A California driver is accused of attempted murder for crashing into a motorcyclist and dragging the helpless rider hundreds of feet across an intersection in a suspected road rage incident caught on camera.
Footage obtained by KABC captured the heart-pounding scene when the unnamed biker approached an intersection in the La Sierra neighborhood of Riverside, California on April 1.
A black Nissan darted out in front of the bike at the red light and forced the rider to swerve around the car to avoid a collision.
The irritated biker says he began shaking his head because of the poor driving, aggravating the driver, identified as 32-year-old Gary Delandro.
“Yeah I got mad, I’m shaking my head, and I looked back, and I see him roll down the window.. and I see him saying something,” the biker told the outlet.
The biker got off his bike and walked towards the Nissan to confront Delandro
“He says ‘why are you shaking your head at me?’ and I said ‘it’s because you cut over as I was coming up,’ so he says ‘well you’re behind me, I’m first,’ and I said ‘that’s not how it works, if you’re that upset about that, go seek therapy,’” the biker recalled.
Nothing else was exchanged between the two and the motorcyclist drove off, only to stop at the next intersection.
Unknown to the rider, Delandro chased after the motorcycle, swerving through traffic before ramming into the bike of the bike.
“I look back, just in time to see the front end of his car squeezing between both cars, he rear-ends me, knocks me off the bike and then floors it over me,” the motorcyclist said.
The biker became caught underneath the sedan’s front bumper as the driver drove forward, dragging the helpless rider across the pavement.
Muffled screams can be heard from the motorcyclist as he attempted to push himself out from underneath the car, according to the distressing footage.
The biker couldn’t estimate how fast Delandro was driving during the life-threatening crash.
“It was a few seconds. It felt like forever. I started slipping, and I could see the undercarriage of the car… and I went from being mad to being scared,” he said.
Delandro eventually slowed his car and reversed, freeing the trapped biker from underneath.
The driver quickly fled the scene without checking on the biker, who escaped with moderate injuries requiring stitches below his knee and sustained burns across his body.
His jacket and backpack were torn up by the roadway.
Delandro turned himself over to Riverside police hours later, according to jail records viewed by The Post.
He has been charged with attempted murder, hit and run and assault with a deadly weapon — all felonies — and is being held at the Robert Presley Detention Center.
The biker ripped into Delandro for his petty actions that nearly killed him.
“With people like that, they don’t care about anyone else; he sure as hell didn’t care about me but the people around him, the people he had to cut through… those are dangerous people… I know there’s a large community of people who dislike the fact that we split lanes, but there is a safety measure to it, there’s a reason why California permits it, there’s a safe way to do it, there’s a not smart way to do it, but at the end of the day… it shouldn’t warrant trying to kill somebody.”
California was the first state to legalize lane splitting for motorcyclists, with the legislation signed into law in 2016.
Since then, four other states have legalized some form of lane splitting with Utah, Arizona, Montana and Hawaii allowing what is known as lane filtering or “shoulder surfing” in certain scenarios, according to Inszone Insurance.
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