An Edmonton motorcyclist kicked and punched a vehicle that cut him off on Anthony Henday Drive in a road-rage incident caught on dash-cam video.
Dan Kitto caught the incident on his dash cam around 6:30 a.m. Monday on his way to work. He posted the interaction to Facebook, urging drivers to be more careful on the freeway.
“Thankfully this guy was able to avoid becoming a statistic,” Kitto wrote on Facebook.
The video shows a motorcyclist pulling up behind a pickup truck in the left lane and then riding behind it for about 30 seconds.
Another vehicle, driving in the right lane beside the motorcycle, signals left before steering into the occupied road space.
The motorcyclist veers onto the freeway’s shoulder to avoid getting hit, then kicks and punches the vehicle that had moved into his lane.
An object that appears to be a side mirror falls onto the road before the motorcyclist uses the shoulder to speed away.
The altercation lasted less than 20 seconds.
The motorcyclist attacked the vehicle that cut him off after being forced to drive on the shoulder of Anthony Henday Drive. (Supplied/Dan Kitto)
The motorcyclist was tailgating before being cut off, noted Mark Dobbelsteyn, program director for traffic safety with the Alberta Safety Council.
“He didn’t give himself much of a space cushion for something going wrong,” Dobbelsteyn said. “The motorcyclist should have dropped back from the truck and given himself more space.”
Dobbelsteyn, who also works as a motorcycle instructor, said the safest option once the car pulled into the motorcyclist’s lane would have been to pull over and stop.
By kicking and punching the car, the motorcyclist risked destabilizing his bike and triggering a dangerous wobble, Dobbelsteyn said.
“I understand the feeling because I’ve been cut off like that, too,” he said.
“Your heart goes into throat because you think you’re just about to be pushed off the road by a car and your first reaction might be anger, but what you have to really do is try to calm down and get yourself to the side of the road and pull over and stop.”
I understand the feeling because I’ve been cut off like that, too.– Mark Dobbelsteyn, Alberta Safety Council
As for the driver of the vehicle, Dobbelsteyn said that person should have checked blind spots more carefully before switching lanes.
“What we ask this time of the year, especially for car drivers, is to do a second check before they move over lanes,” Dobbelsteyn said.
“A motorcycle can move in and out of that blind spot very quickly because of its small profile.”