Range Rover runs over motorcyles after getting surrounded on freeway in New York

Precisely. Additionally, an individual's response depends on the severity of the situation. Someone stealing your stereo? Call the cops. You're in no immediate danger. Someone threatening you and your family with immediate harm? I'm not waiting for the police to show up. I have no plan to be a helpless lemming.

Yep that.
I've been hearing a lot of talk on mc forums that the guy who was hit by the SUV got what he deserved, I disagree. From what I saw in the video he wasn't a direct threat to the driver or his family.
But with the guy who braked in front of the SUV trying to open the drivers door and others coming at him, I can understand the driver fleeing the scene.
From all the videos I saw, I still say they where acting like asshats and had no regard for anyone else on the road or sidewalks for that matter.

It is all definitely stupid. I actually deleted my post here because it was also really stupid. Thanks for preserving a bit of it.

It's actually an evolutionary fact. The female's role is to panic in high stress situations, get the kids and run. While the male brain zones in on the source of the stress and does something about it.

If the females do not panic, then they do not get the kids away and perhaps they get killed.

So there you have it. Not exactly politically correct, but it is what it is.

perhaps this has already been mentioned in the thread, but shouldn't he have just have moved to the far right and slowed so as to let the group pass? that's what i probably would have done. i realize that he has the right to be on the road, but with that many bikes just let them go by. perhaps he felt (and rightly so) that he had every right to be there and he's not going to be bullied around in his super tough range rover nor is he going to slow at all when he shouldn't have to. i don't know if this is how it happened but it would surprise me.

there's this bicycle ride in chicago (any many other cities as well) on the last friday of every month called "critical mass". i've done it a few times and it's a cool experience. u meet downtown at the daley center at 6pm and there are literally a few thousand riders there. it's a nonpolitical event that brings people from all walks of life together for a few hour nonstop preplanned ride (different route every month) through downtown and the nearby neighborhoods. it's a good time. several bikes throughout the pack have speakers attached and are playing music, a common thing to yell to random people you pass is "happy friday!" the concept is that if you get enough people wanting to do something, like take over the streets with bicycles, you need a critical mass and it can happen...it's basically the bikes taking over and the cars pretty much have to yield and give way. imagine a few thousand bikes...it typically takes the group 10 min or so to pass any given point. the cops actually help block the streets that they know we're heading towards, and they're are cops on bikes that usually follow at the end and get the traffic going again. hard to describe what it feels like to ride your bike down the middle of michigan ave or wacker dr...very neat.

anywho, the reason for that story is not to tell u how great critical mass is, although it is pretty fun, it's to explain that i've seen exactly the mob mentality of being in a group like that. when the bicycles are going through an intersection for example and if a car starts to slowly turn into the lane (because of course they have a right to), almost always the bikes will come so close to the car that they will inevitably stop the car, and i'm talking about tens of bikes all at once which give way to hundreds immediately behind. i'm not saying it's right, but it happens like that. had that guy in the range rover stayed to the far right and slowed, or maybe even pulled over on the nearest side street, those bikes would have probably passed without incident. but looks to me that because he decided to claim his piece of road when the bikers were calling it theirs, he ran into trouble (no pun intended). notice how the biker slowed immediately in front, he was gesturing that their group owned the road and he shouldn't be riding with them. again, i don't know what exactly happened but it would surprise me if it went down like that.

again, i completely agree, it's not right, and i feel sorry for him also. but that doesn't change the fact that it might very easily have been avoided.

and yes it is easier to critique how another person reacted in a given situation and what they could/should have done differently, no doubting that. i'm just saying, simply for the sake of conversation, that the reaction he had was probably not the best one. i've seen the entire thread talking almost solely about how much at fault the bikers are, and i don't disagree in the slightest, but maybe had the driver taken a slightly different approach the whole thing would have ended much differently. furthermore, sometimes "minding your own business" isn't enough to get by safely in this world. not saying it's right, but it is what it is.

just removing emotion and looking at everything objectively...something i've been accused of now and again :rolleyes:

If those bikers weren't planning to make trouble, why were they riding around without license plates on their motorcycles?

definitely not blaming the victim...i fully believe the bikers are 100% at fault. i'm just saying that perhaps there's a possibility it could have been prevented had there been just the slightest bit of vigilance and awareness as to what was going on. maybe they were set on targeting him and there was nothing he could have done, but i'm not convinced of that simply based on what we saw. furthermore, i realize one shouldn't have to take preventative measures against such acts, but unfortunately that's the world we live in.

and i like how u inject an emotionally charged topic such as rape. (sign) of course it's not the rape victim's fault, i would never suggest that. but maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't been dancing on the bar teasing that group of gangbangers she saw staring at her all night and then choosing at 3am to drunkenly walk down the same dark alley she saw them walk down 10 min earlier...i don't know, maybe it could have been prevented??? is it her fault...absolutely not, but it might possibly have been prevented, that's all i'm saying. i realize that example is a bit extreme, but def not out of the realm of possibility, and just used it to exemplify my point of the importance of remaining keen to one's surroundings.

There... fixed that for ya.

I can't imagine a scenario where an innocent bystander would witness such an attack and continue to impede the folks being attacked. If they don't get out of the way, they become part of the problem.

To answer you're question, if it were between the safety of my family and an innocent bystander, sorry, he's toast. He should have gotten the hell out of the way.

Why wouldn't the guy be in full panic mode?! He and his family are surrounded by an angry mob that is aggressively attacking his vehicle.

You are correct about trying to outrun them. Stay on the highway, contact the police and keep driving. If they continue to attack his vehicle, run some more of them over. He'd be completely justified -- he wasn't the one who turned things into a scene from Mad Max.

Here's our main disconnect:

You're under the assumption that the mob would have stopped after damaging his vehicle. I'm under the assumption that was just the beginning. Mob violence has a tendency to be much worse than one-on-one violence.

Gary pretty much summed up the rest above.

And this is where we get nowhere. In my mind and apparently in the minds of the police (since he hasn't been charged), being completely surrounded by and attacked by a mob fulfilled the right to use deadly force.

Your one degree scenario is muddy at best. Use of deadly force may be considered justified if it is done to prevent a very serious crime. The assailant's intent to commit a serious crime must be clear at the time. In my mind, it was pretty clear this was a serious crime and intent is obvious. They weren't planning to give him a titty twister.

You are correct about potential duty to retreat. In this case, this man had no ability to retreat. He was completely surrounded. You also have potential Castle Doctrine issues. Depending on jurisdiction, he may not have been required to retreat. Castle Doctrine can extend to your place of work and your vehicle.

The following is a good discussion of use of lethal force.
http://oklahomaconcealedcarry.com/Wh...dly_Force.html

Here's an excerpt related to mob attacks:

"Two or more threatening persons, even without identifiably deadly weapons, against you alone, would constitute a disparity of force. If they attack you and act in such a manner as to lead you to believe that, unless you do something, they are going to kill or cripple you, you are on solid legal ground. Against a group of attackers, each member of the group shares the same responsibility for the fear the group creates in the intended victim, and also shares the danger from the intended victim's lawful response."

If we had done that in WWII, the whole planet would likely be a WASTELAND! RUSSIA, THE NAZIS, RUSSIA, and the US may ALL have developed the atomic bomb and used them! The first would have to wait until someone ELSE had used a similar weapon. JAPAN was said to be CLOSE! I believe NAZI germany was CLOSE! The US was CLOSE! The japanese and NAZIs suffered setbacks because of the war. The US narrowly escaped. Apparently a key part was almost destroyed by a silly weapon the Japanese sent over to demoralize the US!

So the US saw all these -2 to +2 degree battles were NOT working! They decided to try a what? maybe +100(probably a good estimate based on area) degree battle! That didn't seem to work! So they tried ANOTHER maybe +100 degree battle, and the war ended!

NEWS for you! *********VERY********* few battles have stopped with ONE person. VERY FEW! If you counted all the big famous battles in history that stopped that way, you may be able to count them on ONE hand! The only one I can recall at the moment was david and goliath! And some may say that never even happened! If practically a little kid took down your biggest weapon so easily, YOU might give up ALSO! So suppose the people with this HUGE advantage gave it up and decided to attack the group 1 on 1 with effectively 1 potential fighter against DOZENS of other potential fighters. How do you think THAT would have turned out? Do you even KNOW why gangs are gangs? I know other gangs have similar rules, but did you know that the hells angels have a CARDINAL rule that demands that you NEVER let a fellow GANG member fight alone? If you do, it is tantamount to attacking the whole group!

Steve

In other news, I'm really digging Land Rover's new advertisements: