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Police: Road-ragey cab/bicycle interaction ends with cabbie pulling out knife, running down bicyclist
By adamg on Thu, 09/09/2010 - 7:48am
Wicked Local Cambridge fills in the blanks on an Aug. 30 incident that stretched along Mass. Ave.
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Comments
Cambridge needs a cab crackdown
The taxi drivers in Cambridge have been increasingly atrocious about their treatment of cyclists and I have personally reported several to the Police Hackney Division for intentionally trying to door cyclists passing cab stands in bike lanes, pulling over into the lanes and cutting off cyclists, verbal abuse of passing cyclists, etc. I make a point of recording their medallion numbers and phoning them in when they pull these stunts.
There was even a bike breakfast last May where one of these jerks actually honked at a cyclist and then pulled over into the bike lane to discharge passengers nearby, cutting off another cyclist using the lane. There was a cab stand and a drop off within short distance. He started to be verbally threatening to people who pointed out that he was NOT allowed to do this, not noticing the bike-mounted cop who was hanging around.
Hackney needs to get on the job and start busting heads - these guys have been getting out of control for some time, particularly the jerkwads over by the hotels on Broadway who think "bike lane" means "stand around and be an asshole" or "extra cab stand for me".
Please note that this
Please note that this particular cab was from Everett.
Details
Cabbie lives in Everett, works in Boston. His hackney license was in Boston.
Which highlights another part of the problem
Most large cities have regionalized cab systems - they work on a metro area basis, not a city by city basis. It is bad enough that when Cambridge cabbies cause problems you have to call a special type of cop to bust them, but having multiple jurisdictions in a very small geographic area makes for really difficult enforcement.
snore
snore
Tenfortyseven?
Have you ever contributed anything useful on this site?
Just wonderin'.
tom brady car accident
bwh extricated whiplash sypmtoms
Posted
Just posted it.
Brady driving a cab?
Tom Brady was driving a cab on Aug 30th, pulled a knife, and then ran down a bicyclist? Wow!
Lawless social world
This article frames the story with a familiar "shady"/"menacing" cab driver angle. It's true that motorists need to develop consideration and check their aggression, but it seems very possible that this "17 year old youth" and his buddies were acting inappropriately and disrespectfully in the road. It could be that this little 17-year old is crying "I was scared for my life" from his hospital chair for purposes of self-interest. The article notes that the cabbie was carrying around two knives, without delving into the understandable reasons why a cab driver might want to have knives his car. The way they are noted only make him seem like a sketchy or dangerous character.
It is a shame that our laws can only attempt to control ultimate forms of behavior and actions. This leaves wide open potential for people to act irresponsibly and disrespectfully "under the radar".
If cab drivers and teenage boys could refrain from provoking each other, and appeal to common respect instead of creating aggressive challenges, and if everyone else could do this as well, the world would be a better place.
Nice Amanda - Blame The Victim
WITNESSES STATED TO POLICE THAT THE CAB DRIVER INTENTIONALLY TURNED HIS VEHICLE AND RAN THE KID DOWN WITH IT, RAN OVER HIM, AND TRIED TO KILL HIM.
How unable to read a simple story can you be to NOT GET THAT??? It doesn't matter one bit of shit what anyone said to anybody, or whose nuts got puffy and why. A supposed adult piloting lethal weapon attacked and tried to kill someone. End of story.
Maybe you should try Kaplan Test Prep - your reading comprehension is severely lacking here.
Next up: Amanda Wild asks "So - exactly what did Richel Nova do to make those Dominos customers pull out weapons and stab him? Did he have to be confrontational?". Later in the program, Amanda will delve into some key issues on urban crime, such as "How that 14 year old shooting victim REALLY had it coming - because teenagers are obnoxious!".
Welcome to the ultimate Police State
Yikes!
While you are absolutely correct in your last paragraph, the one that preceeds it may lessen your credibility as a social critic a bit. I find the idea where our laws address ALL acts of irresponsible and disrespectful behavior to be very chilling...And the notion that such a thing is A) possible and B) desirable to be at least partially the cause of our current state of heightened irresponsibility and disrespectful attitude.
Listen to the radio for more than about five minutes and you will encounter someone who feels that they have the right to not be offended by something (that something determined, of course, entirely by the speaker's point-of-view), and who probably hasn't read the Constitution lately.
Kids are allowed to yell at cabbies. Cabbies are allowed to shout back. Should they? No, and clearly society might have something impolite to say about their respective up-bringings. However such behavior should not be outlawed. What IS outlawed, and properly so, are cabbies intentionally running down kids even if provoked by some name-calling.
about reinstating informal respect, not about outlawing
I was not suggesting that we hyper-legislate to resolve the inadequacy of laws for regulation of good behavior. That is chilling, I agree.
What I'd hoped to express is that the informality of social codes like respect, decorum, consideration etc., seems to place these things in a social space where people are not required to answer to them. It is like the story of the fight between the owners of Soundbites and Ball Square Cafe, where in equal anger they insulted each other, but because one in the heat of the argument allegedly told the other to "go back to your country", he alone will face civil rights violation charges.
My point really was that there is not a lot of respect in certain communities anymore. Formal law trumps informal codes of conduct, but that does not mean we should be morally irresponsible.
I am a frequent cyclist and just this morning was harassed in the street by an aggressive motorist. So it is not as simple as pro-motorist/anti-kid-on-bike. I just do not like the possible reality of a teenager taunting a cab driver to the point where an event like this occurs. This does not relieve the cabbie of responsibility, you see. Just trying to address the gray area.
In other words...
...Grow up everyone!
Yes, I agree fully on that sentiment. The level of incivility see daily is appalling.
I apologize for misinterpreting your original intent.
By the sound of it the
By the sound of it the cyclists weren't exactly conducting themselves properly in traffic. That doesn't excuse running one down, but let's not pretend the poor cyclists are always getting picked on when they're so often obnoxious themselves.
Actually
The only parts that mention what the bikers are doing were from the guilty cab drivers statements that the bikers were:
weaving through traffic
the victim was riding his bike in the center of the street
Guess what, neither of those things are in any way whatsoever wrong to do.
So it is quite clear that the cyclists were 100% in the right and that the cab driver is a maniac who should not only have his medallion and license revoked but also go to jail for attempted homicide.
Bikes are allowed to ride in
Bikes are allowed to ride in the middle of the lane.
Nowhere in the report did it mention that the cyclist broke the law.
And even if he did run a light, mow down a pedestrian AND do it while sitting on the hide of an endangered tiger, does it justify assault with a dangerous weapon.