Cyclist hit...no driver remorse

[SalsaMTB]

I occasionally frequent other non-bike related message boards and this was recently posted on one of them:

"Well my Son rides a street bike to work, he lives about 3 miles from work and has been doing this for a few months to save on gas. He also does bikeathons for fun.
Well he is about 5minutes from home, and is stopped at a red light, this b@#$h comes hauling up behind him and hits him sending him flying. His helmet cracked and he got some pretty bad abrasions. But this women stops her car and tells him "that'll teach you to try and be a car" AAAARRRGHHH!! He is in the emergency now I don't think its real serious, but they do want to do a CT. Luck was with him and there was a cop right there so he took a report. also took note of this persons attitude. WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE. she also refused to give my DIL any info, but she will be able to get it from the police report."

How sick of a person would yell at someone after hitting them??? Luckly the son was not seriously injured and was just left with some scratches and a really sore body. The thought though of someone yelling at a person they just hit sickens me. I hope that kid gets everything he can from that woman.

[alpinerabbit]

you should sue their ar$e for lack of a better word.

I nearly ran into a person opening the drivers side door and she said "it's your job to watch out".

[Trek420]

It's not just their job, it's the law. Here in CA anyway drivers are responsible for checking that it's safe to open the door.

As for this sociopath, her statement sounds to me like vehicular asault. I'm not a lawyer or anything but that's a crime anywhere, to use your car as a weapon.

[nicolezoie]

Not that I'm defending the woman who hit the cyclist or anything, but a small part of me wonders if SHE might have been startled by hitting him?

Still, her actions are SICK and TOTALLY inexcuseable.

[Geonz]

RIght... we were hit once by a lady who went around a corner too fast and we were just standing off the road holding our bikes and talking - she took out my friend's back wheel, swerved across the street and took outa mailbox before managing to stop another hundred yards down the road.
Her first comments were all about us being out in the road and what have you... but she was as scared and freaked out as we were, and got more sane after a bit.
But... *never* did she say anything like "that will teach you..." I'd be tempted to say, "and if an 18-wheeler smears you across the highway and leaves a grease spot, will you be sorry for trying to be a truck?"

[Brina]

I wish that were unusual, but in my experience it is more the norm. When I was about 14 a driver opened her car door in front of me. I hit it, went over my handlebars into the frame around her window and then fell to the ground between her car and my bike and she starts yelling at me - while I am on the ground. She never asked if I were okay. She made no attempt to help me up. And she made no attempt to insure that I got home okay (as I said, I was about 14). She just continued to scream at me for not watching where I was going and for possibly damaging her her car while i got myself distangled from my bike and got up and walked home.

[Technotart]

If you need a case for precedence in this sort of situation we had similar sort of thing happen in Dallas -

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=59635&page=3

That forum thread follows the case all the way through. The motorist was an SMU law professor who "only meant to tap him" when she hit the cyclist. She was angry because apparently he was in the way of her getting to go ride her bike at a popular spot here in Dallas.

Now - I don't advocate the violence that some of these people suggest, but you can follow the legal proceedings of the case to some degree.

Crazy crazy people...crazy...and we wonder why pharm companies keep inventing more psych meds!

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