That is just horrible. I used to live in Lawrence, and I thought that part of the state had more common sense. Based on the link, it sounds like it shouldn't have simply been assault, but attempted homicide.

We have got to work together (as a cycling community) to change the perception about what it means to endanger a cyclist and what offense might be implicated for either intentionally or unintentionally endangering the life of another human being.

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I have been looking in a lot of these "road rage" incidents where cyclists are assaulted.
This is not the cyclists fault by any stretch.
All drivers that attack cyclists are effected by a certain kind of road rage. All drivers are forced to put up with crappy roads, other terrible drivers, their phones, deadlines, screaming kids etc.. It's a terrible amount of stress.
It's not the cyclist that adds to this, but the target of the venting of all this road rage.
It's not about us educating the driving community, it about the driving community coming to grips with the fact they are too stressed out to drive or even deign to share the road.

I am genuinely interested to know what the logic was behind the not guilty verdict... I'm having a hard time understanding how they could reach that conclusion.

i agree with this, doesn't make much sense

It'd be interesting to see another report, since this is a clearly a bit of a biased source. It seems very strange that you'd get an entire jury to say "not guilty" if the facts in the blog post are all there is to it. Although if the cyclist ended up rear-ending the driver, it's probably somewhat harder to get a charge to stick for that, even if the driver brake-checked.

I can't find anything about this incident online, other than that lone blog post.

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Same, seems a little strange that there is no other information.

not saying it didn't happen just something is odd. And for all we know the guy had 5 charges and this is just one that he was found not guilty of, doesn't automatically mean he is getting off.

Very true. Found not guilty of a felony charge for aggravated battery but perhaps guilty of other misdemeanor charges. What really jumped out to me is it appears the cyclist (just from what I read in the article) ran a stop sign in front of the car..

I'm on many group rides were lights/stop signs are run and it drives me crazy. There are things we can do as cyclists to help our cause though I am very aware that we are easy targets for drivers to get pissed off at.

Juries sometimes do goofy things. Not a Kansas lawyer, but a brief review of Kansas Statutes indicates that there are separate crimes of Assault and of Battery. Assault is causing fear while Battery is causing injury. Maybe jury found that cyclist didn't have time to be afraid before he got hit. I wonder why it wouldn't be charged as Battery, too.

have to agree, especially when you see a paragraph like this....


If you want to invoke the idea that we have equal rights to the road, then follow the rules of the road.....and that means waiting your turn at stop signs / lights.

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"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

do you know if the cyclist had a bike lane to pass within safely? if so, your comment is moot

Nope, don't know....but it would seem if he did, given the nature of the website, they would have mentioned it though.

And just for clarification, I am in NO WAY defending the driver in this case. There is no excuse ever to use your car as a weapon against a cyclist on the road. The idea that he was found Not Guilty is nauseating, even if he had been provoked.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I don't see how he was provoked, based upon info I have seen. but yes, wtf

I wish that part of the article were written more clearly. I read it a bit differently.

If the cyclist was "just running the stop", why would the car need to wait on him? They'd be side by side and, given this motorist's obvious disregard for the cyclists safety, wouldn't care about starting off again right next to the cyclist. The only geometry that made sense in my head was that the cyclist was crossing from one of the other directions. And if he was, who's to say that the cyclist didn't come to a stop before crossing the intersection? Could even explain why the motorist got more "frustrated" since the cyclist would have been going fairly slow at that point since he was starting from a stop.

How I wish there was anything else on the interwebs that might give more background on this story. To me, something just doesn't add up with the details we're given in that link.

I wanted to post this earlier but this just came to light again yesterday when a judge ruled no reckless homocide charges for this killing of a cyclist. There is a lot of action around here, he was a good friend of one of my friends, so hopefully the charges get brought back to the table. I can't imagine someone driving drunk, killing a cyclist, then possibly only getting a few years. Especially if you check into this guys past. http://www.dnainfo.com/...icide-charge-dropped

I was hit last year by a drunk driver at 1:30 PM, yeah PM not AM, and the guy had 3 DUIs before, was driving without a licence, drove away from the scene (thankfully a lady followed him and called the cops). He said he thought he hit a pole, then said he didn't hit anything, and got 24 months probation on a reckless DUI charge. I guess if he slips up once during the 24 months he automatically goes to jail.

It is sad that I can imagine sh*t like this happening. I ride on more friendly roads in the north Chicago subarbs but I still encounter scary stuff every ride. They are cracking down on cyclists blowing stop signs and lights, which I have no issue with, I just wish they would put plain clothed officers on a bike to ticket drivers driving unsafely by us. It is a two way street and both us and drivers must respect each other. It just is never good that we are always at the wrong end of an injury in a car vs. cyclist accident.

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How so? Unless there is a huge amount missing from the article, there is no justification for someone intentionally stopping their car right in front of you, then turning around and pushing you into a ditch. Even if there were 10 bike lines elevated off the street by 100 feet that the cyclist could use, the actions of this motorist was purely to physically harm (and possibly kill) the cyclist.

why are you responding to me???

not enough info in article. my point was if there was a bike lane next to driving lane at a 4 way stop and the bike passed car(which might be in a queue) then the bike got to cross sooner and idiot driver simply decided life wasn't fair and became an aggressor. the moot referred to the comment that the bike should not have passed the car while car was stopped, I assume in line and would be moot if cyclist had own lane. so much missing info, one cant determine what happened, other than a driver got off for reckless homicide after the incident.

Not enough information.

Did the defendant take the stand?

Did the prosecutor actually do a credible job?

What was the testimony?

-Robert

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Turns out it was a Johnson County, KS case, which, is a suburban county south of Kansas City. It appears that he was charged w/ Aggravated Battery, intentional bodily harm. Under KS law there are a number of versions of agg batt. and the jury would also have been instructed on the lesser included charge of Agg Batt/ reckless and simple battery.

I didn't sit in on this trial so I have no idea what evidence was presented to the jury. For whatever reason they didn't find it satisfactory. If I had to guess, I would imagine the prosecution failed to prove the necessary intent.

jOCO can be a scary place to ride. It's chock full of soccer moms in mini-vans and people in big SUVs. However, it is also generally a bad place to be charged with a serious crime as the usual jury demographic is not very defendant friendly.

I live in Lenexa, and ride almost everyday right where this happened. This is a two way issue in my opinion. JOCO can be very dangerous as you have tons of distracted moms on cells phones and entitled people who are too lazy to drive defensively. On the flip side you have a lot of entitled cyclists who have an eff all motorists mentality and it only encourages these types of incidents. I know right where this happened, ride there every single day, there is no bike lane, i am sure the cyclist just blew past the cars on the side, probably ran the stop sign as well, and the driver was fed up. I have seen this so many times at this exact spot, it does not excuse the driver but cyclists are asking for this. The road racing community in KC is very good and is extremely proactive on obeying all road laws, but outside the racing community i have seen some of the most egregious cycling behavior out of any city i have lived in, 100% unacceptable. The police need to hammer cyclists for non compliance with traffic rules and then equally enforce the 3 foot law and put in more bike lanes.

Sorry, took your post out of context it seems. I thought you were saying his other points were moot.