The road is a dangerous place, especially for those crazy people who ride bikes amongst cars. The new LAPD police chief, Charlie Beck, said yesterday that he’s going to implement additional training for officers on how to handle incidents involving bicyclists. I’m not sure that’s going to make riding on the streets any safer, but at least the cops will give bicyclists a fair shake when they get mowed over by some shmuck who was texting his homeboy on his iPhone. Bicyclists have a pretty big presence down in my area but I still don’t feel comfortable enough to ride in between cars like most people around here. It’s scary enough watching motorcyclists do it. I think I need to ride in a pack. LA Times article here.
On another note, I found out last weekend that if I wanted to ride at night, I need to have a headlight and a taillight on my bike. Why? Because it’s the law. Apparently Culver City Police is pretty liberal with handing out tickets for headlight/taillight-less infractions so I bought a LED headlight and taillight at the local bike shop. I don’t ride over to CC that often, but it’s a good idea to be illuminated as much as you can @ night anyways. Maybe I should just wrap my bike with my Xmas tree lights.