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Range Rover Runs Over Bikers

#201
ShoeManiac said:
Try again.

The rider that brake checked the Rover also got up in the drivers face, basically tapping his driver side window or trying to get him to stop before the brake check. That's in the video. And THEN he brake checked the Rover. According to accounts, that brake check caused the bike to go down.

It remains unclear whether the bike gang was stopping to assist the rider whose bike went down due to his own stupidity and reckless riding, or if they were indeed SHUTTING DOWN A HIGHWAY for the purposes of racing or tricks. Either way, these riders were acting in a completely irresponsible fashion.

During this stop a group of riders had surrounded the Rover and were reportedly beating on it. It's unclear if the tires of the Rover had been slashed at this time. It seems to have been this that prompted the driver of the Rover to take action, resulting in him running over 2 bikes and the one rider who was attempting to assist the biker who had performed the brake check.

So if you were in that SUV with your wife and young child, are you just going to sit there as your vehicle is beaten with helmets and your tires get slashed? From your perch you seem perfectly content to assign malicious intent to the driver, when in reality he was acting in the interest of protecting his family and himself from a mob.
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Yes is agree. An automobile is mainly a means of transportation but in the right circumstances can be a weapon, just like an ice pick or a screwdriver. If I were surrounded by a mob that clearly had violent intent focused on me then yes my automobile becomes a weapon vital to my survival. A move to disable it like slashing the tires is the same to me as trying to yank my gun out of my hand. It is an instant trigger to act as they are armed with knives attempting to disable my means of retreat. Throw the fact that my child(ren) are in the car the mob is attacking then all betts are off. Survival mode kicks in.

I don't think the driver was doing anything other than trying to get his family out of that situation. The motto for the bikers, don't mess with the bull don't get the horns.
 
#202
I don't know how many little decisions/ mistakes in judgement lead up to the point where the guy on the bike decided to confront the driver of the Rover. As a biker, track day enjoying 50+ year old, and parent, I feel for the guy who got run over. That said, I would have run them all over if I saw a threat to my family and thought that was my only escape. Sorry, but the whole lot of them f'd up.

When I ride, I'm very selective about with whom. I firmly believe that's a primary reason why I'm still able to do it after several decades. Choose your companions wisely.
 
#203
after the Rodney King trial I drove delivery on the South Side of Chicago, we all saw Reginald Denny nearly die on the news and I made my mind up right there, anybody comes up and threatens me in the truck I am out of there and the truck is my ticket out. If you study road rage blocking or brake checking is a road rage act. Even slowing down severely although it seems safe is a controlling act and part of road rage. They blocked this guy's SUV and the way he looked back like he was daring him to hit him, then getting surrounded, my blood pressure would have gone through the roof. I will protect my child at all costs, although I wonder how it was his one year wedding anniversary and his kid was 2.....
 
#204
skychief said:
The video DOESN'T lie. I agree with that. Then please explain why the SUV driver hasn't been charged with attempted vehicular homicide.

Clearly, he was attempting to kill the biker caught under his wheels.

If I were driving a 5000-pound vehicle and purposely ran over a motorcyclist, I would presume he would be dead. Anyone care to dispute that?

edit: and i think the biker that was run-over was not the same individual who did the "brake-check".
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A person has the right to defend their family and themselves against an attack - that's why the driver hasn't been charged... Anyone with a shred of common sense and an open mind would come to the same conclusion after watching the video...

FWIW, I've been riding motorcycles for over 30 years - and I'm not siding with these asshats on two wheels - I don't blame the driver for protecting his family, when THEY put him in that situation...


- georgestrings
 
#206
georgestrings said:
A person has the right to defend their family and themselves against an attack - that's why the driver hasn't been charged... Anyone with a shred of common sense and an open mind would come to the same conclusion after watching the video...

FWIW, I've been riding motorcycles for over 30 years - and I'm not siding with these asshats on two wheels - I don't blame the driver for protecting his family, when THEY put him in that situation...


- georgestrings
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This, and I have been riding for over 40 years
 
#210
tkozal said:
you know as a Manhattan resident. There's a new joke. "Oh look a motorcycle! Call 911!"
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lol!

I had read that the wife in the SUV had made several calls to 911 while this was all going down.
The time and nature of the calls placed will also factor into things quite a bit I think.

It does make me think about an expression that I'd heard before:

"when seconds count, the police are minutes away"
 
#211
skychief said:
The video DOESN'T lie. I agree with that. Then please explain why the SUV driver hasn't been charged with attempted vehicular homicide.

Clearly, he was attempting to kill the biker caught under his wheels.

If I were driving a 5000-pound vehicle and purposely ran over a motorcyclist, I would presume he would be dead. Anyone care to dispute that?

edit: and i think the biker that was run-over was not the same individual who did the "brake-check".
Click to expand...

You're trying to establish malicious intent on the part of the driver. So where are your facts? Where are there clear statements on the part of the driver or his wife? Eventually, the 911 calls that the wife made will be made public, and that will probably help establish some sort of state of mind on the part of the Rover driver.

You seem to think that the driver had some kind of intent to kill. It seems far more likely that his intent was to extricate himself and his family from a dangerous situation. In the process the one biker got hurt. But had that biker not been taking part in a ride that had been flagrantly breaking countless traffic laws while menacing other motorists, he would not have put himself in this situation where he got injured.
 
#214
skychief said:
The video DOESN'T lie. I agree with that. Then please explain why the SUV driver hasn't been charged with attempted vehicular homicide...
Click to expand...

Don't know if you recall the case of the (American) guy who did time in Australia for supposedly killing his wife on a diving trip? The case hinged on the fact that he failed to render aid when she was in trouble. I expect the reason he failed to render aid was pure panic. It's the most common cause of drowning and does not have to overcome the person in trouble for them to be affected by it. Panic in a poorly trained novice diver would be a very logical explanation for someone abandoning their dive partner in an emergency situation. Self preservation is the strongest and most basic of instincts we possess and panic lights the afterburners in that instinct better than anything else we know.

As someone trained as a WSI I can personally attest to the power of panic, and when panic kicks in the lizard brain dominates and it decisions become simple, cut and dried, and immediate, and revolve around one subject, self preservation.

Panic cascades to the fight or flight calculator and a decision is rendered and implemented in less time than it takes to blink and the conscious side of our brain has no say in that at all. It's automatic and persists until the threat is no longer a threat, or there is no more adrenalin to power the body on auto pilot.

Memory is a usual casualty of panic so I'm betting if we could see SUV guy's statement it would be to the effect that one minute he was stopping to check on the guy he bumped and the next thing he remembers he's speeding down the expressway being pursued by a pack of angry thugs on motorcycles.

In short, he didn't make a conscious decision to run anyone over, his self preservation instinct took over when he thought he was going to die and he simply responded to millions of years of instinct to save himself. I'd be willing to bet that if SUV guy could recall, the thought of saving his wife and child were secondary, if they ever even crossed his mind at all.
 
#218
btw my brother is a cop and the word is out these guys have had hundreds of previous complaints and earlier that morning someone else had called on them. This isn't the wild west, these guys were blocking traffic so they could pull stunts...not cool.
 
#219
bassinplace said:
If he was thinking clearly enough, yeah, but how could he have forseen it escalating to that level? Who expects something like that? He was probably completely confused from the time they showed up and surrounded him.
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+1 this guy likely had no idea what was going on, just that he was getting chased and surrounded by a bunch of wild kids on motorcycles and they were starting to attack him
 
#220
smcgov said:
btw my brother is a cop and the word is out these guys have had hundreds of previous complaints and earlier that morning someone else had called on them. This isn't the wild west, these guys were blocking traffic so they could pull stunts...not cool.
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Yep. Apparently somewhere close to 200 calls BEFORE this incident occurred (I mean on that same day.. yikes..) That's gotta say something about the mentality there.
 

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