Most Ironic: Kansas City Sports Chairman Assaults Bikers. With His Hummer.

I couldn't make this up.

A road-rage incident near Longview Lake has former Jackson County Sports Authority Chairman John R. Bondon facing an assault charge and Kansas City’s bicycling community in an uproar.

“His behavior was just completely out of the norm,” cyclist Matt Maher said of an angry encounter with Bondon a couple of weeks ago. [...]

According to Maher, he and a fellow cyclist were riding north around 7:30 that night when a Hummer H2 sped around them and turned into a driveway directly in front of them.

“I spoke up and said, ‘Couldn’t you have given us 10 more seconds?’ ” is how Maher remembers it.

“More like two seconds,” his cycling partner said.

They kept going, muttering about being cut off, and then heard squealing tires and saw the Hummer barreling across the grass and back onto the street, Maher said.

Next thing they knew, the H2 was behind them, bumping their tires, he claims. Then the driver, later identified as Bondon, pulled alongside them and allegedly forced them off the road.

The vehicle stopped. And as Bondon approached the cyclists, he was swinging a leather sap, Maher said.

Words were exchanged. Maher, 27, said he started to dial 911 on his cell phone, but Bondon, 61, knocked it from his hand and slapped Maher’s face.

Bondon told Kansas City police a different story. He said he mistook the cell phone for a weapon and knocked it from Maher’s hand.

He claimed not to own a sap and said he didn’t strike Maher in the face. The only reason he tore out after the cyclists, he said, was because he thought they’d thrown a water bottle at his truck.

Maher denies throwing anything.

Because when someone throws something harmless at my 2-ton sport vehicle my natural reaction is to gun the ol' H2 and put their lives in danger.

We're a nation of children, driving expensive toys. As if we needed more proof that money doesn't buy morals.

I love seeing how many others are getting around Seattle these days via pedal power. At the same time, I fear that the Powers That be will find a way to turn on the cheap gas spigot again, and most folks will revert to polluting and road-raging.