« Developer reveals building along the Metropolitan Branch Trail | Main | WABA's oversight hearing testimony »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

I am sincerely empathic with the author, especially regarding his renal failure, and commend him riding and for pursuing his case against the driver who battered him.

However, I think the economic argument about being nice to cyclists is naive and irrelevant to the behavior of individual motorists. Yes, people want to get to work on time and spend less time in their cars and this desire should be the basis of laws and policies promoting cycling. Drivers, however, want, above all, to drive smoothly, mindlessly, and unhindered by slow traffic. Five decades of abuse suggests to me that many motorists find cyclists on the road simply aversive and irritated motorists are not thinking in terms of maximizing utility. In fact, they often flirt with devastating economic consequences for the evanescent pleasures of vehicular bullying.

We would never make this kind of economic argument against, say, domestic abuse. I think we'd all be better off with stronger law enforcement.

I think it would be useful to the cycling community who may be dealing with similar situations if the author provided some details on how he won this ruling. It seems the motorist was found guilty of Assault in 2nd degree but not guilty of Disturbing the Peace/Hindering Passage. I would have thought based on the incident, speeding up to prevent the cyclist from crossing, the opposite rulings would have resulted.

http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/inquiryDetail.jis?caseId=5D00353554&loc=23&detailLoc=DSCR

Of course, my extensive judicial knowledge is based in episodes of LA Law so it's possible I misread that whole document.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Banner design by creativecouchdesigns.com

City Paper's Best Local Bike Blog 2009

Categories

 Subscribe in a reader