I got an update on the grim LA road rage incident via email.
From: Eric
Subject: Fwd: charges in la road-rage case
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bikecrash‘course the local hotheads are claimin’ bullshit on felony reckless driving – apparently they don’t like the semantics and would prefer attempted murder or some such, but I for one am pleased to see ‘felony’ as opposed to the usual ‘no charges’ or ‘citation’ next to this case. the charge carries the weight of 7 yrs max in jail and it’s the doc’s second offense (unconfirmed) so we’ll see where it all plays out at sentencing. most likely, his years of service as an ER doc are gonna carry him to probation sooner than the max. meanwhile, there’s been waaaaay too much hostility from both sides of the road – the ‘cars’ community posting over 160 comments on the org. LA Times story calling, basically, for bodily harm to cyclists (or at least that they deserved what they got) and from the pedal power peanut gallery, tons of hopped up ‘cycling advocates’ hassling anyone with the same last name as the perpetrator and generally causing a big ol’ militant and misguided nuisance. same as it never was.
— onward –
sumadis
A few excerpts from the article linked above:
A Brentwood physician charged Friday with stopping his car suddenly in front of two cyclists was investigated earlier this year in another case of road rage against bicycles, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
He did this before. And what happened?
LAPD Capt. William Eaton described the March collision as a “road rage incident with two cyclists” that had “strong similarities” to the July crash.
In March, two cyclists riding on Mandeville Canyon Road accused Thompson of running them off the road and then shouting at them. Detectives presented the case to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, which declined to file charges against Thompson.
So he got away with it once. Or, I should say, he got away with it at least one other time. And that got his stones up.
Now look what happened.
Thompson is free on $30,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 1 at the airport branch of Los Angeles County Superior Court. If convicted on all counts, he will face up to seven years and eight months in state prison.
I hope he rolls himself a seven. He certainly deserves it.
Thanks for following this, Jonny. And lets all remember that the longer we go on with an “us” vs. “them” mentality, the longer this tit for tat warfare will continue.
The Courts need to put this guy in the Greybar Hotel in order to demonstrate to the public that like legalized lynchings, legalized bad driving and legalized second-class status for cyclists will no longer be tolerated.
This can of course get silly. The following link describes an incident where a “motorist” chewed out a cyclist for blowing a stop sign. This escalated into an assault. The punch line? The “motorist” is a longtime Portland cycling advocate who happened to be in his car. As I said, we all need to beam down.
http://tinyurl.com/58dxj5
the link is to a bikeportland.org piece
p.s. I don’t mean to say that lynchings were ever actually “legal”. They were simply tolerated with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge mentality.
wow,while its easy to categorize this guy as the POS that he is;thw dichotomy of an ER doc acting this way is the stuff of Carver shortsories
I’d think seven days in Folsom, San Quentin or any of the other California ‘state’ prisons would be the end for the good doctor,(I’m not in the US, so forgive any error of geography), let alone seven years. Sooner he’s off the road by whatever legal means the better.
While I agree that the mentality of ‘Us VS Them is wrong, it needs to be presented in a way that the drivers of 2 ton autos see that they have control over a life-taking machine.
At the same time Cyclists need to be aware that they are competing for the same space as said killing machines.
Mostly, the lawyers and judges and police should be FORCED to commute as cyclists on occasion to remind them of just how dangerous it is for these people who CHOOSE to commute by bicycle; from either free will or in recent times, due to the price of gasoline.
All in all, a lot needs to change, from the attitudes of cyclists to the attitudes of drivers who think it is their god-given right to ‘own the road’. Maybe next time it will be their child. Let’s put THAT meme into their heads.
It might be their child, bikepunk, or it might be their friend and neighbor or golfing partner who took up riding to work rather than paying four buck fifty gasoline. With more people taking up riding, “they” will be “us”.
Well put Bikepunk.
There are some serious attitude issues on both “sides”.
We need to do our part not to fuel the fire. Not riding like assholes who have completely forgotten the meaning of courtesy should be the norm.
Hope the good doctor thomson gets all he deserves.
What happened to “first do no harm”? What a jackhole.
I went over to read and comment on the LA Times page. Amazing how many posts are offered by assholes who just hate cyclists (lawful or otherwise) and who are utterly ignorant of the traffic law. God, I’ll never move to Los Angeles.
Pending the outcome of this case, this makes you wonder if LA cyclists need to start packing some of the Ole Equalizer. If someone wants to deliberately kill or maim you with their car, you have a basic human right of self-defense. Do we need to start quoting Malcolm X?
Then need to put this in those DMV handbooks! do a crime do the time
cyclists and peds have the right of way! simple! cars push themselfs
all over the f’n road and get away with it.
ohh wait US worships autos..
My fantasy punishment for the good doctor is that he be forced to acquire a bike, join a bike club, and log at least 10,000 miles over the next two years — that, and a few thousand hours of free community service in an ER (he apparently has been running a software company for quite a while). Oh, and no driving for a long, long, long time. I’m sure he’d prefer this to 7 years of hard time, and he’d actually learn something. Maybe. Who knows, he might even become a convert.
Not sure if anyone is still following this, but here is a relevant Albuquerque ordinance:
Albuquerque Ordinance 7-10-3 VEHICLE NUISANCE – SPECIFIC VIOLATIONS: (C) Using a Vehicle as an Instrument of Threat or Intimidation – Road Rage. It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to use a vehicle as an instrument of threat or intimidation in the city limits. For purposes of this section, use of a vehicle as an instrument of threat or intimidation, or so-called road rage driving, shall be and the terms shall mean driving a vehicle dangerously or conspicuously close to or behind or near another vehicle or suddenly stopping or accelerating and rapidly switching lanes or positions on the roadway with the intent to taunt or retaliate against another driver for any reason. The use of one or more vehicles to willfully prevent another vehicle from lawfully passing shall also be a violation of this section. In any prosecution for a violation of this section, intent may be shown from the surrounding circumstances, from admissions from the violators, from the observations of a law enforcement officer or in any other manner in which intent may be proven in any civil or criminal action under New Mexico law