Driver slashes cyclist's throat in South Side attack (Pittsburgh, Allentown: living in, price)

[groar]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

Or...It was a random act of violence perpetrated on somebody that didn't have the option of rolling up their windows, locking their doors, and beating it the hell out of there...

i'm not sure how this contradicts what i said...

i do think that road rage has the potential to be a lot more devastating when one person is not in a car, for sure.

[toosie]

Originally Posted by groar

i think that is an extreme enough reaction to a commonplace and minor occurrence to be considered random.

if i don't let someone out of the elevator before i go into it and they stab me, i did something pretty jerky and they might feel provoked but that is an insanely extreme reaction to what i've done and i'd consider that a random attack. i think that's a comparable scenario.

i see the random violence vs non random violence in this situation as someone who doesn't know the other person attacking them over a relatively minor incident vs someone attacking someone they are involved with in one way or another. i don't think the only kind of violence that counts as random is people straight up attacking people completely arbitrarily.

Gotcha - maybe I should have quoted the posts I was replying to. Those are below and I interpreted that poster's use of random to fall within the definition I was using in my posted response. Regardless of any fine lines in how people define randomness in this case, though, I think we all agree that the action was extreme. It's pretty scary to think the cutter is unhinged enough to do that in the first place, and that his buddies are complicit by not stopping him or coming forward about the crime.

Originally Posted by Garvdog

Part of me hopes that it is discovered that the cyclist is not as innocent a bystander as was first reported (i.e. the assailant was his drug dealer that he ripped off or something). I find the apparent randomness of this shocking- this is not something that normally happens, even in areas with higher crime rates. Not saying the assailant shouldn't be found and thrown in jail, just hoping that this is not some random targeting of an innocent victim.

Originally Posted by Garvdog

Nothing justifies this at all- just saying that some criminal mauling one of his associates/customers/buddies is a much more common crime. The fact that there could be some wacko out there knifing random cyclists is a bit more unsettling. The crime is the same, it's danger to the average person on the street in the South Side is different.

[ditchdigger]

Originally Posted by groar

i'm not sure how this contradicts what i said...

i do think that road rage has the potential to be a lot more devastating when one person is not in a car, for sure.

It wasn't my intent to contradict, just to present another scenario. To a nutjob in the mood to commit random mayhem, a cyclist would present a "soft target" that another motorist wouldn't. The nature of the supposed provocation really isn't important. Any old excuse would do.

[gg]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

How do we know the cyclist did anything to cause this? I notice many people want to blame the cyclist for this.

Of course they blame the cyclist. We are a minority and certainly not a protected class. No one cares. It is just what we deal with in Pittsburgh. Seems aggression towards cyclists are just becoming a daily thing. Nothing anyone can do. I am going to ride till someone kills me. At least I did what I wanted to do. We all gotta go sometime.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Of course they blame the cyclist. We are a minority and certainly not a protected class. No one cares. It is just what we deal with in Pittsburgh. Seems aggression towards cyclists are just becoming a daily thing. Nothing anyone can do. I am going to ride till someone kills me. At least I did what I wanted to do. We all gotta go sometime.

It's bad in the Atlanta area too. I've been harassed so many times.

[toosie]

I agree that many drivers have a beef with cyclists but around 25 people have posted on this thread and it seems to me that every poster was horrified by what happened to the bicyclist and no poster on this thread blamed him or thought he deserved to be attacked. Not sure where you guys are getting that take on it.

[tclifton]

Originally Posted by toosie

I agree that many drivers have a beef with cyclists but around 25 people have posted on this thread and it seems to me that every poster was horrified by what happened to the bicyclist and no poster on this thread blamed him or thought he deserved to be attacked. Not sure where you guys are getting that take on it.

That's because you failed to notice the gigantic chip that rests on the shoulder of every extreme bicycle advocate.

[groar]

yeah and there's definitely no chip on the shoulder of someone who is like "hm no real reason but let's just examine how bicyclists cause road rage by being jerks" in a thread about a bicyclist being chased down and stabbed.

it's true that it hasn't been happening in this thread beyond a passive aggressive level, but if you read the comments on the news articles that have been posted, there have been a ton of people pulling out the same old "why does no one ever mention that bicyclists break the law tooooooo!". about a person. who. was. STABBED.

if the articles hadn't mentioned that he had been riding a bike, or if he'd cut someone off in a car and then been stabbed, do you think people would be saying this kind of stuff? yeah right. i find it really bizarre that whenever anything bad is perpetrated on a person on a bike (or a pedestrian) by a person in a car, there are always people who scramble to point out that some other people who walk/bike do dumb things. the implication, although people rarely admit it, is that this person must have been doing something dumb too.

i thought maybe at least the last two incidents, the one in highland park where the driver was driving incredible recklessly, and this one where the driver is a maniac who tried to murder someone, might escape that kind of commentary. but nope. there were bikes involved, therefore we need to talk about how some cyclists ride like jerks.

[tclifton]

Originally Posted by groar

yeah and there's definitely no chip on the shoulder of someone who is like "hm no real reason but let's just examine how bicyclists cause road rage by being jerks" in a thread about a bicyclist being chased down and stabbed.

No real reason? You're the one making the leap that by simply pointing out that some cyclists abhor the behavior of a particular group of cyclists somehow means that stabbing is condoned.

Originally Posted by groar

it's true that it hasn't been happening in this thread

Ok, well glad you at least acknowledged that.

Originally Posted by groar

if the articles hadn't mentioned that he had been riding a bike, or if he'd cut someone off in a car and then been stabbed, do you think people would be saying this kind of stuff?

Of course not. Why is staying on a topic something that you have a problem with? That's odd.

Originally Posted by groar

i find it really bizarre that whenever anything bad is perpetrated on a person on a bike (or a pedestrian) by a person in a car, there are always people who scramble to point out that some other people who walk/bike do dumb things. the implication, although people rarely admit it, is that this person must have been doing something dumb too.

I sympathize with you there. I find it equally bizzare that whenever anything bad happens to a person on a bike, there are always people who scramble to point out that some other people who drive cars speed and do dumb things. The implication, although people rarely admit it, is that this person must have been doing something dumb too.

Originally Posted by groar

i thought maybe at least the last two incidents, the one in highland park where the driver was driving incredible recklessly, and this one where the driver is a maniac who tried to murder someone, might escape that kind of commentary. but nope. there were bikes involved, therefore we need to talk about how some cyclists ride like jerks.

Yes, you clearly thought wrong there. No worries though. Forums are all about discussion and commentaries.

[CaptainPittsburgh]

I see these bicycle hooligans with their tattoos and tiny hats just blowing through the stop signs all the time, everyday of my life! It's like they want to get stabbed! Look, I'm not saying it's their fault. I'm just saying, they want to get stabbed! Maybe they deserve it; maybe they don't. I'm not getting into that. I'm just saying...