[rajushank84]

I'm surprised that people are surprised this happened in America. Doesn't surprise me at all, considering some of the road rage I've seen myself. Complete non-reaction and a poker face have saved me from some pretty insane people.

How this differs from crowd behavior I've seen in india: in india, the crowd gathers and goes into a frenzy AFTER an accident, IF an accident happens. I've never seen a situation wherein you are driving perfectly normally and someone is trying to pick a fight with you.

Either America is overrated or India is underrated. From what I've seen at least. Not trying to be patriotic or anything, just stating what I've seen.

Even now I won't walk to the 7/11 in the street corner because there have been quite a few incidents in this area. In Chennai I have taken walks at crazy hours without a second thought. The worst danger on the roads at midnight were dogs.

[speedsatya]

Shocking and scary !

I am surprised to see some of is here speak for the bikers ! Most of these bikers in the video don't even have a helmet , forget other safety gear ! None of them are maintaining lane discipline or speed limits ! Morever most of them are riding recklessly , how the heck do we expect them to be well behaved and considerate towards an Asian driving a luxury SUV costing 5 times their motorcycles in their own country !

I am surprised to see the SUV driver leave his doors unlocked ! Inspite of all these hooligans following him , he does drive sensibly and even stops at a red light ! Someone else in his place might have even rammed other vehicles while trying to protect himself and his family from these bikers.

And , why arrest only the biker who braked and started all this? You can see so many of them speeding and cutting lanes , couple of them try to pull open the door while 2 others in the last part of the video use their helmets to attack the driver ! Someone even tried to pull open the rear door !

Hope these bikers get whatever punishment they deserve

And yeah. If this was India , the Range Rover driver would have been arrested for rash and negligent driving

[drmohitg]

But how can we justify the action of the RR driver. Agreed he felt scared for his own and his family's well being. But only a perception of threat is no reason to run over a person and leaving him grievously injured. Read in one of the posts that doctors say he may not walk again. That is some serious injury. The driver of the RR could have called the police and waited in his car or whatever. I know these situations are very volatile and its very easy for us to preach from our homes. Maybe we would have done the same too. But somehow it doesn't feel right to see that biker literally lose his legs for someone's perception of threat.

[imp!]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

But how can we justify the action of the RR driver. Agreed he felt scared for his own and his family's well being. But only a perception of threat is no reason to run over a person and leaving him grievously injured. Read in one of the posts that doctors say he may not walk again. That is some serious injury. The driver of the RR could have called the police and waited in his car or whatever. I know these situations are very volatile and its very easy for us to preach from our homes. Maybe we would have done the same too. But somehow it doesn't feel right to see that biker literally lose his legs for someone's perception of threat.

Only a perception of threat? After being swarmed by a bike gang that's caused all kinds of trouble in the past, it's no perception. It's real and present. I don't justify running over someone but this guy was in danger no matter what he did.

[acroback]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

But how can we justify the action of the RR driver. Agreed he felt scared for his own and his family's well being. But only a perception of threat is no reason to run over a person and leaving him grievously injured. Read in one of the posts that doctors say he may not walk again. That is some serious injury. The driver of the RR could have called the police and waited in his car or whatever. I know these situations are very volatile and its very easy for us to preach from our homes. Maybe we would have done the same too. But somehow it doesn't feel right to see that biker literally lose his legs for someone's perception of threat.

Family in danger -> Run the threat down.
Perfectly legit. What is wrong in it? I do not see anything wrong.
Threat perception is more than real in videos as you can see.
Threatening the guy with his family will result in someone ending up in ER. That is exactly what happened.

[BoneCollector]

Had seen the video a few days back and just now read it on NDTV about this incident. Looking at the video, one cannot exactly say what had transpired between the RR guy and the bikers. I had faced a similar situation last year while driving back from work. The young and careless bikers were unnecessarily honking so I let them pass and then one of the jokers had the audacity of coming right infront of me and slowing down. I thought there was some problem so i halted and thats when he turned around and showed me the middle finger. I'm a sedate driver, generally. But here, I got actually pissed off still didn't do anything. Then he started and stopped. This went on for about a 100meters. As this was happening right near my home, everyone was watching him. Then I actually gunned for him (did not hit him) and he slipped and took off. But sadly for him, it was my area and he was caught and people were eager to thrash him. I intervened and asked the people to leave him. Then I asked him why he was doing this and then I realized he was drunk. Still, I let him go as it was no use arguing with such idiots. He will meet his end some day if he goes on like that. So I'll say that the RR guy might have been provoked into this situation.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/mo...-driver-426583

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by acroback

Family in danger -> Run the threat down.
Perfectly legit. What is wrong in it? I do not see anything wrong.
Threat perception is more than real in videos as you can see.
Threatening the guy with his family will result in someone ending up in ER. That is exactly what happened.

It is an interesting thought experiment that the clear majority supports the decision to run over the bikers - I am not sure whether it is emotional distance over the internet, or a general anger towards these jacka$$ bikers or whether killing others in perceived threat while heavily outnumbered situations is the cool thing to do. I sincerely hope it is not the last.

To take this homicidal logic to its hyperbolic conclusion, I am now beginning to wait for the day that we have a "How I Played Rambo and mowed down the rowdies who harassed my family on the road" experience thread. With 80k members, and the clear majority supporting such Rambo tactics - I am now surprised it hasn't happened yet! India has enough aggressive jerks here too!

Leaving hyperbole aside - my position is all about the inviolable sanctity and irreversibility of someone's life and I do not think that going right away on the offensive fits in MY value system. To each, their own. I have never gone ballistic in any tangles on the road, and I hope I never will.

My invitation to those who believe in rambo tactics is whether they think that life is a one-round game or are there many more rounds? Whose to say that the family members / friends of Mieses may not tomorrow take the law into their own hands and inflict lethal violence on Lien & his family? Karma and Revenge can be a nasty unpredictable thing, no? The cycle of hurt and pain may not easily end.

Of course, its easy for me to ask this question sitting across the world, but maybe - just maybe if the RR owner had chosen to be defensive, things would not have turned out so bad. I mean, look at it in the end, unlike whatever he originally thought, his family was not touched in spite of him trying to kill/maim several bikers in his bid to escape. Clearly he had overestimated the original threat itself. That is a fact, even if in hindsight.

On a side note, is there a video of him actually running Mieses over? Unless it was established that Mieses constituted a grave threat to Lien's life - if he was only going over to check on Cruz (as some say) or even to argue with Lien, that doesnt give him license to run over Mieses!!

[chase_nt]

That was a shocking video to say the least. Having seen countless road rage videos (Russian ones) on youtube i have to say that this is the most vivid video of them all. I believe that the bikers were absolutely wrong in their actions. What i see here resembles the mentality of a pack of rabid dogs. These bikers seem to have scant regard for the rules of the road and that guy in the white shirt seemed to be playing antics on the road. When a person is outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded by a pack of hounds, he doesn't think about what is morally right or wrong but how to get out of that situation. Which is exactly that the driver in the Range Rover did.

If i were thrust into a situation like this i am sure i would've done the very same thing. Not that i enjoy it or because i am a psychopath but because i don't want to get caught up in a nasty mob where my life would be endangered. Having said that i am sure that if something like this were to happen on our roads then it would be game over once the mob catches up with me or i go to the nearest police station because we all know what the police are like in India That's the difference in the police between the developed world and third world countries such as India where the person who drives the bigger vehicle is always portrayed as the bad guy no matter what the evidence may suggest.

[Ford5]

Ok so all bikers are being generalised as thugs carrying guns and chains. And the RR guy is an educated family man. What if the RR guy had braked in front of a biker, got down and merely stood by the biker & the biker fears his life and takes off but not without running over the co passenger of the RR.

What then? Would all the biker haters still maintain the same stance saying that thugs tried to run down a "car" passenger & that it is completely justified a 1000 times over?? Noway that would happen.

Shocked to see the double standards. One guy can save his life by grievously injuring and maiming 2-3 other guys. But a biker cannot be a family man with a 5 year old kid and a wife?

[tanstaafl]

Originally Posted by Ford5

Ok so all bikers are being generalised as thugs carrying guns and chains. And the RR guy is an educated family man. What if the RR guy had braked in front of a biker, got down and merely stood by the biker & the biker fears his life and takes off but not without running over the co passenger of the RR.

What then? Would all the biker haters still maintain the same stance saying that thugs tried to run down a "car" passenger & that it is completely justified a 1000 times over?? Noway that would happen.

Shocked to see the double standards. One guy can save his life by grievously injuring and maiming 2-3 other guys. But a biker cannot be a family man with a 5 year old kid and a wife?

I don't see any people saying all bikers are thugs. It is just that this particular group acted like a mob attacking the RR guy with helmets and slashing his tires.

In your scenario, if I was on a bike and some guy in a car brake checked me and then 5 people got out of the car and started coming towards me, I would accelerate and run away as well.

[ToroRosso]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

I am now beginning to wait for the day that we have a "How I Played Rambo and mowed down the rowdies who harassed my family on the road" experience thread. With 80k members, and the clear majority supporting such Rambo tactics

No Offence phamilyman , Have you ever been in a scenario where you felt your family was in grevious danger?

I am not justifying Alexian Lien and he should have tried to stay calm. But! You see, Adrenaline is a funny thing.

I have been in a slightly similar situation around 5-6 years back. We (My mom and Lil Sister) were on our way after visiting my Dad's parents in Irinjalakuda-Kerala. There is a section where I have to take a right to merge onto the road that takes me to my village(Nandickara). While I was waiting with my blinkers on, I was rear ended by a Maruti 800. The Impact was huge and my boot caved in and the tail lights were shattered. Immediately a mob gathered, and started attending to folks in Maruti 800 and were taking the injured ones to the hospital.

I approached the driver (Apparently a local political honcho) of the Maruti 800 and asked him about settling about damages to my car. Immediately around 8 people surrounded me accused me of panic breaking and put the whole blame on me. They started jostling me and started banging the window where my Lil sister was sitting and tried opening the doors. That was the catalyst, immediately "fight" response took over and I went bersek. (I am a Dan II Shotokan, have been practicing Karate since I was 6), Luckily before i killed someone, cops had arrived and all the jostlers disappeared and the M800 driver was summoned to the station and he was asked to take care of all the damages to my car. (I later came to know that I broke some jaws and more..)

The point that i am trying to make here is that - Most of us have a primal instinct to Protect Family and how that manifests during a dire situation is completely unpredictable. The truly enligthened ones may be able to restrain them selves and exert a lot on control and patience under such situations.

[AJITHAAA]

The bikers are all in trouble because of the video shot and posted by them. One of them has been taken into custody and Police are looking for the rest of them...

[SASproject]

Two bikers was arrested an charges are not being pressed against the Car driver.

The reason he ran away in the first place was that the bikers started denting his car with helmets and slashed his tyres.

I am sure that is a reason enough for anyone to try to run away.

The bikers are clearly at fault here. A clear indication of mob mentality taking over in my opinion.

Source

[prateekm]

A LiveLeak user has uploaded an hour’s worth of videos allegedly showing how the motorcyclists who pursued and ultimately attacked a Range Rover driver in New York were behaving before the incident in question.

The videos were supposedly uploaded to, and later removed from YouTube by the same user who posted the original video of the chase, Michelinman900.

There are a number of instances in the footage where some of the bikers appear to drive recklessly and dangerously. They ride on the pavement, run red lights and ride on the opposite side of the road between oncoming traffic.

http://www.carthrottle.com/7-videos-...-you-to-watch/

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

It is an interesting thought experiment that the clear majority supports the decision to run over the bikers - I am not sure whether it is emotional distance over the internet, or a general anger towards these jacka$$ bikers or whether killing others in perceived threat while heavily outnumbered situations is the cool thing to do. I sincerely hope it is not the last.

In this case, this is not an experiment anymore. SUV driver was not charged at all and police has thrown books at few bikers.

DA must have had some reason for this.