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news
Jeremy Clarkson tweets about a point-maker"Point-making" rider hits back at Jeremy Clarkson
What do you do if you're a cyclist who Jeremy Clarkson has accused on Twitter of "point-making" because you took the lane to protect yourself from being passed dangerously? You take to the internet and set the record straight in great detail.
That’s what a user of the forums over on mountain bike site Singletrackworld did when Clarkson posted a snap of him behaving perfectly legally on Twitter last week.
Here's Clarkson's intitial post:
It's middle of the road point-makers like this who make car drivers so angry about cyclists. pic.twitter.com/4vCcK548t1
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) January 10, 2014
Unsurprisingly, a few cyclists responded that he was using a mobile phone to take a picture while in control of a vehicle and therefore possibly committing an offence himself.
Many also responded that the narrowness of the road meant the rider was doing exactly what Bikeability, the Institute of Advanced Motoring and even Transport for London recommend: taking the lane.
.@JeremyClarkson Also, have you never seen this image? From TfL, but just as applicable in the rest of the UK. pic.twitter.com/NwUdhVyzZd
— CyclingMikey (@CyclingMikey) January 10, 2014
Clarkson implied that the rider was making a point because he'd sworn at drivers who tried to overtake him:
Ti be clear, the cyclist I tweeted about earlier rode constantly right in the middle of the lane and hurled abuse at anyone who overtook.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) January 10, 2014
Your usual Twitterstorm ensued, with Clarkson's more petrolhead followers wishing death to anyone on two wheels while cyclists tried to point out that the rider was doing nothing wrong. As usual it got heated.
Discussion spread to the always-lively forums on Singletrackworld.com, where user Itsme posted this lengthy account of what happened:
Right then, from the horses mouth so to speak.......
I was riding home from work (this is one of my regular routes) down Sloane Avenue in Chelsea towards Sloane Square. As I approached this island at the junction of Ixworth Street, a Range Rover over took me, because he had to veer left to avoid hitting the island I got pushed owards the kerb.
Sloane Ave
There was no point to this pass as there was slow moving traffic a little bit further down the road.
Now I was pretty cheesed off with this and most of you will know a close pass starts pumping adrenaline. Sloane Ave is a nice flat road and it's really easy to keep up with the trafic and just past the island I was keeping pace with the Range Rover, the driver was looking in his N/S door mirror giving the 'stare'. I admit that I was fairly vocal at this point and shouted 'What? you f*****g c**k, f****** knobstick' not much of an insult but I was too riled up to think straight.
As we approached the junction with Cadogan Street the traffic started slowing so I moved to the middle of the road to overtake. As I passed the Range Rover the window started to come down and a few words were exchanged by both of us as I passed (I can't remember what, I don't think it was as bad as the first reaction though as I tend to calm down fairly quickly). I then kept up with the traffic for the rest of Sloane Ave, and then in to Draycott Place which is quite narrow for a two way road.
Draycott Place
Keeping up with the traffic in Draycott Place is easy as well, and as I approached the crossing at the end someone was waiting to cross so I stopped (I always do this, and stop at red lights as well believe it or not!), before it, and not on the crossing as some have suggested.
The junction
I was turning right at this junction to go down to Sloane Square, so as I moved off I was positioning myself for this.
At the junction I looked behind me and saw Jeremy Clarkson just pulling up behind me with his head and arm out of the window, holding his phone and shouting 'gotcha' and looking well smug with himself. He was driving, and there was nobody else in the car. I got off my bike and pushed it back to his car and pointed out that he was overtaking me going in to a hazard, and made me change course. He just kept shouting increduously 'you were four feet from the kerb, but you were four feet from the kerb, I'm a cyclist and you were four feet from the kerb!'.
After a couple of attempts to explain to him why I thought he was wrong I gave up as he just kept shouting, I then rode off. Throughout this exchange I stayed reasonably calm.
At no time did I abuse any other road user or pedestrian on my journey home.
What JC's pic on twitter doesn't show is how much traffic was about at the time. Before I stopped at the crossing the junction was busy, and the traffic was queing all the way down to Sloane Square. I was probably well on my way to Parliament Square by the time JC got through Sloane Square. The ambulance wasn't parked either, it was moving.
Thanks for your patience reading my longest ever post!
Among the many who responded to Clarkson was Radio Two presenter Jeremy Vine, who pointed out: "He has every right - you muppet".
This morning the Daily Mail posted an essay by Vine on the dangers of cycling on London's roads, and the Twitterstorm he online argument he and Clarkson sparked. The permanently angry attitude of many drivers is a very real problem, he says.
Vine writes: "On Twitter such a spat is entertaining. But take that hostility on to the road — put that angry mind in charge of a metal hulk on four wheels or even 12 — and it becomes a threat to the life of any cyclists."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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66 comments
No but the train service from Cheltenham, Bath, Morton are all fine for getting from the Cotswolds into London. As for why a 4x4.... well living on the edge of the Cotswolds, most people except the Londoners and their country homes, and farmers use normal cars....
As for his Isle of Mann home, there is a scheduled plane service from Cheltenham/Gloucester and a bus that takes you a couple hundred metres from the train station...
Incontrovertible evidence of mobile phone use while driving, nuff said!
I've been a huge fan of Clarkson for years; saw his show live as a kid, and defended every comment he's ever made that's landed him in trouble in the media.
I'm actually really disappointed because all it takes is for him to show all this on Top Gear, mocking it in his usual manner, in doing so will create thousands of cyclist haters.
Let's face it, a lot of people are seriously fucked up in the head. There are two solutions I can think of - one, a new kind of fascism where we round up everyone with a below average IQ and intern them in camps, or two, at least don't allow them to drive cars.
As you'd expect, Vine's Daily Mail article comments are something else.
Even some of the Pro-cycling lobby are right of Farage "This environmental claptrap has been one of the most significant reason that many men don't cycle - who wants to be motivated by limp-wristed reasons like that. Cycling is about keeping fit, going fast, getting somewhere, saving money and starving the tax-grubbing government of its iniquitous parking fees and fines, and its beats jogging."
I couldn't agree more with the main point and the promotion of cycling. People's interest in being environmentally friendly is massively over-rated. They pay lip service to it but very few are committed enough to make any lifestyle sacrifices for it. I commute to work on a bike. 20 miles each way on nice days or bike and train from just over half way if I'm pushed for time and it's grotty. People are interested in the fact that I mostly cycle when I have perfectly nice cars to drive. I really don't care that it is good for the environment. That just happens to be the case and it's great of course. But I'd cycle if it was bad for the environment because I like cycling.
OK so some people might not like cycling quite as much as me. I'll tell you what impresses people is cost. My trip costs nothing if I cycle all the way both ways. It's £4 for half way on the train. Time wise it takes me around 1hr 15min each way on the bike or 45 - 50 mins if I bike and train. Driving it takes around 50 mins to just over the hour because of all the traffic and it's quicker to come the longer way on the A roads so that's 50 miles round trip in the car. My Saab does about 30mpg and at £5.80 a gallon that's £9.50 in petrol. Even in my Smart car thats a gallon so about £5 in petrol there. But that's not the end of it. HMRC calculates wear and tear and maintenance for claimed mileage at 45p a mile and I doubt that's massively generous. So, tyres, servicing, depreciation etc etc. I even get cheaper insurance for lower mileage. Using that figure I'd be doing 12,000 a year just to work. and at 45p a mile that's £5500 of cost. If I took the train every day rather than just some days (£960 per year) I'm saving nearly £5k.
Now that makes people interested. Particularly the ones that drive to work and pay for gym membership as well.
BTW this is also a good argument when your wife or partner questions spending money on bikes and new gear. My wife drives (it really is the only option) so that's game set and match on the new bike.
"taking the lane" is for safety, not controlling other cars because you, in your own opinion, "can keep up with traffic". Complete non-story because we only have one side of it...
Keeping up with traffic is not a matter of "opinion". You're either moving at the same speed as the other traffic, or you're not. And taking the lane is absolutely for safety BECAUSE it is a method of controlling the behaviour of following traffic; the two are not mutually exclusive.
Of course it is, I've sat behind people who sit in the middle of the lane because they think they're keeping up with traffic only to get annoyed because they're holding me up (I'm talking cyclist vs cyclist here). There's a fine line between taking the lane for safety and holding up traffic, I can't see JC getting annoyed with a bike that had a car infont of it because he'd have had nowhere to go once he'd got past (JC isn't stupid) and the article quite clearly (from the rider's view) states that JC was behind him down all those roads he named. Sounds very much to me like he was "taking the lane" when it would have been perfectly easy to move over and let him through. Let's face it, cycling is so much quicker than driving in London so let him overtake and then go past with a smug face when he gets caught up in traffic.
Except on my daily route cycle where cars always overtake me - despite me assertively taking primary - on a small uphill after a traffic light.
What's really annoying is 50 metres later the road narrows, parked cars on both sides, modern cars too wide for our roads means the car that just revved past me is now stuck while he gingerly squeezes past the equally stuck oncoming traffic. The oncoming traffic can't move until the next sequence of lights so Mr Impatient has cost me five minutes for insisting on overtaking me.
I got beeped today while driving in the outside lane of a dual carriageway just above the speed limit of 50 mph ... why would someone beep their horn and flash their lights at me when they would be illegal if driving faster? People just don't like being held up, regardless of whether or not they would be breaking the law by going faster. I can understand why Clarkson got annoyed even if the cyclist is legally within his rights to take the centre of the lane (not something I would normally do), but it would have been simple to pull in/slow down and let Clarkson past, then the whole episode could have been avoided.
all of those would be funny, if they weren't so pitiful.
Ignorance is a major cause of conflict. Drivers perceive some kind of wrong doing and use it to lambast the poor person on the bike. This is a perfect example, but it often happens with riding two abreast as well, or riding on the road and not on a cycle path. Typical symptoms include spouting non-existent highway code rules or going on about non existent cycling proficiency.
When you pair ignorance with aggression things get even worse. You get someone in a car who uses their belief of being "in the right" (due to incorrectly perceived wrong-doing by a cyclist) to justify dangerous behaviour such as a close pass, failing to concede right of way, or a mouthful of abuse.
The media often reports cyclists as being verbally abusive and agressive. I can understand this as when subjected to a potentially lethal episode of road-rage the adrenaline starts pumping. However you have to remember that the person is simply reacting to a situation caused by someone else. You don't see cyclists (even the lycra louts) riding along effing and blinding at everyone they see in a car.
Here's a couple of examples I've experienced;
- Riding in bus/cycle lane stopped at traffic lights in primary position. Minibus pulls up behind me and gets on the horn. I turn round and get told to "get out of the f***ing way" as I shouldn't be in the bus lane. I point to the sign (4ft away) with a large bicycle symbol on it. He gets on the horn again. The minibus
was privately owned and had no right to use the lane.
- Riding up the outside of a queue of stationary traffic. The road has a single lane but 300m ahead it splits into two lanes. A woman with her phone to her ear pulls out of the queue, causing me to swerve violently to avoid her. She drives on the wrong side on the road causing oncoming traffic to move out of her way so she can join the queue in the second lane. As I catch up with her she winds down the window and says (unprompted) "You ought to be more careful, you'll get yourself killed riding like that."
- A group of drunk men are stood outside a pub, smoking. As I ride past (on the road, at about 20mph) one of them yells at me that I should be riding in the cycle lane (which they are standing in and totally blocking).
- Riding on a shared use path (cycles on one side, pedestrians on the other, big solid white line painted in the middle at an attempt of some sort of segregation) I see that I am approaching a woman walking here dog. She is on the "cycling" side. I slow and give a friendly whistle. She turns round and tells me not to whistle at her like she's some sort of dog, then launches into a tirade of abuse. I point out that she's walking on a cycle path. She says she's not and that bicycles aren't allowed on the pavement. I point at her feet and ask her to observe the large white painted bicycle symbol that she is stood on.
Absolutely right. Non existent highway code regulations are always highly amusing. One woman stopped her Range Rover last year to tell me that the white line running along the side of the road was for cyclists to make sure they weren't in anyone's way. This aparrently was in the Highway Code and I was advised to read it. I think it comes as a shock or at least gives pause to a lot of drivers that most cyclists do have driving licences. I even own three quite nice cars. I just like cycling as well.
As for the perception that cyclists can be agressive. That's probably stemming from the same idea that cyclists must be poor, low status people that won't answer back. There is a Transport Research Laboratory report that alluded to a hierachy that many drivers used. The bigger, more expensive your vehicle the more rights you were perceived to have. I have both a large powerful Saab and a Smart FourTwo. My own very unscientific research is that the TRL report holds true. If I drive at the speed limit in the big Saab then no bother. If I do the same thing in the Smart Car then I get hooted and flashed quite a few times. Lower status see.
It's not all that helpful but may be worth bearing in mind.
Meh. Professional angry man displays his ignorance/lack of knowledge of riding a bike by being a dick.
FWIW, if the cyclist is turning right, where else does a car driver expect him to be. Hugging the kerb until the last minute then making a 45 degree surge across the road? Looks totally normal behaviour to me. I assume he'd signalled before the picture was taken by the velcro-haired Greenwoods menswear patron? Beware angry men in slacks.
There will always be people that don't understand why you are taking the lane or are out from the curb. Probably because when I went to school back in the sixties and seventies cycling proficiency courses told you to stay close to the side of the road. In fact when my lads did cycling proficiency 5 or 6 years ago they had issues with an instructor that didn't like them being more than 2 feet from the pavement. BTW the oldest who was already cycling with a club was told to put his saddle down to the level where he could put both feet flat on the ground and still sit on the saddle. It was bonkers. I digress.
The point is not to be intimidated by numpties like Clarkson into not taking the lane. One of the reasons why they think ladies suffer more accidents is that they may not be so assertive in their riding. Idiots like Clarkson don't help. And I think the Police should go and make an example of him "pour encourager les autres".
I wouldn't care were it not for the fact there are an awful lot of petrol head automatons who hang on his every word. You only have to look at the time line of that tweet to see some of the ridiculous bile foaming from the mouths of his followers. The number of times I encounter "get out of my way" drivers in London is just downright dangerous and depressing and this just reinforces their one eyed view.
He has had the offer of cycle training and it might help if he publicly took it up.
Why are some motorists, even when you're 'taking the lane', so hell bent on getting past, often overtaking dangerously. Often you end up overtaking them again shortly afterwards and wonder why they bothered. I guess if they never cycle they 'don't get it'.
We were in a work team meeting today and the subject of lack of parking, queues etc came up. The cyclists just collectively shrugged their shoulders and grinned!
Who really cares. I don't.
Who really cares. I don't.
Devastating irony laden intellectual killer suckerpunch of the week.
Not that I care.
Excellent witty & clever response to someone deluded enough to think they're witty and clever. Wish I'd written it.
its a shame the Cyclist didnt have a helmet cam, then we would have been treated to a video of Clarkson being a knob.... oh wait, thats what his TV show is for
I am a keen car enthusiast & cyclist & I am disappointed in Jezza. He did take to two wheels recently & I would have thought the experience would have made him slightly more sympathetic towards cyclists in London. It’s a shame as it has just enraged a load of car drivers instead. What we need is someone like Jez giving a good word or two towards cyclists. The whole two tribes road tax rubbish really does upset me, most of us drive & are peds as well
Jeremy Clarkson is moron - Shocker
Has anyone, like the Police, for instance, questioned Clarkson and asked him how he managed to take that photo while he was driving? The EXIF information would be able to identify the device used in case of any doubt.
Good point.
Twitter strips EXIF data from the photograph so the police would have to do a bit more digging, tbh.
I'm disappointed in Clarkson. I love watching Top Gear but I doubt I'll find it quite as entertaining now that we have proof he's a massive dickhead.
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