Annette McLeod wrote:">
Motorcycle/SUV encounter turns ugly, then uglierWow, this incident just gets, as they say, curiouser and curiouser.
It started a couple of days ago on Manhattan’s West Side Highway when a 30-something driver in a black Range Rover Sport with his wife and toddler on board found himself surrounded by dozens of motorcyclists. Video footage online, which seems to have been taken by one of the riders, shows the Range Rover stop, become surround, and when he tries to get moving, pursued. Eventually, surrounded by the buzzing bikes, the SUV driver hits one of riders, although whether by his own acceleration or a brake-check by the rider isn’t clear from the vid. Then, the bikes surround the Range Rover, and the SUV driver hits the gas and plows through a few of the riders. The riders pursue, surround the SUV and throw open the driver’s door; the SUV takes off again, knocking another rider to the ground.
When the SUV gets stuck in traffic and the angered riders dismount and start bashing it with their helmets, the video conveniently cuts out.
The New York Post reported that the SUV driver was hospitalized with cuts, and the Daily News initially reported that no bikers were hurt.
It’s hard to say exactly on whose footpegs or fancy SUV to lay the blame, although it doesn’t look like anyone’s mother would have been proud of their behaviour. One Jalopnik reader who claims to have been on the highway when the incident began says the bikers were riding “like squids” (carelessly) before the incident, splitting lanes and cutting people off and making it impossible for the reader to exit, flipping him off and passing on the left to cut him off, even though he was signaling clearly. He called their riding “heinous.”
But the SUV driver didn’t behave so nicely either, with the New York Times eventually reporting one rider hit ended up with a broken leg. A later Instagram pic shows the driver, revealed to be 31-year-old Alexian Lien, bloody on the ground and his Range Rover in rough shape too. Latest reports say the likely instigator, 28-year-old Christopher Cruz, was arrested after slowing down traffic in front of Lien’s SUV and brake-checking, which resulted in his getting hit; he suffered only minor injuries. Cruz was charged with reckless endangerment, endangering the welfare of a child, and menacing according to the Post.
Another reported witness told the Times that the “misunderstanding” resulted when Lien rear-ended Cruz and the riders were “just trying to find out what just happened.”
It’s after hitting Cruz that Lien takes off for the first time, which is when another rider got his leg broken. A Facebook group called “Justice for Jay Meezee” claims that Meezee of the broken leg actually had a broken spine and ribs, crushed lungs, a “busted” aorta “and the list is endless! Currently in a Coma and Paralyzed from the waist down!!”, which if you judge only by the number of exclamation points is pretty serious, but police reports verifying the claims have yet to surface. There are pics on the Facebook page of someone claimed to be a battered Meezee. Exactly how he sustained those injuries isn’t clear either.
Anyway, it’s all awful and pointless and avoidable, but if it was my two-year-old in the car with me when I found myself surrounded by a few dozen of anyone, riding anything, I’d do whatever I had to do get the heck out of there. It probably wouldn’t have been surge forward though – I’m more of the cower-and-call 911 type. (Lien did reportedly call 911 at some point during the chase.)
What have we learned, kids? That’s right. Stay home and play Grand Theft Auto. It’s safer.
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LOVE it!! 
After the agony of defeat, success will be sweet!
- By darwin dali
