HIT AND RUN

This is also a good term to use when reporting the incident.

It's generally defined as any vehicular contact or incident resulting in damage where the driver leaves the scene of the crime without exchanging contact information or waiting for police if a police report is being filed.

Has this driver's plate an incident been reported on http://platewire.com ?

Couple of tips that half-a-century has taught me. Never, ever ever escalate a potentially violent altercation. Period. Full Stop.

This is not 'blaming the victim" this is simple common sense. The SUV driver, was pretty typical of SUV drivers. You weren't hit. Let it go. yeah, taking down a license number and finding some suitable agency and reporting some road rage makes sense, but trying to force a confrontation will rarely result in a good outcome.

The same site's view of my house shows the pool that my neighbors filled in five years ago; Co-op City is shown as it was before the Greenway became a parking lot three years ago.

Goldman's suggestion that a relative had a medical emergency does seem ridiculous on its face.

Nonsense contributed a somewhat noble and valid sentiment, but it was off-point relative to this set of posts.

Primarily, though, I wanted to echo Steve's post from 11/22 - the confrontation was completely unnecessary and the property damage was preventable.

I don't want to get tossed into the "blame the victim" box, but: standing in front of some a-hole's SUV while he's laying on the horn is generally an invitation for more outrageous behavior. I would not expect much value to come from scolding Goldman verbally, had he actually rolled his window down as commanded. I would expect no other result from laying the bike down in front of his tank than that which ultimately occurred.

The behavior of both parties resulted in Goldman's criminal act and justice should be served.

Good luck - please share results (and process).

This is obviously a fake post, but aptly signed. Probably sent in by a cop. Or someone, like another person mentioned, who just wants to rile people up with an inane posting. A pretty tired tactic, if you asked me, and the arguments offered are pretty laughable. Arguing that SUV drivers should be able to use their cars to just drive into bicycles, willynilly, even if they are blocked by a cyclist who might be trying to engage them in an argument, is just plain ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as assuming that one has to live in Williamsburg or ride a fixie to care about biking issues in NYC. And even more ridiculous, that one needs to be raped or black to understand or have experienced any kind of frustration with the police.

And I don't know about "nonsense", who lived in Williamsburg and had six bikes and rode every day and so on and so on, but I assumed the image of the tanks was referring to the SUV and not the police. It's interesting. Nonsense missed that, but managed to assume that the cyclist was "rich". I guess this is because he had a new bike. I'm not sure what the bike cost myself. But I'll bet if this guy rides it to work everyday, it might eventually save him money and I'm sure it's less than "nonsense's" car cost.

The divide and conquer rule in action--make fun of hipsters or fixies or rich bikers or call the cyclist "histrionic" in attempt to get away from the real issue, which is some idiot using their SUV like a weapon, destroying property simply because they can.

Just please, please, don't say "bicyclists are the niggers of NYC."

Whether or not NYC is one of the most bike-friendly places in the world has nothing to do with what happened. That Nonsense, is nonsense.

And hey, great - you used to live here and you partied up with Time's Up! - guess that means you are an expert and gives you the power to speak against cyclist's rights now.

What is clear here is that the motorist in this situation tried to injure another person using his car as a weapon. Hands down that is wrong.

Actually the more I think about it, Nonsense's post is so bizarre and illogical, it makes me think that someone in the bike crowd must have posted this as a joke to further encourage banter on this topic...come on fess up, who was it?

On behalf of all of the commenters, I apologize that, in this particular corner of the Internet, we're not all focused on saving Darfur or whatever cause you think is most worthy.

People here are working on creating alternatives to automobile dependence, making New York and other cities more healthy, functional and sustainable, improving bicycling and pedestrian conditions, combatting climate change and oil war and, yeah, on Friday, we collaborated to bring some accountability and justice to a selfish, sociopathic, SUV driver who did a hit-and-run on a crowded city street on Friday.

How are you working to make your community and your planet a better place when you're not bitching and moaning about other people's activism in a blog comments section?

when i lived in williamsburg, i would have been caught up in the self-righteous bike culture. i would have thought that there was a grand conspiracy between asshole cops and asshole SUV drivers and that there was something we as activists had to do to confront it.

now i read this story as a self-righteous rich dude who stands in front of a clearly pissed off SUV driver looking to pick a fight and then starts a blog frenzy when something happens. i understand that this is also how the cop sees it, and it's a nice break from a life spent fighting crime involving real injury and (yes, sometimes) corruption and indifference on a whole different scale.

EARTH TO YOU: using an image of tiananmen square in this post illustrates just exactly how much perspective you lack. if you think selective enforcement is a bad situation when a histrionic cyclist has an oopsie, just be really glad you've never had to deal with cops after, say, a rape. or while black. or in another country.

go ahead and call out this Goldman douchebag on the internet. do it because you can, and because it's fun, and because you'll get your bike fixed. but before y'all start frothing about how it's "us against them" and everyone's out to get "us," please take a minute and consider what every minute of every day is like for people who are victims of real oppression. we- everyone reading this- are among the most priveleged class on earth, and if we've gotten to a point where 40 people are willing to do something about a minor altercation like this, imagine what we could do for folks who've lost more than a shiny new fixed gear bicycle.

I must say I'm both impressed and a bit frightened by how much a committed group can get done this quickly. Seems like a phenomenon as ripe for abuse as activism. That's why it is comforting to see the general tone of moderation, here.