Originally Posted by
JonnyHK
The cyclists were unlucky to encounter a guy who was going to react badly and severely, but they are not completely innocent there.
In reading the comment section of the article in the OP, it seems that just the mere act of riding a bike can be the catalyst to set off this motorist's anger. Here's an excerpt of one comment:
"To everyone saying "the bikers started it" you were not there and you don't know this man. He is hostile, aggressive, unreasonable and violent. He's also 6'3" and 270lbs. I had a run-in with this same guy, and so did a person I work with, on a completely separate occasion. Neither of us did anything to him, and he even told me that he "hates bicyclists." When he attacked me, we had not had any kind of incident leading up to the altercation. I was simply riding alone when he suddenly brushed me off the road with his truck, then pulled over, got out, and started yelling at me and chasing me. Then he took a metal bar from his truck and started waving it around, kicked my rim in with his big boots when I tried to get away, and then got back in the truck and drove up onto the sidewalk in a crazy attempt to hit me. I was lucky to escape with just a trashed rim. I found out who he was from a neighbor who witnessed this. I looked up his criminal history, and it is long and bad."