Posted on 04/06/2007 7:43:48 AM PDT by SmithL
As the debate over Critical Mass and the clash between bicyclists and a minivan driver rages, two widely varying eyewitness versions of what happened Friday night in Japantown have emerged.
It could be a case of a terrified family whose minivan was surrounded by angry bicyclists who rode their bikes in circles around the vehicle, harassed the driver and then pummeled the van, smashing a rear window and inflicting $5,300 in damage.
Or it's a situation that spun out of control when a frustrated driver accelerated recklessly through a crowd of Critical Mass cyclists, struck one and continued driving until bike riders surrounded the minivan and police arrived.
Who's right and who's wrong is a matter of debate on blogs, in coffee houses and over dinner tables around the Bay Area. Is someone lying, or did different people simply see the scenario unfold differently?
"Everybody's perspective is different,'' said Kate McCarthy, a Critical Mass rider who said she witnessed the event. "Maybe the cyclists saw different things. There was a lot going on. It was kind of a chaotic situation.''
San Francisco police said they could not release their report on the incident because the case is still under investigation. But their earlier characterizations of the event reflect the minivan driver's account.
Susan Ferrando, the Redwood City mother who was driving the minivan, recounted her version in an interview Thursday afternoon. She denied that she hit or ran over a bicyclist or his bike -- and decried those accusations as "ludicrous."
After finding herself in the middle of the ride, she said, she nervously made her way through the bicyclists, carefully watching them. Some rode very close to the car, and yelled at her, then began circling it. One, she said, rammed the minivan, but did not fall.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Anarchy is a San Francisco Value.
If San Franciscan’s have to debate this... then they truely are too far gone to correct it.
san fransicko
inhabited by sanfransickos
Susan is going to be sued out of the kazoo!
and if i was this woman, with my family in the car, and i had to choose between a bunch of bicycle weeines attacking my family, or my family’s safety, i would have put the damn thing in drive and punched it.......keep the family safe, and stand tall in front of the judge
Now all they need is a mayor that sucks on microphones.
New welcome signs in San Francisco:
“Welcome to chaos, drive, walk, bike at your own risk!”
It’s along the lines of the Wildings in Central Park and packs of punks cruising through a neighborhood with loud exhausts and sound systems. Golding’s novel in an urban setting.
Yep. Even if the judge ends up being a horrendous radical liberal I would take it to the national news and stand up for myself and my rights. I can't say I would stay there after the incident if all those violent cyclists were threatening and wait for the cops. Who hangs around gang members that just tried to kill/harass/threaten them and waits for the cops? Hel-lo?!
If it is not a group activity, then each claim must be judged individually. So let the offended riders identify themselves to the courts and make their claims. My feeling is that, judged individually, the offended riders would themselves be found to be offenders for operating their vehicles in a reckless manner and refusing to observe the California and city laws laid down for vehicular traffic. Specifically, speed too fast for conditions, failing to maintain safe lateral and following distances, failing to signal lane changes, failing to yield, failing to obey posted traffic signs and lights, etc. Then there would be the criminal offenses involved in the actual assault on and damage to the Fernando vehicle.
So it is not so certain this is a matter individual riders will be eager to take into the courts. And as a group action, it would be pretty hard for advocacy lawyers, no matter how passionately committed, to create sympathy for the rights of what is, for all intents and purposes, a flash mob on bicycles.
(FWIW, provided she actually committed them, Fernando should also be held to account for any violations of traffic laws.)
Good points and very well stated. Thanks.
I hope you are right, but.....
Your detached philosophizing leads me to believe you’ve never been personally involved with this mob. When I was a delivery driver I worked for the same company as these smelly angst-ridden terrorists. The idea that the woman in the mini-van was in any way responsible is ludicrous. I’m sure she may have tried to extricate herself and her children from the situation but there are so many of them and none of them are respecting the traffic lights or rights of way and she was helpless.
I live in San Jose, and a rider with Critical Mass called up to a local news radio station (a liberal one).
He said they don’t follow the rules. They don’t stop at lights. It’s just a mass of riders and cars basically shouldn’t be on the road when they are riding.
Even the liberal talk show host was mad at them. They are a bunch of selfish, crazy, anarchists that want what they want and don’t care about anyone else.
I don't think it so ludicrous. The article quotes a rider by name giving her eyewitness account of the minivan driver's allegedly illegal and dangerous actions. Whatever one thinks about the riders, it is foolish to declare before the fact that no driver in the vicinity of the ride behaved illegally. Automobile drivers act illegally all the time. They don't stop doing so because Critical Mass is occurring.
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