I blame the mother

The Herald reports:

A motorist involved in a “cycle rage” incident claims cyclists squirted water through her window and threatened to punch her after refusing to budge off the road.

Mosgiel police are trying to get to the bottom of an incident near Outram on Saturday in which the occupants of a car took a $12,000 road bike off a cyclist and dragged it several hundred metres down the road.

New Zealand cycling representative Logan Edgar, 19, and Otago teammate Shane Melrose, 30, had an row with two female motorists who ended up dragging Edgar’s $12,000 bike into their car and along the road.

However, the motorists, a 17-year-old passenger and her mother who was driving, contacted the Otago Daily Times yesterday with a different story.

The teenager, from Outram, said they came across the two cyclists riding on either side of the centre line.

“We tooted the horn … and called out some verbal abuse that was only out of frustration.” She said the cyclists responded by squirting water bottles in the window.

She said anger and frustration took over. She pulled the bike into the car and they drove off with the bike dragging alongside.

“I wanted to teach them a lesson.”

Even if the allegation over the water squirting is true, the appropriate response is not to grab the cycle and steal it.

Personally I doubt the squirting water allegation, unless they have some proof for it. But again, even if true, that does not excuse what was criminal behaviour.

What shocks me most is not that a 17 year old would act like a selfish moron. But that they would do so with their mother in the car, and the mother does nothing to stop her. Indeed, it sounds like she was encouraging her on.

UPDATE: The ODT has a story that confirms the girl is a liar, as she claimed to be with a friend in her 20s, and in fact it was her mother.