This cop really hates cyclists

Oh, my, I suspect someone may lose his badge over that one! To be fair, the Critical Mass cyclists have often been nasty, but there's not much context shown in the video.

Stupid cop, too. Cyclist with no helmet, being bounced toward the curb. That could have been a brain-injury case, with multi-million dollar penalty.

The cop should lose his badge over this. Yes, being a police officer is a difficult job with a lot of stress and frustration but this is stupid on all possible levels.

How have the CM folks been nasty? Nasty enough to warrant a hatred against them by law enforcement personnel?

"Not being from San Francisco, Ferrando thought she might have inadvertently crossed paths with a bicycle race and couldn't figure out why the police, who she had just passed, hadn't warned her.

Confusion, however, quickly turned to terror, she said, when the swarming cyclists began wildly circling around and then running into the sides of her Toyota van.

Filled with panic, Ferrando said, she started inching forward until coming to a stop at Post and Gough streets, where she was surrounded by bikers on all sides.

A biker in front blocked her as another biker began pounding on the windshield. Another was pounding on her window. Another pounded the other side.

"It seemed like they were using their bikes as weapons,'' Ferrando said. One of the bikers then threw his bike -- shattering the rear window and terrifying the young girls inside. "
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/04/BAGF7P12RN23.DTL

Sounds like mob rules to me. Plus a lot of frustration coming out I guess.

Meanwhile the officer in question has made a statement that the cyclist drove his bicycle directly into him, knocking him to the ground and causing lacerations on his forearm. Link to the actual Criminal Court complaint on The Smoking Gun

Hmm, so could this be a first, if the Youtube video is used in court evidence? Certainly looks like the cyclist made a good-faith effort to swerve around him.

Here in Portland, the cyclist would have been tasered as soon as he hit the ground and possibly prevented from receiving medical attention for an indefinite amount of time.

Ooh, Coriander, that's nasty. Meantime, and I know it may not be relevant to THIS cyclist and THIS cop, I see more negative commentary on Critical Mass, and often from serious cyclists and their clubs. (Full disclosure--I am a long-time cyclist who dislikes cycle jerks as much as police jerks -- In general I think Critical Mass is a good idea which unfortunately got dominated by jerks).

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/archives/144664.asp

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008080187_bikeed30.html

Have you guys seen this crazy story?


http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1215660313233830.xml&coll=7

It's about an altercation between 2 cyclists (1 of whom happened to be driving a car) and has nothing to do with Critical Mass but does illustrate Portland's over the top bike culture.

Wow, that is crazy.

We have a pretty strong bike culture here in Amsterdam as well, more even then in the rest of the country, but there is not such a confrontational attitude. Most of the time...

Here you would see cars yielding to cyclists if they come from the right, in the canal area anyway.

I don't like cars any more then I like bikes but with cars at least you know where you stand; they usually respect the traffic lights. Bikes simply ignore them (as the biker did in that story) so if you're crossing the street as a pedestrian you still have to be careful not to get knocked over by some idiot.

Maybe it's the arrogance that annoys me so much.

Well jerks are going to be jerks regardless of their mode of transportation. That being said, I rarely drive and I don't ride a bike at all but it would be fine with me if my city was closed to car traffic. We would still have a bunch of idiots on bikes not stopping at lights but at least exhaust emissions would be down.