re tops: corrected
Exactly. Call the cops and hand over the video showing the bottle throwing asshole, the van, the license plate, the location and time of day.
Simply not worth possibly getting killed over. Live to ride another day.
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That’s some scary stuff on all sides. You never know who has a gun on them. Be careful who you mess with. Not everyone is thinking clearly.
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Or if you’re going to end up standing in line next to them in Subway at the next exit. Awkward.
That is actually a motivation I use to stay level headed in these situations. They might be going to the same place you are.
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No - there IS no justification.
No matter what the Mini-van guy did before - he spent TWENTY MINUTES catching up to them to enact his revenge. You can’t do that. Had he hurt the guy, he would be in even more serious trouble.
If some guy threw a water bottle at you in the street, and then 20 min later you caught up to him and punched him out - YOU would be going to jail.
If some guy broke into your house and ran away, and 20 min later you found him a mile down the road and beat him up - YOU would be going to jail.
The minivan guy was 100% out of line throwing a bottle at the guy. There might be some justification if he had chucked something back at him in defense at that instance. But the threat was over. It was TWENTY MINUTES later after tailing him he escalated the situation again.
I honestly don’t see how anyone could possibly defend his actions.
ETA - if you don’t understand this, and have access to weapons, even improvised ones, and could see yourself doing this for any reason, contact a lawyer so they can explain to you assault laws and self defense laws.
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Arguably the bottle throwing did not need to happen. Note that after the initial flipping-of-birds, the motorcycle sped up to continue the confrontation. Sure, there’s no excuse for the tossing of a bottle, but clearly the guy on the bike couldn’t leave well enough alone. So I can’t feel too sympathetic for either of these losers.
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Something like that happened to me. Day before Thanksgiving. I was looking for a parking spot at the airport. This was some 20+ years ago when I was in my 20s. Probably running late. Probably speeding around. Some other woman doing the same. We exchanged fingers and shouts through the closed windows. And then we rode the shuttle bus together. Apologies came quick. And now we’ve been married 18 years.
Just kidding - never saw her again after the shuttle bus.
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I’m not condoning the biker’s actions. Yeah, the driver had it coming based on the selected events we got to see in the video, but it was still reckless and stupid. For all the biker knew, the van was being driven by a drunk driving dad with kids in the back.
That said, cops ain’t gonna do jack shit about the water bottle thrower, even if the biker was stupid enough to go to them. Well, that’s not true. If the cops are of the asshole variety (as opposed to merely uninterested), they might have a laugh about it after the biker left the station. No offense, but if you think cops will expend any resources catching a bottle thrower unless they witness it firsthand (and then only maybe), I recommend reevaluating.
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So what you’re saying is, make sure you’re the last guy left if you don’t want to end up blind. Got it. 
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Oh goodie. How many motorcyclists will suffer for this retaliation?
Probably true, depends on the cop and department. Maybe find a motorcycle cop. But they would rather just pull more people over and confiscate “drug money” and arrest people for petty shit than do real police work.
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I agree, but chasing down and retaliating against the driver could lead to more escalation.
You never know who is in the other vehicle. I taught my kids to always assume that the other car is being driven by a psycho with a submachine gun in the passenger seat.
not too long ago, I had a guy get all road ragey on me, because I was driving slow. I was behind an old lady on a mountain road, with no passing allowed. The guy behind me kept running up close, revving his engine, flashing his lights, probably yelling obscenities. maybe he was in a hurry, or had a bad day. I was delivering a whole carload of guns to a customer. I bet he would have wet himself if he saw what was in my back seat. But it did teach me something, so that is why I always imagine that worst case. It just is not worth it.
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Meh, not so much. Helmets work; don’t panic and you’re all cool.
I got clipped in the shoulder by a flying mattress (fell off a truck on the highway) once.
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In a poetic justice sense it would have been satisfying if you could have shown a gun. But I get that is brandishing, which is illegal in at least many states for good reason.
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American people problems. While there is a nonzero chance a lunatic will have a gun in an altercation here in Canada (or really, most of the world), it is not really a factor in the way it is in the Country Which Will Soon Be Great.
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Looked to me like the cyclist initiated the confrontation and then committed a felony to end it.
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You are probably safe to mock Trump here on BBS but out in the open – that’s grounds for invasion.
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You need a copy of the BB-English dictionary. Here’s a sample entry:
Gentleman (n.) Asshole.
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No way of knowing how a driver will react when their front windshield or side window is smashed. They might reflexively steer off the road. That thrown rock had just as much potential to end up killing people in the van.
Hard to tell how a driver will react when a water bottle is thrown at them. Apparently this is one of the possible reactions.
I’d say lots of skilled bad driving all around.
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