SAN FRANCISCO: Two views of mass confusion { Critical Mass }

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/6/7 | Michael Cabanatuan

[SmithL]

HypoCRITICAL MASSholes!

[SmithL]

Anarchy is a San Francisco Value.

[johnny7]

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

[wildcatf4f3]

secede...please

[Enduring Freedom]

san fransicko

inhabited by sanfransickos

[KarlInOhio]

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.

[expatpat]

Susan is going to be sued out of the kazoo!

[sionnsar]

Anarchy is a San Francisco Frisky Value.

[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

[yooling]

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.

[Porterville]

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

[Ranger Warrior]

New welcome signs in San Francisco:

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

[RightWhale]

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.

[GOP Poet]

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?!

[Captain Rhino]

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.)

[GOP Poet]

Good points and very well stated. Thanks.

[expatpat]

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

[Ieatfrijoles]

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.

[luckystarmom]

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.

[rogue yam]

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.