Been busy lately. I got repetitive motion injuries in both arms from work so I go to occupational therapy twice a week. After spending a whole 8 hours in front of the computer at work, I hardy want to get on the computer after I get home. Thank goodness the handlebars on my Flying Pigeon are ergonomically safe. They don't stress my arms one bit. :)
But I've been thinking a lot about this blog lately and how neglected it has been, so I am remedying the situation right now. Something happened to me while I was biking to work on March 12, 2008. It was very upsetting but now I am at the point where I feel like I have to blog about it. Especially since the Hummer incident in Downtown Los Angeles on April 24th and the death of bicyclist Jesus Castillo in East LA just a week before that. I can no longer keep silent about my own experience with drivers who treat cyclists badly.
On the morning on March 12, I woke up a little late and decided to take the more direct route to work as I didn't want to spend the time to take the safer (longer) way to work. I was riding north on Saticoy, in the right lane, as close to the right that was safe yet out of the door zone. Most cars gave me enough room to feel safe as they passed me. I didn't really have any problems until a white industrial van passed me. The van did not have any company logos and the windows were tinted. I could not see much through them, what I did see was a wire gate, separating the driver's area from the back of the van. This van came VERY close to me, just a few inches from my bike and leaned against his horn. I tried my best to ride in a straight line but I was shaken up, he was too close to me. I figured he was just an asshole and I was happy to be rid of him when he sped off and made a right at the corner.
A block later another white industrial van speeds past me, coming inches from my bike while leaning on his horn. I swerve out of his way, nearly crashing into the parked cars to my right, my heart racing. I look and find it is THE SAME FUCKING VAN. I try to read his license plate but he speeds off and makes a right at the end of the block. At this point I am beyond livid and terrified but I keep riding, I figure if I see him again I will try to be as calm as I can and concentrate on catching his license plate number.
I didn't have to wait long for him to come back for a third go. The white van did the same thing, coming within inches of me while honking his horn. It was the same van and I read and instantly memorized his license plate number. I got my phone out and keyed the number into my phone to store it and immediately called my buddy, Sargent Arshambault, in the LAPD Valley Traffic Division. At this point, I was still shaken up and trying not to cry. I had no idea whether or not this guy was going to come around again. I made a right turn onto Topanga Canyon and hoped he didn't follow me. I talked to the Sargent and he took the description of the van, the license plate number and the details of the incident and tried his best to calm me down.
The next morning, I get a call back from the Sarg. He traced the license info to a company located in the Valley, not far from where I was stalked the day before. He invites me to go to the police department in Van Nuys to file a report. When I get there, the Sarg takes me into the office of the Chief of Police. They tell me they've been wanting to meet me in person for quite a while now. The Chief tells me how he heard about me (from the Wall St Journal article) and they both explain how the LAPD Valley division has been trying to make the streets a little safer for pedestrians and cyclists, such as the conducting crosswalk stings at deadly intersections as well as their plans to have plain clothed bicycle officers hit the streets. I've got to say, I was really excited and honored that they brought me into their office and made me feel welcome.
After the meeting, I go to a young officer in the front lobby and give him my report. I wanted him to put either "stalking" or "vehicular harrassment/intimidation" but he ended up filing the report under "disturbing the peace".
I guess he would have put a harsher description of the incident had I been really hurt. I was more than a little disappointed, but I decided to let it go. I was informed that they would transfer the report to the Devonshire police department since the incident happened in their jurisdiction. They would have a detective go to the company that owns this vehicle (and employs the driver) and inform the person in charge.
I don't hear back until last Thursday, 4/30/09. I get a call from an officer early in the morning. I didn't catch his name but he told me that he was on his way to speak to two men at the company that owned the van. He wanted to know if I was willing to take them to court over the incident. I thought about it for a second and said yes. I explained that even though I wasn't hurt, I needed all the parties involved to understand the seriousness of the situation. I don't know what the driver was thinking when he was stalking me. He may have just been trying to be cute. But these people have to understand that if you pit a car (truck, van, etc.) against a bicycle, the bicycle will NEVER win. I could have gotten seriously hurt, or even killed.
Just thinking about it is so upsetting. I'm crying as I type this. I wasn't hurt, but what about next time? Bicyclists being hit by autos happens way too often. It's time for the law to favor people, not cars.
Showing posts with label bike commuting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bike commuting. Show all posts
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, August 1, 2008
I'm in the Wall Street Journal
:D
I'm not just in the Wall Street Journal, but I made the FRONT PAGE!!!
Clicky here for the link
Just in case the page stops working, as I'm sure you have to sign up to see most of the WSJ, I'll cut and paste the article.
PAGE ONE
Risking Life and Limb,
Riding a Bike to Work in L.A.
Cyclists, Banned on Freeways and Reviled
By Drivers, Save a Buck and Make a Point
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE
August 1, 2008; Page A1
LOS ANGELES -- Paula Rodriguez, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, got so disgusted with soaring fuel prices last spring that she stopped driving, sold her SUV and bought a bike.
But pedaling the 15 miles home from her job, the 30-year-old Ms. Rodriquez has encountered something more frightening than $4.50-a-gallon gasoline: the mean streets of L.A., home of the nation's most entrenched car culture.
"Drivers scream at me to get off the road," says the medical-billing clerk. The main commuting route near her home is so terrifying, she says, that she usually takes an alternative route that adds four miles to her trip.
Even then, it's not an easy ride. On one stretch, splintered glass in the street could puncture her tires, she says. On Wednesdays, she has to dodge garbage cans blocking the bike lane. On Friday evenings, as the sun sets, she feels menaced by drunk drivers. Such threats compel her to sometimes swing onto the sidewalk, even though that could get her a ticket. "I go slow, ring my little bell and stop sometimes to say 'hi' to pedestrians," she says.
Commuters across the U.S. are responding to high gasoline prices by finding alternatives to driving. But in Los Angeles, it takes a special kind of road warrior to hop on a bike in the name of saving the planet and a little money.
The city is notoriously short on bike lanes, bike paths and bike racks. Bicycles are illegal on the freeways, and city streets are packed with motorists who seem increasingly cranky about the swelling ranks of cyclists. Every cyclist seems to know somebody who has been injured or who has survived a near-death experience. In 2006, 28 people in Los Angeles County were killed on bikes, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. Geography makes things difficult, too, as the distance from home to work in this sprawling metropolis can be immense and necessitate adding public transportation to the journey.
Tensions between cyclists and motorists here have become dangerously combative. Los Angeles police are investigating an apparent July 4 road-rage incident that sent two cyclists to the hospital with serious injuries. The cyclists crashed into a car after its driver allegedly slammed on his brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road, a winding street through a hilly neighborhood.
"Cyclists have equal rights, but in fact a lot of motorists think they should get off the road," says Lynne Goldsmith, manager of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority's bike program. Nearly everyone has a bike sitting in the garage, but people are starting to actually use their bicycles for transportation, ranging from short hops to the market to long-distance commuting, she says. "When we're used to seeing more cyclists, we will treat them better."
An Exercise in Frustration
For now, commuting by bike here is most often an exercise in frustration. Michelle Weinstein's 75-minute commute to work begins at 6:50 a.m., when she dodges rush-hour traffic on a busy boulevard in the city's Silver Lake neighborhood on her way to a subway station. She hauls the bike onto the train, then takes it off in North Hollywood, about seven miles to the north.
The next leg is an express-bus ride. But when the bus pulls up with a full bike rack, she must wait for the next bus. When she finally arrives in Van Nuys, she gets off the bus and back on the bike for a game of chicken with motorists.
"It's nerve-rackingly crowded, and people give me dirty looks," says Ms. Weinstein, a 33-year-old personal assistant at a music-production company. "Everyone I know who has biked has met with some kind of injury," Ms. Weinstein says.
Ms. Goldsmith says the city has 1,200 miles of bikeways, but many of those are along busy thoroughfares on which cars and bikes compete for space. In West Hollywood, an enclave of 40,000 residents, debate is raging over the proper role of sidewalks. The issue has divided elderly pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or on bicycles.
Defensive Biking
Biking advocates are offering classes to teach novices how to be defensive riders. "Our classes are starting to sell out quickly," says Liz Elliott, a founder of the grass-roots organization Cyclists Inciting Change Thru Live Exchange. She says the group has so far instructed about 100 people. Many bike lanes are "too narrow and you don't want to be hugging the door zone," she advises -- referring to the space in which a parked car can swing its door open suddenly. Unfortunately, much of the local bike infrastructure was designed by engineers who don't ride bikes, she says.
Veteran riders say that obnoxious motorists are the biggest problem. Michael Marckx, a 44-year-old vice president of Globe International Ltd., a skateboard company in El Segundo, recently started commuting three or four days a week by bike, encountering what he calls "caffeine-infused psychotics" in their cars who yell at him to get off the road. "There's something about being in the car that is kind of anonymous. It's a veil to hide behind, and people seem to like to get their aggression out on cyclists," says the former professional bike racer.
Some cyclists are striking back. Stephen Box, a cycling activist who claims to have broken the Mandeville Canyon story on his blog, carries a camera and snaps pictures of bike-tripping potholes and confusing traffic signs. He sends the snapshots to the city. The community organizer says he and about a dozen bloggers drafted a Cyclists Bill of Rights in January that he is presenting for a vote at neighborhood council meetings around the region. But Lenore Solis, a council member in Atwater Village, says she voted against it because the assertion of a right to "full access" on "all mass transit with no limitations" is too broad, and could be interpreted as a legal right to bike lanes on freeways.
Indeed, the freeways have been invaded repeatedly by renegade cyclists calling themselves Crimanimal Mass, an offshoot of Critical Mass, a national cycling enthusiasts' group. About 30 cyclists performed the illegal stunt in rush-hour traffic on a recent Friday to demonstrate how much faster commuters can zip through gridlock on a bicycle than in a car stuck in traffic.
Despite the problems, L.A. cyclists keep trying. Kim Jensen Marren broke her ankle when she collided with a truck that pulled in front of her bicycle five years ago. But now the 30-year-old graphic designer is newly married and wants to save money to open her own wedding-productions business. So she recently got back on her bike and started riding to work again, figuring that she is saving about $220 a month.
Write to Rhonda L. Rundle at rhonda.rundle@wsj.com
_______________________
Special Thanks to Stephen Box of SoapboxLa (link to the left) for getting me in touch with the reporter.
I'm not just in the Wall Street Journal, but I made the FRONT PAGE!!!
Clicky here for the link
Just in case the page stops working, as I'm sure you have to sign up to see most of the WSJ, I'll cut and paste the article.
PAGE ONE
Risking Life and Limb,
Riding a Bike to Work in L.A.
Cyclists, Banned on Freeways and Reviled
By Drivers, Save a Buck and Make a Point
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE
August 1, 2008; Page A1
LOS ANGELES -- Paula Rodriguez, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, got so disgusted with soaring fuel prices last spring that she stopped driving, sold her SUV and bought a bike.
But pedaling the 15 miles home from her job, the 30-year-old Ms. Rodriquez has encountered something more frightening than $4.50-a-gallon gasoline: the mean streets of L.A., home of the nation's most entrenched car culture.
"Drivers scream at me to get off the road," says the medical-billing clerk. The main commuting route near her home is so terrifying, she says, that she usually takes an alternative route that adds four miles to her trip.
Even then, it's not an easy ride. On one stretch, splintered glass in the street could puncture her tires, she says. On Wednesdays, she has to dodge garbage cans blocking the bike lane. On Friday evenings, as the sun sets, she feels menaced by drunk drivers. Such threats compel her to sometimes swing onto the sidewalk, even though that could get her a ticket. "I go slow, ring my little bell and stop sometimes to say 'hi' to pedestrians," she says.
Commuters across the U.S. are responding to high gasoline prices by finding alternatives to driving. But in Los Angeles, it takes a special kind of road warrior to hop on a bike in the name of saving the planet and a little money.
The city is notoriously short on bike lanes, bike paths and bike racks. Bicycles are illegal on the freeways, and city streets are packed with motorists who seem increasingly cranky about the swelling ranks of cyclists. Every cyclist seems to know somebody who has been injured or who has survived a near-death experience. In 2006, 28 people in Los Angeles County were killed on bikes, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. Geography makes things difficult, too, as the distance from home to work in this sprawling metropolis can be immense and necessitate adding public transportation to the journey.
Tensions between cyclists and motorists here have become dangerously combative. Los Angeles police are investigating an apparent July 4 road-rage incident that sent two cyclists to the hospital with serious injuries. The cyclists crashed into a car after its driver allegedly slammed on his brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road, a winding street through a hilly neighborhood.
"Cyclists have equal rights, but in fact a lot of motorists think they should get off the road," says Lynne Goldsmith, manager of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority's bike program. Nearly everyone has a bike sitting in the garage, but people are starting to actually use their bicycles for transportation, ranging from short hops to the market to long-distance commuting, she says. "When we're used to seeing more cyclists, we will treat them better."
An Exercise in Frustration
For now, commuting by bike here is most often an exercise in frustration. Michelle Weinstein's 75-minute commute to work begins at 6:50 a.m., when she dodges rush-hour traffic on a busy boulevard in the city's Silver Lake neighborhood on her way to a subway station. She hauls the bike onto the train, then takes it off in North Hollywood, about seven miles to the north.
The next leg is an express-bus ride. But when the bus pulls up with a full bike rack, she must wait for the next bus. When she finally arrives in Van Nuys, she gets off the bus and back on the bike for a game of chicken with motorists.
"It's nerve-rackingly crowded, and people give me dirty looks," says Ms. Weinstein, a 33-year-old personal assistant at a music-production company. "Everyone I know who has biked has met with some kind of injury," Ms. Weinstein says.
Ms. Goldsmith says the city has 1,200 miles of bikeways, but many of those are along busy thoroughfares on which cars and bikes compete for space. In West Hollywood, an enclave of 40,000 residents, debate is raging over the proper role of sidewalks. The issue has divided elderly pedestrians; environmentalists who ride bikes to work; and parents who worry about the safety of their children, whether in baby carriages or on bicycles.
Defensive Biking
Biking advocates are offering classes to teach novices how to be defensive riders. "Our classes are starting to sell out quickly," says Liz Elliott, a founder of the grass-roots organization Cyclists Inciting Change Thru Live Exchange. She says the group has so far instructed about 100 people. Many bike lanes are "too narrow and you don't want to be hugging the door zone," she advises -- referring to the space in which a parked car can swing its door open suddenly. Unfortunately, much of the local bike infrastructure was designed by engineers who don't ride bikes, she says.
Veteran riders say that obnoxious motorists are the biggest problem. Michael Marckx, a 44-year-old vice president of Globe International Ltd., a skateboard company in El Segundo, recently started commuting three or four days a week by bike, encountering what he calls "caffeine-infused psychotics" in their cars who yell at him to get off the road. "There's something about being in the car that is kind of anonymous. It's a veil to hide behind, and people seem to like to get their aggression out on cyclists," says the former professional bike racer.
Some cyclists are striking back. Stephen Box, a cycling activist who claims to have broken the Mandeville Canyon story on his blog, carries a camera and snaps pictures of bike-tripping potholes and confusing traffic signs. He sends the snapshots to the city. The community organizer says he and about a dozen bloggers drafted a Cyclists Bill of Rights in January that he is presenting for a vote at neighborhood council meetings around the region. But Lenore Solis, a council member in Atwater Village, says she voted against it because the assertion of a right to "full access" on "all mass transit with no limitations" is too broad, and could be interpreted as a legal right to bike lanes on freeways.
Indeed, the freeways have been invaded repeatedly by renegade cyclists calling themselves Crimanimal Mass, an offshoot of Critical Mass, a national cycling enthusiasts' group. About 30 cyclists performed the illegal stunt in rush-hour traffic on a recent Friday to demonstrate how much faster commuters can zip through gridlock on a bicycle than in a car stuck in traffic.
Despite the problems, L.A. cyclists keep trying. Kim Jensen Marren broke her ankle when she collided with a truck that pulled in front of her bicycle five years ago. But now the 30-year-old graphic designer is newly married and wants to save money to open her own wedding-productions business. So she recently got back on her bike and started riding to work again, figuring that she is saving about $220 a month.
Write to Rhonda L. Rundle at rhonda.rundle@wsj.com
_______________________
Special Thanks to Stephen Box of SoapboxLa (link to the left) for getting me in touch with the reporter.
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