SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: Hit-and-run is proof that Seattle biking community is ‘out of control’
Nov 5, 2015, 3:13 PM | Updated: Nov 6, 2015, 5:26 am
Dori Monson, a self-described avid bike rider, believes a majority of individual riders are kind-hearted people, but the community as a whole is "out of control." (AP)
(AP)
Emily was heading to work in downtown Seattle and came to a rolling stop at a green light. The car in front of her stopped in the intersection and she did’t want to get caught in the intersection at a red light.
“I had probably six to eight seconds of silence and then I heard a loud crash,” she told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “A bicyclist had rear-ended me.”
Emily, a Seattle resident who didn’t want to give her last name, said she didn’t know what happened until the bicyclist went past her passenger window.
“It was a hit-and-run,” she said. “So by the time I got my seatbelt unbuckled and out of my car, he was picking up his bicycle and was going through the intersection running.”
She said the crash caused scrapes and paint-streaks down the side of her white car and that there were witnesses — people holding signs promoting Prop. 1, the $930 million transportation levy. She added that one of the witnesses was a bicyclist who snapped a photo of the car-rammer.
Emily said her initial feeling of concern for the biker’s well-being quickly switched to frustration when she watched the man flee. If the roles were reversed, it wouldn’t be that easy.
“I would be all over the news,” she said. “Even if I cut off a bicyclist or if I tapped one, I would have crucified. But he can run into my car, cause damage, pick up his bike and leave.”
The story reminded Dori of an incident last year when he and his wife were driving from a parking garage downtown and a bicyclist grabbed and broke the windshield wiper of his wife’s SUV.
“I wanted to beat the crap out of that guy,” Dori said. “I wanted to chase him down.”
Dori, a self-described avid bike rider, said a majority of individual riders are kind-hearted people, but the community as a whole is “out of control.”
“And it’s because we’ve got politicians that just kiss their butt and constantly and give them everything they want,” he said. “And you know with children, if you cave in to every demand kids make, what happens? They turn into a bunch of spoiled little brats.”
