Cyclist Hit During Florida Race Highlights Need for Stronger Aggressive Driving Laws

“You’re in an event and you think you’re safe. You say your goodbyes. I was on my second lap, 33-miles in when I was hit,” said Niki Isaak, who is facing over $240,000 in hospital bills and months of recovery after reckless and aggressive motorcyclists hit her while she was participating in the Florida Central Classic bicycle race. Isaak, who works as a nurse at the VA Hospital, was out of work for three weeks, unpaid. She’s now navigating the difficult world of bicycle accident recovery. Her family, like so many others, has started a GoFundMe to help her recover.

Isaak is part of an athletic family. Her husband, Sonny, races and their 12-year-old son is an elite youth cyclist. In the past, Isaak raced triathlons but after she had knee surgery she decided to focus on cycling-only events. She’d just finished rehab. She was excited to race her brand-new bike as a Cat4 rider. Her crit course on Saturday went well. On Sunday, October 12, 2025 she was halfway through a 52-mile road race when a large group of motorcyclists started riding in the left lane next to Isaak and the other cyclists. 

Isaak said she and her family regularly go on solo rides and she knows those have a higher risk of a bicycle crash with a vehicle. “The last place you’d ever think you’d actually get hit is in a sanctioned event.” 

She began riding as far as possible to the right to stay away from the motorists. “They were going super fast—over 100 miles per hour—and making loud noises,” Isaak said. It scared her and the other riders. Isaak was cycling over the white line on the shoulder. One of the motorcyclists squeezed in next to her on the right, so close she could feel the wind from him passing on her arm. 

“Next thing I know, there was one on my left side. Then one hit me from behind,” Isaak said. In addition to a puncture wound through her glute, she lost blood, injured her tailbone, and reinjured her healed surgical knee. The effects of the accident aren’t just physical. “Mentally it keeps worsening,” Isaak said. “Fitness is our life,” but she’s too aware of the danger lurking every time anyone gets on a bicycle now. 

Rising Risks for Cyclists as Aggressive Driving Surges Nationwide

It’s time to take a stand against aggressive driving.

Study findings have shown 17 percent of drivers have deliberately blocked cyclists with their cars and 11 percent had driven too close to a cyclist on purpose. 92% of Americans have witnessed a road rage event in the last year. Yet only a few states consider “road rage” a specific offense. With traffic violence and aggressive driving incidents at an all-time high, cyclists increasingly have to take extra precautions to try to stay safe on the road.

Despite riding in a group, Isaak said there was minimal signage announcing the race on the open road where the event took place. There wasn’t a safety vehicle riding close behind the race participants either. Yet the onus shouldn’t solely be on cyclists—who already take precautions like wearing high visibility clothes, helmets, and adding lights and reflectors to their bicycles—to stay safe on shared roads.

Legal Barriers Leave Injured Cyclists Without Justice

Despite the clear recklessness of the motor cyclists who caused Isaak’s injuries, the local district attorney has refused to prosecute. “Any time there’s an accident involving a cyclist, they’re giving vehicles the benefit of the doubt and not looking at the reckless driving that caused the accident,” said Matt Scarborough of Bicycle Accident Law who is representing Isaak’s civil case. “If someone was driving an automobile recklessly in this fashion, weaving in and out of traffic and causing bodily injury, they’d be charged.” 

Scarborough has personally seen the outward hostility toward cyclists both as a rider himself and in cases for his clients. “I personally have been assaulted and thought I was going to get killed on a bike,” he said. For many riders, finding a bicycle crash attorney is one of the only paths to accountability.

Aggression against cyclists is so common there’s a whole vocabulary for ways drivers try to harm or harass them. Drivers “buzz” cyclists by passing too closely. Another common tactic is “rolling coal” where truck drivers purposefully get in front of a cyclist, emitting a thick cloud of black smoke from their modified tailpipes—an act that falls under traffic harassment in some places.

 A 2019 study found that aggressive drivers see cyclists as “less than human”. Obviously this isn’t true. And the human cost of an injury like Isaak’s goes beyond the victim of the crash. Her husband had to take time off to care for her during her recovery. Their son, who saw his mother injured on the scene, has also been affected.

Unfortunately, outside of DUIs or hit-and-run cases, DAs often refuse to prosecute drivers who hit cyclists, even in cases that result in a fatality. Advocates say that if this changed, local law enforcement might finally take cyclist safety laws and vulnerable road user protections seriously. Maybe then cyclists could start feeling more protected on shared roads.

“We have to enforce the laws,” Scarborough said. Otherwise we’re making it de facto legal for motorists to harm millions of Americans, so long as they’re riding a bicycle.