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For parents preparing to give their kids a bit more independence on the way to school, Parque Zaragoza in East Austin now offers a scaled-down street network where children and new riders can practice biking and road safety in a low-risk setting....
Thirty years ago I tried to get the City to deputize citizens to police cars illegally parked in bicycle lanes. They said no. But now they're doing the same thing for parking in disabled spaces.
Thank you. I know that friends and family write the obits. I'm saying that as a family member, I'd have a hard time describing a hit-and-run driver as "overflowing with love and kindness".
It's not that the driver killed someone (if it were truly accidental, that wouldn't call the driver's character into question), it's that he fled the scene. Once a traffic death involves any of recklessness, DWI, or hit-and-run, then it becomes morally questionable…and that would make it hard for me to describe the driver in saintly terms.
This happened in 2010 and 2013, but I'm only just learning about it.
https://www.denverpost.com/2013/02/04/c … s-in-city/
Discuss.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/crime … bd3ae29a41
As I've said here and here, waiting for white DWI drivers to get charged and convicted.
(And to be perfectly clear, I want DWI drivers of *all* colors to be charged.)
I'm bumping this post, hoping that others will weigh in on this.
This is a bump to dougmc's post, of sorts.
I just realized that when I moved the site to a new Unix user so dougmc could have access to it, that killed the feature where web posts got automatically emailed out to the list, so apologies about that, and that's why I (and probably everyone else) didn't see this thread until now. Hopefully this post gets sent to the email list, we'll see...
In June, Agustin Guillen was arrested for killing a motorcyclist in a hit-and-run on Mopac in May. KXAN The next month, Guillen was apparently and ironically killed by a drunk driver while out on bond. KVUE (In case you're keeping count, MAY = 1st collision, JUNE = arrest, JULY = 2nd collision=death, AGUSTin = his name).
I found his obituary, and was struck by this (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little):
From a very young age, Agustín stood out for his gentle spirit and, most of all, his radiant smile. He was always a joyful young man, overflowing with love and kindness. Loving him was simply inevitable....Agustín left a deep mark on all of us who had the blessing of knowing him. His time in this world was brief, but his legacy of love, joy, and kindness will live on forever in our hearts.
If one of my family members did something so ethically egregious as Guillen I'm not sure I'd be able to write something like this for their obituary. But maybe I'm biased, or an outlier. What do you all think?
Travis County sheriff's deputy arrested for DWI:
Classic. DPS workers parked in the bike lane along north Guadalupe for years. Maybe still do, but I haven't been in that area for a while.
It's not just workers at some random business or agency doing the bad parking, it's workers at agencies responsible for TRANSPORTATION and ENFORCING LAWS that are doing it. Nice.
Here's another wheel-less bicycle from the Q, again with tank-style conveyer belt.
Crash was 11/10/25 at E. Stassney Ln. and Teri Rd.
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/ … t-and-run/
Still keeping an eye out for a white driver to be arrested for killing a bicyclist/pedestrian of color, rather than the other way around. Also interested to see if the driver in this case will face any meaningful penalties.
Skimming it, seems to say that having a car increases satisfaction, but overuse does the opposite. It's supposedly not the ownership, it's the excessive use that's the problem.
28-year-old Leandro Brito-Martinez received a whopping 80-year sentence for killing 14 year-old pedestrian Tobias Soto.
The extenuating circumstances were that police were trying to stop the driver because they identified the vehicle was stolen, the driver fled, driving up to 100 miles an hour and running at least one red light, and, probably, because the driver was Hispanic. It'll be interesting when and if a white driver gets a similar sentence.
Still, since killing drivers of all stripes typically get off with slaps on the wrist, if that, it's surprising to see such a lengthy sentence.
I'm at a loss for words.
"'A person died here, for heaven's sake. Can you just let it be?' | Austin ghost bikes are disappearing, and volunteers don't know why"
This is old, but I just found it.
Driver t-boned cyclist Tom Carlson, and faced no penalty, not even a ticket.
I was in Chris' neighborhood today and something told me I should swing by, so I did, and coincidentally it turned out that it was his 60th birthday party. That was mentioned in the article dougmc posted but yesterday I'd only skimmed the article and didn't see the bit about the party. (I've since read the article carefully.)
He remembered the heyday of this forum back when it was an email list, particularly the spirited discussions involving Mike Dahmus, Patrick Goetz, and me. He also talked of his time in Japan, and raved about how the public housing there works so well, but how that idea is a non-starter here.
There's more, but I'm mostly at a loss for words. Probably no one has done more for cycling locally than Chris, and that's not even all he's done. If the world were fair, people like him wouldn't be taken so young, while the people actively f**king things up live decades longer.
For years I've opined here that drivers who kill other people through recklessness should lose their driver licenses permanently. Because as it stands, drivers might get jail time (if that), but usually don't lose their driving privileges, and even if they do, it's for a relatively short period of time. KXAN reports that someone convicted of intoxication manslaughter faces up to 20 years in prison, but only 2 years of losing their license.
Austinite Tanya Roberts is now pushing for longer de-licensing periods, following the death of her son Colton who was killed by an impaired driver.
Thank you for posting this. I'm very sorry to hear that Chris Riley will be leaving us soon. I'm glad he's being honored.
Wow, that was an eye-opening article, chavela. Thank you for sharing it.
My son almost became a firefighter. It would have been awkward if I were at odds with him.
Comment on Nextdoor:
I may go ten [mph] over on the interstate but that doesn't affect anyone.
And that right there crystalizes the problem: the widespread idea that "my actions don't affect others".
I pointed out that speeding DOES affect others: stopping times are increased, crashes are more likely, crashes are deadlier.
I note that the poster, Krissy Morrow, was the same person who blamed Critical Mass cyclists [in a letter to the Chronicle] after another driver accidentally crashed into Morrow's car, as a result of the that driver's road rage against CM.
Hard to count this one as progress. Until the end she was protesting her innocence merely because she "didn't see them". In fact, she likely did see them, because evidence says she decelerated like 10mph before hitting them, but that's beside the point: She never saw speeding as a problem. Likewise, it seems that most people are furious that their vehicle might gently remind them that they're breaking the law by putting others' lives at risk. Today I got road raged at from a driver temporarily stuck behind me while I was driving the speed limit, because they thought that was too slow.
So, before we had minimal prosecution, and little belief from drivers that speeding is a bad thing. Now, we have a little more prosecution, and still little belief from drivers that speeding is a bad thing. Yay?
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