Congested Beach Bicycle Paths Become Potential Roads to Injury

Lt. Ken Keating of the Redondo Beach Police Department still remembers six weeks ago, when he was called to one of the worst bicycle accidents he had ever seen.

On the beachfront bike path near the Redondo Beach pier, a cyclist who drifted into the path of a speeding oncoming cyclist lost most of his teeth and was knocked unconscious when the two crashed head-on. The first cyclist was thrown face-first into the shoulder of the second, and both both men crashed to the pavement, Keating said.

“The one guy (who lost his teeth) was semiconscious when I arrived. . . . The other had to get stitches in his shoulder,” said Keating, adding that both men were taken by ambulance to the hospital. “These guys hit pretty hard.”

Accidents and injuries are common on the South Bay beachfront bike paths, especially along the busy path known as The Strand, which runs through Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. Although the exact number of injuries sustained each year on the paths is not recorded, lifeguards and paramedics say the number increases substantially during the summer months.

Capt. Ken Schuck, paramedic coordinator for Manhattan Beach, said there have been at least two fatalities from bike-path accidents in that city in the last two years. Schuck said the accidents involved cyclists without helmets who suffered severe head injuries after crashing into the pavement.

With summer vacationers flocking to the seashore and more people jogging, cycling, roller-skating and skateboarding, the paths sometimes seem as dangerous and congested as many Southern California freeways. About 8 million people visited the South Bay beaches last year, and 10,000 used the bike paths each weekend, said officials, who expect this year to be no different.

Speeding and reckless people on bicycles, roller-skates and skateboards compound the problem, Keating said. The speed limit along the beachfront bike paths is 10 m.p.h., but Keating said “it is virtually impossible to keep that controlled.” In an effort to cut down the number of accidents, the city of Hermosa Beach last year installed flashing yellow lights in a 2-block area of The Strand near the Municipal Pier.

The paths along the beaches are patrolled by city police or county sheriff’s deputies, depending on the jurisdiction. Officers patrol with bicycles, golf carts, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and automobiles.

Lt. Jerry Shoemaker, who runs the lifeguard station in Redondo Beach, said lifeguards also have the authority to stop reckless or speeding bicyclists or skaters and ban them from the path if they persist in ignoring the rules.

“No matter what we have to do to defuse a hazardous situation, we will do it,” he said.

The yellow lights installed on The Strand are turned on when the path gets crowded, and people must get off their skateboards or walk their bicycles through the 2-block area, which is lined with shops and restaurants.

No other area of the bike path has lights, county road officials said. The 19-mile, county-maintained bike path starts in Santa Monica and ends just south of the Torrance city limits.

Lt. Tom Hargett, who runs the lifeguard station on the Municipal Pier in Hermosa Beach, said the bike paths have gotten more congested in recent years as more and more people have turned to jogging, cycling, roller-skating and skateboarding for exercise.

“When they first built the path, they didn’t expect all these people would be getting into all this aerobic exercise,” he said.

Shoemaker noted that most of the serious injuries occur when bicycles collide with other bicycles.

“When you get two people coming at each other at 20 m.p.h. with nothing in between to slow them down, you can get some really bad injuries,” Shoemaker said, adding that that all bicyclists should wear helmets.

Crashing into the sand can sometimes be as dangerous as hitting the pavement, said Capt. Frank Chiella, a paramedic with the Manhattan Beach Fire Department. He recalled an accident three years ago in which a cyclist broke his neck after he rode off the path and was flung forward off the bike after its front tire dug into the sand.

The cyclist was left paralyzed from the neck down, he said.

On a sunny weekday afternoon recently, roller-skaters, bicyclists and skateboarders recounted their personal experiences on the path.

Joe Reiman, 12, of Redondo Beach, who rides his skateboard on The Strand almost every day, said he can attest to the dangers on the bike paths--and he has the scars to prove it.

Reiman, a blond, suntanned youth in baggy shorts, recalled a recent incident near the Municipal Pier in Hermosa Beach in which a bicyclist cut in front of him as he crossed the bike path. Reiman lost control of his skateboard and went crashing into a nearby bike rack.

“I just smashed right into it with my back,” he said, grasping his back. “That guy just cut me off.”

According to Shoemaker, the rules of right of way and staying to the right that apply on city streets also apply on the bike paths. There are pedestrian crosswalks, and most paths have separate walkways for pedestrians along their western edge.

Alicia Lugo, a 17-year-old Torrance resident has scrapes and bruises caused by accidents on the path.

Lugo, who roller-skates every day on the Redondo Beach path, usually wearing stereo headphones, said tourists who are not familiar with the rules will often stand in the middle of the path and just “trip out on it.” These people sometimes get hit or make the bicyclists and roller-skaters crash trying to avoid them, she said.

Nineteen-year-old Gary Aquino, of Carson said that during his regular bike rides along the Redondo Beach path, he has had many close calls.

Aquino agreed that sometimes pedestrians can cause havoc by standing in the middle of the path, but he admits that “a lot of bikers are just reckless people.”