LA Intentional: Cyclist escapes serious injury after shocking hit-and-run; Ealing’s LTNs are gone, but not the traffic; Proviz on a platoon; Rudi Selig’s lunch box; An interesting bit of route design in France + more on the live blog
It takes a lot to shock us here at road.cc. But this video, taken a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, is on a whole different level.
— LAPDCTD (@LAPDCTD24) February 2, 2022
Footage shows the driver of a Hyundai appearing to deliberately ram a cyclist from behind before driving away.
The cyclist, fortunately and perhaps miraculously, suffered only minor injuries, although his bike was destroyed under the driver’s wheels. It also reacted remarkably to avoiding oncoming traffic.
Judging by the missing hubcap and the dent in the front of the car, this wasn’t this particular motorist’s first rodeo.
The LAPD has offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who can identify the perpetrator.
Perhaps even more bizarrely, the LAPD also claimed that if the driver had stayed, he could have avoided charges.
“The car could have gone left and avoided the collision, but the driver didn’t stay to tell us why they stopped him,” Detective Juan Campos said, as if the motorist could easily have spun a story compelling enough to exculpate himself.
“It only became a crime when the driver fled the scene without help or identification.”
It might actually be more shocking than the images themselves.
Most of Twitter disagrees with the detective, with many describing the incident as a clear example of attempted murder. A handful, of course, pointed to the cyclist, largely along the lines of old chestnuts: “mumble, mumble, something about helmets, mumble, mumble, shouldn’t have gotten in the way of the car, mumble, edited images…”
So why would a person think of committing such an act on another human being? One Twitter user, Taylor Scheinuk, offered a possible response:
100 years of lobbying and policy making to make American drivers some of the most selfish and empowered people on the planet. In their head the narrative was probably “that fucking cyclist is gonna make me late, they shouldn’t be in the way, I should be buzzing them”
—Taylor Scheinuk (@MiataDragon) February 2, 2022