Uneasy Rhetoric

In Portland recently a cyclist, [more information] who was angry at a bus driver who had passed him much too closely, cut off the bus and made it stop. Unacceptable behavior to be sure. Unfortunately, the incident escalated when the bus driver let someone off the bus while it was stopped who proceeded to physically assault the bicyclist. Then they assaulter got back on the bus, which drove off!

Crazy? Absolutely. Now, Portland’s transit organization is facing a lawsuit.

Probably the most interesting and disturbing thing about this story is that there is video of the entire incident taken from cameras mounted on the bus. Four of them. You can watch the entire event unfold, from the bicyclist’s first wobbles to the bus pulling away from him, from a camera that looks out the right side of the bus, the front of the bus, the door of the bus, and the camera facing back into the bus.

Four cameras. Remember, wherever you go, everyone knows where you are.

Update: Carl asked me this evening what I thought about the whole thing, and I never really answered him (was too busy explaining the incident to others). Here’s my opinion: the cyclist had every right to be angry at the bus driver, but he did not have a right to express his anger in the way he did. The bus driver was not initially at fault for letting the passenger out, unless the passenger expressly stated that he was getting out to confront the bicyclist. Tri Met bus drivers will frequently let passengers out when they are stopped in traffic – at least that was my experience. However, the bus driver was at fault for not immediately reporting the assault. And, of course, the man doing the assaulting ought to be arrested.

Should Tri Met be the target of a lawsuit? Probably not. Should the man doing the assaulting be held up as a hero, as some writing in to the Oregonian seem to think? Hell no. Should the bicyclist be held up as a hero for taking on a bus driver who wronged him? No. The fact is, no one involved here acted appropriately, and the incident is likely to provoke, rather than mitigate, what some believe is a growing backlash against bicyclists in a city some have considered the model for bicycle friendliness.