Audio By Carbonatix
At 3:30 p.m. yesterday, 36-year-old Terry Varghese was riding his bicycle when he turned onto the Dallas North Tollway service road. That turned out to be a bad idea.
Shortly after he made the turn, a car pulled alongside Varghese and its driver began shouting obscenities. “Are you crazy?” the driver yelled, according to the Morning News. “What the [expletive] is your problem? Are you stupid?”
The driver veered several times in Varghese’s path before finally falling back, accelerating and running into the back of the bike, sending it crashing into a grassy median and pinning Varghese’s leg underneath. The driver then sped off, running over Varghese’s right foot in the process.
Three employees of a nearby office building saw the whole thing while taking a smoke break outside but were unable to get a good look at the car. Varghese was scraped up but otherwise okay and refused to be taken to the hospital.
But hey: There’s a law for this sort of thing! The driver was in apparent violation of the city’s new be-nice-to-bikers ordinance, which levies a maximum $500 fine for motorists who injure bikers by, say, veering into their lane or passing them improperly.
In this case, though, the offense is a bit more serious. Police are treating it as an aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, a felony.
