Glad the rider is okay.
Hope the perp goes away for a good long time and loses their licence even longer.
I’ve been riding for 60 years and had a few idjits engage in road rage against me - the worst my son caught on camera but nothing as graphic as that.
Thanks for posting.
Me too!
That was brutal. By a bonafide asshole. I’m glad they caught the alleged perpetrator, a guy named in the article as Samir Pazzoto-Filho, and Samir Helio Pazzoto-Filho in another article. If he’s found guilty I hope he loses his driving privileges for a very long time.
I’ll be driving through that area in a few weeks. I might even be on that same stretch of roadway. I captured the map DD coordinates, in case they’re needed:
∘ Road rage incident ▲ 45.514, -122.7939
∘ Road rage incident ▲ 45.5084, -122.7784
As a long-time rider with over 200,000 riding miles, (only 40 years, not nearly as many as @MacDoc) there have been some altercations with car drivers, but as I rode I always had a healthy respect, and sometimes fear, of the obvious advantages that a car or vehicle have over me on my motorcycle. I also have some advantages over cars, but there aren’t many.
Once, years ago, I had a near altercation with a group of riders (pretty sure they were Hells Angels) on an interstate. I was in my car, back then a humble 2001 Honda CR-V. During the ‘situation’ it helped me a lot knowing what bikes could and could not do — namely, knowing how and where they had the advantages, and what my advantages were in my little SUV. I was ready to act assertively, or even aggressively if need be, but I did not escalate the back-and-forth and fortunately in the end, nothing came of it. But if any of those riders assaulted me then I was ready to defend myself. And my wife who was also in the car with me.
If, for example, some of those riders surrounded me and slowed down in front of me to try to get me to stop and pull over, I realized that coming to a full stop on the shoulder of the interstate with several bikers around me would result in them having a significant advantage over me, so I was determined to not have that happen. If riders in front of me slowed down, then if any riders were beside me then I was well prepared to determinedly move sideways slowly towards them to break out of their perimeter around me. Not violently and wildly initiating contact like in that video, but gently and determinedly so that any biker beside me would have to move over or they’d definitely have gentle contact initiated. But if riders around me assaulted me (e.g., broke my side mirror with their fists, or banged on my car, or smacked my windows with hard objects, or threw lead fishing weights at me) then my actions would be in kind, and my sideways motion to escape their perimeter around me would have been more assertive.
I was quickly thinking through some of these possibilities as this happened. The entire situation lasted maybe 15, 30 seconds.
I was also prepared to drive onto the smooth grass median, and even to cross it and take the interstate in the opposite direction to try and get away. But I knew that being on the grass median would give me a significant advantage in traction and stability.
As I said, fortunately nothing became of it. And I’m thankful that I’m not the kind of person to retaliate. There are always at least two sides to a story, a situation. At least two.
Anyway, that guy in the video. A bonafide asshole.