Yes, surrounding and taunting the driver of a car completely justifies driving it into a crowd of people at high speed. Because a bunch of folks being mean are SO dangerous to the manly-man inside the two-ton death machine. Sure. What a mess all around.

And yeah, I think Critical Mass is ineffective, but does it make things worse? On the individual level, it can lead to incidents like these, but I doubt it does anything to the larger balance of public opinion, which is of course the root cause of these road rage incidents in the first place. Drivers who thought cyclists were shiny happy people do not suddenly start driving into a CM upon their first encounter with it - seriously, did this guy think his initial action of driving through the crowd wasn't going to be seen as the incredibly hostile act it was?

Cyclists are not marginalized because of our behavior. We are no worse, on average, than motorists. We are marginalized because we are a minority without effective political representation or organization. The public opinion of cyclists is NOT OUR FAULT. Believe me, neither abiding by the law at every intersection nor participating in Critical Mass is going to make one whit of difference here.