User3143 said:
I completely agree that the cyclist started it
Why? That isn't claimed in the article, not in the text, its just something that the journalists wants us to infer. Read this statement, from that article, from the Police:
A police spokeswoman said: "We were called following reports that the cyclist cut out in front of the car which forced the driver to brake suddenly. The driver got out of the car and there was an altercation during which the driver was punched in the face by the cyclist.
So the driver got out and 'there was an altercation'. We have
no evidence at all to support the claim that the cyclist started this. If anything, the subsequent action of the motorist (following the cyclist
who had ridden off) implies that the aggressor was the motorist. See the rest of the police comment here:
"The cyclist rode off and the driver headed to where he believed the cyclist lived. There was a second altercation ten minutes later after the driver spotted the cyclist with another cyclist in Market Street.
It is a common misconception that someone who 'threw the first punch' started the fight; obviously there are ways of acting aggressively, of starting a fight, other than that. But here we don't have
any evidence that the cyclist did either, all we know was that there was an 'altercation' during which the motorist was punched.
If you believe you can infer anything else to be correct from this article then you're falling for a very nasty, very cynical anti-cyclist slant on a news story.