Thursday: Hummer Incident, Cyclists' Bill of Rights in Mar Vista

Ugh!

Ugh ugh ugh!

If you're a cyclist out there, expect to be treated like a second class citizen by the LAPD. Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese went to City Hall yesterday to tell the Council that somehow a cyclist defied the laws of physics when he hit an H3.

Streetsblog reports that,

"After a group of angry cyclists visited the Police Commission, the LAPD Inspector General and swarmed a Van Nuys meeting of the City Council on May Day, the LAPD finally responded yesterday. Albanese stood by the "official report" repeatedly using the "stature" of the LAPD to sweep aside Council Woman Janice Hahn's questions about the crash and the incompetent report."

There's more at the site, including a video of the meeting.

If you don't know the whole story, you can catch up with it here, but basically, an H3 Hummer struck a cyclist, dragging his bike under the car and sending the cyclist to the hospital. When his friends attempted to stop the Hummer from leaving the scene of an accident, the Hummer ran over three more bikes, and when the police showed up, they let the driver go without a ticket.

Appalled yet?

Even if you don't ride a bicycle, this is your cause. If you are a human being, this is your cause. If you believe in equality, this is your cause. If you've ever been dismissed by another group, this is your cause.

And if you drive, please share the road. I can't tell you how many times a driver has aggressively passed me, coming within inches of me and my bicycle. I can't tell you how many times a driver has honked at me or yelled at me. I'm someone's daughter, I'm someone's sister, I'm someone's friend, and I'm someone's lover. Would you wish such things upon a daughter, a sister, a friend, or a lover? Does it strike you as perhaps a little cowardly when someone in a two ton steel machine yells at a one-hundred-and-forty pound four-foot-ten little girl on a pink bicycle? I mean, is that okay to any of you? Really?

Is it okay that the LAPD is protecting a coward like that?

If you believe in a better world, then this is your cause.

In much happier news, the Mar Vista Community Council voted in support of the Cyclists' Bill of Rights!

Westside BIKEside reports,

"I noticed that council members were answering other council members objections themselves and I slumped back in my chair, comforted that although we were there to discuss the motion, the council was well equipped to discuss it without us. When the vote came up it was 10-0, with one abstention."

That's one small step for Alex Thompson and one giant leap for cyclists all over Los Angeles!

Trust me guys, gas prices? They are going to skyrocket this summer. And you're going to be looking at that nice commuter bike, and it's gonna get nicer and nicer. I promise.

And now? Now it's already later. My thirty mile bike ride somehow turned into forty miles and Yours Truly is exhausted!