Last night while riding my bicycle with a group of friends, I was violently assaulted. I was almost killed and my bicycle was run over by the offending vehicle who INTENTIONALLY tried to hit me. Fortunately I am alive. Here is my bicycle:
Smushed Brooks
While I have yet to get my frame checked out, it appears to be OK. The saddle is obviously toast. My Planet Bike Superflash got splayed on the road, but was fully functional after putting it back together. My bombproof rear wheel that was hand built by the people at Bikes Not Bombs and probably has around 10,000 miles of Boston riding on it is out of true, but amazingly it’s not that bad and I think it’s salvageable. I was even able to ride home (not having a rear brake helped as the wheel wobbled from side to side). Not being able to sit down the whole way was a bit of a struggle.
I discovered a video on universalhub that an onlooker posted to youtube of 30 seconds preceding the incident:
Comm Ave & Harvard Ave Corking
Regardless of your view of corking, the ensuing reaction of the driver (which is not caught on video, at least not that I know of) is obscene.
I am actually visible in this video NOT corking the intersection, but rather standing on the far corner (I pop in and out of the frame around the 19s mark, wearing white pants, black shirt, black helmet, basket on the front of my bike with a blue jacket in it). After the circling started to dissipate I proceeded through the intersection on Harvard Ave. It was after I was about 100 feet down the road that I heard the roaring of the engine and turned around to see this homicidal maniac zig-zag at the group of people that were still behind me riding. When I saw that he was coming straight at me, I quickly hopped off my bike into oncoming traffic to avoid being hit. My bike went in the opposite direction and within a second he drove over it. Luckily I am fine, my bicycle not so much.
The car was a grey Honda Civic. In fact the license plate (as given to me by an onlooker who saw the whole thing) is MA 53we31. The cops didn’t seem to really give a shit. I had to propose that they take down my contact info after one of them just got in his car after yelling at other cyclists who were imploring them to do something. Unreal. I called the Allston branch of the BPD later in the evening to follow up and they told me to call back in 48 hours. Nice. There is a person who attempted to kill dozens of citizens out there driving the roads of Boston. Whether you are in a car, on your bike, or walking, this should horrify you.Fortunately I have in-house counsel (read: wife) and will most certainly be pursuing all avenues of the law that are available to me.
To those that encourage violence against anyone, bikers or not: Fuck you.
If you have more info/pictures/video hit me up in the comments. If you want to turn this into an indictment of critical mass, don’t bother because I won’t post your comments. CM or not, no one deserves to be assaulted in this way, and the BPD needs to start focusing on the real problems on our roads: cars. Enough of the bogus capitulation to automobile interests, and ticketing of cyclists. Should cyclists behave better in general? Sure, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: cars kill people.
