Media: "No One Is Safe from Rampaging Cyclists!"

From Chicago, and I agree, many times the critical mass people have been total jerks. And I have waited and missed reservations or been late due to waiting to cross the street as a pedestrian, or cross the intersection as a car. I do this b/c I know if I get near the guys in bikes, I'll get massivly hit by the bikers. . .Plus, well, reservations aren't that big of a deal.

While I think the monthly organized event is cool, I do think it is important to emphasize the need to obey traffic signals by all parties. Had all parties in the situation obeyed signals, then none of this would have happened.

Just one question. Who had an implement with which to slash tires? Tires are pretty tough. What did these people come prepared for? I don't have anything in my car right now that could slash tires . . .

I just want to point out that in the context of Critical Mass, the arguments against corking, while technically true, sort of don't apply. The entire point of Critical Mass is a "reclaiming of the roads" or whatever. It's a protest, and things like blocking traffic (car or foot) and disrupting operations (marches, sit ins, etc) pretty much define a successful protest. In that context, corking is one of the few responsible, safe things that Seattle CM does. I don't feel like its always done correctly in Seattle rides, but when it is done right, it's nothing but good.

Also to move on in an angrier tone, I heard this argument a few years ago with the transit cop/CM fiasco, and it's bullshit. Corking is about on par with that old man who takes longer than the walk signal to cross the street. It doesn't put anyone in danger, just inconveniences you for a few minutes and in this case is actually protecting people. To those of you saying you "hope the driver walks" because they were being corked and thus justified in RUNNING OVER PEOPLE, you fucking horrify me. Unlawful restraint? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. You're also not allowed to assault someone for unlawful restraint, much less run them over.

That said, I fully agree that Seattle CM kids are total douches. Not that that really relates to the case.

@z33bleoop

Interesting points, and since I'm not an expert on the law I'll just accept your explanation as the correct one.

I don't excuse the behavior of the cyclists, they should be held accountable for whatever laws they broke. That's not up for debate. The hot debate here, however, seems to be people excusing the driver. That's where I disagree. The point of what specific law (if any) the bicyclists broke by standing in front of the car is irrelevant and I was mistaken in taking up the bait and going there.

@Chrisbingham - somebody posting something about a "spur" on another thread doesnt really advance the debate here. On the "lets tip it over" comment, if that was truly said that would change things, but you really should read the multiple eyewitness accounts... the peacefulness prior to the car running into the crowd is disputed. An accurate account of the events is not at all clear right now.

The idea of driving over pedestrians as self defense is pretty extravagent. The idea that a driver who drove through/over a crowd of people commited a crime is not.

A bicycle traveling at less than the speed of the traffic flow should ride as near as is safe to the right side of the right lane except when preparing to turn, passing another vehicle or on a one way street where it is legal to ride on the left side of the roadway. (RCW 46.61.770)

Bicyclists may ride on the right shoulder, but this is only required on limited access roadways, (such as freeways).

A bicyclist should ride in the middle of the right lane when the lane is too narrow to permit side by side sharing of the lane with motor vehicles and hazards prevent safe operation of the bicycle on the shoulder or at the right edge of the lane.

A bicyclist must pull off of a 2-lane roadway, like any other slow moving vehicle, when 5 or more vehicles are lined up behind it, if there is sufficient area for a safe turnout. (RCW 46.61.427)

Now tell me does CM ever follow any of these laws?

So we all agree that both parties were probably at fault, and like all stories the truth lies in the middle...

But then again, Michael's article was about media coverage so there's just a lot of steam against the ceiling.

@rayf

I actually witnessed a Blue Angel, two years back, whip through 4th Ave traffic to pick up his blond hoochie. He died two weeks later pulling some dangerous moves in the air. Just an anecdotal point.

@frinkahedron

"Agreed that preventing people from being able to leave an area is restraint ... but to me there is a distinction between blocking a car and blocking the people."

the car here is an extension of the people. saying that someone should just abandon their vehicle in the street is a flawed argument and sounds to me like you're stretching to excuse the behavior of these CM members.

your point about garages speaks to an implied contract. i doubt seriously that this driver and the cyclists got into any sort of contract that said after a certain time the driver would be unable to use his car on a public street. not sure why you are looking to defend the cyclists who blocked in the driver. what they did was uncalled for and unnecessary if they wanted to get across a message of peacefully co-existing with one another. you don't detain people, or their cars, on a public street, unless you are a member of law enforcement - period.

oh, and corking, unless you are a cop is illegal. nobody except the police has the right to impede the flow of traffic.

"Agreed that preventing people from being able to leave an area is restraint ... but to me there is a distinction between blocking a car and blocking the people. The critical issue here would be whether the driver and passenger of the car would have been able to exit their car and walk away."

Someone on another thread the law that applies is disorderly conduct with a traffic "spur" whatever that is.

Add to that the driver's statment that someone said "let's tip the car" and we're into self defense, and punching the pedal and running them down to get out of the situation gets into the realm of reasonable.

When beligerant assholes who've got me surrounded start talking about what they're going to do to me, that's not protest or a memorial that's gang violence.

=v= The "bumped" wording reminds me of an incident in San Francisco last year, where an SUV "inched" into a bicyclist and "tapped" him.

I'm from out of town and after watching last year's Blue Angels air show from the Bridge at Mercer Island I can tell you the bicyclists there were totally out of control, and to the tune of about 95% of them from my experience that day. They were angry, belligerent, surly and dangerously indifferent to the the safety of pedestrians. Extremely polite pleading to them to slow down and be careful and stop hitting folks were met with eye-rolling sighs and head shaking. Their general demeanor was, "You guys on foot are just ruining everything for the rest of us just by existing." I'd ban them from big pedestrian events like that. It doesn't work. To get back on topic. My experience makes me think there is little hope for calm and kindness, and that the bicyclists are not the poor little innocent victims they'd like to be forever portrayed as. I sympathize for the kind bicyclists that that get thrown into that stew.

In regards to unlawful restraint...

"From what I understand, purposefully surrounding someone after they ask to get by does. It happens in cases where employers are doing things like investigating theft - if someone wants to leave a room and you block the door, or touch them to restrain them, you've committed a crime."

Agreed that preventing people from being able to leave an area is restraint ... but to me there is a distinction between blocking a car and blocking the people. The critical issue here would be whether the driver and passenger of the car would have been able to exit their car and walk away. The answer to that question can be debated by non-experts on an internet thread ad nauseum... the courts can decide.

My point here, rather than trying to weigh in a speculated answer on the question, is to illuminate the question. To give a real world example, surely you must have seen a parking garage where they post that after a certain late hour of the night cars may not enter or leave... meaning the gate won't open. But the garages do leave doors unlocked, to avoid trapping people inside (unlawful restraint). While the cars may be blocked, as long as people can exit by foot there is no law broken.

Your experience with the bicyclist stopping abruptly in front of you on a hill sounds dangerous and annoying, and I'm glad that nothing happened. I don't think that his actions represent all bicyclists or critical mass riders any more than I think that the driver in the current incident represents all motorists. They are both assholes.

I have personally been hit by a car while I was bicycling (the woman was looking back over her left shoulder as she made a right hand turn onto an arterial street and into me). I've been verbally threatened by motorists numerous times, and once had a guy behind me at a light rev his engine in threat. Those people were assholes, and the incidents made me angry, but I don't judge all motorists based on those people. Most people are reasonable, but there are jerks out there ... in cars and on bicycles.

But regardless of whether any individual is kind or unkind, and whatever their intentions, the law still applies to their actions. Somebody can verbally taunt me, but I can't just punch him in the face with impunity. If this motorist did indeed drive over people, it's vehicular assault - regardless of if the people he drove over were jerks. Their retaliation toward him is illegal - regardless of whether or not he had broken the law beforehand.

"I'm not a lawyer but I doubt standing in front of someone's car constitutes "unlawful restraint."

From what I understand, purposefully surrounding someone after they ask to get by does. It happens in cases where employers are doing things like investigating theft - if someone wants to leave a room and you block the door, or touch them to restrain them, you've committed a crime.

http://arcanius.silverfir.net/blog/critical-mass-collision

CMers, when they make their statements to cops and press paint what they were doing as "quitely explaining" - on the two occasions I've witneessed in Seattle, that means shouting obscenties and banging on car hoods. I just don't buy their description of the tenor of the situation.

On the occasion when I was driving behind CM, (giving them plenty of space to do their thing by the way) I had a biker pass me on the right fast enough to pull a donut and slide to a stop ten feet in front of the car. (coming down hill onto 3rd, if I remember correctly) I had to slam on the brakes - he was looking me in the eye when he stopped and was essentially daring me he to hit him. I just put my hands up the WFT position and waitied. It was clearly an attempt to set up a crash and I wasn't pushing or feeling particularly impatient.

This is not a case of a bunch of nice people out for a ride getting attacked by a psychopath - this is belligerent assholes deliberately provoking people and then playing the victim when they succeed.

jabailo, I think you pasted in the wrong link. When I clicked on your link it directed me to page 2 of a Washington Post article on China's economy.

Here is a collection of links that I've come across while reading up on this mess:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008075512_reading27.html

http://arcanius.silverfir.net/blog/critical-mass-collision

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/372364_criticalmass27.html

http://www.vimeo.com/1416030

Sorry to reprint the link from above, but you really have to read it before people comment any more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502255_2.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

"I just spoke with Tom Braun, one of the cyclists hit by an irate motorist during last night’s Critical Mass ride.

Braun—a 35-year-old attorney who says prior to last night, he hadn’t been on a Critical Mass ride in years—says he was moving with a crowd of cyclists on 15th and Aloha when he says he heard the driver of a white Subaru yelling at his fellow riders. “I didn’t see anyone “surrounding” the guy’s car,” Braun says.”I saw some cyclists nicely asking the guy to wait.” Then, Braun says, the driver “just floored it” into a crowd of cyclists. "

Running over an attorney? Who sounds like a "credible witness"? The motorist committed mass attempted murder. He should be tried and put away for a long, long time...

When there are court cases with eyewitnesses, the most accurate version of the truth possible will come out. (Hopefully!) After reading eyewitnesses and news outlets, it seems to me that this was not "us vs them" but really just asshole vs assholes.

The driver was unjustified in driving his car through/over bicyclists. I'm not a lawyer but I doubt standing in front of someone's car constitutes "unlawful restraint." My experiences with CM is that "corking" a car is a quiet and peaceful interaction, usually the bicyclists explain what is happening and that the bicyclists will likely all be gone in a couple minutes. So from the situation as I understand it, the driver was unjustified. He should have waited it out, and if he felt his rights were being violated, called the police and taken pictures. He should be held accountable to the law for vehicular assault and any hospital/repair bills he incurred.

The bicyclists were also unjustified in property damage and in striking the man in the head with the lock or whatever object it was. That is totally inapropriate behavior, no matter what the driver had done before. Those cyclists should have taken pictures, written down a license plate number, and called the police. All involved in the property damage/assault should be held accountable to the law and any hospital/repair bills incurred.

This situation just destroys the whole purpose behind CM and gives it a bad name. He says / She says is what's going on in the news reports I've read.

No matter the driver's fault, as representatives of CM, these people failed miserably and pretty much gave reason for more aggression and hatred from drivers and the police.

Good job, guys. Really.

I've been riding bicycles and quadracycles for 50 years. The folks in the photos are riding left of the center lane and, therefore, are driving illegally. They should be ticketed.

Feh, what anger & hostility on both sides! Which are Suni, which Shiite? Imagine, we're living in a relatively great city in a time of (historically) relative prosperity, free from the threat of lethal random explosions. But close to the surface of this relative calm boil deep tensions and paranoid suspicions. Not ethnic, not racial but "lifestyle." An us-against-them mentality, a smugness, a righteousness. Newspapers & TV reporters believe the cops; blogs believe "the people who were there and saw this with their own eyes." A cacophony of voices, a heightening of emotions, a flare of self-righteous tempers. We are no better than cavemen.

I've read reports from several sources, including one of the bikers that was blocking the guy from moving into the road.

Apparently he was pretty pissed off and reasonably frightened by being surrounded by a bunch of beligerent assholes who were blocking him in - which is possibly a kind of illegal restraint. When they heard he was arguing a bunch more started to surround the car and he backed into them and then ran over one guy and another jumped onto his hood while he was trying to drive away.

Some of the other bikers managed to slash his tires while he was moving (neat trick that) and then proceeded to smash the windows in his car, punch him in the face and when he managed to get out of his now smashed up car, someone clocked him with a bike lock in the back of the head.

There is some amopunt of arrogance on all sides, but having witnessed CM "interactions" on two occasions myself, I have zero sympathy for the bikers - I hope the guy that clocked him with a bike lock does long hard time and the driver sues the assholes who blocked him for unlawful restraint, including the lawyer whose leg he ran over.

I hope the driver walks.

You don't surround people in their cars in an attempt to provoke them into a fear / anger response and then get to play victim when you manage to get a reaction.

I cycle and drive a really wish we could emulate cities like Amsterdam where they've built an amazing infrastructire around bikes. (And NO ONE wears a helmet) This kind of crap does nothing to help change the lanscape. I hope the bikers get fines and jail time.

The Stranger has an update on the story; it turns out at least one bicyclist was sent to the hospital.

Maybe this will be just the (unfortunate) push that "Critical Manners" needs to gain support in Seattle.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/14/MNGB6P8R1U1.DTL

bikehugger.com organized one last year.

The ultimate sin of CM bikers is that they temporarily block traffic and slow people on their journeys. Is this worth starting fights over?

If the driver had just thrown up his hands and waited (CM riders say 30 seconds, it likely would have been several minutes)then the situation never would have gotten out of control.

There is no doubt that CM riders can be overly aggressive when challenged, and I do not defend vigilante style beating of a driver. However, it was a Friday afternoon on a beautiful summer day; big f'n deal if you have to wait for a heard of overly righteous bikers to pass before heading on your way.

Sorry, but the bikers brought all of this on themselves. I don't have any sympathy here -- they should have had the good sense to call the cops and take down the pertinent information on the vehicle, instead of going ballistic, busting windows and slashing tires like the bunch of yahoos that they are. They did absolutely nothing to help their cause or their side of the story by denying to comment to ANY media outlet whatsoever -- that's usually what guilty people do.

Sure, maybe the guy was a jerk, but frankly, so are most holier-than-thou bicyclists in Seattle, a constant terror to both drivers and pedestrians -- instead of thinking that they're sharing the road, they act like they own it, not obeying traffic laws as they want cars to do while on the road and constantly wreaking havoc on sidewalks, and God forbid you ever get into an argument with one. I'd sooner argue with an angry driver brandishing a pistol than one of these kooks.

I hope the jerks from CM they did arrest get the book thrown at them.

I guess it also makes me realize I should be more careful about jumping to conclusions when I read press reports such as the coverage of the recent "traffic-circle-gardener-death."

As a biker (but not a CM participant), I got a deep down horrible feeling when I read the first reports from the Times and the PI.

What scares me is that both newspaper reports immediately assumed and presented the "facts" such that the bikers were the aggressors and that the driver was nothing but an intimidated and confused victim. I've spent a while now today following this story and every eye witness account I've read (from riders and onlookers alike) makes it seem like the driver instigated and escalated the situation, and that then riders f*cked it all up by going ballistic on him. I'm not saying I could have held my temper better.

In all likelihood, the truth lives somewhere in the grey area, but I agree with the original premise of the post, that the media was all to willing to demonize the bikers without fulfilling their journalistic duty to fully investigate the story.

"No One Is Safe from Rampaging Cyclists!" strikes me as an accurate and unbiased title for this post. If only the headlines from King5 or the Times were as sensationalistic...

This is just all sorts of messed up. The only solution: close Aloha St.

Ah, now the Times has changed the headline and added this:

On an online forum for Seattle bicyclists, some riders who said they were in the Critical Mass ride characterized the Subaru driver as the aggressor. They said the driver was impatient about having to wait for the huge group of riders and intentionally ran into some of them, prompting the altercation.

The riders said the man's tires were slashed to keep him from fleeing the scene or running into more riders.

Not that I buy that justification for the tire-slashing. Whatever happened to an old-fashioned citizen's arrest?

westcoastn: Hey, let me be clear--whoever among the Critical Mass people threatened, broke a window, and/or hit the guy is also guilty of breaking laws. But all the eye-witnesses say that the driver backed into some cyclists and ran into (if not over) others. And that's against the law too. To me, both these stories seemed to downplay that. Lastly, my "declaring" everyone off-topic was supposed to sound self-mocking. Obviously I swung and missed there.

and yet in all reports so far the driver was the only one from the incident to be hospitalized. from this i seriously doubt he hit anyone with a ton of force.

for someone supposedly critiquing bad reporting perhaps you shouldn't be so touchy when others point out the flaws in your own yes, mocking, post.

and last i checked, the idea that witnesses and reports will differ isn't shockingly a new thing.

pablocjr: No, you got me, I'm not an eye-witness. I'm just comparing the different accounts that I've read, and noting that some agree more than others, and some flatly disagree. The news reports I'm critiquing present a situation where Critical Mass singled this guy out and trashed his car...and he didn't do anything except try to get away. Maybe I'm wrong, and in the end I will be horribly off-topic myself.

jdavin: I think I agree with most of what you say. I'm really not mocking the driver getting hurt (I'm upset anyone was). I'm mocking the story that this pack of wolves suddenly jumped him. And I put quotes around assaulted because, apparently, backing into and driving over bicyclists isn't considered assault in either of these stories.

It's one thing to get hit in the face with a fist; it's another to get hit by two tons with horsepower behind it.

Sounds like there is bias and spin on both sides of the story. Sure, King 5 didn't do a good job, but neither does this blog post. You put "assaulted" in quotes, as if you do not consider what happened to the driver to be an assault (and yet they broke his window and he had blood on his neck, which pretty much meets the definition for assault).

And you mock the driver as if there's no way he possibly could have genuinely felt fearful of the bikes surrounding him, when clearly his fear was at least partly warranted given how much they damaged the car after he hit the 2 bicyclists.

Two wrongs don't make a right - a bike accident is no excuse for attacking someone or damaging their property. They should have just gotten the plate number and called the police (and if he drove off, then he could be charged which hit-and-run, which is an even bigger offense).

I'm not defending the driver - he should certainly be punished for what he did. But so should the bikers who attacked his car.

So...you poked your head out to take a look? Or not?!? For someone that didn't see anything, you seem to know EXACTLY what happened. And count me in with the other "off-topic" commenters around here. CM are a bunch of assholes. And THAT is the point - they are creating violent confrontations out of nothing at all.

John, westcoastn, Jeremy--I'm declaring you all off-topic. It's just not germane that Critical Mass are or are not assholes, when the action taken is driving your car at them, hitting them, and fleeing. I don't know if this guy had a map or not, but there are many more streets besides Aloha that get you over Capitol Hill.

This post is about bad reporting: the KING 5 and Times reports don't even agree with each other, glossing over the exact number of cyclists "bumped" or hit, while taking the driver's side.

Moral responsibility between cyclists and drivers is asymmetric in the sense that a car getting "bumped" by a bicyclist might leave a dent or a scratch--a bicyclist getting "bumped" by a car could have been killed. In this case, there are pictures of bicycles crushed by the car as it drove over them. It bothers me when these distinctions aren't made in the news.

They also fudge the chronology so the driver sounds like he was trying to escape an ongoing attack, when he was physically touched only after running over a number of cyclists with his car. It is highly illegal to hit or run over people with your car, even if they are making you late, or you find them scary or annoying.

I personally don't care for the critical mass people myself, though there is, of course, a limit, and this driver's behavior is indicative not of philosophical differences but rather intoxication or road-rage. But that said, critical mass has always pissed me off--down in Portland the one thing I have to give them is that years ago they legally established that bicycles have to behave like cars: there's none of this "oh, red light but walk signal so now I'm a pedestrian" b.s., which just leads to stress and escalation. My problem with critical mass is that their "protest" is doing exactly what bicyclists shouldn't be doing: running red lights, riding several abreast, making it difficult for cars to share the road with them. The only way we're going to have a safe city for bicyclists is if we clearly establish the law and hold everyone--bicyclist and car alike--to it.

classy seattlest, making fun of a driver who was assaulted by a bunch of yes asshole white cyclists. no harm no foul right?

it's the cyclists that should be sorry for disregarding traffic laws and punching a guy in the face.

it's a wonder more people don't get their well informed news coverage here

Critical Mass are notorious for being assholes.

Not that they deserve to be run over but they instigate a lot of confrontational shit in the name of bicycling harmony.

Do they have a legal right to block other drivers and flip busses off while running red lights?

There's a lot of meatheads in that scene who enjoy the power trip of the mob mentality. Can't be denied.