Biking In LA: Congressmember echoes calls for safer WeHo Streets, and CO cops succeed with hit-and-run alert LAPD and CHP won't use
Burbank Congressional Representative Laura Friedman echoed last week’s call for safer streets in West Hollywood.
The Beverly Press quotes the 30th District House member as saying,
“We need to be thinking about this from every angle, from the way we design vehicles, to what safety features are in vehicles, to employing technology like speed cameras across the state in a thoughtful way, to driver’s education,” she (Friedman) said.
Friedman also commended West Hollywood and other cities for implementing safer traffic measures, calling the increase in fatal collisions a “public health crisis.”
Because a public health crisis is exactly how we need to be looking at traffic violence. Just like we should consider gun violence, but don’t.
In both cases.
The paper also quotes Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, founder Damian Kevitt citing a “shocking” increase in traffic violence in the city of just 34,000 people.
Kevitt also cited the problem of drivers fleeing following a crash because the penalties for hit-and-run are more lenient than for DUI.
“That is a huge factor and that is where the law needs to catch up,” he said.
Kevitt added that reducing traffic congestion by adding surface area on streets has not been successful in Los Angeles and that using alternative means of transportation is a more effective way of reducing vehicle congestion.
However, we’re not likely to reduce congestion until people feel safer using other forms of transportation on those congested streets.
Egg, meet chicken.
The paper also reminds us about the petition to install a red light camera at Fountain and Gardner.
Which has gathered less than 250 signatures so far, when it should be at least ten times that number by now.
So if you haven’t signed it yet, do it already.
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The same day an Englewood, Colorado bike rider was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued a Medina Alert, which is their version of a hit-and-run alert.
Which is exactly how it’s supposed to work.
Maybe someone should tell that to the cops here.
Because the hit-and-run alert programs for both Los Angeles and California were copied from Colorado’s successful program, which itself was based on the very successful program patterned after the Amber alert system that originated in Denver.
The only difference is they use it, and we don’t. Which just might have something to do with why Colorado solved every felony hit-and-run in 2022, while only around 20% ever get solved in California.
Or maybe they just care enough to devote the resources necessary to solve them, and the cops and elected leaders out here don’t.
But at least the LAPD only waited two days to ask for the public’s help this time.
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A new video game allows you to ride a magical bike through a massive open world in search of some legendary bike part; The Verge calls it “the feel-good game of the summer.”