Streetsblog Los Angeles

Last night, NBC 4 delivered the depressing news that despite video footage showing a motorcycle slamming into two cyclists from behind while speeding around a “blind” curve in Mullholland Valley, authorities have yet to charge anyone in the crash.

To add insult to injury, NBC 4 managed to find a psychopath with a chip on his shoulder to represent the “pro running over cyclists” argument. NBC 4′s Angie Crouch managed to take his deranged ramblings at face value.

“You’re going 35 around a 15 mile per hour corner. That’s the thrill of it,” boasts dangerous motorcycling advocate Brian Durchee.

“There’s nothing like it. I’m 46 years old and I ride my motorcycle as much as I can, and you know, live on the edge,” the man-child continues. Read more…

It’s hard to know where to start.

L.A. Weekly writer Simone Wilson’s piece, featured in today’s L.A. Weekly, on the city’s hit and run epidemic has so many low points that it’s hard to know where to start. The low points aren’t issues with her reporting, but the revealed incompetence and indifference of the LAPD, the tragedies of specific crashes she mentions, and the cluelessness of city officials.

Let’s start with the most revealing statistic. Nationally, 11% of all traffic crashes are hit and runs. In Los Angeles, that number is 48%.

That’s right, nearly half of car crashes where the LAPD takes a report are classified hit and runs.

But what’s worse than the statistics is the bumbling response of the LAPD to this ongoing crisis and to some crashes in particular. Throughout the narrative, Wilson returns to the story of Marie Hardwick, a woman left bleeding and broken in the street and the LAPD’s too-incompetent-to-be-believed response. Hardick was crossing the street when she was struck with such force that her jaw was shattered, her legs were crushed, and her knee caps were destoryed. The LAPD stumbled upon the scene, ignored witnesses, discarded evidence and released a bulletin asking people to keep an eye out for the car “a day or two later.”

Later in the story Wilson details that the LAPD doesn’t know how many people are hurt and killed in crashes or hit and runs in the city every year, and tried to get the Weekly to pay for them to do this basic research. Still later, top brass admit that most hit and runs don’t get thorough investigations unless someone dies.

Even though I read stories about hit and run crashes nearly every day, I was still stunned when Wilson read me the 48% number during our interview.

“Are you sure?” I asked. When she said she was, I asked for the methodology. When she gave it to me there was a pause. “Wow, I didn’t know it was that bad,” I replied. “Wait, don’t quote me on that.” Read more…

The music in this time-lapse video by William Campbell captures the solemn mood of the bike community following Deane’s death. This ride was completed on September 27, 2011. Five days after Deane’s death.

On September 22, 2011 Alan Deane was riding his bicycle on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, perhaps on his way to the Crawford Family Forum for a public event. While crossing Terrace Drive, Siddhartha Misra struck Deane with his car. Deane was rushed to the hospital where he died form injuries sustained in the crash. Deane had turned 61 that day.

On Tuesday, after pleading guilty to reckless driving, Mirsa received his sentence. Judge Steven Monette sentenced Mirsa to 10 days of community labor, 400 hours of community service and $4000 in restitution and other fines. At Biking In L.A., Ted Rogers referred to the judgement as a “gentle caress on wrist.”

Cyclists and safe street advocates were outraged, not just at Mirsa who appeared by all accounts genuinely contrite; but by a system that treats driving as a right and not a privilege  The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s Colin Bogart, who shared the Streetsblog 2011 advocate of the year award, was quoted in the Pasadena Star News, KPCC and other outlets giving a variation of a statement that said that the punnishment for killing a person through negligence should at least include loss of driver’s license.

There have been a lot of eulogies for Deane, a man who chose to eschew most personal possessions, played music, rode his bike and participated in civic life. But it’s not just his life and personality that make this a tragedy, but that the justice system and society as a whole too often look the other way when it comes to the carnage that occurs on our streets.

As Streetsblog worked on this euology, our inbox has been active. One reader writes asking how many tickets and reckless driving infractions is it going to take before Justin Bieber has his toys taken away. Another reader sends a “Roadshow” column that appeared in the Daily News featuring both a traffic columnist and a letter from an insurance investigator who blame cyclists, especially children, for crashes when a car driver can’t be bothered to look both ways before running them down while exiting their driveway.

On Tuesday, Mirsa apologized to Deane’s friends and families. But after the sentence was handed down, apologies were also needed from Monette and society itself.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times got the scoop on all of us with by publishing the findings of a University of Michigan study that showed that both New York and Los Angeles are more dangerous places to walk than an average American city.

Among the study’s findings:

• Pedestrians in Los Angeles account for about a third of all traffic fatalities – triple the national average of 11.4%,
• 3% of L.A.’s fatalities are bicyclists, nearly double the 1.7% national average,
• 36% of all crashes at intersection are fatal versus. “Only” 22% are fatal nationwide,
• Nearly two-thirds of all crashes at low speed, cars going thirty five miles per hour, cause a fatality. The number is only 21.8% nationwide.

These numbers were even worse in New York City, but of course New York has higher numbers of trips made on foot and on bike than Los Angeles does.

While the study isn’t particularly surprising, it does provide an interesting look at how Los Angeles’ large media organizations cover such a story. In an opinion piece today, Paul Whitfield notes that commenters at the Times split into two camps: “drivers are dangerous,” or “pedestrians are idiots.”

However, the media in general placed the blame largely on Los Angeles’ drivers, following the lead created in the Los Angeles Times’ initial story

“L.A. drivers have a high rate of fatal pedestrian, cyclists crashes,” blares the headline in yesterday’s Business Section of the Times. Inside the article, author Jerry Hirsch talks to both the report author and the Bike Coalition’s Eric Bruins. Both clearly state that better investment could create better streets, although Bruins also takes time to tweak Governor Jerry Brown for vetoing the “3 Feet Please” legislation that would mandate safe passing distances between cars and bicycles.

Thanks to a content sharing agreement, KTLA and CBS 2 ran very similar stories, even quoting Bruins although he doesn’t appear on camera. On their websites, KTLA reprinted the Times’ story. Despite rolling out the tired “Nobody Walks in L.A.” line, CBS 2′s story sticks to a “just the facts” report, but the headline of the piece declares, “L.A. Drivers Kill Pedestrians at Triple the National Average.”

NBC 4 had the strangest reaction. First, it briefly reported on the story, but then changed gears to talk about traffic safety measures being taken in Santa Monica. While road conditions are similar in both cities, it seems that maybe it would make more sense to send a reporter to the City of Los Angeles for this particular report.

Fox 11 had the most outrageous report, (video only), with the reporter both warning bicyclists and pedestrians to stay inside for fear of deadly streets and excorciating drivers for being willing to “run you down, just like that.”

KPCC wasn’t satisfied just re-reporting what was in the Times. The radio station asked listeners and readers to tell them where the most dangerous intersections in Los Angeles are for a future story. The crowd sourcing project seems a better way to get people involved in the story than just telling them to stay inside or excoriating drivers. Read more…

Back in March, Manuel “Manny” Figueras, struck and killed Gary Woodford, 55, at the intersection of Vineland Avenue and Erwin Street at 7:30p.m.  Figueras is a long-time staffer to City Councilman Richard Alarcon.  The Daily News reports:

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Woodford was walking east on Erwin Street crossing Vineland Avenue when Figueras hit him, Bustos said.

There is no marked crosswalk at the corner. However, a corner or intersection is considered an unmarked crosswalk and it is usually the driver’s responsibility to yield to a pedestrian, Bustos said.

The incident was the ninth pedestrian fatality in the San Fernando Valley this year, Bustos said. At this time last year, there were 8 pedestrian deaths in the region, he said.

There’s a lot of blame to go around in most crashes, but doubly so when a fatality is involved.  Whether he is charged or not, Figueras himself deserves blame for the crash as it is always a driver’s responsibility to yield to pedestrians.  The road design that favors moving traffic to all other modes is also at fault.  Vineland Avenue is a five lane road that can be treacherous to cross, especially at night.  There are no traffic signals close at hand in either direction.

Complicating matters, Figueras was driving a city-owned 2002 Prius at the time of the crash.  The district staffer is one of one hundred City Council Members and their staff allowed to use one of the city’s “take home” vehicles.  Previous court rulings shield the city from liability when their cars are used in these crashes. Read more…

(Friends of Susana’s have set up a ChipIn account to collect funds to help with medical bills.  You can donate, here.)

From the people that brought you “Andres Tena backed into a hummer and was propelled over his handlebars” and “a woman who plowed into a group of thirty cyclists committed no crime” comes another soon to be classic, “(Susanna Schick) fell down on her bicycle.”

Despite widespread media reports that Susanna Schick was attacked by the driver of a white Lexus on Friday night and that the LAPD didn’t even file a report until three days later; the LAPD is fighting back against perceptions that they bungled the case by attacking the victim implying both that she was the agressor in the incident and that she is an incompetent cyclist.  As we’ve seen before, they also accidentally admitted they don’t really understand traffic safety laws.

The crux of the LAPD’s argument is that there was no contact between the white Lexus that Schick claims hit her on Friday night, therefor there was no crime.  Lt. Paul Vernon tells Blog Downtown, “There is no crime here.  She fell off her bike.”  LAPD spokeswoman Wendy Reyes was even more vague, telling NBC 4, “They obviously determined it wasn’t a hit-and-run. She might have fallen off the bike on her own.”

“They” is a pair of LAPD officers who witnessed the entire incident.  According the officers, Schick was bicycling down Spring Street in the green buffered bike lane when a car pulled out of a garage, swung wide and swerved into the bike lane.  The car did not hit Schick.  At a light, Schick rolled up to the car, and pounded on the side view mirror causing the car occupants to roll up their windows.  When the light turned green, the car sped ahead and eventually turned right.  Then Schick just fell over.  The officers then called the paramedics and after Schick was safely in the hospital they returned the bicycle to her residence.

While anything is possible, the idea that Schick just fell off her bike is about as far-fetched as her being forced off her bike by lightning bolt or fear of green paint.  Schick, who goes by Pinkyracer on the Internet and racing forums, has been traveling by two wheels pretty much her entire life.  Her personal website is devoted to two wheeled travel, be it on bike, motor bike or scooter and she’s even a motor bike racer.  The odds that she just happened to fall off her bike and it just coincidently happened after an altercation with a car is statistically insignificant.

Even in the LAPD’s weird version of events, one which is designed to cast the victim as the aggressor to the poor drivers who were rolling up their windows, there are laws broken.  A car that “pulls out of a garage, swings wide and swerves into a bike lane” has a driver that has just broken a traffic law.  California Vehicle Code 21209 clearly states that no motorized vehicles can enter a bike lane unless they are within 200 feet of an intersection where they are going to make a turn.   Read more…

(Friends of Susana’s have set up a ChipIn account to collect funds to help with medical bills.  You can donate, here.)

By now you’ve probably heard the story.

Susanna Schick was bicycling down Spring Street in the green buffered bike lane on Friday night, when she was harassed by the driver of a white Lexus.  After exchanging words, the car ran her down from behind, and left Schick lying in the street with broken ribs and a broken body.

Eventually, paramedics showed up and took her to the hospital and took her bike back to her house.  Following a post by the intrepid Ted Rogers on Biking In L.A. that went viral, the media picked up the story.  Schick’s friend, Midnight Rida Jennifer Beatty, became a sort of spokesperson for family and friends controlling media access to Schick (except for one “intrepid” reporter for CBS2 that snuck past) and re-telling the story.

Sometime Monday morning, a reporter called the LAPD to get a statement.  The police had no idea what they were talking about.  Either the police were never called about the crash or didn’t respond and the paperwork was lost.  With Sgt. David Krumer, the LAPD’s official liaison to the bike community on a vacation for Easter Weekend, there was nobody checking bicycling message boards or social media to learn about the crash.

This morning, again from Biking In L.A., comes word that the LAPD is treating this dangerous assault as a solo crash and not treating it as a potential felony crime.  Rogers fumes that, “We may all be a lot less safe on the streets than we thought.”  Meanwhile, Don “Roadblock” Ward leads another group of cyclists to the Police Commission that oversees LAPD to make the case for safe streets, again.

Meanwhile, Schick remains in the hospital.  According to Beatty and Ward, she’ll be there for another couple of months, although her doctors are avoiding surgery if they can.  She’s coherent and talkative.  Angry but controlled.  Determined to see some good come of her tragedy.

Every time there’s a high-profile crash, an agressive cyclist community has earned some sort of concession from the city.  This time the city has a lot to make up for, and since the crash has become a sort of cause celeb, they would be best served to start making up now.

At the minimum, the LAPD should work with emergency responders to make certain their own response isn’t hampered as badly as it was in this case and needs to rethink the way it handles bike crashes. Read more…

This past Tuesday, early in the afternoon, 11-year-old twin sisters Sydney and Alexis left Walter Reed Middle School and began to walk home, a trip that ended at Colfax Avenue and Moorpark Street when they were hit by a car as they attempted to cross the street.

By all rights, it was a tragic afternoon for everybody.

For the young girls, it was a tragedy that began when they were violently propelled into the air, hit so hard they were knocked out of their shoes. They landed in a bone breaking heap, one unconscious and the other screaming in pain, and were quickly transported to Children’s Hospital where one still lies in critical condition.

For the 82-year-old motorist, it was a tragedy that will forever haunt her, regardless of rules of the road or outcome of the LAPD investigation, forever lingering as “that moment” when time stood still. This motorist will be haunted by the image of two young girls flying through the air and lying broken in the street.

For the school children who witnessed the collision, it was a tragedy that required instant intervention from parents and school administrators. Their lives were disrupted, they were confronted with mortality, they were shocked by the fragility of life, and they were confronted by the primacy of motor vehicles.

For the parents of local school children, it was a tragedy that destroyed their hopes and dreams of living in a walkable, livable community. It was confirmation that their children aren’t safe on the streets in the immediate vicinity of their local middle school.

For the Firemen who raced to the scene, it was a tragedy that is all too common, picking up bodies from the streets of Los Angeles after a traffic collision. It must eat at their soul and the Daily News picture from the scene of a policeman consoling a fireman is evidence of the toll traffic takes on our First Responders. Read more…

via Biking in L.A.:

But one thing sure to get a lot of cyclists’ blood boiling is the news that Steven Rush, sentenced to a wrist-caressing 10 days in jail for helping his daughter Dominique hide evidence in the heartless hit-and-run death of 17-year old cyclist Alex Romero, is already out from behind bars.

According to (bike lawyer) D.J. Wheels, Rush was taken into custody around noon on March 6th, the day he and Dominique were both sentenced. And released less than two days later, at 6 am on March 8th.

Forty-two hours.

A virtually consequence-free Lindsey Lohan-ish spin through the judicial system.

Yeah, that will certainly send a message to anyone else considering hiding evidence of a crime.

As in go ahead. It’s no big deal. Just another dead cyclist lying in the road.

Shameful.

For more on this tragedy, visit Streetsblog’s previous coverage, here.