After I originally posted these comments, the San Diego Union-Tribune ran a piece containing an interview with the individual who made the video. Following is part of that article, which described events leading up to the scenes shown in the video.
"In an interview with The Times on Friday, Chris Traber, 47, of Santa Clarita, said both men appeared to play a role in the harrowing incident.
It was about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday when Traber was in the passenger seat of his coworker’s car as they drove to work at a utility company in Burbank. They were headed southbound on the 14 Freeway, and driving in the No. 1 lane, when the man on a Harley Davidson-type motorcycle passed them on the left, riding close to the double-yellow lines that separate the general traffic lanes from the HOV lanes.
About 150 feet ahead was a Nissan sedan driving in the HOV lane, Traber said. Just as the motorcyclist was passing the sedan on the right-hand side, the sedan tried to exit the carpool lane and enter the No. 1 lane. That’s when the car bumped the bike.
“I’m sure he didn’t see the motorcyclist,” Traber said of the driver. “He scared the living daylights out of the motorcyclist. He almost went down. That guy can really handle his bike.”
Traber said that after the motorcyclist regained control, he pulled up to the car’s passenger door and began gesturing at the driver. Traber said he appeared to be saying something too, but Traber couldn’t hear him. He said he figured the biker was “saying something like, hey, you almost hit me! Watch out!”
Traber said it looked as though the driver was yelling something back at the biker, and that it didn’t help matters, because that’s when the motorcyclist started kicking the passenger door."
The ensuing accident speaks for itself.
Making no excuses for the biker, however, a case could be made that the sedan's driver intentionally and violently swerved into the bike after the door kick, setting off the crashes. Unintended consequences.
Road rage taken physical, by a biker or cage driver, is plain wrong. No excuses. Just wrong.
When a bike and a cage tangle, the bike almost always loses.
Yep, been there when some cage driver pulled a boneheaded stunt that endangered me or a fellow rider. Yep, it got the blood boiling. Yep, cursing and hand signals followed. But I didn't pull up and kick a door or otherwise take it to a level of physical confrontation. In another well publicized case in San Diego, after kicking the door of a car, the biker was subsequently chased by the car's driver, deliberately run down, and killed.
Again, when a bike and a cage tangle, the bike and biker are bound to lose. It's not worth our lives. I'd rather be able to tell fellow bikers about the dummy, than have them roll for my funeral.
Fellow bikes, let's play it smart.
Ride safe and live to ride another day.
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