Advocacy & Safety - who was right?

So today I decided to ride with a local club at one of their recovery rides. the weather was a "bit" windy and only 5 people showed up :rolleyes:

but that's beside the point, we get riding and decide to go around Lake Mead, and make a 40 mile loop or so. we get riding and head towards some mountains to do some climbing to get to the lake, and on the way there this occured....

we were riding in a pace line up a hill, when the first few guys begin to pull away from me a bit. They got about 3-4 bike lenghts away, and begin to pass by an entrance to a residential area, as they do so a truck pulls up beside them on the left, and makes a right turn into the entrance, effectivly cutting them off. As a side note, this was the second time we had been cut off during this ride :eek: Anyhow, one of the guys yells "yeah thanks a lot for slowing down and waiting *******" and I think he fliped the guy the famous finger.... we all get past the entrance and continue on our way, after a minute or two I hear tires peeling out... now you can guess where this is going :rolleyes: The guy in the truck felt offended him I guess, and was coming back to tell us (or so I thought) sure enough, he rolls down his window as he approaches the leaders of the pace line he sprays mace....

this one got me pretty surprised as I have never seen a driver get this nuts due to road rage. The truck now drives to the next entrance to a residential area, and is waiting for us. we ride by (as we do I get the license plate) and I yell "I got his plate, lets call the cops"

now a few notes, he is a bad shot with mace and didn't hit anyone, secondly after we get up the hill we stop for a minute and discuss calling the cops, and the guy who was almost sprayed with the mace decided not to. personally I thought we should have called 911....

so the question is, who was right? obviously if no one called the guy a name he wouldn't have come back for us, but was it justified anyways?:confused:

Spraying someone with mace like that is assault. There is no such thing as self-defense when you are the aggressor and if he chased you down, he clearly is just that. That person should be cooling his heels in the poke right now. That is a dangerous individual.

On the other hand, it should be noted that it doesn't do any good to scream obscenities to a motorist like that. No, he shouldn't have assaulted those cyclists with mace. But it certainly doesn't look good that people in your group egged it on or otherwise escalated the situation.

Personally, even if weren't a part of your group and was just a bystander to the incident, I would have called the police. That isn't acceptable behavior in society and he should be held accountable for it. But I would also hope that people in your group when they are calm and reflective would also realize that escalating the situation didn't help and hope that next time they would just let it go.

I have certainly screamed obscenities at motorists who have endangered me and every time, later on I have wished that I just had let it go and moved on. If nothing else, I would have been able to enjoy my ride a little more.

He got away with it this time and will get away with it everytime until someone calls him to account by going to the cops. In fact - now he knows nothing will happen - he may get worse.

Letting some violent anti-cyclist roam the streets in a large killing machine is a recipe for danger. You saw the assault, why don't you report the guy?

Call the police and report his assault before he takes out a cyclist with his truck. You have the witnesses. A forensic sample of mace on clothing would be a real help.

Call the police. Don't wait long... the longer you wait, the less likely the police will take you seriously.

It looks like assult to me- and Media is right- if he gets away with it, maybe next time he'll track down some cyclist that he thinks offended them and run them down.

We all know what happens when you run down a cyclist these days... :rolleyes:

Koffee

I'm with the others, and the finger is understandable, a natural reaction to a scary situation.

the mace was a completely unwarranted escalated response.


Book him Dano!!

Ha! Too much Law and Order, huh Chewa?

;)

K

Call the cops. This is unacceptable.

ABSOLUTELY!! Make an official report because you never know if you may run up on him again.

Call the cops on the jacka$$ 'scuze my french

Please call the police and file a report. It's very important that a file gets established for this person so that when (not if!) this person assaults another cyclist in the future, the police will have documentation of a history of such behavior.

I hope your almost-maced friend is ok. What a shock! :(

-j

If you still have the plate number then report them. You do not have to file a charge to report an incident.

A forensic sample of mace on clothing?! Call me cynical but, the cops in your town must have a gigantic budget and nothing better to do. Has been my experience that the police will do nothing but take a report unless there is injury, death, and/or property damage.

Find his home and hit him where it hurts.....puncture his tires. Just kidding, old habit of thinking I developed when i worked in South Central LA.

Originally posted by Joycily
I hope your almost-maced friend is ok. What a shock!

yeah he was, like I said the guy was a bad shot with mace in a moving car....

it turns out one of the guys actually did file a incident report later on that day (after the ride) no clue if they have done anything to the driver as of yet.

Keep us posted.