So I found this link to an article in the Toronto Sun about a bike messenger and a driver who got into a bruhaha over a discarded burger, a keyed car, a smashed bike and a couple cups of coffee. It apparently has become something of a internet phenomonon and has people lining up on both sides.
I’m curious where the always objective SDMB falls on the issue.
[sub]I didn’t see any previous threads on this topic, fingers crossed[/sub]
Hmm… The driver was probably more to blame, but I can’t, and never will be able to, have any sympathy whatsoever for bike messengers. I therefore vote for the driver. 
I think they both be flogged for being silly gits.
Both wrong.
Reluctant admiration for the bike messenger. I hate litterers. I’d be more militant about it, but frankly, I don’t enjoy being stomped.
Ach! Crivens! Where be manners any more? It starts with an act of littering, a minor offense. It escalates when the bike messenger decides to “vigilante justice” the offender and toss the trash back in his car. And so it goes …
Although it seems to have the stupid bike-vs-car passions running high, it really has absolutely nothing to do with that. It has to do with two assholes acting like assholes. I can’t really work up any sympathy for either.
I blame the motorist.
I couldn’t get to the original page for some reason, maybe because the site is overwhelmed, but here’s the google cached page with more pictures: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:8Khg0SaM6HEJ:www.citynoise.org/article/2770+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
The bicyclist made a bad choice, but the guy obviously completely flipped out. He attacked her and her bicycle, and it required several people to literally pry him off of her.
IMHO, it is the guy who littered, lost all control, and attcked the girl and her property who is to blame.
Reading the Citynoise link, it appears that he littered, she threw it back at him, he tossed coffee on her, she scratched his car, he drove off. Ok, they are both being assholes. Maybe more her fault than his.
But then the guy returns and assaults her. All his fault there.
I don’t know, she grabbed his door, opening it and threw food in his lap, scratching his car in the process. I’d say there’s plenty of “completely flipping out” to go around.
By the ever so slightest margin I blame the instigator more, and while littering sucks, it’s not a confrontation.
After reading the articles again, I don’t see where it says he drove off and came back. It says he jumped out immediately. ???
And I wouldn’t consider her throwing his litter back into his car as “flipping out.” Rude and impetuous, yes. But not flipping out. Also she didn’t scratch his car on purpose. It is clearly the driver who lost it.
She was rude. Rude is not illegal. He assaulted her and deliberately damaged property. That is illegal.
Wha?
“Clearly” my ass. I would consider grabbing someone’s car door, yanking it open and throwing food in the guys lap to be assault, as much as I consider someone smashing a persons’s bike assault. Frankly i’d say calling either assault insults anyone who’s actually been assaulted, but the two are analogous. It’s only her side of the story that it’s accidental keying, FTR.
And supposing she ruined the guy’s clothes and/or car interior? Thats not damaging property?
The guy did something rude to no one in particular.
The girl escalted things by starting a confrontation.
The guy further escalated the confrontation by retaliating.
Which is the worse action? Picking a fight, or going to far in retaliating to something.
See post #9.
The guy opened his door and littered, sho opened his door and threw his litter back inside. I’m not saying that’s the right thing to do, but it’s not the same as what he did. It might be if she opened the door, punched him in the face and then keyed his car. But that’s not what happened.
If someone caught me littering and called me on it I’d be embarrassed. If someone caught me littering and threw my garbage at me, I’d get upset. It still doesn’t make it OK for me to assault them and deliberately damage their property, as the guy is obviously doing.
They both crossed the line of normal behavior, there’s no doubt. But I have no sympathy for the guy. She took it too far, but he broke the law.
I’m not sure I see the difference. She damaged his property, he damaged hers. No one punched anyone. The report says they tussled with each other, and it doesn’t appear that she was a helpless victim in any of it.
I don’t have any sympathy for the guy either, but it sounds like you have tons for the girl.
Having thrown litter back into the cars of litterers myself, I have absolutely no sympathy for the guy. A few years ago I watched a woman dump a bunch of cigarette butts on the ground in front of a Safeway store. I wish I would have stayed around to see the look on a woman’s face when she returned to her car and found all the cigarette butts she had just dumped on the ground were back in her car. There was a trashcan no more than 10 feet from where she dumped the butts.
And throwing trash out onto the street which is paid for by our taxes and will have to be picked up by people we pay for is not damaging property? I think she went a little overboard, but as far as I am concerned he is the instigator. He broke the law, and while it’s not like killing someone, he knew what he was doing and he knew that it was illegal. Frankly, I think the girl has a lot of balls. Of course, they both went way off the deep end, but he really did start it.
Does anyone else find this humourous in light of the GD thread about whether Canadians are nicer than Americans?