Gothamist reports on the case of John Kelly, a cyclist intentionally struck by a road raging van driver who fled the scene.John chose Steve Vaccaro to represent him.
John Kelly is lucky. Lucky that he wasn’t seriously injured when a van struck him (twice) while he was riding his bike home in Astoria, lucky that the van’s windshield wipers didn’t give out as he clung to them while the vehicle kept moving, and lucky that at least four people witnessed the whole thing. “I’m just astounded,” Kelly says. “[The driver] just stared at me the whole time I was hanging on the hood and shouting. He just had this angry look on his face. It was really disconcerting.”
“Leaving the scene of a crash causing property damage is an infraction. Leaving the scene of a crash causing even just scrapes is a Class B Misdemeanor,” attorney Steve Vaccaro writes in an email. Vaccaro reviewed the accident report officers filled out for Kelly’s case and says that police noted two contributing factors to the crash: “Improper Passing or Lane Usage” and “Aggressive Driving/Road Rage.”
“If the cops concluded that there was ‘road rage’ involved, then there could be a more serious charge for sure, such as third degree assault,” Vaccaro notes. “If the driver actually failed to stop accelerating when the cyclist was up on his hood, that definitely deserves consideration for third degree assault and possibly reckless endangerment.”\
For the full report visit: https://gothamist.com/news/driver-hits-cyclist-in-bike-lane-and-keeps-going-as-victim-clings-to-front-of-van