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A recently filed lawsuit and an article about it in the Oregonian has stirred up the bicyclists vs. motorists pot here in Portland. As described here, Randy Albright is suing TriMet for an incident that happened as he biked across the Hawthorne Bridge two years ago. The incident can be summarized as follows:
- Bus passes too close to biker
- Biker catches up to bus when it has to stop for traffic
- Biker proceeds to yell at bus driver who ignores him.
- Biker moves self and biker in front of stopped bus (in the road) and continues yelling.
- Angered passenger moves to front of bus.
- Bus driver opens door for passenger (against TriMet regulations when not at a bus stop).
- Passenger disembarks, beats the biker up and moves him on to the sidewalk.
- Passenger gets back on the bus.
- Driver closes the door and drives off.
The driver did not report the assault to the proper authorities and the biker ended up in the emergency room where he got stitches for his split lip. TriMet released a video of the incident. Relevant excerpts of the video are used in the graphic below to show what happened.
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The Big O also did a follow-up story a few days later that described reader reactions to the original story. The anti-bike and pro-violence sentiment of many of the readers is absolutely sickening to me.
Local and national biking blogs picked up on the story and published commentary. Here’s a few:
- persuasion, perseverance and patience
- Bike Portland has articles here, here, here, here and here
- Dedge at Verticality
- TheWashCycle
- C.I.C.L.E.
- BTA Blog (Bicycle Transportation Alliance)
- fl0ralst0rm
The Oregonian also had a few letters to the editor:
As one would expect from reasonable people, most are not pleased with Mr. Albright but most are even more outraged by the actions of the passenger and the TriMet driver. Mr. Albright’s suit is against TriMet but it’s important to note that the driver died some time after the incident in an unrelated boating accident. The passenger is still “in the wind” and there is a movement afoot to locate him, but the statute of limitations on assault will run out for Mr. Albright next month.