Caught on video: Father with family in SUV chased, beaten by speed-demon bikers

[AtheistCrusader]

330. Yes, he just slowed down.

That bike could stop in about 10 feet if he wanted to. He's compression braking. And not very hard. The brake lights only come on for a second, the rest is engine braking, because he rolled off the throttle. That's nothing. You can stop that bike so hard it'll stand up on the front wheel if you want to. Rider didn't do that. He let off the gas, essentially. I maintain, in my opinion, there's no way they should have made contact, even if the rider is A) being a dick and B) breaking the law. I agree with you, that brake-checking someone like that is illegal. But that's a fine, not a free pass to rear end him, and the distances and speed involved do not prevent the Rover's driver from avoiding that contact. He gently bumps the rider. (And this is why that is not the guy with the broken legs/severe injuries. He was pretty much fine.)

"You are trying to correlate this with a normal accident. It wasn't normal. It was road combat. Ergo, the multiple charges against Cruz."

The riders allege that the driver also engaged them with foul language and following closely. That puts this whole thing into the realm of road rage, and nobody's coming out of that squeaky-clean. The police have explicitly not ruled out ticketing the driver. They are still looking at all aspects of the incident. I predict, but will have to wait and see, that the driver will get a 'failure to avoid' ticket, AND the rider will get a couple tickets on the merge, and intentional slow-down.

I disagree with the characterization of combat, I don't think the rider intended to make contact at all. If he had, he probably would have pulled alongside and kicked the rover or tore off a mirror, etc, instead. I don't know if the driver meant to make contact or not. I can see nothing of his body language or behavior inside the car. Maybe he thought if he just kept going slow and steady, the rider would give way, as, legally, he should have given way.

But, I am inferring intent. I acknowledge that I cannot know for sure. I only know my opinion of the video events. I can see the body language of the rider, I can't see it of the driver. I can see the initial contact, I can't see what happened just prior to the Rover driving over the bike and the dude.


Maybe it was justified, maybe not. I tend to assume not, because I take a dim view of a person using a ~5,400lb vehicle intentionally against a human in a bid to escape something that may not have been a life-threatening situation. It's roughly analogous to using a gun against an unarmed aggressor, which people here on this site usually take a dim view of, and argue about intent. I'm not saying the driver couldn't have felt threatened and justified, I just say the video doesn't support that claim. There may be more evidence. He may have been in a position to justify it. Remains to be seen.

As for the riders, the video shows them being a pack of douchebags and violating a bunch of traffic laws, and later on, behaving like vigilantes. As a rider myself (and a driver, AND a concealed pistol license owner) I deplore all that behavior, and they should be held accountable for that.

I just don't see the driver's response as justifiable, not given the publicly available evidence thus far. That may change. A trial may even be required to flesh all this out and test the claims of the riders against the driver. In fact, it looks pretty inevitable at this point.