Originally Posted by
frantik
....you're blaming the victim.
I'm also saying you've never been to Oakland so you don't even know if it was or was not a wise choice. Yes oakland has a lot of violent crime but it's not like you can't expect to be able to ride through downtown at 1am.
There are psychopaths on the road everywhere... it doesn't matter if it's 1am in Oakland or 1pm in Louisville. I definitely think the friend smashing the window didn't help anything, but it still takes a psychopath to respond by running someone over.
I know that these days it's unfashionable to "blame the victim", but sometimes victims' actions are contributory to the result. No blame affixes to the time and place, though as someone who grew up in a big city, I'm aware that there's the issue of being streetwise or not. When I lived in NYC, I rode through the worst neighborhoods, but had the sense to avoid these late at night. It wasn't a matter of rights, just common sense.
I don't know the Oakland neighborhood this happened in, but at some point the riders had to know they were dealing with a nut. At that point it was up to them to weight the circumstances and possible consequences and make a smart decision. For all we know the actual victim wasn't a party to the escalation process, just handy, so blaming her may not make any sense at all.
But if you're going to survive in a big city, and choose to ride after the witching hour, you need to develop some street sense, and recognize danger before it kills you. Blameworthy or not, you have some degree of control over whether you become a victim.