Drivers in high-speed car chase almost hit man walking across Rosa Parks Way (Video)
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on December 21st, 2020 at 2:36 pm
At around 10:15 am this morning a man was nearly hit while walking across North Rosa Parks Way at Albina. According to a witness and video footage from a nearby business, the man was walking in the crosswalk northbound on Albina on the east side of the intersection. As he crossed the bike lane two drivers flew by at a very high rate of speed and went through the intersection against the red signal (they entered the bike lane because the general purpose lane was full of other cars).
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Crews work to replace damaged utility pole adjacent to Rosa Parks Way bike lane above I-5.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
As you can see in the video above, the drivers’ cars came just a few feet from the man’s body. A witness says people in the cars were shooting guns at each other. One of the drivers ended up veering off the road at the I-5 overcrossing just a few blocks west of where this video was taken. They slammed into a utility pole above I-5. Crews are on the scene now replacing the pole and power to signals in the area is out.
PPB confirmed a collision of two vehicles at Rosa Parks and N Missouri. “One of them left the roadway and struck a pole then ended up by the freeway… Officers were not able to determine that there had been a shooting,” said Lieutenant Greg Pashley.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Yep, this city is getting better all the time. Just like Naito. The social workers will take care of this, right? BTW, cameras will have ZERO impact on this type of activity. No cop, no stop. Good luck!
I am sure that those involved can blame their actions on “our society”.
It’s not better. It’s going to get much worse.
Who shot Mike H.?
We ain’t seen nothing yet.
This is all thanks to the police defunders, JoAnn Hardesty and the weak DA Mike Schmidt.
Thoughtful police reform is one thing but the approach that has been taken has simply let the criminals know there are zero repercussions for their actions.
Unfortunately it’s not just confined to Portland. In most US jurisdictions it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hold any sort of trial if both jurors and staff are too scared to show up because of the pandemic. Because of social distancing and a high rate of deaths from illness, many prisons are refusing to take in more convicted felons, while many jails are refusing to take in the accused and releasing others far too early. So if you get arrested, what are the consequences? The police cannot convict, so they shoot first and ask questions later, or else stay away. The courts cannot hold trials nor is willing to hold prisoners, so anyone arrested is soon freed. My own community here in NC has had record murders, 95% black-on-black, as have all our neighboring cities.
When the pandemic was first declared last March, sociologists warned this would happen: Increased domestic violence and family harm, rapidly increasing unemployment among the poorest, a rapid rise in violent crime, and an increasing unwillingness by society to deal with these issues. And now here we are.
A woman who’s name I cannot recall but who was on the forefront of fighting the Ebola epidemic in Liberia a few years back, said when Covid-19 was first spreading, that fear itself was going to be our biggest battle, that the disease was relatively minor. And she was right.
We wear masks and socially distance now subconsciously. If we communicate face-to-face at all, it’s on Zoom rather than live. It is making us so passive that we wait for government and police to solve our issues, institutions we’ve never really trusted, rather than directly confronting the issues ourselves. We are so partisan that we applaud our politicians for the points they make, but without noticing the acute lack of progress our governments are making in solving social ills. We fear getting sick more than we fear our rapidly declining civil society.
And that is tragic.
Yea, as if this wasn’t happening before all of that. Perhaps you just weren’t paying attention then…
I don’t believe that Mike Schmidt is declining to prosecute vehicle related crimes. Do you have any evidence or related examples of his leniency or refusal to prosecute these types of crimes? If you don’t, it would be extremely difficult to draw a connection between his job performance and the incident that was depicted in the video.
No surprise that those vehicles have no license plates. Portland is becoming a lawless place in every way.
How do we know that they don’t have plates on the back?
Based on my experience driving and biking around Portland recently, I would place a huge wager on no rear plates. Would you dare to bet against me? There might be a paper temporary plate in the rear window. But that might be fake, or expired.
To fight the common problem of fake plates, my state of NC is now requiring all plates to be replaced with new ones with hidden microchips. Even vintage plates have to be replaced. However, they are allowing and even encouraging folks to replicate the numbers and letters of their old plates, for free. Cars here are only required to have plates on the rear – the front is optional.
If the cars in the video have rear plates, either the car was stolen, or else the criminal is really stupid.
Chloe Eudaly of the PBOT has elected not to enforce vehicular laws such as illegal parking, registration, etc. and suspended PBOT response to abandoned vehicles. No surprise things are getting worse. At least she was voted out of office. ***PORTION OF COMMENT DELETED***
Next target? What?
He was referring to Hardesty. I agree, but it maybe could have been phrased differently. She does not serve this city, only her personal interests.
Oh boy. I of course meant Hardesty should be the next far left extremist local politician to be voted out of office. Nothing more. When I said “targeted” that was politically as in a campaign. I’m sure she’s a good person I just don’t agree with her politics. It’s the far left in Portland who “target” people and businesses violently. Think of the attack on Commissioner Ryan’s home, vandalism at the local Democratic Party office, multiple businesses in Hollywood/Hawthorne attacked, vandalism at Grant High School, throwing feces and Molotov cocktails at law enforcement officers, threats and intimidation to the neighbors at the red house, the list goes on.
“Far” Left or Right is usually not good.
Thanks for clarifying your views Pascual. Just FYI I’ve added your name to the auto-moderation list which means all your comments will be held back until I review them. This usually happens very quickly as I monitor comments closely 24/7/365. I appreciate your perspectives I just need to make sure I can trust you to be productive and appropriate 100% of the time.
PP, I’m glad you can join us in JM’s Auto-Moderation Purgatory, were “your comments are awaiting moderation” and maybe even “Your Comments Have Been Approved!” complete with an annoying email, the uppermost level of our existence. Sometimes the comments are processed immediately or within the hour, sometimes 12 hours later, long after the discussion has moved on – JM is a busy guy.
To David’s point below; Jonathan, have you considered writing up a page for comment rules? I think that would be easier for you (and any future moderators) to point at as acceptable behavior in the comment section. I understand you are already very busy, but having written rules might mitigate the feelings of bias/censorship that I think some readers may feel. If it is already written, maybe add a link to it in your note ahead of the comment section?
Yes, please. This is an excellent idea.
Hi Zach (and others),
First… I am never too busy for managing comments. That IS my job, and a very important one in my opinion.
As for a comment rules page. I’m not sure I think that’s necessary but I’ll consider it. I mean, there’s the note above that should suffice. It’s not a mystery. Just be nice to others, don’t flood the zone with too many comments too often, and don’t let your personal back-and-forths derail the discussion. If someone has a problem with how they’re being moderated, they typically just contact me and we chat about it. I really don’t think there are any/many people who feel they are unfairly censored. I give everyone a very long leash and I really don’t spend much time at all doing moderation … which is the best sign that the comment section is healthy.
Since I comment pretty often as just “Zach,” just want to point out this is another Zach, not me, Zach Katz (I think I’ll go by Zach K from now on)
Hey there Zach! Fair point to avoid confusion, I shall likewise differentiate myself. Cheers!
Meanwhile… I’m changing my handle to Zach.
Not a fan of this commenting style or tone
A few weeks back on a run from the house to go up Mt. Scott I crossed the Springwater at Foster. I was waiting for the light to change and standing a few feet back off the curb (always off the curb). Traffic moves quite quick on Foster and I could hear someone really gunning it. A dude in an SUV headed west (I was going south-ish so I’m close to the west bound traffic) is *hauling ass* and passes everyone by using the bike lane. You know how we all feel like we have close calls with cars but really a lot of them weren’t so close? This one, an incredibly fast moving vehicle in the bike lane and approaching me, seemed really, truly close. Like “holy shit, this guy is gonna destroy me” close. Like at the speed he was going if he hit the curb it would have been bad, he would have lost control or it would have thrown the SUV or something. It really scared the hell out of me but more than anything it infuriated me because there’s nothing I can do about it and this dude will never get a ticket or have his car towed or anything like that.
Cops suck and all, no disagreement there, but there’s gotta be something in place to stop shit like this from happening. This isn’t ok.
Why do people seem to need to add the cops suck statement to everything these days? How is this blanket statement any different than saying that all (fill in a racial group or gender) suck? Do you know every cop that every served and found them to be terrible people? Not every driver, cyclist, or congressperson sucks. Some of them do. Most of them don’t. Hopefully none of your family or friends become the victim of some violent crime that requires the police to solve. If we don’t leave law enforcement to the police we will become a nation of vigilantes.
Vigilantes suck.
Like people dressing and acting like the police at the Red House, as Oregon Poet Laureate, Anis Mojgani, puts it. Definitely worth reading his encounter on twitter.
***Comment deleted by moderator.***
I dunno, it might be different because, ya know, being a cop is a choice and not a gender, sex, or cultural background?
Choosing to be part of a violent, criminal gang like the PPB is a lifestyle choice that speaks to their low moral character and violent tendencies.
Considering police rarely solve crimes, I don’t think most people need to be worried about that.
Being a cop is a choice.
Labeling them all as a giant violent criminal gang as well as your declarations of their morals is hyperbole.
As an observation, bigots and racists know little to nothing about the people they hate and have no contact with. Likewise, the unifying thread among the MAGA crew that has such simple solutions for everything is they simply repeat stuff they hear but don’t even understand the issues at a basic level.
The absolutely ridiculous incarceration rate in the US seems at odds with the notion that cops rarely solve crimes. Or are they all framed?
And BTW, since the NoPo police precinct shut down, we’ve had gunfire several times literally within stone’s throw, about months ago a couple of clips worth were emptied near the Chevron. We hear gunfire often enough that it’s not even that unusual.
So pat yourself on the back for helping get the cops out of our hair.
Well stated.
I do love the “go on a ride along” crowd. I’ve been on ride alongs and know/known many cops. Conservatives think that we should ignore statistics and data in favor of feelings and “Blue Lives Matter” flags.
No thanks, I’ll stick with evidence-based practices and data.
Funny, I think Conservatives feel the same way about Progressives – that they tend to ignore statistics and facts in favor of feelings.
If you looked at the number of black people killed by police in Portland over the last few years, it does not really match with the local Progressive narrative.
http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/listofshootings.html
Conservatives think a lot of crazy things like QAnon and the like so I’m not particulary worried that conservatives are projecting their anti-science and anti-evidence based approach to the world onto normal people.
I’m going to guess that you mean “does not really match the narrative” you mean “does not match what Lars Larson says the narrative is”
You should take some time to learn history. They have been at times little more than just state organized crime. Considering how often they get sanction by the DOJ and the courts for their brand of ultra-violence, it’s laughable that calling them “violent” is hyperbole.
Yeah bud, I’ve known many cops in my lifetime through friends and family.
The huge amount of DNA exonerations shows that they’re are pretty terrible at it and often just incarcerate some random guy because they are too incompetent to actually the solve the crime. Most incarcerations in the country are for low-level crimes that didn’t require an investigation. Stuff like “Black man found with 1 oz of weed” or “Black man stole a spatula from the store”.
For murder, the most serious crime we have essentially, the clearance rate is 60% which includes when they arrest the wrong person and railroad them through the criminal injustice system. For rape, it’s 34.5%. Their own juiced numbers look bad.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/clearances
Absolutely Matlocks, all of them
Oh yeah, that’s crazy! I live in NoPo. The police didn’t do anything out here before the North Precinct shut down and now they do even less. Why don’t we focus our time and attention on things that actually reduce gun violence because we know cops don’t.
PPB hasn’t had any positions eliminated. Zero. Everything that is going on today is attributed to their general incompetence. You are looking at a failing, useless organization that burns money on weapons of war and saying “Gee, maybe we should just burn more money!”
You sound like the mirror image of the racists ranting about Muslims — amplify the worst examples as not only being representative of, but actually being what you hate.
Coming up with conclusions and then cherry picking info is the exact opposite of logic so I won’t waste time going down that road with you
It’s far easier to choose the road of self righteous purity than deal with reality. Sure, the over the top anticop rhetoric and violence in Portland did more to help the GOP hold onto the Senate than anything else. Sure, it gave Trump, FOX, etc exactly the narrative they wanted to play where votes were close while accomplishing nothing locally. But that’s a small price to pay for the satisfaction of performative self indulgence. Coopting a legit movement was a nice touch.
Yeah, I get it, ACAB. You got it all figured out, bro.
I’ve had good experiences with the police. Gotten a few stolen cars back to people.
That’s a pretty massive reach and I get it, you can’t actually defend cops so you have to pretend disliking them is akin to racism.
Please, I’ve done so much reading on the police. I can’t condense dozens of books and hundreds of articles and lectures into a bikeportland comment. You are just projecting your own lack of knowledge on the subject. You want to support cops no matter what and you look for information that supports your beliefs and when presented with evidence that is contrary to your beliefs you call it “cherry picking”.
I’m confused on which movement I co-opted bro bro? I know that you are new to this subject but police abolitionist existed long before BLM.
You should do some reading. I know its uncomfortable to have your beliefs as a white privileged man challenged, but if you put yourself out there you might find the truth.
> Sure, the over the top anticop rhetoric and violence in Portland did more to help the GOP hold onto the Senate than anything else.
How did you come to that conclusion? Do you have anything to back that up?
I doubt Portland politics played very little into Senate races. Was it used by Fox to create a narrative and help stir unrest? Sure. But it sure didn’t work to keep DJT elected and that’s where we probably would have seen it play out the most. Also, I am sure you know this, but the Senate is still in play. Let’s not count the chickens before they hatch.
When I hear ACAB, I hear this – “Something is very, very wrong in American police culture. This is why the saying “ACAB” — or “All cops are b*****ds” — has become a popular rallying cry. It doesn’t actually mean every single cop is a bad cop, just like saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean white lives don’t. “ACAB” means every single police officer is complicit in a system that actively devalues the lives of people of color. Bad cops are encouraged in their harm by the silence of the ones who see themselves as “good.” The issue isn’t “a few bad apples”; it’s a tree that is rotting from the inside out, spreading its poison.”
When I hear and see arguments like yours, I feel like you aren’t really a systems thinker or that you are a person who privileged and actively benefits from the system.
You sure come off like you have it all figured it out, bro.
The problem with statements like ACAB is that when I hear them, I hear anti-police bigotry rather than “something is very, very wrong in American police culture”, a statement I agree with. When ACAB comes out of your mouth or spray can, you invite argument rather than a search for solution.
I mentioned elsewhere there is a problem with sloganeering, and this is it. You may feel cool saying it, but it makes finding a solution, which will require some degree of societal consensus, much more difficult.
@HK – yes, I know that’s what you hear, that’s why I explained it to you. You should spend more time listening and digging in. Not everything has to be catered to your delicate sensibilities.
Again, sloganeering is very effective and is neither good nor bad. I don’t think ACAB is a great slogan nor is defund the police. All that being said, there absolutely does need to be an effective slogan to talk about this topic effectively and advertise it at a very base/primitive level. What do you suggest people do? Start rambling big long diatribes in a culture where the president is doing policy through twitter? Seems pretty ineffective to me.
Ok, so now I now that when you say “All Cops Are Bastards”, what you really mean is a much more thoughtful and nuanced commentary on the state of modern American policing, and the need for well-considered reform.
But what about everyone else?
@HK – What about everyone else? I can’t speak for them. The point here is that _you_ now have a better understanding of what is meant by it, not what each individual means by it. If you want to know what it means to them, ask them! My point here is that you should be listening and trying to understand instead of just writing things off as “sloganeering”.
Do you put as much skepticism into people crying “freedom” as you do people saying ACAB? I really hope you do. When someone explained what freedom means to them, did you say “but what about everyone else?”
I do listen, and now I know that you do not mean what you say in this instance; but in the absence of other information, I have to assume others do. I can’t really ask everyone to explain themselves, and frankly my little kitty brain has difficulty keeping track of who means what when they say something else.
Since you seem to think me some sort of right-wing shill, for what it’s worth, on most issues I’m as far to the left as one can go while still retaining contact with reality.
And yes, I do regard those descending on Salem in recent weeks as complete loons, and if they were here arguing I just didn’t understand that their slogans didn’t mean what they said, I’d be skeptical and critical of that too. Perhaps more so because I disagree with their fundamental message, whereas I agree with what you claim to really mean when you say ACAB.
I don’t think of you as a right-wing shill, I think of you as a person who does more talking than listening; someone who wants to be “right”. I was simply using the right-wing example as a counter-point to how ideas are seen and questioned.
The riots in Portland were heavily covered out here in bucolic North Carolina on a daily basis. Trump and Senator Tillis narrowly won this swing state, even though our Democratic governor actually gained many votes on his reelection.
If your slogans have to be explained, they’re bad slogans.
Black Lives Matter doesn’t need to be explained. Taking umbrage at it requires twisting intent reading meaning into it that’s not there to begin with.
Aside from being untrue on its face, ACAB literally means nothing to people who aren’t plugged into the activist community. Making it sound reasonable requires converting the words into something they don’t see.
Are you seriously trying to suggest to me that a huge chunk of the people who repeat ACAB *don’t* mean it literally? Did you actually go to the protests? Except at the beginning, they had practically nothing to do with racism — the white kids quickly made it about themselves.
Actually if the slogan has to be “explained” the side using it has already lost.
The moral is to the physical as 10 to 1. When ACAB is the slogan, the moral high ground has already been lost, and the outcome will not necessarily turn to their advantage.
It’s funny that you say that “Black lives matter” doesn’t have to be explained when there is a whole culture says “All lives matter” who obviously don’t understand it and I have had to explain it to many people.
I am definitely suggesting a huge chunk of people who say ACAB mean it through the lens of systems thinking. I did go to protests. I, in fact, live a few blocks away from where many protests happened. I agree, they weren’t completely focused on racism, but that is definitely a huge component of the what they were about.
Did you go to any of the protests? It was focused on police violence; the police violence was happening against all races there.
Kyle wrote: “As an observation, bigots and racists know little to nothing about the people they hate and have no contact with. Likewise, the unifying thread among the MAGA crew that has such simple solutions for everything is they simply repeat stuff they hear but don’t even understand the issues at a basic level.”
As one of the MAGA crew, I’m interested to see a list of issues that the “MAGA crew” don’t understand. Can you provide a list? I want to be enlightened. 😉 Seriously – list please.
How masks work, and the social responsibility of helping keep your neighbors from getting sick?
How elections work, and the difficulty in committing large-scale voter fraud?
That the president can’t just “lock her up” or “make Mexico pay for it”?
This is what it looks like when citizens think that they need to take justice into their own hands. Racist dudes shooting someone because they thought he looked like a burglar. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-georgia-shooting/three-to-face-judge-in-fatal-shooting-of-black-jogger-in-georgia-idUSKCN24I1JQ or maybe antifa supporter shooting a right winger. https://apnews.com/article/f0418fd4a37be8d9b6953c8359109587
You should go on a ride-along when COVID clears up. You know, to perhaps get another perspective.
Many far left or right people live in a world of absolutes – ALL cops are bad…because if one admits that sometimes they aren’t it forces you to actually *think* rather than simply believe. All Dems are bad, All Cons are Bad, Trump can do no wrong, Obama never made a mistake, etc…
Sorry to hear about your scary experience.
I had to add though that your simplistic “cops suck” statement is part of the problem. Belittling the many good officers in Portland does not serve to help improve public safety. Actually does the opposite. We need to strive to work together will all parties to make it better.
I would love to see a white ANTIFA member tell a black cop he is racist and sucks.
As if your simplistic attacks on the left isn’t part of the problem. It doesn’t serve to improve the problem, only causes divides. Take some of your own advice.
ACAB is a little simplistic, no?
You didn’t make an argument against anything I said.
Do we at least all agree that simplistic thinking and sloganeering and stereotyping and blanket attacks and division are destructive and unhelpful, regardless of who does it?
YES, thank you HK. People, please find evidence and take a few minutes to back your argument with facts. I thought I might get a reprieve from this crazy holiday uncle talk with covid and all.
No!
“I will defend when my side does it because I can’t admit I’m wrong and then engage in whataboutism.” – Pretty much each side.
The irony of you saying this isn’t lost on me.
What is simplistic thinking? Why is it bad? I would argue that simple ideas are often the best ideas.
Sloganeering also isn’t bad in and of itself. What’s the slogan? What are they people trying to do? It’s a very useful thing and nothing is inherently bad about it.
Blanket attacks are usually bad, stereotyping is a mixed bag. The difference here is that these both imply not listening to the other side.
Middle of the road guy – it’s funny that you say “I will defend when my side does…” and when you attack me for something I never said or did.
I honestly don’t think ACAB is simplistic, but I do think your understanding of it is. I don’t think it is a great slogan, just like I don’t necessarily think “defund the police” is the best slogan. I think people saying “Freedom” and then doing whatever they want while completely stomping on others’ rights and beliefs is a bit simplistic.
“…if you see a cop, and you feel safer, rather than less safe, you can be pretty sure you’re middle [or upper] class.”
–David Graeber
PS: 1312
See the effectiveness of just a couple years of speed cameras on one of the worst car cultures in the US (NYC). You want to see consequences for this behavior and make streets safer? Write to your congressperson and/or the governor and ask for speed cameras.
This is the kind of stuff I imagine whenever I think things like changing speed signs, putting in honor system diverters, “protecting” bike lanes with bendy plastic sticks, and trying to keep drivers out with rounded curbs that are only a few inches high aren’t going to do much or anything at all.
Exactly. The ones who pay attention to changes like this and who will change their behavior are the ones who already are being safe and following the rules. The people who are driving recklessly aren’t going to care about honor-system changes. That’s why we need enforcement.
One of the many reasons why NYC DOT places metal bollards in high occupancy zones such as the Hudson Greenway and Times Sq. Most central parts of cities in Europe have ubiquitous metal bollards.
Yup, colorful curbside HOV lanes.
Has Portland reached dumpster fire status yet?
I hope all Portlanders will support the charter revision – end the ridiculous “commission” form of gov’t. Portland is now the *only* major American city with this outmoded form of gov’t.
Think of it this way: Your flight is getting ready push back from the gate when the flight attendant comes on the PA and says, “Sorry, but the captain and first officer are both sick, so two lucky passengers will get to fly the plane to Houston today! All passengers will get to vote and pick a ‘captain’ and ‘first officer’ to fly the plane!”
That’s essentially what we do in Portland gov’t: we pick people who have no expertise to run highly complex, modern gov’t agencies that provide critical services like law enforcement, transportation, fire and medical response, housing and code enforcement, hazmat clean-up, etc etc.
No one can deny that Portland has become one huge Dumpster fire. We need to get competent professionals running our gov’t agencies and providing services, while the politicians take care of policy.
I’m open to learning more, but I’m not convinced at the moment. We do have professionals running the bureaus; the assigned commissioner is more of a political leader and advocate. Eudaly is not the “head of PBOT”; Chris Warner is. Why would outcomes be better if those leaders answered directly to the entire council rather than one commissioner?
In fact could see them becoming worse: it might be that no commissioners would understand the issues at a bureau at a deep level, whereas today we at least have one, who can explain it to the others.
Columbus Ohio, which is even bigger than Portland, also has a commissioner form of government. There used to be a lot of others, Cincinnati and Denver for example, but they recently changed government forms after federal lawsuits.
I would argue that the PBOT director is more of a CEO or a governor at PBOT rather than a general manager or president there – he or she are the chief cheerleaders for getting money from city council and can be fired “at will” by the mayor. The people who actually run the bureau are the division managers and section chiefs who can’t easily be fired, which is more typical in a large bureaucracy. The de-facto administrative decision-makers are mid-level engineers and other staff within the bureau who are often unaware of the policy decisions they are actually making.
This is a feature of how democracy in action works. We do the same dynamic for offices all the way to the top — the current President of the United States has no previous experience.
One of the narratives we sell as a society is that anyone can lead guided by nothing but some simple beliefs. Then the vast majority of the population votes on how candidates say they feel about a couple (or even one) issue, offering simplistic solutions.
Expertise is seen as irrelevant, and appreciation of nuance as well as willingness to work with those holding opposing viewpoints is seen as duplicity at best. All this causes the problems you’d expect it would but a series of checks and balances normally helps keep things on the rails.
What’s different now is the number of people who think ignoring the concerns of others and using any means available (including actual force) to get things through. So we get crazy whipsawing depending on who has the upper hand. It won’t end well.
Are you suggesting we should go back to the previous system whereby the office holder has the office for life and who is trained since childhood to run the country, who has been in office since 1952 and inherited it from her dad, who took office after his brother abdicated, who got it from his dad, who got it from his father, who took office to replace his mother, who inherited the job from her uncle, who replaced his older brother, etc etc, going back to a violent bloody coup in 1485?
It feels like this is when someone needs to say “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others” so we can all sagely nod our heads and move on to some other topic.
Anyone?
Thankfully, no one was actually using the protected lane. I can’t imagine that not ending in tragedy.
Anyone who thinks we can metal bollard and concrete barrier our way out of this is kidding themselves, even if we don’t even consider the hazard the bollards represent to cyclists (especially in poor visibility conditions)
High speed driving shootouts seem be a thing — we’ve had a couple in the last few months along Lombard and hearing gunfire in the area isn’t even that unusual.
Been to Boise, Idaho recently? Even worse chaos, and without the masks. From sea to shining sea America’s downfall appears to be gathering a real head of steam.
This situation has happened around me twice in the last few years. One car chase occurred on the narrow residential street I live on. Two cars turned onto the street in quick succession and nearly ran over my dog and my neighbor’s toddler as we were chatting in front of his home. Another time a couple run down vehicles blew through the five points intersection of Sandy and 72nd. This stuff is nothing new, but it’s just more of the same, unfortunately.
Back to the story at hand*: what’s up with that man in the crosswalk? He barely seemed phased by the high-speed close pass. Maybe it would have looked different at 24 fps.
*Completely ignoring the ideology wars going on in the comments up above.
I suspect he didn’t fully realize what happened, and/or it probably took a few seconds to sink in.
He likely could have been under the influence of a substance of some kind?
Maybe he had headphones on…
He was in deep thought about the pros and cons of hub-driven electric bikes and what torque he needed for his upcoming $2,500 purchase.
LOL. I think I’d lean towards mid-drive if I were in that market.
Recent big city transplant.