It looked to me like they were trying to get in front of him. I don't know why he continued moving forward when there were no hippies in front of his van. (jk) Although the disruption of traffic caused by all of the idiots on bicycles should be illegal also. they could have fixed that with a snowplow.

Yes they were trying to get in front of him to stop him from continuing forward with his assault. Vehicular assault is a crime.

Perhaps you should read up on exactly what Critical Mass is all about. It's an awareness campaign brought about because of exactly this sort of thing. Far too many cyclists, riding safely and legally, are injured or killed by motorists every year. One of those people was a good friend of mine.

While I personally have mixed feelings about the Critical Mass demonstrations myself, I am fully behind what they are trying to accomplish.

'Although the disruption of traffic caused by all of the idiots on bicycles should be illegal also.'
I suspect that a major aim of their demonstration is to illustrate that people on bicycles are traffic too. (And far healthier, more ecologically and socially considerate traffic than that caused by vehicular travellers, by the way.)

No seriously, SSG Geezer, you're quite right. They're OBVIOUSLY all hippies. Or idiots. Or both. They don't deserve to live. I mean come on, one of them even looked like John Lennon! That van driver was only trying to carry on Mark Chapman's good example. 'Snowplow'? Stop it, my sides hurt. Anyway, you're in the clear because you said '(jk)' in your blog. Ooh, that was clever.

'I've interacted enough with SSG to know that his 'hippies' comment was in jest. He's never struck me as a hateful person.'
Thanks Mason, I'm more than happy to accept your reading of SSG's motives here. I didn't mean to suggest that SSG was being hateful. Actually, I didn't think I had done, but my apologies if it sounded that way.

Really, I believe that SSG has every right to joke about any subject he likes. However, in that video I saw how disturbed those children (and adults) were by what, through no fault of their own, they had just experienced. Consequently, I was exercising a right of my own - the right to ask SSG, in my own clumsy way, whether a group of peaceable cyclists getting ploughed into by somebody from whom the keys to a motor vehicle should quite patently be kept well out of reach is really the BEST target he can find in this big, wide world for his rapier-like wit.

'As I recently lost a friend (a very experienced cyclist) to this sort of thing it's an emotionally charged topic for me, but I would still prefer to remain civil about it.'


Fair point. I have been trying to be civil but facetious. Again, if I have failed, mea culpa.

I have been a cyclist all my life, and have had more than my fair share of this kind of behaviour, so I write from a degree of experience. e.g. Some 15 years ago, cycling down Adelaide Street in Brisbane, I was overtaken by a car which then promptly turned sharply across me in order to enter a car park, striking the front wheel of the bike and flinging me into a low brick wall. The bike suffered a buckled front wheel. I suffered bruises to the knee and hip, and a badly gashed arm. The driver got out of the car, - and here is the incomprehensible bit - LAUGHED at me lying bleeding on the ground, then got back in and drove into the car park.

And the punchline: It was a Volvo.   

Thought #1: Why subject those babies to that? WTF? Were they trying to scare those little kids? What kind of parent takes their child to the scene of an accident to rubberneck?

I agree, the guy might have been drunk. He acted very disoriented. The wife was a bitch.

It's pretty incredible that he was not charged with anything. Wow.

Living in HI, I encounter a fair amount of cyclists. Well, on post too. A lot of them act like jerks (it's true, please don't flame me!). However, a few months ago I came upon an accident where a vehicle had hit the back wheel of a Soldier cyclist. His bike was all bent to crap, and the person who struck him drove off.

The car in front of me, a stranger to the Soldier, I assume, had to stop and give the guy a ride.

Mason: I understand that they were there in a general sense. What kept them from moving AWAY from the accident instead of bring them RIGHT UP TO IT. They scared the shit out of those babies.

And I can't understand why people think it's ok to drive off after hitting someone on a bike. Would they do the same if they hit a pedestrian? It's sick.

'Mason: I understand that they were there in a general sense. What kept them from moving AWAY from the accident instead of bring them RIGHT UP TO IT.'
All we can do is to second-guess the motives of those involved. That said, in this instance I wonder if the adults weren't so distraught at the possibility that the couple in the van had deliberately run over / were in the process of deliberately running over fellow cyclists, that they felt it their duty to stay and try to prevent it continuing. (There is often a very strong 'all for one' camaraderie in circumstances such as this.) It might only have been after their panic / disbelief subsided that they began to realise how it was traumatising their kids as well as themselves.

'And I can't understand why people think it's ok to drive off after hitting someone on a bike. Would they do the same if they hit a pedestrian?'
Actually, yes, I think they would. For these people, anything that interferes with their self-perceived inalienable right to put pedal to metal is merely a bug to be swatted. Which is why we need to take their licences away.