Let’s be honest, riding a motorcycle will always be riskier than driving a car. We know that. Every time we throw a leg over the saddle, we accept that a moment of distraction or someone else’s bad decision can change everything. Yet we ride anyway—for the freedom, the focus, the sheer joy of it.
But what happened in a now-viral video out of Riverside, California, is the kind of nightmare that lives rent-free at the back of every rider’s mind.
The footage, captured via helmet cam, shows a motorcyclist pulling up to a red light when a black Nissan Altima suddenly rear-ends him. It doesn’t stop there. Instead of braking, the driver keeps rolling forward, pinning the rider and his bike to the bumper and dragging him across the pavement.
It's a gut-wrenching moment, the kind of scene that makes every rider flinch because it so easily could’ve been any one of us.
Authorities later identified the driver as 32-year-old Gary Delandro. According to reports from ABC11 and other news outlets, the altercation began moments earlier, when Delandro allegedly cut the rider off in traffic. The motorcyclist filtered to the front at a stoplight—legal in California—and briefly confronted Delandro about his driving. Video footage shows the rider addressing the issue before returning to his bike.
But moments later, Delandro accelerated into him from behind, dragging him for several meters down the road. The rider, clearly in shock, managed to escape only after Delandro abruptly slowed down and sped off.
"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, who wished to remain anonymous, told The New York Post.
He was left with a torn-up jacket, shredded backpack, road burns, and lacerations that required staples. His motorcycle was wrecked. Incredibly, his injuries weren’t life-threatening. The driver, meanwhile, fled the scene but later turned himself in. He is now facing multiple felony charges, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and hit-and-run, with bail set at $1 million. Prosecutors are treating the act as intentional, citing both witness accounts and the chilling video evidence.
Comments on the post clearly show collective outrage, and some even a heightened sense of fear. This wasn’t just a fender-bender. This was someone using their car as a weapon. And while we can’t always predict how people will react on the road, we can take steps to protect ourselves. Riders often have more agility and better visibility in traffic, but that mobility also comes with responsibility. It's a constant mental game: stay alert, keep your distance, and never assume the other driver sees you—or even cares, for that matter.
And as for road rage, well, trust me, it's never worth it. Sometimes, it's not even worth getting off your bike and calling out the driver, even if you're certain they're in the wrong. Call it being a coward, but I like to look at it as taking the high road and staying clear out of danger.
Could the rider in the video have done something differently? Maybe. It’s impossible to know exactly what was going through his mind, but if there’s one takeaway here, it’s that de-escalation and distance are often your best defense. When someone’s driving erratically or aggressively, don’t engage. Let them pass. Let them be someone else’s problem.
Thankfully, the rider in this case is alive and recovering. And hopefully, justice will be served once the legal process runs its course. The most important thing now is that this incident shines a light on how real the risks are, and why riding defensively isn’t just a skill—it’s survival.
Sources: Florida Racing via Instagram, ABC11, NYPost
