Violence against cyclists symptomatic?

A fireman in Asheville NC shot a cyclist after he turned to leave an argument on safety. The cyclist was carrying a three year old in a child seat. The fireman thought it was unsafe to subject children to the dangers of auto traffic by transporting them on a bike. "Police said the driver, Charles Diez, claimed he was upset that the victim was bike riding with his child on the heavily traveled Tunnel Road."

I'm not sure how he thought the three year old would get home after the parent was killed. However the parent was not injured- amazingly the helmet stopped the bullet. But cyclists put up with violence regularly in how the roads are laid out and how they can get around. So is this incident an anomaly or a result of a violent system?

Is shooting a cyclist different than running the cyclist of the road or sideswiping or driving by too close ignorantly, or being distracted and killing them? Yes at least in how the law perceives it. And riding while poor carries its own penalties. The police will ignore the folder irrespective of how egregious the driving fault was because as they said in one recent case in NY they were too busy to follow up. Even threatening someone with death by car is your word against the driver unlike threatening them with a gun which can bring down every homeland security swat team in the region.

Just riding a bike has this violence associated with it that could be worse if we slip up by trying to avoid a pot hole or brick in the road without looking. On the road from Yellowstone to Glacier I hit a dead raccoon. The bike flew about five feet into the road and surprisingly landed upright. I corrected the front wheel and regained the shoulder. Ahead and behind me were logging trucks. What fortune do I owe for my brief inattention?

Socially we get used to the driver side violence from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to the traffic in front of our homes. So when someone flips out its easy to think of them as illogical. Or irrational. Or a confusing blend of the two. Road rage, distracted driving, speeding are all defensible unlike waving a gun. Instead these incidents are a logical extension of an accepted pattern of violence.