Posted on 01/10/2010 9:51:23 PM PST by Chet 99
A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison.
Christopher Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced.
"I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Bikers need to realize that traffic laws also apply to them.
As I'm heavily involved in the cycling community I couldn't disagree more.
That's how I get to work 8 months out of the year. I know, that makes me a complete scumbag.
I believe every word of that. Every now and then I’ll be driving in my car and come upon a couple of bikers riding abreast in the middle of my lane having a chat and making no effort to move to single file. I’m a cyclist and it pisses the hell out of me. Usually, I’ll yell at them as I go by. I make a constant effort while riding to obey the rules and be considerate of drivers. The problem is that the small minority of cyclists who are jerks make riding more difficult and dangerous for those of us who are not.
So in your opinion the doctor should have lied to the police officers? These are conservative values in your world?
I must have missed the "lobby for legistlarion" part of this judge's job.
I’m lucky in that I have the great bike trails in the Cuyahoga Valley Reservation to ride on. The guy my story referred to was riding alone, in the middle of the single east-bound lane, during heavy traffic. Just no way to get by him! Had it been me, I would have pulled into a driveway, and let the 30 cars go past. This guy was a complete jerk. Hope the cop got back to him!
Yes they are. They think that becuse they ride in a car that they have the rights of the road innoring the laws that say that bicycles are equal when on the road. I stop for stop signs, use hand signals when turning and still have had to play dodge em with others who dislike bicyclists being on “their” road. IMHO this man should lose his license for many years.
Really amazing that you can mke that sort of pronouncement about people you have never met.
Some of the doctors I’ve known in my life this sort of act would be par for the course. Many have that “God syndrome” thing going and think they can and do get away with most anything because they are a doctor.
Come to my commute and you’ll see why I feel that way.
You are in a distinct minority, from what I see every day.
Scary aren’t they? I had a couple of guys try to pull up next to me and pull me through the open window of their car whicle I was going a pretty good pace. I screamed hit my brakes and started riding back to my hubby who was about 30’ behind me.
I have worked as firefighter for over twenty years. I have been to dozens of cyclists who have been hit by cars and trucks including fatalities and very serious injuries. In every case that I can remember the incidents have been caused not by the cyclist but by an inattentive or otherwise negligent driver. The majority of times the cyclists have been struck from behind with no warning while they have been riding along the right side of the road where they are suppose to be and not obstructing traffic in any appreciable way. These accidents I have been to have mostly been on side streets and not main thoroughfares.
I have never been to an incident where a cyclist has been found to have contributed in any way to property damage or the injury of another person. Forcing cyclists to have mandatory liability insurance is a solution to a problem that does not exist. The chances of a cyclist causing injuries or damage to others is so low that the price of such a policy would basically only have to cover administrative costs. I am a general aviation pilot; people are always surprised to learn that the cost of insuring our plane is less than the cost of insuring our ten year old car. The chance of causing damage to persons other than those riding with you in a small plane are astronomically low.
Cyclist that do not follow the rules of the road put themselves and every one else in danger. In Maryland around Bethesda, they put themselves others in danger all the time.
You might want to look into the law most states allow that riding tandem if you are keeping up a certain speed. It isn’t us being jerks it is people like you thinking you own the road.
The testimony at the trial was that the driver cut in front of the bicyclists and immediately sklammed on his brakes. He told the police officer at the scene that he did it "to teach them a lesson."
Except that riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is illegal in most cases....
Typical bike riding arrogance.
Thanks for your observations. I used to do a lot of hang gliding. The out of work loggers near the best launch area in our state used to direct a lot of anger towards us. They seemed to think that all hang glider pilots loved spotted owls. In reality my mentor was a former Green Beret who did tours in Vietnam and was considered the father of hang gliding in South Korea where he helped the locals construct hang gliders out of bamboo. We were both conservative gun nuts and I spent ten years working at a lumber mill before I became a firefighter. I think it was the same mentality as some of those who spout their hatred of cyclists here.
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