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SAN FRANCISCO: Two views of mass confusion { Critical Mass }
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/6/7 | Michael Cabanatuan

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 ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: California
KEYWORDS: anarchy; hypocritcalmasshole; hypocriticalmasshole; sanfranciscovalues
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HypoCRITICAL MASSholes!
1 posted on 04/06/2007 7:43:51 AM PDT by SmithL
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Anarchy is a San Francisco Value.


2 posted on 04/06/2007 7:44:16 AM PDT by SmithL (si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: SmithL

If San Franciscan’s have to debate this... then they truely are too far gone to correct it.


3 posted on 04/06/2007 7:50:15 AM PDT by johnny7 ("Issue in Doubt." -Col. David Monroe Shoup, USMC 1943)
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To: SmithL
secede...please
4 posted on 04/06/2007 7:55:54 AM PDT by wildcatf4f3 (Hey, this aint like the 1960s, this is like the 1860s.)
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To: SmithL

san fransicko

inhabited by sanfransickos


5 posted on 04/06/2007 7:56:08 AM PDT by Enduring Freedom (my axis of evil includes democrats and liberal media)
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To: SmithL
If I had been a bicyclist who had been on the wrong end of a hit and run, I would have filed charges. The fact that the alleged victim didn't stay when the police came should be taken as an idication that it didn't happen that way.
6 posted on 04/06/2007 7:56:45 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Parker v. DC: the best court decision of the year.)
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To: SmithL

Susan is going to be sued out of the kazoo!


7 posted on 04/06/2007 7:56:55 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: SmithL
Anarchy is a San Francisco Frisky Value.
8 posted on 04/06/2007 8:08:01 AM PDT by sionnsar (trad-anglican.faithweb.com |Iran Azadi| 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0ur5 (SONY) | UN: Useless Nations)
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To: KarlInOhio

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


9 posted on 04/06/2007 8:17:58 AM PDT by joe fonebone (Nothin' from Nothin' leaves Nothin')
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To: KarlInOhio
She needed a vehicle with a little bit more ground clearance. Those minivans just don’t have enough. They tend to high center once you’ve got more than two of those sob’s stuck underneath. I recommend a Hummer with a 6” lift and 44” tires. No amount of S.F. bicycle scum will stop that combo.
10 posted on 04/06/2007 8:23:33 AM PDT by yooling (I don't have anything nice to say...)
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To: SmithL

Now all they need is a mayor that sucks on microphones.


11 posted on 04/06/2007 8:25:56 AM PDT by Porterville (All hail the Prophet Gore, an ass dressed in a lion's skin)
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To: yooling

New welcome signs in San Francisco:

“Welcome to chaos, drive, walk, bike at your own risk!”


12 posted on 04/06/2007 8:27:39 AM PDT by Ranger Warrior
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To: SmithL

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.


13 posted on 04/06/2007 8:29:41 AM PDT by RightWhale (3 May '07 3:14 PM)
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To: joe fonebone
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.

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?!

14 posted on 04/06/2007 8:54:09 AM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: expatpat
From the accounts I have read, Critical Mass does not announce the route until immediately prior to the event (one hour notice on the web IIRC), has no leadership structure, has no membership rolls, does not obtain permits for its rides, does not cooperate with the police, and does not obey traffic signs and signals. Every part of the event is meant to create and protect anonymity for the participants. So it is pretty disingenuous for ride participants to suddenly start claiming there have been violations of their group rights that need to be vindicated in court when they have worked so hard to undermine any notion that the event is an organized, authorized activity.

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.)

15 posted on 04/06/2007 9:00:11 AM PDT by Captain Rhino ( Dollars spent in India help a friend; dollars spent in China arm an enemy.)
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To: Captain Rhino

Good points and very well stated. Thanks.


16 posted on 04/06/2007 9:05:06 AM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: Captain Rhino

I hope you are right, but.....


17 posted on 04/06/2007 9:08:31 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: Captain Rhino

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.


18 posted on 04/06/2007 9:17:38 AM PDT by Ieatfrijoles (Incinerate Riyadh Now.(Request shot splash))
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To: Captain Rhino

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.


19 posted on 04/06/2007 9:38:21 AM PDT by luckystarmom
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To: Ieatfrijoles
The idea that the woman in the mini-van was in any way responsible is ludicrous.

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.

20 posted on 04/06/2007 10:16:14 AM PDT by rogue yam
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