A man inside of a car grabbed a cyclist and almost pulled her to the ground while she rode through the International District last Tuesday, a police report says.
According to the report, the woman was riding down 5th Avenue South, just past South Jackson Street, when a dark green Honda swerved along side her, and the passenger reached out of the car and grabbed her arm. The report says the man began yelling obscenities at the woman while she rode down the street, going 12-15 miles per hour.
The man briefly let go of the cyclist’s arm, but reached out and grabbed her again moments later, this time nearly pulling her off her bike. The woman was unable to get away because she was trapped between the Honda and a Metro bus, the report says.
The Honda eventually sped off, but the cyclist was unable to get the license plate number. The only identifying details the woman was able to give police is that two men in the car, including the driver, were in their mid-twenties and that one of them was white.
Must be one of those Birthers who got lost and wandered off I-5 on their way to a Tin Foil Tea Bag ceremony …
Something is wrong with this post. 5th Avenue South, just south of South Jackson Street, is not a hill. In fact, it’s very flat. Maybe north of S. Jackson St? Once it reaches Jackson, it flattens out. And once it reaches S. Dearborn St a few blocks later, Jackson ends.
@1 You’ve been looking for an opportunity all day to make reference to tin foil tea bag birthers, haven’t you?
wheres the concealed weapon cyclist guy when you need him? probably also at a tea party, I guess. politics and gunbs, they be making for some strange bedfellows these days…..
@2, where does it say anything about a hill?
Was the driver of the Honda Asian? That would explain the honda moving at 12-15 mph.
What was she doing on the right-hand side of a Metro bus to be trapped there?
And by right-hand side, I mean left-hand side (driver’s side). Sorry.
I’m a lifelong woman cyclist and I’ve groped by a passenger in a car and by at least 3 pedestrians when I’m waiting for a light and had my ass slapped—really hard—by passengers in cars. I also had a crazy pedestrian (psycho) try and pull me from my bike once, and had a group of 11 year olds push me off my bike. People smile or smirk when I tell them these stories but it’s terrifying to be biking along and have someone hit you, grab you or grope you, not to mention humiliating and violating. My heart goes out to that woman.
There are people like that motorist and his passenger out there everywhere. And there are bicyclists who ride much slower than the flow of traffic in the center of a non-bikes lane and ride between lanes. It just isn’t safe for bikes and cars to be on the same street unless there is a plentifully-wide bike lane on the right side of the street. I’ve been on a bike and I’ve been in a car; as a biker it’s dangerous, as a driver it’s nervewracking. Just because bikes are “green” doesn’t mean bikes and cars can mix.
That’s interesting, kinaidos. All asians drive 12 to 15 miles an hour? What an astute and completely non-racist observation!
I keep my u-lock in my back belt loop, or just shoved down the back of my pants, sans-belt. I’m not a car denting psycho, and I don’t ride with a chip on my shoulder, but it’s handy should I need to defend myself. I’m not sure it would helped being sandwiched between a bus and some idiot in a car holding on to me though. My bike doesn’t like being ridden with no hands for long.
@8/9- Pedaling, probably.
Banna@7,8 – she was probably overtaking it? A common thing for buses to do is pull over, unsurpringly, meaning the are frequently passed on the left by even cyclists. Another common thing for buses to do is pull out from the busstop with no warning or turn signal, unfortunately. It’s not uncommon for cyclists, especially on multi-lane one-way streets to end up being forced into the middle lane by a bus that is pulling out. And even if she was in that lane entirely of her own volition, there’s nothing illegal in that so long as she wasn’t holding up traffic.
Or even easier, if it was indeed south of Jackson, maybe she was just riding by a parked bus. They park there a lot.
So, plenty of good, entirely legal scenarios for her to be on the left of a bus. Sorry it’s not an easy case of blame the victim for you to feel self-satisfied about.
So can you mount a Tazer on a bike? Bunch of freakin crazies.. they need somebody to bite back.
@9 Who smirks during a story about groping?
But it seems the story here is not so much about bikes, but about sexual predators.
This is why Critical Mass continues to happen. I notice none of the standard array of douchebags that like to hate on Critical Mass have any comments at all about this story.
@17 Your strategy at getting back at dumbasses by pissing off many more people who are somewhat sympathetic to your cause is stupid.
Probably out of towners. When I cycled in Vegas kids in cars would swerve to try and hit me and would throw stuff at me as they passed. People outside of bicycle-friendly locales see cyclists as a ridicule and antagonism target.
Dangle your u-lock from a handlebar and throw that fucker like a tomahawk.
@17: Because this has nothing to do with critical mass. Fuck you and the fixie you rode in on, asshat.
@19: Yeah, it’s always out-of-towners. Same with the gang members, the gay-bashers, the drug dealers…
@18 and @21 —I’m surprised you find it OK to “criticize” someone who suggests a relatively peaceful—if not annoying—protest when the story is about the fact that one driver has been VIOLENT toward a cyclist. In an earlier post I even recounted the several times similarly frightening things have happened to me. I did so to make the point that despite the fact that some drivers seem to think all cyclists are evil and out to get drivers just isn’t true, that sometimes (more often than you may think) drivers attack cyclists for no reason other than it’s a person on a bike, pedaling along, following the rules and enjoying her day.
This hate you have toward cyclists is exactly why people ride in CM. And it’s such misdirected hate, when you think about it. How many times MORE has a driver in a car irritated you than a cyclist? I’m guessing a million times more. I’m just suggesting some perspective. Cyclists are the LEAST of drivers’ worries out there right now. I think we can all co-exist.
@23 Right but CM makes me and others hate cyclists. Its part of the problem. You can’t bitch about others being douchebags when you are intentionally being one yourself.
@17 I hate Critical Mass and commented on this story. I’ll comment some more now.
Fucking Critical Mass makes things like this more likely. Pissing people off while laughing at them is not activism. Y’all are jackasses. I ride my bike every day in Seattle. I can’t wait for CM to fade away.
@17 – This story had nothing to do with CM douchebaggery until you rode in, but if it’s hate you want, OK, you got it.
@5 – You’re right. I must’ve misunderstood the “down” in “riding down 5th Ave S” and “rode down the street” to mean a drop in elevation, rather than a progression in the direction of flow.
Critical Mass may make this kind of thing more likely, but there’s definitely a baseline amount of it. I live far, far from any place that will ever, ever have a CM event, and I’m assuming that at 6’4″ and well over 200 #, I’m more imposing than poster Mitten above.
And rednecks will fuck with me because: I’m on a bike, and they can get away with it.
Just being there is all it takes. Finally, a situation in their life where they have some power. (Just kidding, they probably beat the wife and kids, too.) White males, 16 to 36, it seems to be.
One bike commuter in my city, years ago, Ray Ray and Skeeter pulled up to him in their Nova or Chevelle, and passenger leaned out just to push the rider over, and they succeeded in making him crash, and the fellow had long term musculoskeletal issues after that.