dnmun said:
and in case you are new to bicycle homicides, it is almost always hit and run and there are no witnesses or anyone who records even the license plate number or driver so there is no way to prosecute the murderer.
in my case of attempted homicide, i was beating the drivers window with my fist as he forced me into the parked cars along the left lane. he just kept pushing me over until i did an endo and landed in a heap in the middle of the lane.
i was fortunate that the lady behind stopped and blocked traffic from running over me.
I am well aware of the issue as to "presumed innocent until proven guilty" and the quite often absence of sufficient proof. Historically, that is actually the original legal underpinnings for mandatory license plates on automobiles, originated back in the very early part of the 1900's specifically hit and run mostly against pedestrians which actually were prosecuted back then as manslaughter cases.
What burns me up is that even when there is more then sufficient proof that society still deliberately and maliciously refuses to pursue justice and instead seeks to subjugate the most fundamental and basic rights of the minority to the most frivolous and selfish privileges of the majority. The worst situation I've personally been involved in so far was the clearest of clear cut cases of this.
I was deliberately attacked by a school bus driver in a school zone. Incident took place a couple years ago in one of the larger towns in Montana early in the morning with a school bus that was just starting on its outgoing run.
I was riding my primarily pedal power road bike equipped with a hill helper only low geared electric motor and upon entering the 15-mph speed limit zone around the school I slowed down to about 17-mph (It's aggravating to try to ride that slowly but I do try to follow the speed limit in those 15-mph school zones).
The road that I was riding on was originally a two lane road with no parking and reasonable although not what I would call wide lanes. But since they built the apartment complex across from the school that road has been converted to have two vary narrow lanes one each direction with street side parking on the north side of the street with the school on the south side with no parking on that side. I was east bound riding with the parked cars about four feet to the right and the center double yellow line about 3 feet to my left with me and my bike being about 2 feet wide.
----- School bus pulled out of the school parking lot right behind me and got right up on my rear and then tried to pass by crossing the double yellow line in the school zone (in Montana it is illegal to pass in a school zone always) when I was already going slightly faster then the speed limit and then had to abort the pass because an oncoming car came around the upcoming blind corner and she had to slam on her air brakes to avoid doing a head on with the oncoming car which also had to slam on its brakes.
----- I proceeded on my way and the school bus pulled back in behind me again.
----- The school bus driver slammed on the gas and tore around the corner after me and then again pulled into the left oncoming lane like she was going to pass again.
----- We were around the corner and there was no oncoming traffic at all this time and when her big right front wheel was just in front of me with her staring at me through the glass school bus doors just behind her right front wheel she cranked her steering wheel hard to the right and slammed on the horn at the same time.
----- I had a row of parked cars to me right and a massive school bus swinging in on me from the left with the driver intent on squashing me between her bus and the parked cars.
----- In a split second hard cranked my handlebars into a narrow break between two parked cars and crashed my bike into the rear of the forward car, me going over the handlebars and break slamming down on the parked cars roof and sliding down its windshield onto its front hood and into the gap in front of it between it and the next car in front of it.
----- The school bus slammed into the side and front left fender of the same parked car and then the school bus driver backed up and deliberately rammed that parked car trying to get at me down on the ground in front of it.
----- The school bus driver then took off with the school bus in classic hit and run style complete with damage to the right front side and front end of said school bus.
The incident was witnessed by:
----- A driver of a pickup truck that was behind the school bus
----- The driver of another school bus behind that pickup truck
----- An individual walking out of the apartment complex to their parked car
----- And was captured one of the apartment complexes security cameras footage
----- Plus they caught the school bus driver still in the damaged bus going somewhere that was not on her route
----- They had the physical evidence of school bus paint on the totaled out parked car plus its paint on the school bus
Please note that her backing up and doing a second deliberate ramming of the totaled out parked car was caught on the camera footage and supported by two of the three witnesses.
The School bus driver in question was convicted of reckless driving and lost her special license to drive bus. She did not loose her normal drivers license. She was not fired by the school but instead she was let go only because she no longer had the necessary license to drive a school bus. The DA refused to press "Assault With Deadly Weapon Vehicular" charges against her which I tried to get him to do or any other charges for that matter besides just the reckless driving offense which is what she was brought in on. I did win a reasonable settlement to my action in civil court against her and the school district but it wasn't like it was like it was a million plus dollars or something and I had to take a lot less money just to get the school district to agree to mandatory pedestrian and cyclist safety training for their drivers and a written policy at the school that any such future behavior would result in firing for cause of a driver.