Pedestrians

SAN FRANCISCO — The bicyclist was zipping south on Castro Street at the end of his twice-weekly ride to the Marin Headlands, blowing through red lights and stop signs. But the Market Street crosswalk was filled with pedestrians, and Chris Bucchere, 36, allegedly was riding too fast to stop. So he aimed for the least populated spot and plowed on through. "In a nutshell, blammo," a blogger purporting to be Bucchere wrote that March day. The man he hit, Sutchi Hui, 71, died four days later.

Tens of thousands of cycling, hockey and basketball fans will converge at Staples Center in a weekend packed with post-season games and the final stage of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California - events that authorities are warning will close streets and delay traffic in the downtown Los Angeles area. The biggest wrench in traffic will be crowds overlapping for the Kings game and the bike race Sunday. Street closures were scheduled to begin after the Lakers game Saturday night - along Figueroa Street from Pico to Olympic boulevards and on Chick Hearn Court/11th Street from Flower Avenue to Georgia Street - when two pedestrian bridges will be erected so Kings fans can cross the bike route Sunday morning for Game 4 of the NHL Western conference finals.

Rita O'Farrell's “Pedestrian,” now at the Lounge Theatre, initially debuted at the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival.  There's still something palpably “fringey” about the play, which is certainly not of the stick-to-your-ribs school of theater. But, although O'Farrell doesn't quite manage to say anything particularly novel about the state of human relationships, her roughly hour-long play largely succeeds as a comical divertissement. The plot revolves around Dennis (Daniel Ball)

As cars whizzed by and trucks honked, two dozen members of the East Side Riders from Watts slowly pedaled their cruisers up Central Avenue early Sunday. Their destination was seven miles away: CicLAvia, a rare opportunity to enjoy 10 miles of car-free streets in downtown Los Angeles and beyond and to soak up the spirit of what turned out to be a citywide block party. "Watts in the house!" boomed a disc jockey as the group pulled into the African American Firefighter Museum and joined an estimated 100,000 people who biked, walked or skated block after block without having to dodge a car or bus. "Right now they're going to get a chance to ride the streets without cars interfering with their leisurely bike ride," John Jones said of his fellow Riders members.

It's been a bumpy ride for the custom motorcycle business as sales of pricey, blinged-out bikes skidded with the economy. But one bike scene is thriving, and that's been a boon for Ryca Motors in Whittier. The company sells build-it-yourself motorcycles that cost $3,600 to $7,500, or a fraction of the cost of souped-up custom bikes. Its CS-1 Cafe Racer is the creation of builders Ryan Rajewski and Casey Stevenson, who decided that if they were going to go to all the trouble of building a one-off, they might as well reproduce all the parts and offer them as a kit. The result is a motorcycle with all the style of a classic street racer at a far lower price.

If you're texting, listening to an iPod or jabbering on a cellphone while crossing the street in Washington, watch out. The D.C. government is being urged to consider fining pedestrians who use electronic devices while crossing the street. "Every day in Washington, sidewalks and crosswalks are filled with people who are plugged in to another environment -- the ether," says the Pedestrian Safety Committee of the Council for Court Excellence, a civic group that works to improve the administration of justice in the district.

Eighteen years ago, when Dave Gajda bought the building on the corner of Selma Avenue and Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, the space that now houses Saint Felix restaurant and bar was a needle exchange. His office on the second floor looked out on the alley, which had an unprintable nickname due to the stench of human waste from homeless encampments. Things were so bad that Gajda had the alley gated for security. Today that same alley has been opened as Hollywood's first pedestrian thoroughfare.

People who wear headphones might want to ditch them while walking outside. A study finds that accidents involving pedestrians wearing the devices have tripled in recent years. Researchers combed several sources to find incidents in the U.S. of crashes involving pedestrians and vehicles between 2004 and 2011. Searching the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google News archives and Westlaw Campus Research. They found 116 cases of death or injury involving pedestrians wearing headphones.

Wearing a white tank top and walking through one of Hollywood's most famous intersections with a gun in his right hand, the man shown in the video calmly spins on his heels and fires off a single shot as the black pickup passes by. Then he casually strides down the middle of the street, never glancing back. The brief but intense video — one of dozens of images of the Friday morning violence in Hollywood — comes to an abrupt end before police arrive and open fire, killing the man. Witnesses described the chaotic scene in the heart of Hollywood as both terrifying and surreal as the gunman walked down the street and paused at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street, randomly shooting at passing motorists.

Hybrid cars are safer — or more dangerous — depending on whether you are behind the wheel or walking across a street, according to a study released Thursday. Occupants in hybrid vehicles suffer fewer injuries in crashes than those who are involved in accidents in conventional cars, said the Highway Loss Data Institute, an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But the same study also found that hybrids, which tend to be quieter — cause more pedestrian accidents than their nonhybrid counterparts.