OK, Seattle, we need to talk about this close call video going around.
David Seater, who is the Chair of Seattle’s volunteer Pedestrian Advisory Board, was biking uphill on Pine Street on Capitol Hill earlier this week when someone driving a pickup chose to lay on the horn and make a purposeful, extremely close pass. Luck is the only reason the person driving didn’t hit Seater, causing serious injury or worse.
I am not posting this video to stoke anger. I also don’t want it to further scare people from biking, which is what the person driving here wants. But the video has ignited all kinds of bigger conversations, from questions about what constitutes a criminal threat when your weapon is a car to why someone biking might not always be in the bike lane. So if you’re feeling up to it (it’s troubling), give the short video a watch:
Hey @SeattlePD, how do I report an attempted murder? pic.twitter.com/Zde8Y7hTy1
— David Seater 🚶 🚴 🏳️🌈 (@dseater) October 12, 2017
Before we get into the response (or lack thereof) from Seattle Police, it’s important to understand something about Go Pro videos: They use a wide angle lens. That means, like the passenger-side mirror on a car, objects are closer than they appear. This is especially true on the edges of the screen. A wide angle lens allows the camera to capture more of what happens around it, but it also means that both the truck passing and the bike lane are closer to Seater than they appear in the video. In the screenshot below, the truck is within a couple inches of him:
So when Seater calls this “attempted murder,” this is why. Someone honks (so you know it was purposeful, not accidental) and uses their truck as a weapon to take a swing at him, missing by a minuscule margin.
Sadly, incidents like this are not rare. But this time, there’s video.
That’s why the Seattle Police response via Twitter was so frustrating:
An officer would typically need to witness a violation in-progress to be able to stop the driver & confirm their ID to issue a citation.2/2
— Seattle Police Department (@SeattlePD) October 12, 2017
Former Mayor Mike McGinn called SPD out on this answer:
https://twitter.com/mayormcginn/status/918558525298581504
https://twitter.com/mayormcginn/status/918610502749532160
This is car culture at work. If someone swung a bat or knife an inch away from someone, that’s definitely an attempt at assault at least. The person driving in this video turned their truck into a weapon the second he decided to accelerate toward Seater. Laying on the horn is clear evidence that the person driving knew their car had become a weapon. But for some reason, because it was a pickup truck instead of a bat, it is a traffic infraction and not a crime (or so says SPD). That makes no sense.
The video then takes another turn when the person driving waits for Seater to catch up (so, you know, they could have just been patient in the first place and got there at the same time). The guy rolls down his window and says, “That’s what the bike lane is for, dude.”
First off, fuck you, dude. It’s not your place to tell anyone else on the road what they should do. Take care of your own house first. It is never OK to attack a stranger. You are menace with anger issues you need to get under control before you kill someone. You aren’t so important that you have any right to treat your neighbors this way.
And Seater doesn’t owe you an explanation, either. The law allows him to bike in the general traffic lane. It doesn’t, however, allow you to harass and threaten people.
Seater was clearly passing someone else, so that’s why he wasn’t in the bike lane.
Further exacerbating the issue, that bike lane — like so many in Seattle — is far too skinny and located squarely in the “door zone” of parked cars. Biking safely requires that you imagine every parked car door swinging open. You should always ride outside this imaginary “door zone,” even if that means biking outside a bike lane.
And the door zone changes depending on the type of car and how well the driver parked. In this case, I’ve highlighted the door zone from the video based on the SUV (which also has its lights on, increasing the chance that a door would open):
So if you see someone biking on or near the left line of the bike lane, this is why. They aren’t trying to annoy you, they are trying to get where they’re going safely.
Seater is outside the bike lane because he passed someone, but he also doesn’t have very much space to get right due to the door zone. He needs to be a safe place in case someone in that SUV flings the door open. And that’s what’s most important when traveling in a city by any mode: Avoiding risk so you can get home safely.
Why does the city build bike lanes that are largely located within such a dangerous door zone? Good question! That’s why safe streets advocates have been working so hard to push for protected bike lanes that remove this danger and clear up confusion. The city has a lot of work to do.
On the flip side, this asshole is demonstrating one reason why we need bike lanes at all. He was trying to scare Seater to make a point, but really he just made the case for why we need to build more protected bike lanes much more quickly.
Comments
52 responses to “What can we learn from this scary close call video?”
SDOT is building brand new door zone bike lanes, because cars. Engineers who design door zone bike lanes need to be retrained or fired. Even uphill door zone bike lanes are unsafe, especially when you consider the advent of e-bikes that allow people to bike quickly uphill.
Even the most untrained person, can look at bike lanes and often does, and thinks, “those seem like suicide to me!”…
I don’t blame them one bit. I hate using them and I’m a car-free, transit using cyclist that cyclist 95% of the time. Everywhere… I hate them.
Also – “First off, fuck you, dude. It’s not your place to tell anyone else on the road what they should do. Take care of your own house first. It is never OK to attack a stranger. You are menace with anger issues you need to get under control before you kill someone. You aren’t so important that you have any right to treat your neighbors this way.
And Seater doesn’t owe you an explanation, either. The law allows him to bike in the general traffic lane. It doesn’t, however, allow you to harass and threaten people.” < that's exactly my response. People that can't keep their behavior civil on the road need to have their privileges revoked until they can prove they can keep their tempers under control. This is exactly THE mentality that gets people killed.
Also, cars are weapons. Motorists kill as many or more than users of things that are easily identified as weapons, such as gun users. In this country this behavior should be seen as such when aggressive intent is shown.
McGinn is dead on correct – using a weapon to make a credible threat of violence or harm meets the statutory definition of assault (not even attempted; the threat itself is the assault).
Not only that, but the specific guidelines SPD uses to justify their refusal to consider video evidence *doesn’t* prevent them from acting, it just creates an extra step – an officer has to make a written affidavit that the evidence demonstrates an infraction has occurred, and then the court can issue a citation.
Yes, it’s more work than just writing a ticket. But SPD, your job isn’t just writing the easy tickets, your job is to make the city safer by enforcing laws. Traffic is, by a HUGE margin, absolutely your biggest opportunity to save lives, and this guy is a danger to our communities.
Do your damn job, SPD.
wish I could edit; I switched points without clarifying – first point about statutory definition was in support of the fact that the “officer must witness” statute doesn’t apply at all in criminal complaints like assault, which this meets… Then the second part was intending to acknowledge that SPD simply isn’t going to be willing to threat threatening someone with a vehicle as a criminal act (I bet they would if the recipient of the threat was an officer though, huh?), even if you limit to only civil infractions (tickets), the video is still permissible by the law they cite, it just takes an extra step.
About 15 years ago, a driver pulled over and swung a golf club at me. SPD followed up and got a 4th degree assault guilty plea. Of course, several 911 calls and about 30 witnesses (including a WSP cadet!) made all the difference.
That was a lazy tweet from SPD. If they made it clear video would be considered evidence, I’d run out and buy a Cycliq Fly6.
I called out SPD on twitter, SPD can try to say this is traffic and they need to witness, except for the pesky example on eastlake the other day, where a car swerved at officers and they opened fire on the car. So the question is which one is it SPD? Is a car a weapon or is it just traffic?
Much of the internet commentariat seems to be hyper-focused on the fact that the cyclist ran a stop sign at the end of the video, thereby confirming that the cyclist was one of THOSE cyclists and deserved to be threatened with imminent death. See, both sides do it!
I mean, of course, never mind that the cyclist wasn’t intentionally threatening the life of anyone, but — ugh! Cyclists, AMIRITE?!?!?!
This situation reveals failures on many levels, from engineering to criminality to police negligence. I have incredibly low expectations that anything will be fixed.
Just as Donald Trump’s base loves him, above all other things, for pissing off liberals, the government and most of the citizens of Seattle will love this truck driver exactly because he threatened the cyclist’s life and pissed off a bunch of cyclists.
I really wish there was a stronger Critical Mass movement in this city.
Luckily the Seattle Times took down the comments on the 14 year-old Shoreline high school student who was seriously injured after he was hit by a semi and dragged. The 14 year old was in the crosswalk and had a walk sign the semi-driver was fully at fault.
But from the comments on the ST article that included things like “he [the 14 year old] deserved to die” and his “parents should be in prison for letting their child ride a bike.” These are comments his family, friends, and classmates were reading.
I’m certain we no longer live in a civilized society…if we ever did.
Today (10/13, 1PM) someone in a large pickup truck deliberately accelerated at me and a large crowd of other people crossing in a crosswalk at 5th and Marion. We had a walk signal. Apparently he wanted to clear us out of his way. After he roared through us he flipped us off. Sure felt to me like an assault with a deadly weapon. Would it be OK for me to clear my path by swinging an ax?
This kind of thing, to various degrees, happens every day. To catch it clearly on video is exceptional. I think it’s time to get the courts to see this as an assault.
Besides filing a police report, this will take some strong legal defense. Perhaps one of the Bike Blog “sponsoring” attorneys can help with this. I suggest doing a portion of the work pro bono with the rest coming from matching funds from us – Bike Blog members. I pledge my support – don’t know how much is reasonable, let’s hear from an attorney first.
If we can get this guy charged with assault and put in jail, the precedent will be made. That would be an enormous step in public safety !
I talk with one of our local bike attorneys after a road raging driver full on stalked me ( following me for several blocks and waiting while I pulled into a neighbor’s driveway) to pick a fight. Everything was on video. He didn’t have any encouraging words about getting SPD involved and said he was actually just now litigating his first case with helmet cam video. His advice was to get a rear facing camera and carry pepper spray too.
It’s for this exact reason that if I have to leave a bike lane for the regular lane, I take the whole lane. If that lane isn’t super wide and safe for a car to pass in, I’m taking the whole lane.
I do the same, regularly, on streets without a bike lane. Drivers often get upset if I don’t hug the curb, weaving in and out of traffic around parked cars, or simply stick as close to the parked cars as I can. Clearly it’s safer being squarely in the middle of the general traffic lane, but to someone driving it seems like an affront of course, because I’m squatting in between them and a wide open lane. I get the feeling, because on the rare instances when I’m behind a wheel and not on a bike, accelerating is simply a matter of stepping on the gas pedal and not having any obstructions. On a bike this is a different story, and the different mechanisms change our psychology and how we relate to a situation.
Even as a daily cyclist of 15+ years, who doesn’t own a car, when I do occasionally drive my partner’s car, it can often be hard to see a cyclist or pedestrian. As cyclists, we need to be extra vigilant. As tempting as it is to squeeze past a queue of traffic on the right, drivers won’t expect us to be coming. On bikes we can go places cars can’t, and when we show up in the middle of a mixed-traffic lane I think this gives drivers the impression that we don’t belong there, when we COULD be elsewhere.
The other things about cars (and trucks) of course, is that they wall people off, and make them feel anonymous. This is why making eye contact as a pedestrian is important. Once a driver feels entitled to ‘make a point’ by risking your life, the separation caused by being in a car makes it almost impossible to engage in a conversation with them. If they were a pedestrian, it’s far less likely that they’d harass, yell, or endanger people in the same way. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard someone yell something at me from a car while I was walking or biking, only to speed off as fast as they could, completing negating any discourse.
Sadly, I think, a lot of this is due to the psychology induced by our mechanized and highly separated world. For all their convenience, cars have done so much damage to our social, physical, and environmental world.
No win situation, really. If we’re talking about safety, absolutely take the lane. Hugging one side just ENCOURAGES unsafe passing like in this video. On the other hand, you’ll enrage more drivers and be cited by police since you’re legally expected to hug one side. I’ve seen cops on Mercer Island harass and pull over cyclists who “took the lane”.
Mostly agree with you, but want to make clear that it is completely legal not that hug the edge. No law requires you to risk your safety. As far to the right as practicable (reasonably safe) means that if the lane is too narrow to pass without a lane change, and the bike lane is a doorzone, the left tire track is as far to the right as practicable. Yes, a cop will ticket you, but bike lawyers will help you fight it in court pro bono. Cops can give you a ticket for not liking the way you look. Doesn’t mean that they are right.
I’ve never heard of anyone getting a ticket for taking a lane. I share the road as much as possible, but if I’m taking the lane, it is for safety. I will happily risk having to discuss what safety on a bicycle means with a police officer if they choose to pull me over for taking a lane.
I meant to include the actual verbiage from the SMC, “…shall ride as near to the right side of the right through lane as is safe,…”
As is safe.
Why was my post removed that identified the owner of the vehicle removed? Its all public record from Seattle parking tickets and voter registration starting work the license plate number.
Yes, where is it? At least post it on that close call website. I keep my own list of offenders license plates. If I am harassed more than once, I make it a point to confront the driver and let them know I know their plate and car and that the behavior absolutely will not be tolerated going forward. I have only had to do that once but the driver went from belligerent to apologetic really quickly.
Ballard biker: because there are laws that protect the privacy of the individual from their public license plate. You may not agree with that law given this circumstance, but that law was enacted in response to a bunch of old white male misogynists who were stalking doctors and patients at abortion clinics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_Act
Gary, use that is true that you can’t do a direct lookup. But, if that vehicle has had a parking ticket or other law violation, you can look up the information in public record.
Since my post that just listed the license plate was removed as well, I’ll try this.
You can either look at the video or go to David’s twitter post to find the license plate number.
The municipal court of Seattle allows you to look up tickets based on license plate numbers here – http://web1.seattle.gov/courts/scofflaw/Default.aspx
Select the most recent parking ticket citation and then the vehicle information hyperlink. It will then take you select the case number where you get to the details that list the defendants name.
You can find out more information about the perpetrator by searching online voting records.
Not that I condone what the driver did but I suspect there was some frustration in that the cyclist was not using the Bike Lane and effectively blocking the car lane. With that said, I tend to also ride to the left to avoid the potential door from a parked car to the right. It’s a rock and a hard place and in either case the cycles in going to loose the fight. I just continue to ride highly defensively, providing as much courtesy as I can and be safe.
Frustration by traffic (which is what the cyclist is there) is universal and not a reason for assault, or threatening assault. Drivers aren’t supposed to exact the death penalty for their perceived violations by cyclists. They often do,but it is something we should condemn.
There is no such thing as a “car lane”. The cyclist was not blocking anyone, as the cyclist is traffic. When a school bus stops to let off kids, a car stops and waits until clear to make a left turn, a car drives slowly in search of a parking spot… do we say that the car is “blocking”? And respond with such aggression as the cyclist experienced?
All the more reason for education and outreach. People stop behind school buses because they know they’ll get ticketed, and because it’s more clearly an issue of safety. People see cyclists as obstacles because they don’t understand why or how the bike lane is a safety issue – it’s far less obvious. We need to do a lot of education on bike safety for drivers.
Agreed fully. One challenge is that when people are driving, they’re so psychologically separated from the people around them, and the obstacle becomes more important than the person. Also, the physical and psychological separation prevents a real discourse from being possible: the driver can’t or doesn’t want to ask the cyclist ‘why are you riding in the general traffic lane (i.e., blocking my way) when you could be in the bike lane and allowing both of us to move freely?’ Lacking this, it turns straight to frustration, ‘making a point’, and violence. If a driver was being slowed down (from their point of view) by a pedestrian walking down the street, they’d likely feel the same thing – they have a more appropriate place to be that wouldn’t slow me down…and they must have mental health issues. So they’d probably honk and shout. But due to speed and other logistics, it’s not very practical to shout to a cyclist in front of you, and their sanity is less in question, so ‘clearly’ they must be an asshole that prefers to block you instead of biking where they belong.
I’m not saying this is right, just trying to see why this happens so frequently, to better understand what to do about it. Maybe loads of clear signage with words and illustrations, and lane markings, showing that people on bikes are allowed and ENCOURAGED to take the general purpose lane, even in the presence of a bike lane, would help. At the very least it would shift some of the anger to the city, and away from the individual.
In any case, education is key, and we do almost zero of it. I can only imagine that that driver felt that they were still in the right, and probably still do. If they had seen the bike lane as dangerous, for various reasons, then perhaps they’d have a small bit of patience and empathy for the actions of the rider.
My hope is the the driver is prosecuted to the full extent that the law allows. Given the clarity of the video evidence, I find it hard to believe that there is nothing prosecutable here.
Car drivers bullying us, driving distracted/recklessly, and telling us their selfish rules of the road happens far too often. Only now is more of it being recorded.
Here are a few of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=T5PXsP99azw
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=kmCGojAjDxY
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=hwf79PYvSu8
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=q90H8ZcN1jU
Well written article that touches in all the nuances. This, the comments and another video this week of a motorist punching a cyclist prompt me to buy some pepper spray and throw it in my handlebar bag.
Oh and totally agree with McGinn – thanks to all who pushed back on SPD.
Apparently when cars get too close to cops, it’s threatening:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/police-make-2-arrests-after-officers-fire-at-stolen-car-in-eastlake/
But when it’s threatening one of us ordinary citizens, no big deal.
I wonder if the solution is to hire off-duty SPD officers to do traffic enforcement, because apparently that’s the way to get cops to put their employer’s interests first:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/off-duty-work-by-spd-officers-has-been-an-issue-for-years/
In any case, I’m glad David’s OK. I know I would have been freaked out.
I was thinking the same thing about the Eastlake incident last weekend. Although you should have linked to the body cam footage that was released:
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/10/10/25463180/spd-releases-video-of-eastlake-police-shooting
I don’t like to second guess people in a tense situation, but they shot at that car several times in a crowded neighborhood because the car _almost_ ran into a cop. We’re all lucky they didn’t hit an innocent bystander.
Contrast that with the truck that almost hit the cyclist. It’s the same situation, and SPD won’t even write a ticket? Ugh.
Imagine if it had been a bike cop that was in that situation. He probably would have blown off about 30 rounds and the pick-up would look like Swiss cheese.
Normal Joe. crickets…
Oh my! I am a cyclist, I ride both regular and electric bikes and I ride at night. I also drive a car. When I look at this video I see a few things that jump out at me. David is riding an electric assist bike I believe. David is staying in the the traffic lane longer than he should. Because he is going faster than the non motorised riders he is able to almost keep up with cars. Most car drivers have no idea how fast they are driving and when behind a bike they probably do not know that it is an electric bike just that it is in front of them and not in the bike lane. There is so much in this video that has to do with ego and perceived rights. All I can say is, if you ride an electric bike get a rear view mirror and if you see a fast approaching vehicle then get out of the way and slow down if you have to. You are not going to win in an accident with a vehicle period.
There is no “longer than he should”. Ethically and legally, he is justified in using the primary lane as long as he feels he should.
There are some things we might be able to debate about best practices (and let me state for the record.that I strongly disagree with your proposed practices, as frequent lane changes are explicitly dangerous; we shouldn’t increase them in order to assuage the misguided senses of entitlement of lunatics like this), but NOTHING you listed is objectively wrong or inappropriate.
The one and only problem in this video is that a man in a truck violated several laws, including the Washington statute for assault, in order to intimidate and threaten someone because he disagreed with their legal and safe operation of a vehicle he disapproved of.
In the moment, you can’t assume that he was in the lane for “too long” you don’t know what the cyclists next move is going to be, what if he was preparing to make a left turn? The driver of the truck probably expected David to move over as he drove within inches of him, but he maintained a perfectly straight line. Having been in similar situations I hate it when someone driving a car feels the need to”teach me a lesson” because they think I’m riding in the wrong part of the road. I don’t think the same attitude is shown towards other road users who happen to block the lane for too long, imagine if Uber drivers, delivery drivers, or just slower car were treated this way when they temporarily slow down traffic
I want people driving vehicles to pass me based on where I am on the road, not where they think I should be.
There was plenty of room for the driver of the truck to pass safely, /if/ he wasn’t driving a vehicle out of scale with an urban setting. If you want to drive a tank in a city, then you shouldn’t be surprised when you can’t fit it everywhere.
David is the victim here, and we shouldn’t be trying to blame him.
Exactly. Note how the pickup truck passes as there is oncoming traffic. If the driver would have waited three seconds, they could have passed without oncoming traffic and given plenty of room.
Skylar – I am not “blaming” David, I am merely suggesting that as bicyclist we should get out of the way of large vehicles and not try to enforce whatever right we think we have. Sooner or later if you ride with an attitude of “ownership” something is going to happen. Ride defensively and with respect for how big and fast vehicles are and you will be a lot safer.
Arguing with a testosterone charged idiot in a large vehicle is not a good idea.
The truck driver did not give Brian a chance to release to the right. Brian was still completing his pass and then entering an intersection, so best to minimize lateral movement until can ascertain it is safe to release.
I once took the position of being accommodating to motor traffic and believed that door zone lanes were a reasonable compromise but you know what? It turns out that they don’t even like them!
Videos like this show that in a culture of aggression, competition and domination (which car culture is) the weak will never win. The only solution is to have nothing to do with it.
That’s why I now advocate for high quality cycling infrastructure. We all have to insist that there be a network of AAA cycle routes throughout the city. Low motor traffic volumes neighbourhood greenways. Protected intersections and protected cycle lanes on arterials.
This compromise of door zone lanes isn’t working.
Yes the GoPro may distort the video but keep in mind that vehicles, especially large pickups, have side mirrors that extend outward at cyclist head/neck height. Impact at 10-15 mph relative speed could knock you off your bike or break your neck.
I have been brake-checked by an SUV while riding in a bike lane with my 8-year old daughter in a trailer bike behind me.
I have been screamed at multiple times to “get off the road” all over the east side.
There is no war on cars. There is a war on bikes. Be forewarned drivers. I fight back.
Gotta say dude, you were in the incorrect lane. That’s what the bike lane is there for. You were causing tragic slow downs for one or more people because you were driving in an unsafe manner.
What’s your problem, dude? The cyclist changed lanes to pass a slower vehicle. When the slower vehicle became visible in the rear camera, it was just three measly seconds before the honk and buzz. There are many “not being an asshole / not trying to prove a point” reasons for the cyclist to “linger” in the general-purpose lane. The cyclist was not traveling unsafely. The driver was not tragically slowed down. The cyclist even caught up with the driver at the stop sign. Grow up or give up your privilege to drive a motor vehicle.
“wrong” lane? Law and objective measures of safety say he should STAY in the primary lane, but he was choosing to accept a little endangerment to be polite to drivers in general – then when forced to move into he primary lane for a pass, you bitch at him for being in he “wrong” lane? Then you even almost quote this asshat’s bullshit excuse he used to justify assault?
There is nothing I can say that would effectively convey how emphatically you have failed at basic human in your comment, so I’ll simply close with this:
I hope your life is exactly as pleasant as you are.
I am a bike rider near 60 yrs old and have been riding a bike since I was 8. I feel very comfortable on the road, and I hug the right side, close to parked cars and going slowly enough to be able to stop abruptly. Still, I have been been honked at and nearly run down by cars, although in the main most drivers are nice.
I think Seattle’s narrow lanes and lack of space, along with lousy traffic/roads make people frustrated and at times unable to give. And some people just do not (and may not ever) play nice! BIKERS, WE NEED TO ALWAYS STAY ON OUR GUARD! Expect stupid actions by a few, and hope to god we make it alive to our destination.
And this was an assault on David, and should be treated as such.
running the stop sign was a reasonable act of self defence. You *must* be allowed to attempt to flee an attacker with a deadly weapon.
[…] guy in a pickup truck almost ran over STB contributor David Seater, then had the temerity to get out and shout at […]
This literally happened to me on 4th yesterday in the pouring rain, wind, and darkness. Drivers, SPD, seattle-culture (society in general) don’t care about human life outside their own privilege. You tell people this story and all you hear back is “that’s why you should have a car.”
It appears you were riding an ebike and probably going the speed limit derived from the speed you were pasing the other cyclist. If not you have very good legs. Believe it or not I think a very visible, well lit bicycle would be better off in the center of the lane. If and when you sense a passing attempt then you have room to move right and even into the bike lane to create more clearance. I agree with the sentiment that this driver is a dangerous jerk but protecting yourself in this situation is the primary objective.