Have You Ever Had a Close Call?

If you have ever been passed dangerously while riding your bike, raise your hand.

Hmmm… everyone is raising their hand.

Riding safely can help. Check the OCBC Education page. In addition, there are two websites where bike riders can report close calls, post videos and hopefully raise public awareness. Both provide maps, so riders as well as community officials can spot trends and perhaps even identify aggressive drivers.

Cyclist Video Evidence says their Incident Management System can help police departments search for repeat offenders and identify hot spots.

Close Call Database says that reporting a close call will make the information available to fellow cyclists and store it for access by law enforcement.

Michael Jason Lopez Charged

9/20/12: From the Daily Pilot we learn that the suspect was in court, and his arraignment has been continued to Oct 5th.

Michael Jason Lopez, 39, of Anaheim, faces one felony count of hit-and-run causing the death of Dr. Catherine “Kit” Campion-Ritz, and one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, according to the D.A.’s office.

Lopez also faces a sentencing enhancement for a prior strike conviction in 1993 for a residential burglary, prosecutors said.

If convicted of all charges, the suspect faces a maximum of 8 years in state prison.

Bail is expected to be set at $100,000, far too low in our opinion, but we trust our county team to know what they’re doing. Although we note that compared to the arresting charges, the prosecuting charges appear to be watered down from Vehicular Manslaughter with Gross Negligence, to Vehicular Manslaughter without Gross Negligence. Why the change?

One again, our sincere thanks to the tireless and dedicated hard work conducted by the Newport Beach Police Department, and others, to bring this matter to the District Attorney who we’re sure will prevail.

For a picture of the suspect please see the Daily Pilot.

The case  is # 12CF2769, and is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Nancy Hayashida of the Homicide Unit.

A Slice of Laguna Beach

Yesterday an article in the Laguna Beach Patch asked, “Is It Impossible to Have a Truly Bike and Pedestrian-Friendly Laguna?” Our answer is obviously “no”, not only because it is possible, but due to the necessity of all road users getting a fair shake, and to increase safety, a lot of work on the part of all stakeholders looms ahead despite an online petition (with 265 signatures) to: Create Safe Bike Lanes In Laguna Beach, and Caltrans DD64 directing the agency to implement Complete Streets, the drive and passion of the public is needed to tell their city leaders what priorities are needed, and how funding may be secured and spent.

Earlier we posted a Slice of Irvine which showed a busy pie chart of cyclist injury and death. At tonight’s workshop hosted by Transition Laguna Beach, we will present a similar chart for Laguna Beach.  Of note is the difference between the two locales of the assigned fault to cyclists. Does this indicate a bias on the reporting agency? The graphic on the left depicts the number of cyclists injured or killed in Laguna Beach from 2001.

And now for the pie chart!

LBPie

A Slice of Laguna Beach

The chart represents the 3 fatalities and 81 injuries that occurred in this city. While the numbers are a far cry from the 6 fatalities and 445 injuries from Irvine, the assigned fault is so drastically different that  seeing both charts on the same page might be instructive. (Note: Blue is cyclist’s fault, red belongs to motorists)

Irvine01-12 Pie

A Slice of Irvine

Not surprisingly, 83.9% of Laguna Beach’s collisions occur on  4 roads listed in decreasing order: PCH, Laguna Canyon/ 133, El Toro, and Legion.  Almost 55% of collisions in Laguna Beach are shown in the following map of collisions:

LB3M

Laguna Beach Collisions

There is plenty to talk about, especially with an eye to the future, so join us this Sept. 13, from 7-9 p.m. at the Neighborhood Congregational Church’s Bridge Hall, at 340 St. Anne’s Dr.

Thanks for your support!

Cities with the Best Drivers in California*

*According to Allstate Insurance

Allstate released their 8th annual “Best Drivers List“.

With the Labor Day weekend approaching, and the prospect of a 3 day weekend, we thought it would be fun to find a “safe” place to go riding since many cities will be having Labor Day festivities.

California has 45 cities out of 195 in Allstate’s list, or around 23%, or just over 1/5th of the “Best Drivers List” population. Allstate dropped some cities because they use a 2 year weighted average and weren’t doing business in some for the full 2 years.

Here is our interpretation (because we included the counties, all other data is Allstate’s) of California Cities with the BestDrivers.

The lower the number in the last column is better, and the higher the number in the “Avg. Yrs Btwn Accidents” (Average Years Between Accidents) is also better.

Sad to see Orange County score so low, but we’re working on it! Expect news soon of changing signs in San Clemente.

Spoiler alert: dig out a map for Visalia!

NOTE: stay away from Glendale until someone figures out what’s going on there and fixes it! Or is the data an anomaly, and we should attribute it to a “lens flare”?