Read about this on Ben's twitter. Thank god no one was hurt and yea for long range photo lenses!

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Man, I was 'slammed' about ten years ago but was able to stop a few inches from the back of a pickup. I was really glad I had Dura-Ace breaks because I could have crashed and caused my wheel to brake. I was lucky to get unclipped because there was nothing to brake my fall.

Even after all these years I still brake into a sweat just thinking about it.

I don't agree that the driver's actions should be lightly excused. But you raise an excellent point. From the OP: "He came by our our group screaming obscenities like "Fucking cyclists get of the road" etc."

Sideswiping a cyclist is inexcusable, and I hope the driver is appropriately punished. But, what were the circumstance that set him off? The pack of cyclists rolling through a stop sign, maybe right in front of him? Riding 4 abreast when the law requires keeping right?

There are reasons drivers hate cyclists. Often they are born out of ignorance that cyclists have a right to be on the road as much as they do. But, cyclists who flaunt traffic laws and lack common courtesy share some of the blame.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

No it is not , but glad the cyclist and support vehicles were able to keep their heads together and act appropriately. Hope the guy in the car gets what he deserves.

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But, what were the circumstance that set him off? The pack of cyclists.....

Huh?! So using your logic, if I see a motorist flaunt the law, which all do at some point, it's understandable that I may get angry and use deadly force against them?! They would share in the blame for the encounter?

squid wrote:

But, what were the circumstance that set him off? The pack of cyclists.....

Huh?! So using your logic, if I see a motorist flaunt the law, which all do at some point, it's understandable that I may get angry and use deadly force against them?! They would share in the blame for the encounter?

You misunderstood what I wrote. The word "blame" refers to "reasons drivers hate cyclists" in the same paragraph, not blame for the (alleged) assault. The driver's actions were inexcusable and I hope he is appropriately punished.

However, understanding why drivers become infuriated by cyclists can help reduce the frequency of this type of occurrence.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

you must forgive this guy's lack of insight as he only has one eye, and that one eye got speared by Ulysses.

No it won't. Sending this guy to jail for an extended period of time and setting an example that will wake drivers up to what will happen to them if they use their car as a weapon is what will reduce these situations.

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How many times must I repeat that I hope the driver is punished appropriately?

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Enough times until you learn that its irrelevant what set him off and you never think or talk that way again.

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Speed Concept 9 (race)
Madone 5 (training)
Trek 1000 (rain/snow/sleet/monsoon)

To clarify the scenario, I don't think anything our team was doing set this guy off, other than simply being on the road. We were riding two abreast on the right side of the white line, there was enough room on the shoulder to ride side by side without going into the lane of traffic. Our director was not behind us with his hazard lights on slowing down traffic like many teams.

You can see the shoulder in this photo: http://www.cyclingnews.com/...f-hit-and-run/253213

I did not hear the guy yell this myself, but several guys who were at the back of the group said he yelled that we should be on the bike path. Make no mistake, this guy was out to hurt us and he gave it his best try by ramming my teammates with his car.

Isn't this analogous to forcing women to cover up and not show any skin to prevent men from being 'turned on' and sexually assaulting the tramps and sluts walking around with their legs exposed?

Yes...I do realize that the leverage a prosecutor (or defense attorney) has is highly dependant on how they feel the jury views the case. My point was simply that if the jury feels that the defendant is guilty of aggravated assault, would it matter if the prosecutor pushed for 1 count, or 15 counts. If a conviction is likely, a defense lawyer might be able to plea one count of AA down to X months in prison...but I'm wondering what he could plea 15 counts of AA down to.

If you take a baseball bat and assault 15 people...I don't think you should get the same penalty as someone who takes the same bat and assaults just one person.

I'm not sure if shooting at someone is much more likely to result in death than trying to hit a cyclist with a car. Depends on a lot of things and is speculation on your part - or perhaps you have some evidence about this?

This guy did not kill, so I guess that's evidence. But people shoot other people outside w/o killing them too.

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I rescind my previous opinion erring on the side of forgiveness for said assailant. After reading more posts it appears this guy was deranged and used his vehicle rather violently. I am just used to standard fits of road rage like having an empty beer can thrown at me so I was equating the act in light of my own experiences.

Personally think they should just pull his license permanently. Driving should be a privilege and not a right and this guy has demonstrated he doesn't deserve the privilege of driving a car and should lose his ability to do so. Unfortunately most people view driving as a right so this will never happen

I agree. However I don't believe it's cyclist specific. Your either the type of driver that gets infuriated or not. I would say it's probably just easy to vent to a cyclist because they can pull alongside and let rip, once the angers flowing I guess it gets the better of some people. I also believe we have a responsibility as cyclist to be mindful of drivers and be the least amount of hindrance as possible. Some riders do seem to ride ignorantly and cause unnecessary obstruction, to be fair they probably drive with the same ignorance too.

As for this instance I am glad they got the guy. Maybe if he goes to prison he will learn what its like to have a day in the saddle, when your sore the next day ;)

No.

Civil behavior on public roads requires courtesy and obeying traffic laws by all. Those that disregard these tenets infuriate others, whether they're drivers, cyclists, or pedestrians.

Skimpy clothing is not illegal. Blowing stop signs or not keeping right (in places) is. (Not that clothing, stop signs, or keeping right is an issue in this particular case.)

Of course I don't believe that scantily-clad women are responsible should they be assaulted. Nor do I believe that cyclists are responsible when they are. But, cyclists as a group do bear some responsibility for infuriating drivers. That does not imply that being infuriated justifies assault.

I'm a cyclist too. I've ridden tens of thousands of miles on public roads in the US and had my share of honks, rude comments, and buzz by's. I get it. But I've also seen lots of dumb-ass riding by cyclists that fuels driver animosity towards us. This we-got-to-stick-together-it's-us-against-the-drivers tribe mentality is counter productive.

We're really looking at two separate issues as this thread has diverged:

1) This driver (assuming the information provided so far is accurate) assaulted a group of cyclists and should be punished for his actions.

2) Cyclists in general, not necessarily in this particular case, aren't doing themselves any favors when they ride irresponsibly/illegally/discourteously.

Some on this thread have conflated these two issues and/or have misunderstood my posts here.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

You raised the point that we should take the time to understand what behaviour of ours might be irritating a deranged, irrational individual. I'm obviously paraphrasing a little, but I don't think we need to do anything other than put the dirtbags in jail. All motorists roll through stop signs just like cyclists, but for some reason this irritates many drivers. Most just bitch about it and don't actually try and kill or maim the cyclists.

Sure some cyclists could improve their riding habits as could most drivers. Focusing on cyclist's behaviour in situations as described by the OP is fruitless and unnecessary in my opinion.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

+1

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Speed Concept 9 (race)
Madone 5 (training)
Trek 1000 (rain/snow/sleet/monsoon)

"All motorists roll through stop signs just like cyclists",
"Sure some cyclists could improve their riding habits as could most drivers"

Here we go again.
The old spiel of finger-pointing and generalization to justify/defend ones own misbehavior.

And to save you a post:
Yes, I have made judgement calls to roll stop signs and to speed, but I don't use others as an excuse for my own occasional poor behavior.

And I proud myself to follow the law, obey signage and go the speed limit most of the time when operating a vehicle.

So speak for yourself, man up to your digressions and leave others out of it!

At least twice each season, some driver deliberately tries to kill me on the road while riding. Most commonly, they buzz me at 50mph + or they throw something at me. I don't think that they appreciate that they could literally kill me. Perhaps they think of me as something subhuman. I have never reported anyone, in thinking about, maybe I should start. This kind of insane road rage on the part of drivers is certainly not representative of most drivers, but it's not exactly uncommon either. Its most likely the same small group of jerks who do this kind of stuff repeatedly, maybe getting one off the road will literally save someone's life.

I am compiling a series of videos entitled The best of Near Misses. Im setting up a youtube channel to post my gopro videos of near misses. Before it goes live, I want to gather some more vids. I only have 2 good ones so far. Being in the NY area, I have many a $$ holes to profile. My goal is to get license plate numbers published. Unfortunately, even though the cameras are 1080p, it's only 30fps I think, so it's not smooth enough to capture plates. I hear the new cam has higher fps, but I just bought mine this summer. Not going to shell out another 600 for 2 more cams.

I hope other ST'ers, including yourself, do the same. If nobody beats me to it, I'm hoping to have it up this summer.

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Speed Concept 9 (race)
Madone 5 (training)
Trek 1000 (rain/snow/sleet/monsoon)