Dashcam footage has emerged of a cyclist lifting his bike and smashing the windscreen of a car, with the driver saying that the rider had claimed that she had driven in a cycle lane.
Video of the rider breaking the windscreen of Tracey Leng’s car was posted to Twitter by BBC North West Tonight, with the Manchester Evening News publishing a longer video of the incident.
An angry cyclist who claimed motorist strayed into cycle lane smashes woman’s windscreen as she drives to Mcr hospital to see sick mother. pic.twitter.com/JqoYTRwLAr
— North West Tonight (@BBCNWT) March 27, 2017
It happened as Mrs Leng, aged 50, drove with her husband to visit her mother, 69, who is seriously ill in Manchester Royal Infirmary and is due to undergo potentially life-saving surgery this week.
As Mrs Leng waited at traffic lights on Hathersage Road in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, the cyclist rode past her then turned around and approached the vehicle.
He twice seems to be about to ride away before turning around, the second time ending with him raising his bike and smashing the windscreen of Mrs Leng’s Skoda Octavia.
He then rode off through the Manchester Royal Infirmary site despite Mrs Leng – who denied she had veered into a cycle lane – and her husband attempting to follow him.
Greater Manchester Police have obtained a DNA sample from the saliva of the suspect, who spat at the vehicle, and officers are appealing for information to help track him down.
Mrs Leng told the Manchester Evening News: “We’re still in a state of shock about it.
“We don’t know why he was so angry. There was no clear cycle lane and even if there was I definitely wasn’t in it.
“He started shouting and swearing but as soon as we told him it was all being caught on the dashcam he totally flipped.
“We were totally numb after he threw the bike.
“There was a big loud crack, we didn’t if the whole window was going to shatter. It was really frightening, we didn’t know what he might do next.”
Mrs Leng said the timing could not be worse due to her mother’s impending surgery.
“Things are bad enough at the moment,” she said.
“It completely ruined Mother’s Day as we had to cancel a meal and cut short visiting my mum to deal with the police
“But more importantly my car is off the road now at a time when we really need it to get to the hospital
“I was just so uncalled for, I cannot understand why anyone would do something like that.”
Anyone who has information is requested to contact Greater Manchester Police on 101 quoting incident number 1873 of March 26 or the charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
82 thoughts on “Video: Cyclist uses bike to smash car windscreen after claiming motorist veered into cycle lane”
Hopefully the dashcam footage
Hopefully the dashcam footage would show what happened before the incident, but the video is showing as not available on the Manchester Evening News site. Seems like spitting is a stupid thing to do if you want to not be found, but then I don’t condone damaging your bike against cars either.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Video worked now, seems to clearly show the car in the cycle lane, but still in no way condones using the bike as a weapon. The fact they’ve removed the audio hints at someone not wanting the “entire” truth being known to the public.
StuInNorway wrote:
I tried it in a different browser and it worked. It does look like the car was encroaching the bike lane and I must admit that I’ve often had words with drivers like that. Luckily common sense has prevailed before the situation escalated – it’s always better to just cycle off and cool down.
Having helmet cams can be helpful as it means you don’t need to confront bad drivers – you can rely on having good footage and send it to the police later on if the evidence is clear enough.
“There was no clear cycle
“There was no clear cycle lane and even if there was I definitely wasn’t in it.”
DNA test for insured property damage.
No sound, I suspect they were blowing the horn.
Still pretty dumb to throw bikes at cars.
I see a lot of the usual pro
I see a lot of the usual pro-cycling types are popping up to suggest that the driver must have done something wrong to provoke such a reaction. That stretches the bounds of credulity.
In addition I would like to draw to your attention that SHE HAD A SICK MOTHER so no matter what she might have done she ought to be extended extra consideration and exemption from traffic rules.
People’s inability to understand this reminds me of these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqJni5nl9w
Ush wrote:
Eh??
My dad’s dead what exemptions can I get?
Stupid from the cyclist, but thats a really dumb comment Ush.
Mackadoo wrote:
It’s sarcasm. What has happened to the English, you used to excel in it.
Jackson wrote:
Eh??
My dad’s dead what exemptions can I get?
Stupid from the cyclist, but thats a really dumb comment Ush.
— Mackadoo It’s sarcasm. What has happened to the English, you used to excel in it.— Ush
Apologies to Ush-sorry! Just watched the video, I did wonder, maybe I should have wondered a bit more.
Mackadoo wrote:
No problem. Sarcasm isn’t best suited to the internet. Geniunely sorry about your Dad. It could be any of us.
Ush wrote:
What actually stretches the bounds of credibility is that the cyclist did this without her having done something wrong and potentially frightening.
In addition I would like to draw to your attention that SHE HAD A SICK MOTHER so no matter what she might have done she ought to be extended extra consideration and exemption from traffic rules.
— Ush
If she was too concerned about her sick mother she should not have been driving at all. Having a sick mother is very sad, but not a free pass to break traffic laws.
Ush wrote:
Please be sarcasm. Please be sarcasm. Please be sarcasm.
Ush wrote:
In addition I would like to draw to your attention that SHE HAD A SICK MOTHER so no matter what she might have done she ought to be extended extra consideration and exemption from traffic rules.
— UshLike any such reaction, the perpetrator should no longer be allowed to use the roads.
What you’re suggesting – that someone should have special dispensation from the law due to having a sick mother – is sheer lunacy at best though. What an idiotic comment.
And the fact that the media uses it as an excuse on behalf of the driver shows how wrong peoples attitudes are.
Ush wrote:
Just about the most idiotic post I have ever seen. The guy should not have either spat or smashed her windscreen just take that as read.
“I see a lot of the usual pro-cycling types are popping up to suggest that the driver must have done something wrong to provoke such a reaction.”
Indeed she had her own dash cam shows her driving in the cycle lane that she says she didn’t know was there and she wasn’t in. So that’s due care and attention or just plain lying. The sound has been removed and the suspicion is that she was well on the horn whilst driving up a cycle lane. If you had been cycling along in a cycle lane and some mad lunatic drives up it scaring the bejesus out of you with a horn then it might get you quite angry.
Then we have this rubbish:
“In addition I would like to draw to your attention that SHE HAD A SICK MOTHER so no matter what she might have done she ought to be extended extra consideration and exemption from traffic rules.”
Any particular ones? or just all of them. How does that work for everyone else on the road. She or anyone else feeling anxious or worried can just do what they like in a car and tell the cops they were feeling a bit sad or worried about their Nan or their kids, or their partner or maybe their dog has worms or something.
1 How was the angry cyclist supposed to know she had a sick mother. Has she got a sticker on the car?
2 If she’s too emotionally upset to drive properly then she shouldn’t be driving a car
3 If you claim you shouldn’t be prosecuted for traffic violations or bad driving because you are too emotionally upset to take responsibility then you should get prosecuted first for the offence and then secondly for driving whilst not psychologically fit to do so.
check the advice:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/psychiatric-disorders-assessing-fitness-to-drive
None of this excuses the cyclist for spitting and smashing her windscreen.
oozaveared wrote:
My apologies to Ush. I didn’t realise this was sarcasm. I just thought it was trolling. Should have looked more carefully.
oozaveared wrote:
dude, you can’t write 10,000 words of unjust criticism and then just a single line of apology!
oozaveared wrote:
The horrible thing is that there actually a number of people capable of believing and expressing the exact thoughts I was trying to parody. I am sure we’ve all been in conversations at work or in the pub where someone has actually made similar arguments.
I wouldn’t do what the cyclist did here… but I have little doubt that the Oh-Look-At-Poor-Little-Me woman posting this video was involved in something pretty heinous just before the video starts.
No doubt the police will
No doubt the police will allocate a lot of resources and public appeals for information to track down cyclist, yet will take no action against driver in cycle lane.
We cannot condone the cyclists actions, what a fool to risk damaging his bike.
When police do nothing in
When police do nothing in cases of car drivers assaulting and killing cyclists, I find it hard to get too bothered about this. Of course it’s sad people feel they have to take the law into their own hands, but next time a car driver knocks one of us off let’s see if they put the CSI DNA testing people on the case to catch the driver.
Not condoning the dick on a
Not condoning the dick on a bikes behaviour but CSI and DNA evidence? Really? Bit overkill isn’t it? Considering the frequency we see videos of drivers almost killing cyclists with police statements that no action is deemed necessary.
Yeah she’s in the cycle lane
Yeah she’s in the cycle lane and up for an argument, but you can’t smash someone’s windscreen because they said nasty words. Totally unnecessary confrontation on both sides, but no justification for the cyclists actions.
It’ll literally just be swobbing the spit and running through the system.
pjm60 wrote:
But the fact that they called out a SOCO for this is ridiculous.
There is clearly a cycle lane
There is clearly a cycle lane but its only one of those waste of paint discretionary lanes which cars can enter leading to an equally useless advance stop line. She certainly wasn’t blocking the lane and he acted like a total dick.
And in other news, Killer
And in other news, Killer driver who ran over a dad-of-four without realising walks free from court. But let’s deal with the important stuff first.
Argos74 wrote:
Well said.
What actaully strikes me in this is sadness that the police take damage to a car made by a person more seriously than they take damage to people made by cars (or yes other people in cars).
The guy with a bike is
The guy with a bike is totally over reacting but would have been good to see 10 seconds earlier of the video, to get a fuller picture, the car seems to be a little over to the left of the lane and pssibly in the cycle lane. And yes this is something to be referenced when the gm police ignore / are blasé about cars knocking cyclist over.
Nobody died…
Nobody died…
Video is edited, or it is no
Video is edited, or it is no dashcam. The point of view is moving.
jerome wrote:
Yup – with the view of the windscreen surround, I’d go for hand-held mobile.
Dr_Lex wrote:
Yes the POV moves, but is steady before and after, I would say dash cam on a universal joint.
No excuse for the altercation though, even if the car had crossed over the magic white line of protection.
It’s just a thug who happens
It’s just a thug who happens to be on a bike, likely stolen, looking for an argument. Little oik deserves everything he gets. The driver albeit slightly over the line hardly veered.
@ush and mackadoo
@ush and mackadoo
Well done both.
car driver was asking for it.
car driver was asking for it…should have been wearing hi viz and a helmet
Bizarrely, this is just yards
Bizarrely, this is just yards away from the spot featured in ‘photoflippinggate’ from a couple of weeks ago. This is Hathersage Road, and there is a bit of a lane at the end there, but it is just 10 yards to filter to the box not an actual lane further back. The road is very narrow, this cannot be the only reason. There are temp lights and road works at the moment, so it is entirely possible she squeezed past when she shouldn’t have earlier. So it seems the video is quite out of context without seeing what proceeded.
Even so it does seem a bit of an over reaction. I can understand her feelings. I too have an elderly mother, all my other immediate ancestors are dead, thousands of them, dead, including my grandfather murdered by the Japanese! I am so distressed, perhaps only a free bike could relieve this anxiety, a Canyon CF slx 9.0 Aero, no disc, thanks.
On the same newspaper web
On the same newspaper web page:
“Killer driver who mowed down a dad-of-four without realising walks free from court”
While I find it difficult to condone violence against the car, no-one was injured, so a bit of a non-story, a bit like all the punishment passes which don’t actually kill the cyclist. I’ve frequently felt like doing something similar when the victim of particularly bad driving.
Does remind me of a similar situation in the USA about thirty years ago, when there was a spate of drivers shooting other drivers who had offended them with their driving. Apparently driving standards suddenly improved and levels of courtesy on the roads were unprecedented. Perhaps we need a few more violent cyclists to intimidate the drivers? After all, they get away with it 24/7/365.
Whilst obviously an extreme
Whilst obviously an extreme case, maybe these stupid drivers deserve to be confronted. She clearly has no idea what a cycling lane is and shouldn’t have a licence. Funnily enough as always, on a news website I saw this story and it basically made out that the cyclist rode past and decided to stop and throw his bike through her windscreen….
looks like the guy was about
looks like the guy was about to ride off and be on his merry way when something was said
maybe they had a go at him for riding on the pavement, unaware that he was only doing that because they had blocked the cycle lane, and he over-reacted slightly – as already pointed out, the sound is possibly muted for a reason
windscreens are usually insured and two a penny – had he wanted to cause them real bother he would’ve taken the rear one out
There are a lot of drivers
There are a lot of drivers who deserve having a bike smashed thru their windshield. If I ever get angry/stupid/crazy enough to actually do it I’ll have to enlist the help of another road user: “Excuse me, may I borrow your heavy mountain bike? I’d like to put it thru that cars’ windshield. If I use mine I think the only damage to be done will be to my wallet”.
Christopher TR1 wrote:
Well there is another way…and it is much cheaper…
The _Kaner wrote:
The seatbelt cutter would make you liable for prosecution for possession of a bladed article, probably even if you used it for freeing a trapped motorist.
I doubt the police are going to charge for the careless driving of veering into the advisory cycle lane. But pursuing like they did – heck even driving at all – with the windshield in that state, had to be dangerous driving (not that careless driving isn’t dangerous).
DNA test?
DNA test?
I had a bus cross to the opposite side of the road and drive directly at me and cant even get to speak to a copper about it.
Whilst people on bikes know there not going to get anything from the state they’ll sort these things out themselves.
IanW1968 wrote:
Agreed. If I were a car driver I would be very worried about the poor image of my fellow drivers. Speaking purely for myself my respect for society, co-operation and law is eroded by the actions of a significant minority of drivers and the lack of action by police forces in curbing their criminality.
I do always raise an eyebrow
I do always raise an eyebrow as to why private cars have dashcams.
Makes me wonder if they have a in proportionate amount of negative interactions with other road users.
Biscuitfrisky wrote:
Daily Fail readers, trying to be offended by something?
Biscuitfrisky wrote:
In fairness, there have been more than a few occasions when car dashcams have caught out dangerous behaviour by other motorists towards cyclists or pedestrians (fairly sure some have featured on this very site).
Dashcams probably increase in proportion to reduction in policing of the roads.
That’s what you get when you
That’s what you get when you park in the middle of my segment. Don’t f**k with my KOM day and I won’t f**k with your windscreen.
unconstituted wrote:
My mate texted me the other day after having to abort his attempt to regain his KOM.
Bradley F@cking Wiggins was filming a Skoda advert and the area was blocked. I think that deserved bike through windscreen.
There seems to be a lot of
There seems to be a lot of people sympathising with the guy smashing an occupied car up with a 15kg piece of metal and not a lot of sympathy with the occupants of the car, who may or may not have made a mistake by drifting into a very badly marked advisory cycle lane.
Am I weird in thinking that the guy who resorted to violence is the villain (literally) here?
MonkeyPuzzle wrote:
Not at all – of course what he did was both criminal and morally appalling (maybe he was both on his way to a crack deal _and_ on a Strava segment?)
But I _still_ find myself wondering how the Daily Mail would react to this as opposed to, say, the white van man going round punching cyclists and runners. Any double-standards here are more than matched by the wider media.
MonkeyPuzzle wrote:
Yes. People with a 1500kg piece of metal should be paying attention.
Having watched the longer
Having watched the longer footage on the MEN website there is a need for sound to get the full picture (as well as footage of the driving 2 minutes before the incident, the same as is required for prosecution based on helmet cam footage). Without sound it looks like initially the cyclist just turned round to either berate the driver for doing something wrong (either current road position or something prior) or is responding to abuse shouted from the car initially. The fact that he then goes up to the car to engage and tries to leave a couple of times would indicate that the car occupant(s) continued to argue/hurl abuse. I find it hard to believe that someone who looks like they were trying to walk away and carry on was not provoked when trying to leave.
The drivers personal situation is irrelevant in my opinion but if it is relevant in others opinions does it make it OK if the cyclist has both parents in hospital and was on his way to see them?
There is of course no excuse for this sort of behaviour and no-one should resort to this, two wrongs do not make a right. Lets find out though if it was two wrongs though…
Of course there were two
Of course there were two wrongs here… Even lunatics don’t just throw bikes through windscreens.
There was clearly provocation.
However, as the saying goes, two wrongs, don’t make a right, and criminal damage is a lot easier to prove than careless driving etc. etc.
I think the way these stories are reported is actually dangerous.
I’d imagine most of on here are relatively grounded members of the community, however people commenting are generally more drawn to understanding why this happened rather than simply being appauled and wondering how to catch the perpetrator.
I don’t think thats a problem with the our moral compasses, I think it is a natural reaction to how the story has been presented.
This whole thing stinks. No
This whole thing stinks. No sound? Edited to a short clip? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a blaring horn plus a spittle-flecked passenger abusing the guy as he rode along. If this was the case then I’d probably find myself cheering on the guy on the bike.
What stinks is all those
What stinks is all those jumping to the defence of the alleged perpetrator of a violent act simply because he happens to be riding a bicycle or at least using one as a weapon to inflict criminal damage to property.
Maybe his rage was justifiable (in his head) but seems to me he was neither cornered or acting in self defence.
If you seek to condone, explain or exonerate this action based on the evidence you have available from the scant detail in this news story and associated selectively edited video, then you are no better than the supporters of drivers who deliberately run cyclists off the road or otherwise seek to intimidate vulnerable road users based on the assumption that they must have done something to deserve such retaliation.
If you witnessed this incident or know the person involved then I would encourage you to report those details to to the Police.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Nope, damaging someone’s windscreen is entirely different to trying to injure/kill someone with a 1500kg lethal implement!
wow, the Mr Angry role didn’t
wow, the Mr Angry role didn’t take long to fill
Looks like the car was in the
Looks like the car was in the cycle lane but there’s nothing in that video that comes anywhere near excusing that behaviour.
Two wrongs don’t make a right
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts can.
Leviathan wrote:
my great aunt used to drive like that – never made a right turn in her life!
beezus fufoon wrote:
There’s a good Mythbusters episode where they try to figure out if you can economize on fuel and/or time by only taking right turns: http://www.gpsreview.net/right-turn-efficiency/
First of all I do not condone
First of all I do not condone the cyclists overreaction in any way shape or form, and he is the kind of person that gives all cyclists a bad name. The person requires to be prosecuted to the best ability of the law and they have a crystal clear image of his face and DNA to deal with the prosecution. That kind of action just feeds the “All cyclists should have Number Plates” band of anti-cyclists.
But just compare and contrast with this incident http://road.cc/content/news/219417-police-seek-cheltenham-races-reveller-who-rugby-tackled-cyclist
The police are simply seeking witnesses and that’s it. Yet the cheltenham incident seems to be a far worse incident due to the fact that the cyclist has a broken pelvis, yet the police are only seeking witnesses.
Down to the “look at that cyclist thug” mentality for this one and the “it’s only a cyclist” mentality in the second case?
As far as seeing the cycle lane… there is one and the driver has positioned their car firmly in it. As is fairly commonplace in the cycle lanes in the run up to the ASL at traffic lights there is a lane in the run up to this on the left hand side.
In the image I have attached (from the full version of the video on the MEN website) you can see the VW polo sitting beside the bike lane with the cyclist next to the VW polo. But the camera car is quite clearly sitting a good 2 or 3 feet further to the left than the VW polo, ergo blocking the lane approaching the traffic lights.
And out of question…. why the sob story about her mother being ill? If anything it does nothing to garner sympathy from me, but quite the opposite…. it makes me question her ability to drive in a safe and competent manner due to being preoccupied with her mothers condition.
craigstitt wrote:
Does one drunk bloke starting a fight give all people who like a beer a bad name? No.
If one bus driver is found guilty of assaulting another road user it doesn’t mean everyone with a driving license is tarred.
So why is the action of one aggressive person – who happens to be on a bike – give anyone but himself a bad name?
Also, that’s not a cycle lane, just some faded white paint that everyone ignores.
Simon E wrote:
I say that because if you read any non-cycling website based interpretation the vast majority of people in the comments will make a sweeping generalisation about cyclists.
And it is cycle lane which has force of law… under the RTA s.36
craigstitt wrote:
ah, the lowest common denominator argument – it’s people like you that are responsible for saturday night television schedules
the (quite accurate) perception of some people being idiots is really not a good reason to base any sort of decision on
craigstitt wrote:
Eh? I think I can understand the words, but can’t bend my head round this reasoning.
You’re justifying the ‘giving us all a bad name’ nonsense because a bunch of Mail loonies would agree with you???
Does anyone know if the
Does anyone know if the Manchester Evening News is a reputable newspaper? Is there any chance this is a hoax?
If they turn the sound back
If they turn the sound back on and the lune had offered to smash the windscreen and the passenger shouted “come on then” or similar, then maybe the lune can claim he was invited to do so and therefore innocent of any crime.
I once accidentally clipped a
I once accidentally clipped a wing mirror (40 yards) with a d-lock after the motorist collided with me for a third time. Felt good that did!
alansmurphy wrote:
I hope you got it back (or do d-locks return, like boomerangs?)
you get plenty of nutters and
you get plenty of nutters and villains who do a few miles here and there on sub 100 quid full suss rusted up beasts, of course, but the disturbing thing here is his id necklace, which implies a decent job
real moment of regretful madness
Bob Wheeler CX wrote:
oh, you mean the lanyard – implies he’s probably paid minimum wage!
“There was no cycle lane and
“There was no cycle lane and even if there was I wasn’t in it” – ah, wonderful comment from the driver. I tend to agree with others that there was probably more going on than we know, if only because this method of assault seems way too extreme for “having a bad day”. But to those claiming that he “makes all cyclists look bad” I say, “Grow up, and don’t be so ridiculous!”
>People’s inability to
>People’s inability to understand this reminds me of these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqJni5nl9w
my god, did anybody else spend many, many hours watching these videos? If you think the nutcase with the mountain bike is a bit zero tolerance, you really should check out that lot from Russia. It It seems they’re an “anti-rudeness” group, who take a prettty no-nonsense approach to tackling pavement parking.
Basically, they gather on pavements that drivers illegally drive on, stand in their way, and politely ask them to go back onto the road and park legally, with hilarious results. Their main weapon seems to be a dry cynicism, but they also have these giant windscreen stickers that look really hard to scrape off, and occasionally pepper spray when it gets really tasty. Sometimes just the sight of the sticker sends the driver fleeing, but otherwise it’s fairly thin arguments about traffic law, threatening mafia violence and giant, Asterix-style punch ups. It looks like a few of the activists have done their military service, some top-drawer self defence skills on display
I’m sure I’ll get tired of them eventually, but it’s certainly a different approach.
but that bloke in Manchester was a dick though. Needs to get himself some philsophical arguments and a sticker that is really, really hard to peel off …
riotgibbon wrote:
Yes. Yes I did spend longer than necessary watching them with a kind of righteous glee. They certainly seem to know how to protest effectively – they’re calm, polite and non-violent until they have to defend themselves (which they do effectively and non-aggressively). I don’t understand why the woman protesting about her sick child spent so long arguing with them – it was obvious they weren’t going to back down (nor should they).
I’d like to classify the Manchester bloke as a dick, but I’d rather hear the dashcam footage first before judging him as I’ve been in similar situations myself (though I’m sure some car drivers would consider me to be a dick).
hawkinspeter wrote:
Their (as riotgibbon points out) hours of videos show how freaking entitled, selfish and anti-social/criminal some car drivers are. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to describe their behaviour as a bit insane. In that particular video the woman is lying through her teeth about the sick child.
Watching the special pleading / excuses is interesting. Makes me wonder what it’s like being a policeman with people always trying to bullshit their way out of obvious wrongdoing.
Ush wrote:
doing a bit more reading, I’ve seen suggestions that they’re a part of Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth group, and that they have the personal blessing of Putin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StopHam_(organization)
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/we-talked-to-the-guy-behind-stopxam-206
you never really know what’s going on in Russia, who is behind what, which I think is the idea …
riotgibbon wrote:
Interesting. Hadn’t read those. In some of the videos people keep on saying “your organization is banned” and they respond “not any more”. So at some stage I guess they were considered a problem. The link to Nashi seems a bit slim.. just that the founders of StopXam were also members of Nashi. And as I didn’t know anything about Nashi I found the wikipedia article about them interesting: anyone criticized by the nuts of the National Bolshevik organization must be doing something right 🙂
In any event, I like what they’re doing. Imagine if we could get all the Young Tories out working as volunteer PCSOs to get cars out of bike lanes!
So elderly driver affronts
So elderly driver affronts cyclist and deserves to be assaulted? I don’t think so, any more than cyclist affronts driver and deserves to be driven at..
RMurphy195 wrote:
Oh so at first it was an apparently rabid cyclist smashing a 50 year old’s windscreen. Now it’s a rabid cyclist assaulting the elderly.
Post-truth age and all that.
RMurphy195 wrote:
The driver was fifty – in what world is that “elderly”?? The passenger was elderly (I think eighty counts…).
I’m also pretty sure nobody has said the driver “deserved” it. Most people agree that the cyclist was a twunt, but that there may have been something happening before the clip – or spoken – which lit the blue touch paper, so to speak.
(An aside, and totally OT, but did you see last week about a genuinely elderly driver who killed a child because he didn’t want to wear his glasses and literally didn’t see the traffic lights or the child and her mum crossing…? Roll on annual re-tests beyond a certain age, I say).
brooksby wrote:
According to MEN:
Driver 50
Mother of driver in hospital not in car 69
Passenger (husband) 44
Not sure why ages are relevant at all in most news reports but none of those involved in the incident are elderly.
atgni wrote:
The driver was fifty – in what world is that “elderly”?? The passenger was elderly (I think eighty counts…).
I’m also pretty sure nobody has said the driver “deserved” it. Most people agree that the cyclist was a twunt, but that there may have been something happening before the clip – or spoken – which lit the blue touch paper, so to speak.
(An aside, and totally OT, but did you see last week about a genuinely elderly driver who killed a child because he didn’t want to wear his glasses and literally didn’t see the traffic lights or the child and her mum crossing…? Roll on annual re-tests beyond a certain age, I say).
— brooksby According to MEN: Driver 50 Mother of driver in hospital not in car 69 Passenger (husband) 44 Not sure why ages are relevant at all in most news reports but none of those involved in the incident are elderly.— RMurphy195
Heh! I completely misread that article. I’d thought that Mum was in the car with Mrs “there wasn’t a cycle lane but even if there was I wasn’t in it”, not the husband. Sorry about that (Shakes head, reaches for the coffee).
RMurphy195 wrote:
Elderly? What’s that got to do with anything or are you implying that the driver was incompetent due to age?
Assaulted? It looked to me as though the cyclist very deliberately targeted the windshield and used just enough force for it to crack. It wasn’t a wild swing that luckily only damaged the windshield. It was an assault on property (if that’s even a thing).
When cyclists are driven at, the cyclist is generally in fear of their safety as you can’t really target a bike without hurting the cyclist, especially when using a tonne of metal.
In an ideal world, nobody’s property should be damaged, but out on the lawless streets, tempers can flare.