Cyclist punched motorist in road rage attack

[Cab]

By "absence of evidence" I presume you mean "absence of evidence which supports my world view". As I said, if we'd been presented with an article saying how a car driver had punched a cyclist, we wouldn't have been trying to find "evidence" that it was the cyclist's fault, would we? And yet here most of you are trying to make excuses for this idiot.

No, I mean 'absence of evidence'. There is no evidence that the cyclist started the fight.

And as for how we'd respond in a similar situation where the motorist was protrayed as the aggressor, speak for yourself, if you merely swap the motorist and cyclist around in that article and slant it such as the motorist started it, I'd still be uneasy with it. I'm leaning more against the motorist here than I would if this were from a source that isn't uniformly and regularly against cyclists, but thats as far as I'd take it.

 

[darkstar]

There is no evidence, in the article, that the cyclist started this. My position is that to assume merely from biased journalism that it must be the cyclists fault would be a mistake.

I don't see anyone sticking up for the cyclist in an unfair way, but I do see some sadly gullible responses to a biased news article.

The thread has moved on a but since that post of mine... I think were going to have to agree to disagree. I think the point you made in the post above this one, about people treating it in the same way if it was about a driver punching a cyclist is laughable, this forum just isn't like that! And I may be 'sadly gullible' but I don't care, so long as I keep some perspective.

 

[Cab]

The thread has moved on a but since that post of mine... I think were going to have to agree to disagree. I think the point you made in the post above this one, about people treating it in the same way if it was about a driver punching a cyclist is laughable, this forum just isn't like that! And I may be 'sadly gullible' but I don't care, so long as I keep some perspective.

Then apply some perspective. Where, in the article, does it tell us that the cyclist started the 'altercation'? Where does it even tell you that the cyclist threw the first punch? Where does it tell you that the cyclist was the aggressor?

The author of the news story has assumed all of those things to be true, and laced the article with insinuations of that, without ever saying it. If you believe that the article tells you that this was the cyclists fault then you're applying no perspective at all.

If you think that cyclists don't get criticised here when they are clearly in the wrong then you need to stick around and read more threads. Happens plenty.

 

[MartinC]

Most of the posts on this thread seem to be works of imagination. There aren't enough facts in the report to sensibly speculate on who did what.

Nevertheless the report is written in a biased way - it's constructed to create and reinforce an assumption that the cyclist is wholly at fault.

Some posters seem to believe that it's fair to blame the cyclist because.......................

Had to give up here 'cos I can't think why. They might be to blame, they might not. Impossible to tell from the information supplied.

 

[Cab]

Had to give up here 'cos I can't think why. They might be to blame, they might not. Impossible to tell from the information supplied.

Precisely. The article infers that the cyclist was at fault without ever saying it. Very biased journalism.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Most of the posts on this thread seem to be works of imagination. There aren't enough facts in the report to sensibly speculate on who did what.

Nevertheless the report is written in a biased way - it's constructed to create and reinforce an assumption that the cyclist is wholly at fault.

Some posters seem to believe that it's fair to blame the cyclist because.......................

Had to give up here 'cos I can't think why. They might be to blame, they might not. Impossible to tell from the information supplied.

Precisely. The article infers that the cyclist was at fault without ever saying it. Very biased journalism.

Some of you appear to believe that I'm blaming the cyclist without having any solid proof. I'm not, all I'm doing is pointing out that we wouldn't have had this mad scramble to "prove" that a car driver acting in the way that the cyclist is reported to have acted was innocent of any wrongdoing. That's all. I know that newspaper articles are rarely unbiased and I've said from the start of the thread that there may be more to this story than meets the eye. But it doesn't necessarily follow, just because this paper has printed biased stories before, that this cyclist is entirely blameless. Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, but I'm not going to assume he's not just because he was on a bike.

 

[mangaman]

Some of you appear to believe that I'm blaming the cyclist without having any solid proof. I'm not, all I'm doing is pointing out that we wouldn't have had this mad scramble to "prove" that a car driver acting in the way that the cyclist is reported to have acted was innocent of any wrongdoing. That's all. I know that newspaper articles are rarely unbiased and I've said from the start of the thread that there may be more to this story than meets the eye. But it doesn't necessarily follow, just because this paper has printed biased stories before, that this cyclist is entirely blameless. Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, but I'm not going to assume he's not just because he was on a bike.

My beef with this is the reporting.

If two car drivers got involved in fisticuffs would the report end like this?


"Police in Cambridge have taken a zero-tolerance approach to aggressive drivers in the city and surrounding villages by launching a crackdown on anti-social drivers.

Officers in the city target drivers who flout traffic laws, including riding without lights, using pavements and running traffic lights"

Of course not.

 

[MartinC]

all I'm doing is pointing out that we wouldn't have had this mad scramble to "prove" that a car driver acting in the way that the cyclist is reported to have acted was innocent of any wrongdoing.

RT. My comments weren't directed at you. It was the recurrent theme in the thread I was responding to.

However, I don't agree with your post above. First of all it's hypothetical - you're complaining about something you've decided that other posters wouldn't do - not any actual observed behaviour. I can't recall seeing any press reports that had an inbuilt bias in favour of the cyclist (nor is it likely that I will in the future) so deciding how posters will respond to them is theoretical.

Secondly, they have been many threads starting with an incident in a press report where many posters have urged caution in apportioning in blame because all the facts weren't known. This doesn't back up your proposition.

This is Cycle Chat. You'd expect posters to look at things from a cyclists perspective. What I see here is an incident which has been deliberately used to portray cyclists (not just the one involved) in a bad light. Pointing out, as many posters have done, that there are many other alternatives in interpreting the report isn't unfair at all.

This feels like just another example of the old "all cyclists must be above reproach before they're allowed to complain about anything" line.

 

[hackbike 666]

My beef with this is the reporting.

If two car drivers got involved in fisticuffs would the report end like this?


"Police in Cambridge have taken a zero-tolerance approach to aggressive drivers in the city and surrounding villages by launching a crackdown on anti-social drivers.

Officers in the city target drivers who flout traffic laws, including riding without lights, using pavements and running traffic lights"

Of course not.

This applies to motorists and it seems like nothing is done.

There is even uproar when motons are done for speeding.

That's why I find it so enjoyable when one of these tits pass so close at speed.(Not)

not enough detail to make any sort of conclusion here but I don't think some of our stock attitudes, regardless that this is a cycling forum, do anything to help matters. I'm far from innocent in these respects but find myself less and less comfortable with terms like 'motons'. At first the term appealed to me but I've come to dislike the implied hate that can lie behind it.

I don't mean the word 'moton' in a bad way.I don't dislike or hate motons/motorists.

 

[Bman]

I assumed a Moton to be a moron-motorist. That wouldnt apply to all motorists, just the morons.