Missing the point

The story of the much publicized bashing of a motorist by a bicycle rider misses a glaringly obvious point. (Even the Oregonian’s folo story today overlooked it.)

Last Sunday’s nasty incident, in which a drunk bicyclist went ballistic and turned his bike into an assault weapon against a motorist, was wrongly framed by everyone — by-standers, bicyclists, those reporting the incident to police and the media.

What happened shouldn’t have been crammed into the stereotypical story about bicyclists versus motorists. It was about drunk drivers, never mind what kind of vehicles they were using, versus sober ones, never mind what kind of vehicles they were driving.

The driver (of what happened to be a car) was angered when another driver (of what happened to be a bike) ran a stop sign. The sober driver headed off after the drunk to chew him out for reckless driving.

Sure, the fact that the recklessness was by a bike rider may have emboldened the car driver to pursue. But what was he to do? There was no license number to report to authorities. In the name of vehicular equality, perhaps there should be.

And sure, the motorist, a bike rider himself when not in his Suburu, wanted to let the offender know he was giving all bike riders a bad name.

Then the bicyclist went into a rage, and the entire scene changed.

Forget bikes versus cars. The story's lead should have been about alcohol and a drunk driver.