Carnage

One Video Encapsulates Everything Wrong With NYC Street Culture

Two banes of New York City streets -- aggressive dirt bikers using the road as a personal racetrack, and SUV drivers using their vehicles as weapons -- collide in this horrific video making the rounds today.

By Stephen Miller

5:45 PM EDT on September 30, 2013

Two banes of New York City streets — aggressive dirt bikers using the road as a personal racetrack, and SUV drivers using their vehicles as weapons — collide in this horrific video making the rounds today.

Yesterday at about 1:30 p.m., Alexian Lien, 33, was driving a Range Rover north on the West Side Highway near 125th Street with his wife and 5-month old daughter as passengers, according to reports in the Post and Daily News. About 20 seconds into the video, group of motorcycle and dirt bike riders surround the SUV in the center lane, and a motorbike rider appears to hit the brakes and get into a fender-bender with Lien’s vehicle.

Lien and the group of motorbike riders around him came to a stop. Surrounded, Lien then hit the accelerator (at about 50 seconds into the video), running over at least three motorcycles and striking one man, breaking his leg, according to NYPD. The video shows the group of motorbike riders chasing Lien, exiting the highway at 178th Street in Washington Heights. When Lien reaches traffic stopped at a red light at Wadsworth Avenue (after the six-minute mark), the motorbike riders dismount, and one man uses his helmet to smash Lien’s window.

The video cuts off at this point, but police say the men beat up Lien, who went to Columbia University Medical Center, where he received stitches and was released. The Daily News reports that NYPD has not made any arrests, but is still investigating.

Stephen Miller

In spring 2017, Stephen wrote for Streetsblog USA, covering the livable streets movement and transportation policy developments around the nation. From August 2012 to October 2015, he was a reporter for Streetsblog NYC, covering livable streets and transportation issues in the city and the region. After joining Streetsblog, he covered the tail end of the Bloomberg administration and the launch of Citi Bike. Since then, he covered mayoral elections, the de Blasio administration's ongoing Vision Zero campaign, and New York City's ever-evolving street safety and livable streets movements.

Carnage

Comments Are Temporarily Disabled

Streetsblog is in the process of migrating our commenting system. During this transition, commenting is temporarily unavailable.

Once the migration is complete, you will be able to log back in and will have full access to your comment history. We appreciate your patience and look forward to having you back in the conversation soon.