Three's a crowd.Only one of the groups reacted in an undeniably violent manner.That's debatable. For all the crowd knew, his brakes failed. Hence no "attempt to stop."was trying to kill them.And as I said before, the two (driver's actions and crowd's actions) are not comparable.
I can't say for sure why some members of the crowd immediately attacked the car. Did they have some indication before the crash that it was intentional? Perhaps. The speed the car traveled at, the lack of brake lights, people being forced to jump out of the way as the car made its way down the road, any or all of these might have given the members of the crowd the idea it was intentional.
Perhaps those members of the crowd that attacked the car were simply prone to violence. I won't deny that possibility. Maybe their first reaction to seeing friends or family injured like that is to seek retribution, without worrying about whether it was accidental or intentional. Or it may have been less considered than retribution; more of a lashing out at the thing which just caused such violence, without any clear goal or rationale.
I wasn't so much comparing the two actions, driving into the crowd and the crowd attacking the car, as comparing your reactions to them. You quite easily come up with reasons you think that driving into a crowd of people is a reasonable action, whereas you seem to find the idea of people attacking a vehicle which had just driven into their fellows something for which there cannot be a rational reason. While I believe the driver intentionally hit the crowd, and I disagree that driving into the crowd would be a rational way to try to escape, I certainly can see how a panic reaction could lead to such an accident. I also can see how members of the crowd might feel attacking the car to be appropriate, if they believed it had run into their fellows on purpose.
You have made comments about how the driver did not have time to make a fully thought out, rational decision. That makes sense, at least in the context of the amount of time between the car being hit by the flagpole and the car striking the crowd. How much time did the crowd have to make a rational decision after the crash? Is the lack of time to think the situation through and reach a rational conclusion not applicable to them for some reason?Then they would have gotten out of the way, not jumped ONTO the car, which undoubtedly caused more injuries.A car had just driven into the crowd, at least injuring a bunch of people. If a man hitting the back bumper of a moving car is enough for the driver of that car to become fearful for his life and make a hasty, perhaps panicked, reaction, wouldn't a car driving into a crowd of which you are a member be enough for the same? Couldn't the members of the crowd have been in fear for their lives and reacting to that fear?Put another way, I question the reasoning behind seeing self-defense when a car runs into a crowd of people who have done nothing to the driver or the car, yet not seeing self-defense when members of a crowd, that has just been run into by a car, attack that car.
It did not appear to be a group that attacked the car, but rather some individuals from the crowd.
I just can't imagine how endangering yourself by jumping onto an unsafe vehicle in this situation can be considered an attempt to avoid harm to oneself, whether due to reflex action or a poorly thought out, but understandable decision. I can see how speeding away from a polearm-wielding attacker can be either a reflex action to avoid harm or a poorly thought out, but understandable reaction.They came from both sides as well as from behind the car.
You seem to have a bit of a double standard regarding reactions. For the driver, going into the crowd may have been a poorly thought out plan, a panic reaction, an irrational but understandable response to being afraid. For the crowd, they cannot have had an irrational reaction to a car running into their fellows? Do you think flight is the only possible reaction to fear?
I'm still trying to understand how driving into a crowd that has, at that point, done nothing to you can be considered self-defense, but people attacking a car which just drove into the crowd of which they are a part is not self-defense.