Photo by Kevin H.

Last Friday, Fort Hunt Patch reported on a chilling incident in which a driver on the George Washington Parkway sped by a group of cyclists and proceeded to slam on his brakes in front of them, one of which ended up under the car:

“A car, a gold Cadillac, came up going 60, 65 miles per hour, and came within two or three inches of me,” recalled Rogozinski. “I kind of sat up, and my hand went up as in ‘What is all this about?’ He ripped by me, got in front of the group, and slammed on his brakes.”

Of the five cyclists, the first cyclist, Chris Regan, quickly veered off, missing the car. The second cyclist, Hepburn, “laid down” his bike. The bike fell to the wayside and Hepburn went sliding under the car.

“You see in the movies, where a motorcyle slides into a car? That’s what happened,” Rogozinski said. “The rest of us were able to pull up in time.”

Without getting out of the car or speaking to the cyclists, the driver of the car then backed up and drove away from the scene, crossing into the southbound lanes of the parkway and onto Collingwood Road, according to Roginski and Strang. “He must have been going 60, 65 [miles per hour] onto Collingwood Drive,” Rogozinski said.

The incident is similar to one that took place in Los Angeles in 2008, when a driver stopped suddenly in front of two cyclists he had just aggressively passed. Both cyclists were hurt in the incident, and last year the driver was sentenced to five years in jail on assault charges.

In August, the National Park Service published a memo in which it stated that cycling on the George Washington Parkway is illegal. (The Washington Area Bicyclist Association has responded, saying that the NPS policy doesn’t make sense.) According to one person we spoke to, though, whether or not the cyclists were riding where they’re not supposed to wouldn’t make much of a difference had the driver been caught and charged with assault.

This incident may well come up in a November D.C. Council hearing on a proposed law that would make it easier for cyclists to file civil lawsuits against drivers for harassment, intimidation or assault.