Critical Mass Brazil - Car Causes Carnage.

For those of you who do not know what Critical Mass is:

Critical Mass is a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world.[1] The ride was originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco.[2] The purpose of Critical Mass is not usually formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes, although for some bigger scale events like the one in Budapest, Hungary, there is an activist group formed around it, organizing the rides and communicating the desires and problems of the cyclists to the city council.

en.wikipedia.org...




From what I can gather in the comments the person driving the car is someone with a known history of violence who was arguing with some of the cyclists and then decides to run them all down. He had his 6 year old child in the car with him. He is a banker and has a lot of money which he used to pay off the authorities.

reply to post by tigermoff


Roads are designed for cars, not bikes. This was bound to happen eventually... I can't tell you how annoying it is every time I have to slow to 10 mph behind a group of bikers.

reply to post by freedish


Incorrect. At least in the US. Most cities mandate that bicyclists MUST ride on the street (rather than the sidewalk) unless there is a specialized bike path available. Bicyclists must also obey the rules of the road.

How do we know he payed off the authoritys? while bicyclers do take up alot of road room, thiers NO reason to mow em down..complete lack of any humanity from that driver. His kid should be taken away too..he's a mass murderer in my opinion. he's plowed through with no remorse, ac rowd of people, 2nd time you doi it, not so bad, 3rd time as the saying goes, its like nothing. He's capable of doing it again at one point.
goes to show what bankers think of us taxpayers; ) thats business! sad to say. let alone thier own employees.
CVS pharmacy is a prime example of this!
so how do we know the banker payed off the authorotys? i mean is that accepted or legal in brazil?> common?

Perosnally, those people shuold keep an eye out for the car again, n gang up on his arse. destroy that car so it lokos like bronx ghetto thugs got too it. cheater jsutice in a sense. what a man that banker was too..leaving the scene adn not hanging around like he owned the joint. what a man indeed scum is more like it pure subhuman scum

reply to post by ziggy1706


OR sue the # out of him. No more violence is necessary after what he caused

mm well yes sue him is civilized, but if he has the power to pay off authoirtys, then thier gunna take his side then and let him off scott free.

I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, or that it was acceptable, or that I would do the same thing, or that anyone else should do it, or that this guy shouldn't be punished, or that these bycyclists deserved it, or that I sypathize with the motorist, or that I DON"T sympathize with the cycleists, or anything else that I will get accused of saying.

What I AM saying is........
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone and they should have expected this eventually.
I don't live in the perfect world that many people live in. You know, the world where cyclers share the road,blahh blahh blahhh, it's the "LAW" blahhhh blahhhh blahhhh,
I live in the real world.
The real world is as follows:

Alot of Motorists get pissed when they have to share the road with ANYONE except for OTHER motorists. If the speed limit
is 55 mph then you'd damn well better be able to go 55 mph or else expect to get mowed down.

Wait!!!!!
See first paragraph before going any further. Calm down,....I didn't say what you wanted to hear. What I said was.....
"or else expect to get mowed down".

It doesn't mean you deserve it. It means you need to see it coming becase as we just learned, there are people in this world who won't put up with this B.S. of cyclers hogging the entire God Damned street.
Did these cyclers look like they were "Sharing the road"??????
Really??????

When going out on the road on your bycycle you had better realize that there are people out there who aren't
going to give two $hits about mowing your ass down. Armed with that knowledge you will be able to make wiser choices which may just save your life one day.

Im not sure now about the guy paying the police off as I have found some news for this on BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Brazilian police have been questioning a man accused of driving his car at high speed through a crowd of cyclists, injuring at least 12 of them. Video of the incident in the southern city of Porto Alegre shows bikes and riders flying through the air as other cyclists scream in panic. The driver said he accelerated because cyclists were banging on his car and he feared he would be attacked. The cyclists were holding a regular event to promote the use of bikes. The incident happened on Friday evening but came to national prominence in Brazil on Monday when television networks began broadcasting amateur footage that had been posted on the internet. No-one was killed and the injured have all been released from hospital. The driver, Ricardo Neis, 47, fled the scene of the incident but was brought in for questioning after his abandoned car was found. Police said he could face a charge of attempted homicide. Cyclists in the demonstration said no riders had threatened the motorist. The riders were part of a movement known as Critical Mass, which holds mass bike rides in cities around the world to demand more respect for cyclists and is sometimes accused of deliberately blocking traffic.

But then after reading what the chief of police said, he may not be looking at prison. I think its a very backward comment to make. It was hardly an accident.

www.sfgate.com...

Police found the car abandoned the next day and have identified the driver, according to reports. The city's police chief partly blamed the riders because the hadn't arranged a permit for the ride. "This is no Libya," said the chief, Gilberto Almeida Montenegro. "Here we have complete freedom to protest, as long as you tell authorities. Do your protest, but don't interfere in the flow of automobiles. If you interfere, there will be confusion, chaos and accident."

Originally posted by freedish
reply to post by tigermoff

 

Roads are designed for cars, not bikes. This was bound to happen eventually... I can't tell you how annoying it is every time I have to slow to 10 mph behind a group of bikers.

edit on 2-3-2011 by freedish because: (no reason given)

A picture of a fat sweaty bloke driving a SUV comes to mind after you made that comment. Bikers have as much right to be on the road as everybody else, roads are not just designed for cars. If people chose to travel by means that don't harm the enviroment and use fuel that takes our country into wars for, TOUGH live with it. Demostrations like this are needed to highlight ignorance such as yours.

reply to post by lilsmurf

A picture of a fat sweaty bloke driving a SUV comes to mind after you made that comment.

Yup, that's me.

Bikers have as much right to be on the road as everybody else, roads are not just designed for cars.

No, that's why we make sidewalks. Otherwise people would walk in the middle of the street and nobody would be able to use their cars. And if there's no sidewalks available, you get out of the way when a car comes.

If people chose to travel by means that don't harm the enviroment and use fuel that takes our country into wars for, TOUGH live with it.

?what?
this has nothing to do with anything I said.
btw if you're implying that bikes don't harm the environment then you don't know much about bikes. Where do you think all the broken bike parts go? Dumpster. And they aren't very biodegradable.

Demostrations like this are needed to highlight ignorance such as yours.

Forums like this are needed to enlighten ignorant ones such as yourself.