Crazy stupid high-speed pass on SE 34th Ave – extended version from T.Lavender on Vimeo.
See that video? It was making the rounds earlier this summer because of an incident at the one-minute mark. You’ll see a driver in a Kia Soul speed past the cyclist who was filming (and had his child with him), carelessly threading between parked cars and a second, oncoming cyclist.
It’s nothing all that special. Aggrieved stories of bad traffic actors—both in cars and on bikes—pop up all a time, but nothing ever comes of them.
That’s why this is interesting. Portland police announced today that, on Thursday, they cited the Kia driver for his recklessness in the video. That’s more than a month after the incident occurred, but just three days after the videographer, Tony Tapay, reported it to cops.
From the release:
On Monday August 17, 2015, Tony Tapay, a resident of Southeast Portland’s Creston-Kenilworth Neighborhood, called the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division to discuss issuing a citation to a careless driver after an encounter on July 7, 2015, at approximately 5:00 p.m.
Tapay provided a personal video of the encounter and the suspect vehicle driving by him at a high rate of speed as he and his child rode their bicycle along Southeast 34th Avenue. Tapay was able to provide the suspect’s description, the license plate number and a vehicle description to police.
Officers were able to view the video and observed the driver speed by Tapay and his son, nearly hitting another bicycle rider and a driver head-on.
Officers located the vehicle, a 2012 Kia Soul, and the driver, Andrew Vilas Reid, on August 20, 2015, and issued him traffic citations for Careless Driving and Unsafe Passing of a Person Operating a Bicycle.
Not only is that a fast turnaround, the cops’ trumpeting of the ticket is unusual. In the hundreds of police press releases I’ve seen over the years, I’m pretty sure this is the first time police have taken the time to issue a release on a traffic altercation where no contact occurred. And this comes just a couple months after the city codified a commitment to Vision Zero—the notion that preventing serious injury and death on Portland’s roads should take precedence over other considerations.
Is that just a coincidence? According to PPB spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson, sort of.
“It really was a perfect alignment of stars,” Simpson wrote in an email. “Mr. Tapay had the video and solid information that assisted investigators with locating and citing the driver. We definitely get a number of similar complaints but generally it’s not enough information to track down and verify the identity of the driver (or bicycle rider).”
He added: “I’d love to say that we have enough resources to track down and investigate every complaint about a traffic violation but we don’t and have to be very judicious with our use of investigative resources.”
Andrew Vilas Reid. Good to know, thanks.
A Chicago brat, figures.
Most of the problems on the road in Portland are caused by overly-deferential drivers, or drivers who have absolutely no understanding of the concept of right-of-way. It also doesn’t help that 99% of our residential intersections don’t have stop signs or pavement.
Tony Tapay is a Fucking douchebag. Your on a fucking street, get a clue asshole. I am tired of the spandex mafia thinking they rule the road. You can’t play frogger and not pay the piper.
Why am I so not surprised that a cyclist filming his journey feels aggrieved by a driver.
I can’t say I would have passed in the same situation, but the viewpoint is also skewed.
I do know that I always try to give cyclists (and I am one too) wide berth wherever possible and wish to pass them soon and not linger aside them.
The driver lied when questioned by the cops and said that the cyclist had pulled out and cut him off, I have a feeling he might have just gotten a warning if he hadn’t lied to the cop.
Good. If you are operating a vehicle that could kill someone, act like it.
The guy on the bike started filming because he got hit by a car a few years ago and the driver lied to the cops. The reason people use cameras when they are riding bicycles is because this shit happens all the time, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
I’d bet he was an uber driver. But we’ll never know becuse most of them don’t mark their cars