This road rage video of a driver intentionally swerving to hit a motorcycle shows the safety and legal value of wearing a helmet camera.
The rider and pillion were injured in the incident on a rural Texas road.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has investigated the video and the investigating trooper met with prosecutors on Monday. Driver William Sam Crum, 68, now faces two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for his part in Saturday’s collision.
It is a salutary lesson in the value of having a camera on your helmet or bike.
Meanwhile, in Victoria and NSW, police have fined riders for wearing cameras and in a Victorian test case an appeal has been lodged over a fine.
While some may suggest a bike camera would do the same job, this second part of the video shows the rider’s friend approaching the driver who can be heard to say “I don’t care” which further implicates his intentions to purposely hit the motorcycle.
A bike-mounted camera would not have shown that.
The rider, Eric Sanders, suffered abrasions in the collision that left his girlfriend in a Fort Worth hospital with a broken wrist and deep arm lacerations.
While the rider should not have passed over double yellow lines, there is no need for drivers to take the law into their own hands and act so irresponsibly.
However, it seems this is not Crum’s first incident of rage, as his criminal history includes a conviction for “assault-family violence”.
He’s lucky he doesn’t face a murder charge. It is sheer luck that the rider and pillion did not fall under the wheels of the SUV following the road rage driver’s car and suffer greater, or even fatal, injuries.