Video: [Updated] Police appeal for attacked rider to come forward after London confrontation turns violent

We’ve all been tempted to give an earful to a driver who does something stupid, but as this helmet cam video shows, drivers who don’t care about the road rules sometimes carry passengers who have short tempers and poor impulse control.

[Update January 27] Police have appealed for the rider involved to come forward so that they can investigate the incident in which the rider remonstrates with a driver and is subsequently punched and knocked to the ground. According to the Evening Standard, a police spokesman said they were keen to speak to the cycle rage victim should he want to report the incident which happened at around 9.15am on Thursday in Farringdon Road, London.

In the comments on the video, the helmet cam rider George 'Jude' Hill says: “I have reported this to the police, I am trying to find the cyclist as I tried to tell him I had it on video, but he looked pretty dazed. Need him to report the incident in order to get prosecutions. Could you all share this as widely as possible to try and find him?”

In the video you see a white Audi stopped just outside the advanced stop box of a junction in Farringdon. George stops just behind the box, next to the car, and two other cyclists ride past him into the box.

The driver of the Audi then drives into the box. A rider in a black beanie pulls back from the stop line and shouts at the driver that this is a cycle area. When the lights change, the driver accelerates quickly away.

The rider in the beanie comes past George Hill and follows the white Audi. He is seen shouting at the driver at the next lights, calling him a “F*cking prick” and saying something that sounds like: “You ran over my f*cking foot mate.” (It's unclear from the video whether that is what happened.)

Hill rides past the altercation and by the time he turns round a man in a white shirt is standing next to the car, in front of the angry cyclist. You see him apparently attempt to punch the rider and then shove him, pushing him off his bike.

There’s more angry shouting as the rider picks himself up and gets back on his bike. The man in the white shirt then gets into the back of the Audi.

George attempts to get the rider’s attention but he rides away, back in the direction he’d come from.

As George implies, without a complaint from the rider who was hit the police are very unlikely to take action, despite the video.

In May last year the Mayor of London's cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan pledged to start enforcing advanced stop lines, using CCTV cameras to catch infringers. He reiterated the point in August and during last year's Operation Safeway road safety crackdown, over 1,000 fixed penalty notices were issued to drivers for contravening traffic signals.

But we’ll leave the last word to YouTube commenter Jon: “Be safe out there, cyclists! Remember that you're dealing with angry idiots in 2 ton metal death machines.”