’s website is nearly three years old.

There was no moral commitment from our elected leaders, let alone the political and economic investment necessary to make it work.

Or the courage to actually implement it

So we continue to sacrifice innocent lives to the almighty motor vehicle god.

And will, for the foreseeable future.

………

A horrific story from Kansas, where a 47-year old man faces charges in two separate states after leading police to the body of a 13-year old boy last month.

The boy was found dumped at the bottom of a steep Missouri ravine, a day after he had disappeared while riding his bike to a neighbor’s home half an hour away in Kansas.

An autopsy showed he had died of dog bites.

The suspect faces a charge of abandoning a corpse in Missouri, and interfering with law enforcement, criminal desecration, and allowing a vicious dog to run at large in Kansas.

Sadly, it’s not hard to read between the lines.

Especially if you’ve ever been chased by an angry dog.

Let alone caught by one.

………

Rush hour looks a little different in the Netherlands.

And not just because of the snow.

The Utrecht morning rush hour in the snow did not disappoint!

— BicycleDutch (@bicycledutch.bsky.social) 2026-01-05T07:26:33.292Z

………

This is why you don’t park in bike lanes.

I just wish they’d do that here.

………

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

A writer for Road.cc says it may be a new year, but Britain’s Daily Mail is still trotting out the same old “anti-cycling ragebait,” accusing riders of routinely breaking a pathway’s 12 mph speed limit. Although it beats being accused of being repulsive to women because of your bikewear.

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

Yesterday, we mentioned that London bike riders caught running red lights will have the option of paying the equivalent of a $67 fine or watching a video of a bike rider getting hit by a bus after jumping one; today we learned that the video is of a woman who voluntarily agreed to share it as a warning to others.

………

Local 

In an apparent example of legal redundancy, Manhattan Beach now requires any ebikes ridden in the city to have a rear reflector or flashing red light, something that is already required under state law. Never mind that only the state has the legal authority to regulate vehicle equipment, including for bicycles, motorbikes — and yes, ebikes.

 

State

Sad news from Bakersfield, where a 44-year old woman was killed by a driver while riding her bicycle on a highway offramp; police excused the driver by blaming poor lighting and the position of the victim on the roadway.

More bad news, this time from San Jose, where a man died more than two weeks after he was struck by a driver while riding an ebike.

Still more sad news comes from Vallejo, where a man was killed when he somehow lost control and crashed his bicycle; police said there didn’t appear to be any other vehicles involved. Although there’s all kinds of things that can make someone lose control of a bike, from potholes and loose gravel to a too-close pass from a distracted driver. 

 

National

Cycling Weekly marks the passing of Cannondale founder Joe Montgomery, crediting him with changing the bicycle industry by introducing aluminum tubing — along with bankrupting the company with an ill-advised entry into motocross. Although I want to know more about that mid-’90s rollerblade bike.

 

International

A writer for Bike Radar lists ten things he wished he know when he started riding, so you can avoid making the same mistakes. Although in retrospect, I wish I’d skipped the carbon bike and stuck with steel if I couldn’t afford Ti.

Bike theft is virtually legal at UK rail stations, where just 0.5% of bike thefts ever resulted in charges.

Former pro cyclist Marius du Preez plans a 4,300-mile solo bike trip across Africa to raise funds for vulnerable children, camping under the stars amid “lions, leopards, hyenas and elephants.”

A Vietnamese architect says the country should follow the example of bike-friendly Singapore, and not settle for a single bike lane in Ho Chi Minh City.

A 27-year old Aussie man is suing the former premier of Victoria province for defamation, as well as ongoing injuries, a dozen years after he was struck by the ex-premier’s wife while riding a bike; she claimed he crashed into her car after she came to a complete stop, which seems kinda unbelievable given the extent of his injuries and the damage to her windshield.

 

Competitive Cycling

It seems like the pro cycling season just ended last week, yet the WorldTour is already ready to kick off the 2026 season with the Tour Down Under on January 20th through the 25th.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your local bikeway turns into a “raised snake of tarmac goo.” How to scam bikemakers out of $50,000 worth of bikes by pretending to be a YouTube influencer.

And maybe it can be a real crosswalk after it graduates.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Road rage driver shoots at Italian cycling team, jerk blows vape at ‘cross racer, and LAPD still keeping us all in the dark

December 23, 2025 / / One comment
Day 357 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

It’s the last 2 days of the 11th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to Ed for his generous support to help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day!

But time is quickly running out, with just three two short days left to give.

So what the hell are you waiting for?

Just stop what you’re doing, and donate right now with just a few clicks through PayPal or Venmo, or via Zelle to ted@bikinginla.com using the banking app on your smartphone.

Give now!!!

………

Good grief.

As if punishment passes and brake checks weren’t bad enough, an apparent Italian road rage driver pulled out a gun and fired off two shots at a local bike team on a training ride.

Although his marksmanship left something to be desired, thankfully.

According to Road.cc,

The shocking attack – which miraculous resulted in no injuries – took place as members of the S.C. Padovani Polo Cherry Bank team, which races in cycling’s Continental third tier, were training on the SS12 road just outside Dolcè, near Lake Garda in northern Italy on Saturday morning, as part of their pre-Christmas training camp.

Footage of the incident, shared by the team on social media, shows a BMW driver pull up alongside the seven riders as they navigate the twisting road, located in Italy’s Val d’Adige district.

According to the squad, the motorist then rolled down his window and produced a gun, before firing two shots at the cyclists. In the footage, one of the riders can be seen ducking as a shot appears to be fired. The motorist then drives off into the distance.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to embed the video, so you’ll have to click through to see it.

………

Not quite on the same level, but still demonstrating an extreme degree of assholery, is this post Megan forwarded from Mastadon, with some jerk blowing his vape pollution directly into the face of a ‘cross racer.

………

The new Golden State Report news site, founded by former LA Times Opinion writers, takes a look at something we’ve complained about all year — the LAPD’s refusal to release any information about traffic deaths.

Or any crime data, at all.

We’ve gone from open city data under former Mayor Eric Garcetti, to a near total statistical blackout under Mayor Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.

The dearth of data hinders transparency, and means members of the public have no real sense of how well crime suppression is working at the neighborhood level. They have no idea, for example, if their neighborhood is experiencing a month to month or year to year rise in burglaries or car break-ins, information they could use to demand action from their senior lead officer or help from their local council office.

It’s not just crime, either — the LAPD’s traffic collision dataset stopped updating earlier this year. While Crosstown was previously able to break down traffic deaths by neighborhood — downtown, Sun Valley and Manchester Square topped the list of fatalities in 2023 — now that can’t happen.

This is problematic in a city where vehicular deaths exceed homicides, and as Golden State just noted, the Vision Zero effort to eliminate auto-related fatalities has been an abject failure. With functioning data we could detail which neighborhoods record the most pedestrians struck, or where the highest number of DUIs occur.

Not only is it impossible to break down traffic deaths by neighborhood, we now have no idea how many people have been killed on our streets, regardless of whether they were walking, biking or driving.

Vision Zero has long been a punchline in this city. But it’s even more ridiculous, and worthless, when city officials can’t or won’t tell us what’s happening on our own streets.

It’s worth giving the whole story a read.

Even if they’re a lot more forgiving than I am, assuming the problem stems from a switch in data systems, rather than a deliberate attempt to keep us in the dark.

………

Bike Portland demonstrates that even good infrastructure is no match for bad drivers.

Because every driver is a bad driver sometimes. And some drivers are bad drivers all the time.

………

As we’ve said before, we’re not the only ones trying to raise funds before the year end, although we are the only one shamelessly exploiting a cute spokescorgi to do it.

In addition to Streetsblog LA, the East Side Rider Bike Club is trying to raise funds; no bike group does more with less to benefit their entire community in ways that go far beyond just bicycles.

And BikeLA, nee Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, is raising funds as well.

………

‘Tis the season.

Former Green Bay Packers wide receiver Tyrone Goodson hosted his 11th annual bike giveaway, passing out more than one hundred bicycles and toys to kids in Ocala, Florida.

An Arkansas Stop the Violence group is working to deliver 500 bikes to kids across the state during their annual holiday bicycle drive.

………

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

As we keep saying, the problem isn’t people on ped-assist bicycles, it’s people on bikes like the one seized by cops Key Biscayne, Florida, that was illegally modified to go 100 mph. Something tells me the rider wasn’t pedaling to go that fast, either. 

No bias here. Residents of a London borough are calling for a total ban on bikes in local parks, after a man had his ticket for exceeding the 12 mph speed limit in the park rescinded by pointing out that a) the limit is too low, b) the limit isn’t posted, and c) most bicycles don’t come with speedometers; again, riders point out that the problem isn’t people on bicycles, but the ones riding illegal electric motorbikes.

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

“Britain’s angriest cyclist” was sentenced to six weeks behind bars for a road rage incident that violated his probation for yet another road rage incident; in the most recent case, he went off at a woman walking her baby on a beachfront path after he nearly hit a dog that was running off leash, while he was already on probation for pounding on the windshield of a driver who honked at him.

A tiny Spanish village — population around 1,000 — stopped so many people for riding the wrong way in city alleys after a Christmas market blocked the main street that they had to call in reinforcements to write tickets for lines reaching 30 or more scofflaw salmon cyclists.

………

………

Local 

Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition takes a deep dive into refuting the “big lie about bikes,” aka BLAB, t,o wit “Most people don’t want to ride bikes! If we built a safe bike network, no one will use it.” Something that is demonstrably false. 

 

State

CalMatters outstanding series on the rising death toll from traffic violence on California roadways — fueled in part by the DMV routinely allowing drivers with horrifying records to continue driving — is already resulting in action in the the state legislature.

This is who we share the road with. A post office in San Diego’s Mira Mesa neighborhood was the victim of an 81-year old driver when the woman slammed her car into it for some unknown reason; several people suffered minor injuries, while one person was hospitalized. Which should once again raise the question of how old is too old to drive, but probably won’t.

A senior marketing manager for Strava was kicked to the curb after a video went viral showing her abusing and attacking restaurant workers, after she was told they wouldn’t serve her any more alcohol; she was soon arrested on a charge of public intoxication.

This, too, is who we share the road with. Waymo suspended service in San Francisco after all of their self-driving cabs stalled in the middle of traffic lanes during the city’s widespread power outage over the weekend.

 

National

Speaking of kicked to the curb, a writer for Velo is no longer working for the magazine after Instagram and Substack bike writer James Huang accused them of plagiarizing his reviews.

Police in Portland busted a serial bike thief following a months-long burglary spree, charging him with stealing 43 bicycles and other items. You have to assume those were just the ones he got caught for, too. 

The Frisco, Texas Triathlon Club is hosting a Christmas Eve run to remember the two members who were run down from behind by a pickup driver while on a group ride; they’ve also created a fundraising drive to benefit the League of American Bicyclists, which has already doubled the modest initial $2,600 goal.

New York bike lanes should be a prime beneficiary of New York’s new mayor, as outgoing Mayor Adams delays yet another bike lane, even after it was pared down.

A father in North Carolina is suing the nation’s largest hospital chain, alleging that HCA Healthcare allowed an employee to drive a large box truck without proper training, after he fled the scene following a crash that killed the man’s son as he was riding a bike.

 

International

Momentum highlights the problem of drivers blocking bike lanes, and says the solution is groups like Bike Lane Uprising.

A British man completed a nearly 7,000-mile ride from Cheshire, England to the Chinese border with Kazakhstan to raise funds for a mental health charity. No word on whether he disappeared entirely except for his smile afterwards.

No bias here, either. A shopkeeper in the UK complained about bikes blocking the doorway to his shop, when there were bike racks right in front, except he had blocked access to the bike racks with his van.

 

Finally…

Who needs a tent and sleeping bag when you can tow a full-size fiberglass camper behind your bike? The bad news is, even the fastest bike helmet won’t go any faster than you do.

And before fleeing from the cops on your bike for the eighth time, maybe try putting a damn light on it first.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

How California keeps people dying on our streets, Industry goes bike-friendly, and Torrance keeps over-regulating ebikes

December 12, 2025 / / Comments Off on How California keeps people dying on our streets, Industry goes bike-friendly, and Torrance keeps over-regulating ebikes
It’s Day 15 of the 11th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

It was a busy day here at BikinginLA World Headquarters yesterday.

Thanks to Miriam, Paul, Kurt, Samer, Andre and SAFE for their generous support to keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day! 

So what are you waiting for? There’s just 12 days left to donate, whether through PayPal, Zelle or Venmo. 

Don’t wait. Help keep the corgi in kibble, and give now!

Our spokescorgi capture how we all probably feel after finally making it to the end of this week. 

And if you find any weird uncorrected mistakes today, it’s because I kept falling asleep writing this. 

………

Cal Matters concludes their four-part deep dive into why people keep dying on our streets, with 40,000 deaths from traffic violence in California over the last decade alone, including:

  • The DMV has wide latitude to take dangerous drivers off the road. But it routinely allows drivers with extreme histories of dangerous driving to continue to operate on our roadways, where many go on to kill.
  • Speeding is one of the biggest causes of fatal crashes. For two years in a row, bills that would have required the use of speed-limiting technology on vehicles have failed. Newsom vetoed one of them.
  • California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the nation. Here, DUI-related deaths have been rising more than twice as fast as the rest of the country. But this fall, a state bill to strengthen DUI penalties was gutted at the last minute.

It’s more than worth taking the time to read, and going back over the previous installments.

Because despite Vision Zero laws throughout the state, things have only gotten worse. And they will continue to, until we finally see some long overdue major action.

………

Tiny City of Industry, which true to its name is home to far more business and warehouses than its 264 residents, is building an ambitious ten-mile long bike path spanning the entire city.

According to Streetsblog, the east-west pathway is being supported by the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments and Active SGV, with a relatively small $1.5 million grant to get things started.

The project will begin with a 1.5-mile bike path located between bike and pedestrian unfriendly Valley Blvd and the adjacent railroad tracks, a kind of project termed “rail-with-trail.”

And yes, that term is a new one on me.

………

Grace sends word that Torrance will consider tightening its overregulation of ebikes at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, once again lumping ped-assist bicycles together with illegal electric motorbikes as it cracks down on anything with a battery.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Times letter writer says Hermosa Beach’s ebike culture has gone off the rails, and parents need to be held accountable.

………

‘Tis the season.

Burbank Bike Angels held their annual display at Burbank City Hall to show off dozens of newly refurbished bicycles that will be donated to local nonprofits to distribute to children in need in time for the holidays; the project has donated more than 3,200 bicycles since it’s 2008 founding.

Lancaster gave away ten new bicycles and helmets to kids as part of its tree lighting ceremony.

The Sheriff of San Luis Obispo County thanked everyone involved in the country bicycle distribution program, which accepts used bicycles to be refurbished by inmates at the Sheriff’s Honor Farm and given to kids in need; last year, the program gave away more than 300 bikes.

Inmates at California’s Folsom State Prison’s donated 150 refurbished bikes for children and others in need through their annual bicycle refurbishing program.

Over 400 Philadelphia bike riders turned out for the city’s 13th annual Holiday Lights Ride.

Students in a South Carolina school district donated 233 bicycles to be given to kids in need, a 45% increase over the previous year.

A Louisiana lawyer hosted his annual bike giveaway in the state capital of Baton Rouge, with LSU football players on hand to help give away over 100 bicycles.

………

BikeLA invites you to join them for the Echo Park Community Parade tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/heybikela/status/1998521205780001183

………

………

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

No bias here. The UK’s Ministry of Defense is defending itself against accusations of pettiness for fencing off a lousy 50-foot section of pathway in Fife, Scotland, blocking completion of new path for kids walking and biking to school. After all, you never know when one of those seven-year olds could be spying for the reds.

………

Local 

LAist offers everything you need to know about the two-day CicLAvia-style open streets event in Camino City Terrace this weekend.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton considers what’s so awful about the city’s attempt to weasel out of its obligations to build bike lanes under measure HLA and the Americans with Disabilities act by renaming repaving projects “Large Asphalt Repair.”

 

State

Yes, I’m still peeved — to put it mildly — that the state just announced $1.1 billion in new funding for zero-emission transportation and infrastructure, yet somehow can’t manage to come up with one dime to revive the CA Ebike Incentive Program murdered by CARB.

Like Los Angeles, San Diego pledged ten years ago to end traffic deaths, only to see them increase.

Santa Barbara County pedestrians and bicyclists are being asked to identify traffic calming measures to help train artificial intelligence for the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments AI Bike Map Project.

Calbike shares four strategies that helped pass buffered bike lanes on Hollenbeck Ave in Sunnyvale.

Thanks to Megan for sending news that the Davis Halloween Zombie Bike Parade raised $10,000 to help buy adaptive bikes for kids with special needs.

 

National

Happy birthday to Adventure Cycling, which is celebrating its 50th year of helping bike tourists get out on the road.

Trek is recalling all their 2026 Domane+ ALR 5, Domane+ ALR 6 AXS, Checkpoint+ SL 6 and Checkpoint+ SL 7 ebikes because the bolts securing the chainring could come loose, which could cause it to fall off while you’re riding. That sounds bad. Is that bad? It sounds bad.

A local website recounts the early history of bicycling in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood, proof that the city has always been popular with the two-wheel crowd.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that doctors can be held liable for prescribing  medication to a patient who abused drugs, and killed a woman riding a bicycle while driving under the influence.

A 68-year old Wisconsin bike rider was killed by the driver of a snowplow attached to privately owned pickup truck; authorities wasted little time blaming the victim for riding on a dark street, in dark clothes, with “minimal reflective equipment” on his bike.

A jury in Flint, Michigan awarded a $3.7 million judgement to a man who was hit by a cop doing 79 mph without lights and siren, but found the victim 49% liable for riding drunk, with a BAC nearly three times the legal limit.

This is the cost of traffic violence. New York philanthropist Geoffrey Radbill was killed when a minivan driver rear-ended the bicycle he was riding; Radbill, who had donated to a new center at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University and raised funds to combat multiple sclerosis, was 78.

 

International

Cycling Electric recommends the best ebike accessories of the past year, for that ebike rider on your secret Santa list. Assuming the gear is sold here, that is. 

A Canadian website talks with a St. John’s, Newfoundland transportation advocate about what it would mean to build a city that was actually safe for kids, instead of one built around cars and the people in them.

No surprise here. A new survey of Londoners reveals that the one thing that would get more people to ride a is safer drivers. That would probably get more Angelenos on bikes, too. 

British Olympic hero Sir Chris Hoy suffered a broken leg in a mountain biking crash, in what he termed the worst crash he’d ever been involved in; the 47-year old retired cyclist is already dealing with a terminal prostate cancer diagnosis.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 100-year old man in Seongnam, South Korea still rides his bike 25 to 30 miles a day every weekend, after not taking up riding until his 80s. And judging by the photo accompanying the story, he looks younger than I do.

 

Competitive Cycling

Italian race bikemaker Factor says long stems and slammed saddles could be causing the uptick in crashes. Speaking which, they claim their aggressive new  Factor One is the world’s fastest UCI-legal road bike.

 

Finally…

That feeling when Mary and Joseph kneel at the manger, while baby Jesus escapes the movies in a bike-riding kid’s backpack.

And nope. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got this time.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

52-year old man riding bicycle killed in Oceanside collision Saturday night; driver remained at the scene

December 10, 2025 / / Comments Off on 52-year old man riding bicycle killed in Oceanside collision Saturday night; driver remained at the scene

A man riding a bicycle was killed in Oceanside on Saturday.

And every single news report got the story wrong. Because the victim wasn’t struck by an SUV.

He was hit and killed by someone driving one.

According to multiple sources, the 52-year old man was struck by the driver around 10:42 pm Saturday at 314 South Harbor Drive, near the Oceanside Harbor.

The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was airlifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla suffering from a severe head injury, as well as a compound fracture of his upper thigh.

He was pronounced dead after arriving.

The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators, who don’t suspect drug or alcohol use played a role in crash.

There’s no information at this time on how the collision occurred, or if the victim was wearing a helmet. This is one of the few times when that might have mattered, since we know he suffered a head injury, although we don’t know if that was his cause of death.

Anyone with information is urged to call Traffic Investigator Gomez of the Oceanside Police Department’s Major Accident Investigation Team at 760/435-4952.

This is at least the 54th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 13th that I’m aware of in San Diego County.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones. 

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , ,

Bike rider killed in South LA hit-and-run, Calbike calls for LA River path completion, and bizarre Pedal Ahead apologia

November 13, 2025 / / 2 comments
Day 317 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

KNBC-4 reported late last night that someone riding a bicycle was killed by a motorcyclist in a South LA hit-and-run.

According to the station, the crash happened around 7:30 pm at Vernon and Stanford.

Unfortunately, the story hasn’t been posted online, and that’s all we know right now. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.

………

About damn time.

Calbike says there’s no time to waste to reach out to your Los Angeles County Supervisor, and demand completion of the LA River Bike Path by 2028.

Don’t let Metro miss our last chance to finish the LA River bike path by 2028.

LA Metro has approximately $400 million to complete the LA River bike path through central Los Angeles. Approved by voters in 2016 as part of Measure M, the funding is more than enough to build an in-channel path in the entire 8-mile gap from Arroyo Seco to Vernon. If completed by 2028 as predicted in Metro’s original schedule, the LA River bike path will connect Olympic venues as part of the Festival Trail and provide safe and affordable transportation to the residents who need it most. It will be transformative.

Unfortunately, LA Metro has only considered “above channel” versions of the path that cost $1.1 billion, $700 million more than is available. They have not identified additional funding and have said in public meetings they will not deliver the path by the summer of 2028.

You can change that by helping to get Metro to approve the following two decisions.

Adopt the in-channel design that can be built with available funds. Except for a few weeks each year in the rainy season, it would give Angelenos an amazing river-level experience and a transportation facility that is especially valuable to low-income residents.

Create a Joint Powers Authority dedicated solely to delivering the project by 2028. Independent agencies focused exclusively on specific projects with the power to build and maintain the infrastructure are proven nationwide to expedite construction.

The Metro Board has only one more meeting in 2025. There is no time to waste. Right now, contact your Los Angeles County Supervisor, in their capacity as an LA Metro Board member, and ask them to support the change to an in-channel design and create a Joint Powers Authority.

That project was originally part of the vaunted Twenty-Eight by ’28 list of transportation projects to be completed before the world comes to Los Angeles for the ’28 Olympics.

That is, until Metro decided it was just too hard to get done in that timeline, and replaced it, along with a number of other projects.

Just one more example of the agency’s lack of commitment and follow-through when it comes to bikes and transportation.

………

For once, I don’t even know what to say.

Malcomb forwards an absolutely bizarre Twitter/X post from San Diego’s Pedal Ahead defending their role in the now-defunct California Ebike Incentive Program.

Let’s blow that up a little more so you can read it.

 

Not mentioned is that some of those “multiple audits, financial review,” et al, were due to alleged misconduct and reputed state and criminal investigations.

Or that the founder of Pedal Ahead was allegedly forced out as operator of the ebike program.

The San Diego nonprofit may be proud of the job they did, but most observers considered the program deeply flawed, if not a total disaster.

I believe the term I used after enduring the failed first round was “shitshow.”

Which makes their post, in the words of the Bard, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

………

We mentioned this one earlier, but it’s worth repeating as the story is circulating again.

The Associated Press wrote last week that California isn’t strongly punishing DUIs, even as alcohol-related traffic deaths increased.

The AP kindly listed exactly the reasons for that, in bite-sized, easy to digest chunks.

  • California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment.
  • The state gives repeat drunk drivers their licenses back faster than other states.
  • Even when the state does take their license, many drivers stay on the road for years — racking up more tickets or new DUIs — with few consequences until they eventually kill.
  • Courts and lawmakers don’t treat DUI deaths as violent crimes.
  • California has fallen behind on a simple solution embraced by many other states: in-car breathalyzers.
  • Despite the mounting death toll, state leaders have shown little willingness to address the issue.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why people keep dying on our streets.

And why every Vision Zero program enacted in the state has failed.

Thanks to Steven for the heads-up. 

………

A YouTuber examines the disconnected Ohio Ave bike lanes to nowhere, while urging you to take the survey to help improve them.

Meanwhile, the UCLA Bicycle Academy weighs in on long overdue plans to improve safety on Ohio and Westwood Blvd.

………

Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette reminds us about the need to maximize your uninsured motorist coverage on your car insurance, to ensure you’re protected if you’re injured by a driver with the minimal coverage mandated by the state.

Ted, Im so tired of seeing the bicyclist victims going uncompensated in bad crashes.

I now have a couple of said cases. I also reviewed another case, after a hit & run. Low insurance limits again. It’s just not that much more money if you’re bicycling the mean streets to buy big limits of UM/UIM coverage. But I know money is tight for many I get it. But a while ago, I read an article in the WSJ that said 4.9 Million Motorists are either Uninsured or Underinsured in CA.

Duquette more fully addressed the matter in an earlier blog post, which is more than worth reading again.

You know, in case you meet one of those 4.9 million uninsured or underinsured motorists on the road.

………

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

Members of the Arlington, Virginia Bicycle Advisory Committee are in open revolt against the county manger, complaining that the committee no longer serves a clear purpose after the county cut back on its responsibilities.

No bias here. Berlin, Germany has been backpedaling on bicycling since a conservative government took over two years ago, cutting back on bike-friendly policies and infrastructure, and turning back the clock to a more car-focused time.

………

Local 

She gets it. The founder of H.A.R.D., aka Hit-And-Run Deaths, explains why Sunday’s World Day of Remembrance for the victims of traffic violence matters, eight years after her 15-year old grandson was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike in Natomas.

The Eastsider says plans are starting to come into focus for a $10.5 million Complete Streets remake of Huntington Drive through El Sereno, including dedicated bus lanes and protected bike lanes, with two traffic lanes in each direction, a thin median, and wider sidewalks.

 

State

A writer on the San Francisco Peninsula makes the case for why ebike bans are unenforceable, from federal regulations to the fact that there’s nothing to prevent anyone from claiming their ebike is a mobility device.

 

National

American bicyclists are urged to take action, as a new federal transportation bill threatens to zero out all bicycle funding as it shovels federal money into highways.

A 29-year old man is suing Salt Lake City and a local cop, accusing the officer of a blindside tackle during a popular bike ride, resulting in torn ligaments in both knees; the cop accused him of fleeing after he told a group of riders he was going to cite them for traffic violations, but the plaintiff says he didn’t think the officer was talking to him, and simply rode off when the light changed.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Texas man rode his bike 75 miles to celebrate his 75th birthday.

Wisconsin is finally getting around to officially recognizing its part of the 3,000-mile Mississippi River Trail, which follows the river from Minnesota through Louisiana, about a quarter century after the other states did.

Once again, Chicago bike riders rolled through the city’s Hispanic neighborhoods buying out the stock of street vendors, so they could go home and be safe from ICE. Thanks to Megan for the link.

A 64-year old Massachusetts man discusses what it was like to ride 4,800 miles across the US, including “about 40 flat tires.”

Livability recommends three regions to explore if you ever ride in Virginia.

Sad news from Florida, where an 82-year old man was killed by a left-turning driver while riding salmon on an ebike.

 

International

Momentum explains just what cities lose when they fail to build or remove bike lanes, from declining local business revenue to rising collision rates and danger to pedestrians.

A writer for Cycling Weekly says he just felt lost after misplacing his bike computer.

After spending a week in Copenhagen, aka the world’s happiest city, a writer for Business Insider provides five lessons for the US, starting with the positive effect an emphasis on biking and walking can have.

If you build it, they will come. Bicycling rates in Paris have doubled in just the last year, thanks to the city’s commitment to building new bicycling infrastructure, and is continuing to trend upward.

A German couple rode their bikes nearly 5,000 miles to Busan, South Korea, discovering along the way how connected everything is.Which is good, because if it wasn’t connected they might have fallen off. 

A native of the Netherlands questions whether she will ever ride a bike again after getting hit by drivers twice since moving to Australia five years ago.

 

Competitive Cycling

A writer for Cycling News discusses what it’s like to cover Tadej Pogačar, from “his quirks to his brutal honesty.”

The Athletic drops their paywall for an interview with Wout van Aert, as he discusses what it’s like to drop Pogačar, and what pro cycling can learn from the NBA.

You can forget adding ‘cross to the 2030 Winter Olympics.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a car maker can’t tell the difference between a cargo bike and a horse and buggy. Or when you’re accused of wearing a condom coat.

And you can now add this helmet-holding turtle to your holiday wish list.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Judge dismisses bid to drop PCH murder counts; and felony hit-and-run charges in crash that injured CD5 staffer, killed dog

November 12, 2025 / / Comments Off on Judge dismisses bid to drop PCH murder counts; and felony hit-and-run charges in crash that injured CD5 staffer, killed dog
Day 316 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

I somehow neglected to wish a happy Veterans Day yesterday to all those who have served this county. So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels: 

………

Let’s start with the alleged Malibu mass murderer accused of using a weapon of mass destruction.

A car, in other words.

Because the judge handling the case against 24-year old Fraser Bohm in the deaths of four Pepperdine sorority sisters on PCH two year ago denied a defense motion to have the four felony murder charges dismissed.

LA County Superior Court Judge Thomas Rubinson ruled that Bohm knew, or should have known, that driving more than 100 mph “had a high degree of probability of causing death.”

Partly because Bohm had told police investigators after the crash that two of his friends had died in high-speed crashes.

Data from his car’s airbags showed he was doing 104 mph when he lost control of his BMW on the bend known locally as Dead Man’s Curve, crashing into three parked cars and slamming them into the four young women as they walked on the shoulder of the road.

Just four more victims of SoCal’s killer highway.

Rubinson also rejected Bohm’s defense that he was fleeing from a road raging driver, saying there was no evidence of a second car chasing him. Something that would have logically shown up on at least one of the many security cams along the celebrity-studded street.

According to the story from the Los Angeles Times, the murder charges were “based on the concept of implied malice, suggesting a conscious disregard for human life.”

The ruling means there’s enough evidence to proceed to trial on all four counts of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

………

Next up is news that two people have been charged in the hit-and-run that nearly killed Thao Tran, a staffer for CD5 Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, and took the life of her corgi, Kobe.

Twentynine-year old Koreatown resident Ana Larasalguero turned herself into police hours after the 8:30 am crash on Sunday, October 5th, as Tran and her dog were crossing were crossing Eight Street at Cloverdale Ave.

Larasalguero was charged with felony counts of hit and run driving resulting in injury to another person, and cruelty to an animal. As was the passenger in her car, Josue Santiago, her longtime boyfriend, who allegedly switched places with Larasalguero and fled the scene after the crash.

The Beverly Press also reports that Tran is already back at work, despite her injuries.

Tran, who serves as Yaroslavsky’s business development deputy, was taken to a hospital after the collision with multiple fractures. Yaroslavsky’s spokesman Leo Daube said on Nov. 5 Tran has returned to work.

“Thao is recovering well from her physical injuries and is expected to make a full recovery. But this accident has undoubtedly changed her life forever,” Daube said. “She’s focused on healing and moving forward, and our office is supporting her in every way we can.”

As I’ve said before, my wife and I both know Tran and consider her a friend, and we loved Kobe, as did virtually everyone who met him.

My heart and prayers go out to her, while recognizing that her bones will heal long before her heart does.

But hopefully these charges are just the first step towards justice for them both. As long as the LA DA’s office doesn’t bargain them away.

………

I want to elevate this comment from Ohio Bike Lawyer Steve Magas, co-author with Bob Mionske of the groundbreaking book on the rights of bicyclists, Bicycling & the Law: Your Rights as a Cyclist. 

Magas was responding to yesterday’s criticism of a report on US bicycling deaths, which was so incoherent that a bunch of trained monkeys could probably have done a better job.

Sheesh. As a math guy who went to law school and who has studied crash/death numbers for some decades now this really drives me crazy. This looks like a law firm trolling for “bike” cases that took some random advice from a web site development firm that said “we’ll create some clever, catchy click bait for you…”

Yes, FL is the worst- I agree 100% with that assessment.

How do you assess “risk” or “danger” though?
FL is a “big” state but… if you look at the “rate” of fatal bike crashes… the number of deaths per, say 100,000 people, you get a better gauge of “safety”

NHTSA has published this data, based on FARS data, for years.
So if you open the most recent, 2023, data here https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813739
you see that the 50 states are listed on page 10

FL had a total of almost 3,400 TOTAL traffic deaths and 234 BIKE deaths, which was 6.9% of all the traffic deaths… that’s a HIGH figure as the national average is 2.9%, which is UP from the 2.0% or so that was norm prior to 2009.

FL’s “rate” of Fatal Bicycle Crashes is also high – 1.03 deaths per 100,000 people.
That’s the WORST in the US, by far.

Because of smaller numbers of people it is “easier” for a smaller state to have a bad number in a bad year. Maine, for example, had 0 bike deaths in 2023. IF they suddenly had 2 their rate would be significant.

FL had 234 deaths with a total population of 22+M
Compare OH, which had 22 deaths with a population of 11.7M.
So Ohio has slightly more than half the population of FL but only 10% of the number of cycling deaths!
One could argue that OH is 10x “safer” or FL is 10x more “dangerous” than OH… or you are 10x more likely to be killed in FL than if you ride in OH

So yea, FL leads the league

Also, if you look at the Big 3 – FL, CA, TX – you see that 234+145+106 =485 deaths. These 3 states have 485/1166=0.416 or 42% of ALL US Cycling deaths.
BUT
When you look at RATES
FL – 1.03 per 100K
CA – 0.37 per 100K
TX – 0.35 per 100K
US Average is 0.35 people killed on bikes per 100K population so CA and TX are pretty much “average” compared other states but FL is WAY out of whack.

Ohio is, by contrast, well below the national average with a “rate” of 0.19

Steve Magas

This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve said that if you ever need a good bike lawyer in the Midwest, tell Magas I sent you.

And it probably won’t be the last.

………

Your periodic reminder that CicLAvia will be doing Stranger Things on Melrose Ave next weekend.

………

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

A British cycling coach says he was shocked at the hatred he encountered after posting video of a near-collateral damage crash, when a driver skidded out of control following a three-car crash, missing him and another rider by mere inches — yet somehow, some people still blamed them for it.

………

Local 

Streets For All issued their monthly newsletter for November, including a job opening for their state legislative team.

Survivors of the Eaton Fire can register for free lifetime Metro rides, including Metro Bike, from 10 am to 1 pm this Thursday at Pasadena’s Robinson Park Recreation Center. But if you have to work that day, evidently you’re screwed.

Long Beach broke ground on a new greenway along the LA River, featuring bike and pedestrian paths, as well as fitness and play equipment, and native plants.

 

State

Sad news from Fullerton, where 19-year old Lauren Turner, a member of the Cal State Fullerton women’s soccer team, died six weeks after she and a teammate suffered life-threatening injuries when a truck driver struck the e-scooter they were sharing. Although maybe someone could tell the OC Register that the box truck that hit them probably had a driver.

 

National

Seattle Bike Blog examines the state of the city’s divided bike movement. LA’s may not be divided, but our movement has turned to sludge.  

Tucson, Arizona opened the world’s first aluminum-surfaced velodrome.

A Wichita, Kansas teacher is closing in on her goal of riding 5,000 miles this year to raise funds to send members of the school’s HOSA club for future health professionals to the organization’s national convention and competition; she’s also lost 50 to 60 pounds in the process.

Bike advocates in Dallas are cautiously optimistic that it can become a more bikeable city.

Cycling Weekly considers what New York’s new bikeshare-riding mayor will mean for bicycling in the city, asking whether he can be the Gotham equivalent of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

 

International

Momentum marks Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day as it’s known here, by recalling the military bicycle corps employed by both sides in WWI.

An Ontario appeals court ruled that a case with profound implications for cities throughout the province must get a hearing, with the potential for a ruling that counties and townships must maintain trails they know bike riders use, even if they aren’t designated for the purpose.

Officials in Edinburgh want to reclaim the city’s busiest bike path for a new tram line, despite the 600,000 trips that are made by foot, bike and wheelchair along the route each year.

A Lancashire, England school welcomed back their beloved “lollipop lady” — which is apparently what they call a crossing guard over there — after she missed more than five weeks with a broken elbow suffered when the gears on her bicycle froze up.

A British advocacy group is calling for the country to reduce the current standard width for traffic lanes, arguing that it’s too narrow to allow the required 1.5 meter passing distance — just under five feet — and that narrowing lanes would force drivers to change lanes to pass someone on a bicycle.

The Florence suburb of Scandicci becomes the first Italian city to improve security by rolling out shared neighborhood bike lockers.

A man from Nepal is currently in Qatar on a bike ride from Mount Everest to Antarctica to spread awareness and call for action on climate change.

A decade-long Japanese study shows that bicycling can play a key role in extending health and life expectancy among older adults. Which is probably why my diabetes hasn’t killed me yet. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly argues that the island roads on my ancestral home punch well above their weight when it comes to churning out pro cyclists — including the famed Manx Missile. I can proudly claim that my great-great-grandfather went to prison for his role in the biggest bank failure in the British Isles prior to the Great Depression.

Cyclist asks the burning questions on everyone’s lips leading to next year’s pro cycling season.

The Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe WorldTour cycling team is training in an underground tunnel to get faster.

 

Finally…

Learning the hard way that flats ain’t passé. Forget lithium-ion, your next ebike could have a semi-solid-state battery.

And it’s long past time to add the Kentucky Bourbon Trail to your bike bucket list.

Okay, mine then.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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