A pal of mine once rode the length of Bergvliet road with his head down and straight into the back of a parked city golf. He too was racing league at the time and this incident occured a few weeks before Argus. Argus time makes people do stoopit things... just saying. The facts are: Eyewitness watched the lead rider looking over his right shoulder for an extended period of time. The rider then looked forward only to find the van in his path. He swerved to avoid the van, stopped his bicycle and proceded to have a verbal altercation. Then the fight started. The other club members on that ride may provide other evidence that will add to and perhaps alter the direction the facts are pointing, but we will have to wait for the trial too start to hear those. Want to help their cause, then its best to find similar facts rather than conjure up wonderful scenario's. Yes people can be provoked into a blind rage. it really depends on what you have been exposed to prior to the "event" and how you dealt with it. Being repeatedly exposed to close encounters with poor drivers and taxi's or GA buses (*^&%ers) could drive one to the tipping point. GA bus drivers will look you in the eye and turn their bus toward you. That level of psychopath behaviour leads to a lot of traumatic stress. I am sure there are cyclists out there who are constantly provoked by bad drivers and never deal with the experience through blogging about it or other means. Anger builds, one day you snap. Simple really. it would appear to me these two MC2 riders were suffering post traumatic stress of too many close encounters with shitty drivers and this incident was the straw that broke the camels back. Still doesn't justify a mob assault but PTS is a mitigating factor as it can be treated. If won't change the charges or the outcome of whether guilty or not but it could affect the sentence. This event should also be a wake up call for Mr Carlisle our transport MEC. Cape Towns roads are littered with **** drivers who have no clue what the rules of the road are. I have only once seen a traffic officer pull a driver over for a moving violation and that was yesterday on the N2 outside Somerset West. Woman was driving 50 on the N2... Minimum speed limit on a National road is 60km/hr. She got pulled over and fined. Every morning in traffic I see nearly every driver with a cell phone in their hand texting or blogging while driving at 80-100km/hr. But lets not twist this incident into something its not. Its not about those drivers, its about two cyclists who lost control of their emotions and drew others into a mob assault against a person the evidence suggests was an innocent bystander. Unfortunately that right there is a crime. It should also be a wake up call for PPA and clubs. Somehow they need to get control of the riders and get people to follow simple rules of the road. The next campaign should be Red Green Cyclist understand the Bloody DIFFERENCE!!!
