Fun times from my old home of Moscow, Idaho:
Motorist brandishes knife in confrontation with bicyclist (Subscription required)
A man allegedly threatened to cut a bicyclist's throat with a pocket knife during an altercation at the corner of Sixth and Jackson streets Wednesday.
Moscow Assistant Police Chief David Duke said a witness reported at about 4:50 p.m. that the driver of a white Saturn stepped out of his vehicle, approached a cyclist and "started using threatening language."
Duke said the man allegedly pulled out a pocket knife, exhibited the blade and said something along the lines of "Would you like me to cut your throat?" The cyclist and driver then left.
The bicyclist, a 44-year-old Moscow man, later called the police department to report the incident. He said the car was partially in the bike lane so he slapped its trunk to let the driver know. The driver then got out of his car and allegedly threatened him, Duke said.
Duke said investigators have identified the suspect's vehicle, which is registered to an out-of-area Washington address. Police are working on contacting the car's owner and finding out who was driving it.
Let's see if the police make an arrest.
--Erik Ryberg
14 comments:
eventually, bicyclists will learn not to be aholes, and then maybe we'll all get along a bit better.
not all bicyclists are aholes, of course, just the ones who slap/kick/punch cars and scream at unsuspecting motorists and think they're not going to experience the business end of road rage.
the bicycling community needs to do more to address what i consider to be bicycle terrorism - and it is terrorism because i've seen the faces of the terrorized - unsuspecting drivers who did something that a terrorist bicyclist decided was uncool, so terrorist bicyclist goes on a tear, physically beating on a car and unleashing torrents of verbal hate at a driver.
somebody's going to die, and then there's gonna be hell to pay for everyone involved and not involved, and it's completely preventable. all it takes is a few cyclists to step up and act like decent human beings and tell their bicycle buddies that terrorizing motorists is not cool.
i imagine, if i was driving a car, and some punk banged on it because he felt like he could get away with it, i would stop the car up ahead, get out, and have a 'friendly talk' with the cyclist. the problem with this scenario is that there is only one place this type of confrontation can go - up. and that's exactly what happened here. the cyclist is _lucky_ he got away without being stabbed. something tells me he won't be stupid enough to continue his practice of banging on cars just because he felt like he could treat people like garbage.
we don't have details of the incident, but we know it's commonn. If a bicyclist bangs on the trunk/back/hood/window a car, then they should not be surprised if they get attacked/threatened/etc. It's common sense. And from the motorist's point of view, what can be done? how can a motorist respond to an attack by a bicyclist? roll down their window and say, "Excuse me, sir, but do you think that was appropriate?"
Of course, not. The driver is going to be incensed, as well they should be. We can continue to live in a fantasy world, or we can grow up and take responsibility for our own behavior. If any bicyclist wants to act tough and get murdered, then that's their prerogative, but I know that it's on me and every bicycle advocate of conscience to forcefully denounce any type of terrorism conducted by bicyclists. Denouncing bicyclist terrorism is right, and it's practical. And it's not fair for us to sit around and let these few bad apples run around terrorizing motorists, setting a bad example for new bicyclists who may not understand that they're putting their lives in jeopardy if and when they decide to partake in a little terrorism themselves.
which leads to my final rant - we need a bicyclist code of conduct. using this exact incident as a starting point that we never want to have happen ever again, we need to put out a call for a Bicyclist Code of Conduct (the BCC) that addresses general concerns and specific details for how to handle any confrontation with motorists, other cyclists, pedestrians, cops, etc. It should detail responsible ways to engage or not engage people, and will explicitly outline many of the unacceptable behaviors that cyclists still commonly employ on the streets today.
10 (did I count right?) gratuitous instances of the term "terrorism" or "terrorist"...outstanding. Tell me, when you're sitting in your cell and the big guy next to ya asks, "What are you in for?" do you think he'll be impressed when you tell him you stabbed/shot/beat a guy who slapped your car because you were in the bike lane? You got some rage, man. Maybe you should get on the internets and blog it out. Oh, wait...well, maybe something else then. Punch-dance?
Rage? That doesn't even come close.
I will defend any and every victim of terrorism. Always. Consistently. Nobody should be subjected to random violence, threats, and intimidation - ever.
These perpetrators should go to jail for long periods of time - at least until they learn to treat people with the minimal amount of respect that every human being deserves.
As for your cool, unaffected detachment - it must be nice. Sometimes I wish I was cool with terrible injustice.
So please tell us Peter, how would you deal with a car impeding you by occupying the bike lane? Would you politely inform the driver of their transgression? Would you just wait behind him or her until they finished driving down the bike lane and then proceed? I wonder how many of those cars that use the bike lane for right turns bother to look to see if there is a cyclist there before they pull into it?
-localmusicfan
So please tell us Peter, how would you deal with a car impeding you by occupying the bike lane?
Every situ is different, so I'm not sure how I _would_ deal in the future, but in the past I've slowed down or gone around them.
I don't think I've ever had to stop, but if I did, I don't believe I'd consider it a serious enough crime to take matters into my own hands and start handing out my own version of vigilante justice. It's not rocket science. Either I'd wait, or in some ridiculous situation that I can't even imagine would actually ever happen, I suppose I could do something ridiculous like wave in their rearview mirror if I was just in such a catastrophic hurry that I couldn't bear to wait 30 seconds or whatever it is.
Isn't one of the points of riding your bike to avoid subjecting your immune system to the incredible stress brought about by your own frustrations - you own inner rage? Why would anyone seek to go postal unless they're just mental, or criminal, or natural born bullies (insecure) or terrorists?
I also have a healthy respect for what type of damage a car, fist, knife, or firearm can inflict on a human body - whether it's from me or the other party. I don't want to be killed, nor do I want to kill. But that's just me. I don't just think of myself in those situations - I think of my family and friends. Would I be useful to my parents if I were dead or in jail? Would that be fair to them? In any case, I avoid confrontations like the plague. They're generally not healthy for you, even if it doesn't come to physical violence. And, road conditions being what they are in much of the world today, it's just not a smart strategy to press your luck. Anyone can have a bad day at the office. If you and someone else both decide one day that _you_ are the bigger victim, watch out - someone's gonna get hurt or go to jail or end up dead - and a lot of people who were not directly involved will suffer miserably for the selfishness and depravity of the people who _were_ directly involved and responsible.
On top of all these direct consequences of our personal behavior, there is the general perception of bicycles and cycling at large. A selfish cyclist thinks, "Hey - this guy slowed me down during my Tour de France training run, so he's obviously doing it on purpose in order to ruin my life, so I'm gonna bang the stuffing out of his trunk". Someone who actually cares about the welfare of other cyclists and the myriad benefits of cycling, in general, will think, "Hmmm...does this person even know they're even in the bike lane? Yes? D******d. I'm gonna go around him. He'll be on a bike soon enough, and then he won't do this anymore."
The selfish cyclist's strategy is asinine because it hurts cycling, and will probably result - in some indirect way, at least - in one or more cyclists being terrorized, injured, or killed by angry or inattentive drivers. If the selfish cyclist is lucky, he won't be injured or killed himself.
The cyclist who actually does care about the welfare of other cyclists will win the day, and will probably help accelerate adoption of bicycling by the non-cycling public, increase the respect and admiration of cyclists everywhere by the public, police, public officials, etc., and very effectively beat down the incredibly negative and damaging reputation that cyclists have for being packs of roving terrorists or individual terrorists.
Just my take.
If the person who slaps your car as he rides by on his bicycle is a terrorist, then we definitely need another word for people who fly passenger jets into skyscrapers.
EBR
Following Peter's logic, we can only deduce that the hijackers were victims. He claims the knife-wielding driver who responded to a simple trunk slap with completely over-the-top threats of murder was the "victim" in his situation, so...obviously some American overseas "acted tough" and slapped somebody's trunk...and now we're all paying for his thoughtless act of trunk-slapping terrorism. Heaven help the kid who accidentally steps on your flower patch, Pete! What might your common sense response be in that "situ"?
Hold up for one moment. So you think it is appropriate to threaten to cut someone's throat for knocking on someone's car to let them know they're in your lane? I'm sorry, but labeling tapping on someone's car terrorism is a gross exaggeration. So then do you also threaten to shoot people at the supermarket if they cut your place in line?
And what about "car terrorism?" By your logic is it not a terrorist act to honk one's horn while passing a cyclist to knock him off balance? Is it not terrorism to pass dangerously close to cyclists in order to intimidate them? Is it not a terrorist act to throw things at cyclists? How about shooting cyclists with paintball guns, hitting them with aluminum baseball bats, or charging them with cars? Somehow I do not think that your "bicycle terrorism" can even remotely compare to the types of hazards that aggravated motorists provide. Your argument is that the little guy should keep his mouth shut or the big roid-raged athlete will kick his ass. This isn't the wild west, such pig-headed alpha-male aggravated behavior is not acceptable on any level.
While some cyclists may act inappropriately by verbally abusing drivers or even vandalizing vehicles (which was not the case here by the way), the real issue is not "bicycle terrorism," but road rage in general. I don't care how stressed out you are or what your situation is, if someone taps the back of your car or cuts you off on the freeway, it is not acceptable behavior to erupt into threats or actions of physical violence.
This goes for bicyclists as well, however I can understand how a cyclist would be a little pissed off after having almost been run over by a careless motorist. Perhaps drivers are scared to death when a cyclist yells loudly at them, but also consider that is the only way to be heard! Cyclists have no horns, so if a driver does not see him, then he must yell to be noticed.
Oh wait, I think we were just victim to a forum troll. Congrats Eric, I think you just got your first one.
I ride my bike to get where I'm going, not to protect my immune system.
Hilarious.
listen, you may not like the term 'terrorism' being applied to anyone who is not brown and muslim, but bicyclists have terrorized people, period - it's happened, it happens, and it needs to stop happening. you can try to minimize it, write it off, explain it away, but it remains. the victims of such terror deserve better.
agree or disagree, but get over it. besides, i didn't equate the terrorism doled out by bicyclists with the terrorism doled out by the 9/11 folks and i didn't equate the terrorism doled out by the 9/11 folks with the terrorism doled out by the u.s. government in iraq, afghanistan, and other places - they are all very different in scope and magnitude, obviously - by orders. and that is completely besides the point.
Writers write, killers kill, and terrorists terrorize. Wiki has this for a definition:
Terrorism is a term used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians by groups or persons for political or ideological goals (fear in latin).
And don't give me the old 'governments cannot be terrorists' line. That's a fairy tale for children.
As for words to describe the 9/11 terrorists - we already have plenty of words that were and are perfectly capable of describing them accurately - 'criminals', 'perpetrators', etc. And we already have plenty of legal avenues to pursue criminals, domestically and overseas. That the U.S. government chose to disregard international law and the will of the American people and the world is on the U.S. government. Most of us wanted the law to be obeyed, but our government didn't listen.
Of course, the hijackers and their friends and families and neighbors and their countries as a whole were and continue to be victims. Does anyone dispute this?
He claims the knife-wielding driver who responded to a simple trunk slap with completely over-the-top threats of murder was the "victim" in his situation
Yes - of course. The biker was the original 'victim', and things quickly escalated from there. It's completely predictable.
so...obviously some American overseas "acted tough" and slapped somebody's trunk...
i guess you could call rape/murder/occupation/oppression on a mass scale a 'trunk slap', but i suppose that would leave you very confused about why 9/11 happened. for me, i'm not confused at all - 9/11 was completely predictable in as much as we knew that retaliation was surely coming, and we may have even known exactly how and when it was coming - thought that remains in some dispute - but we surely knew it was coming. why did we know it was coming? well - we were very aware that our various crimes overseas, from propping up corrupt dictatorships to engaging in various foreign occupations and support of various occupations were breeding mass resentment, for starters. it's not rocket science. it's not like this stuff has not been documented in the official record and released portions of the secret record for over a decade, now. read a little.
you don't have to agree on what is or isn't an appropriate response to various acts of terrorism to recognize the problem and deal with it effectively. for instance, the proper reaction to a trunk slap might be some kind words like, "Hey f******e - why did you slap my trunk??", but what you often get is physical confrontations, violence and threats of violence - terrorism committed by terrorists. Similarly, if a few dudes fly planes into buildings you might expect the proper reaction to be pursuing the criminals and their co-conspirators in courts of law and punish them according to internationally agreed-upon standards of justice - using, say, the ICC, the local legal system inside the United States and other countries, etc., but what you often get is mass murder, mass terror, mass rape and occupation and invasions of foreign countries - the 'supreme international crime', as indicated at the Nuremberg Trials. There is always going to be a 'proper reaction' and an 'improper reaction'. For me, I recognize that humans are not perfect, so I'm not willing to leave these confrontations to chance. I'd rather they not happened in the first place. But if and when they do happen, I'm not likely to excuse terrorism on either side.
Heaven help the kid who accidentally steps on your flower patch, Pete! What might your common sense response be in that "situ"?
as i said, every situ is different. people react differently to different things. for me, when i'm on a bicycle, i couldn't imagine slapping or kicking a car unless it was a last resort to save my life, and i couldn't imagine terrorizing unsuspecting drivers by threating them, unleashing torrents of f-bombs on them, etc. But that's just me. on the other hand, some things can really set me off. any type of real injustice sets me off, but i'm far from perfect, so trivial things can set me off, too. i've never experienced this particular situation, but i imagine if someone slapped or kicked my car because they thought they could treat me like garbage and get away with it, it'd be on. apparently, lots of other folks seem to not like to have their automobile slapped and kicked. crazy, innit?
i try to give folks the benefit of the doubt. i'm most forgiving of kids because i don't feel like people have a real sense of what's what until they're about 25 years old or so. i imagine that a kid stepping on my flower patch would elicit about the same reaction from me that a car sitting in the bicycle lane would get - not much, if anything at all.
and it's important to note, finally, what the reaction of the bicyclist in this incident _should_ have been - what the appropriate response should have been. we don't know all the details, and there are plenty of ways to handle this, but my preference would have been to...completely ignore it. to slow down. to go around the car. to get to where i'm going. i wouldn't stress over it for more than the second and a half it took me to go around the car or for the car to pull ahead of me.
how would you have handled it?
how have you handled it in the past?
Hold up for one moment. So you think it is appropriate to threaten to cut someone's throat for knocking on someone's car to let them know they're in your lane?
No. But it's to be expected. The answer, of course, is not to bang on people's cars.
I'm sorry, but labeling tapping on someone's car terrorism is a gross exaggeration.
now it is 'tapping'? the article says 'slapped'. have you ever had your car 'slapped' by cyclist? i imagine it would scare the s**t out of the driver, at least. and once the driver realized that they didn't run someone over, that instead of it was an above-the-law, profoundly disrespectful cyclist - watch out. i might not label this particular incident 'terrorism', but it would depend on the particulars. at a minimum, it sounds like it was a profound disrespect for the driver as a human being, and that, i'm sure, is what provoked the driver's reaction. it's completely predictable. lots of cyclists do it and get away with it. this particular cyclist probably thought, "ah - it's a little Saturn - probably driven by some teen punk" - and then he found out it had a real human inside with a real temper. go figure. would the cyclist have slapped the trunk of an F150, knowing that the driver was probably a guy and might get out and kick his ass? i think probably not, but i could be wrong. some people have a death wish. not me. i don't slap, punch, or kick cars and trucks that don't belong to me. period.
So then do you also threaten to shoot people at the supermarket if they cut your place in line?
No. i've already answered this by way of my previous answers, but we can make an important point. go to fark.com to read about the over-reactions that people have to the tiniest, simplest incidents every day. google 'road rage' and find out how people are injured and murdered around the world for seemingly-innocuous infractions. They are not appropriate reactions, but they happen. Why? Because people are imperfect humans, and the world is a crazy place - car culture is just one of the many contributing factors. A cyclist doesn't like that some car is in the car lane? They go ballistic. And what happens? The situation escalates out of control in a hurry. Completely. Predictable.
And what about "car terrorism?"
I've been writing about criminal car drivers terrorizing cyclists - intentionally and otherwise - for a long time, now, because that's exactly what it is, and that's what they are, by definition - 'car terrorists'.
But this specific labeling issue is boring to me, except for the fact that i strongly believe that cyclists should institute this national code of conduct to prevent bad behavior which hurts cycling and livable communities, etc. If we ignore our own, very real culpability in these matters, we'll continue to see pathetic rates of bicycle adoption - somewhere in the 0.2 to 1% range - and continued and sometimes increasing resistance to any and all bicycling infrastructure by the non-bicycling community. Again, it's not just morally right to implement this code of conduct, it's good politics. People might have legitimate reasons for opposing this code of conduct, but i would suggest that anyone who has been in a position of advocating for cycling in the public realm (lobbying public officials, etc.) would forcefully back this measure.
Somehow I do not think that your "bicycle terrorism" can even remotely compare to the types of hazards that aggravated motorists provide.
Strongly disagree on this one. The psychological scars left by terrorism are very real and damaging. Just ask the victims of terrorism - be they Afghanis or Iraqis or that lady on Mission St i saw come to a complete stop, terrified, as some bicycle terrorist was slapping and kicking her car and screaming obscenities at her. i guarantee she thinks about that every day, worries about it every day, and is affected by it every day.
Your argument is that the little guy should keep his mouth shut or the big roid-raged athlete will kick his ass.
I always stick up for the underdog - the 'little guy'. It's one of the main guiding principles of my life.
in this particular incident, i deem the bicyclist's overreaction to be extreme, counter-productive, and wrong - quite possibly criminal. opinions may differ.
the real issue is not "bicycle terrorism," but road rage in general
everyone knows that road rage exists - the question is, what do we do about it? I say we help to prevent it by deciding, as a community, what is appropriate behavior on the road. we shouldn't wait any longer to make this happen. TBL will not be surprised by the hate his clients have experienced on the road, but he need not think it's an unsolvable problem. There's a reason Tuscon cops ignore cyclists' concerns and complaints - it's the same reason lots of people and organizations ignore and minimize cyclists' concerns all over the country. We can take real, proactive, corrective measures _right now_ to fix the situation, or we can sit around and cry about it. The world will much more quickly become a much better place for cyclists and drivers alike if we get started on this now.
if someone taps the back of your car
the article said 'slapped'. that's qualitatively different from a 'tap'.
it is not acceptable behavior to erupt into threats or actions of physical violence
agreed, in general.
I can understand how a cyclist would be a little pissed off after having almost been run over by a careless motorist.
me too.
the thing is, i realize from my own personal experience as a car driver that i had no appreciation for bicyclists and their fears until...I started riding a bike. so it's completely plausible to believe that most drivers in the U.S. have exactly zero idea of what it's like to be riding next to a ton of steel and glass and then be cut off or something similar. we need to change that by getting more people on bikes. that won't happen if we continue to condone bicycle terrorism. it needs to stop, we need to stop it. we need to denounce it. loudly and proudly. we love our cycling brothers and sisters, but they cannot go around terrorizing people. it's wholly unacceptable.
for me - if a car starts pushing me into the curb or off the side of the road, i slow down and let them pass, but at that point i'm more interested in living than anything else. that's just me. but we can and should all decide soon/right now on what is appropriate behavior in these situations, and then go about educating people - including car drivers - about it. setting expectations is key.
Cyclists have no horns
lots of cyclists do, and lots of cyclists must, by law - maybe not here in the u.s., but some places. and maybe it's a good idea to require horns? i don't think so, but i don't condone the punch/slap/kick routine, so we need to agree on _something_.
so if a driver does not see him, then he must yell to be noticed
i'm not talking about the "Hey! Watch where you're going!" yell when a car is encroaching on a cyclist, i'm talking about the threatening verbal tirades from the bicyclist after the danger has passed.
I ride my bike to get where I'm going, not to protect my immune system.
that's fine by me. lots of people ride to improve their health, or prevent it from deteriorating further. it's certainly one of the reasons i ride. but whatever works for you.
Hilarious.
Thank you!
**Of course, the hijackers and their friends and families and neighbors and their countries as a whole were and continue to be victims. Does anyone dispute this?**
I don't dispute that your cretinization is complete. As to the rather unlettered claim above, which seems to suggest that Mohamed Atta and his conspirators are still victims, or ever were, I'd have to say, yes, I dispute it. For one thing, they're dead by their own hand. For another, they constituted the most privileged classes in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and burned hundreds of fellow Muslims on 9/11 while trying to kill as many innocent people as they thought feasible.
How does that "slap" sound now, big boy?
This is why we fired you.
HO Ho HO. I'm sorry I got in on this one so late, but the next time I'm swiped at a stop sign or right squeezed a light I might be carrying an ice pick or a can of spray paint. Which style of racing stripe do you prefer? Bare silver?---Day glow pink, or my favorite---Bright day glow yellow---- then again flat tires are easy--dg
Post a Comment