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news
Video: Van driver filmed swerving at cyclist
Virgin Media says it is looking into an incident in which a driver of one of its vans was filmed swerving towards a cyclist who was overtaking it.
According to the timestamp on a video shot by the dashcam of a vehicle immediately behind the van, the incident took place on 29 June.
The footage, which was taken close to the Golden Days Garden Centre in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, was uploaded to YouTube on 31 July with the title, "Van Trying to Hit a Cyclist."
The description of the video reads: "Van driver trying to hit a cyclist twice. "
As the rider overtakes the van, the driver swerves sharply to the right, forcing the cyclist to take evasive action.
The cyclist then moves to the nearside of the vehicle, unclips and has a brief conversation with the driver, who moves the vehicle to the left.
While the general consensus on social media is that the driver deliberately swerved at the cyclist, another explanation could be that he simply did not see him and that the rider overtaking the fan coincided with the van driver deciding to overtake a vehicle in front that may be waiting to turn left into the garden centre, although that is not clear from the footage.
The incident was flagged to Virgin Media by Twitter users this morning and the company requested further details.
If you are the cyclist involved, or know who the rider is, we'd be very interested in learning what the van driver's explanation was.
Hi, Philip. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Can you confirm where and when this occurred, please? ^ZR
— Virgin Media (@virginmedia) August 6, 2017
The episode seems is reminiscent of one we reported on that happened in April in which a van driver in Sussex swerved into a cyclist, forcing him off the road.
The driver was sacked by his employers immediately they became aware of the footage.
> Sussex van driver filmed forcing cyclist off road to appear in court
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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138 comments
Wow!! That's crazy, the driver is so lucky he didn't actually hit the cyclist. Hope he's been fired and had licence suspended for that.
I totally agree with Mungecrundle.
From the moment the van driver spots the cyclist the van's movement forwards and to the side are exclusively aggressive and clearly deliberate.
Sacked and charged with at least dangerous driving must be the penalty for this idiot.
The ''law abiding'' driver who's out there dealing out vigilanty justice to cyclists who won't use cycle paths ... You can bet that the driver doesn't go up to people when he doesnt have the size advantage of van vs bike and threaten them when they cross at intersections before they get the green man symbol.
What a douche, does not deserve to be allowed to drive on public roads.
Warning - if you tweet virginmedia about the incident they attempt to get your tweet deleted and your account shut down.
That'll lose them my 70 quid a month.
Attempted vehicular assault.
Why are Virgin Media investigating this when it is clearly a case of assault for the police to look into?
Probably too busy policing people's Twitter feeds for imagined hate crimes.
Has it been reported to the police?
https://twitter.com/gmptraffic/status/894621327654617088
btw, is there a general Twitter thread for this please?
EDIT: This one? https://twitter.com/CyclingMikey/status/894461975484387328
One would wager this isn't the first time it's happened. More likely the first time the driver has been caught.
Virgin media is complete shit. I just posted this on facebook:
Virgin are really pissing me off. After two days without broadband for six hours, they sent me an email telling me they were increasing prices for their "Award-winning reliability service". And then it happened again for two days. So having failed four times in a week, they sent me a letter, which arrived on the 5th, telling me about work they were planning to do on the 2nd. As well as that, I've had seemingly endless phone calls exhorting me to get a new mobile phone, and I'm afraid I was rather less than polite to the last one. I'm investigating other isps and there seems to be quite a few out there. Whoever they are, they've got to be more competent than this shower.
Including the van driver.
I started a whole thread about this very stretch of road a while back.
http://road.cc/content/forum/216348-cycle-lane
Drivers seem to have no idea that a 'cycle lane' on the wrong side of the road is not much use if you have to cross a two fast moving lanes to use it.
Nothing but a caution for the driver by employer...maybe.
The thing is if he is seen doing this, in a liveried works can then what does he do in his own car?
Bad day? Take it out in a cyclist.
Fight with the wife ditto.
Hit the driver with a fine, points and also should be fired as he does represent his firm?
Disgraceful.
Nothing but a caution for the driver by employer...maybe.
The thing is if he is seen doing this, in a liveried works can then what does he do in his own car?
Bad day? Take it out in a cyclist.
Fight with the wife ditto.
Hit the driver with a fine, points and also should be fired as he does represent his firm?
Disgraceful.
Does it need a comment? Well, undoubtedly he's an ex-employee within a few hours of this being aired. Karma will get him, it always does: It already has. Be nice to have seen the driver's reaction when he was told that there was someone behind during this incident, with a camera.......
must be some sort of coded message here...can only presume that "I was pulling out to overtake a car turning into a garden centre" is some some sort of variation on "I was blinded by the sun"...anyone watching the video and believing the van driver intended an overtake must fall in that percentage of the population that should never be allowed a driving license...hope keeps his job but has to cycle to appointments...hope the police pursue it and the courts give a good license suspension and that it gets plenty of publicity...might be dreaming there...certainly I've had a couple of incidents recently where I reckon I've seen the driver looking to see if a camera after the event...hopefully those people that can think will start to think twice before being dangerously aggressive
Google 'Operation Considerate - Reporting' and make sure this is reported. It will be taken seriously.
There's an eight second gap in the traffic when they both try to pull out, more than enough time for a white van man.
Again, countersteering
Why did he move left before swinging right? Because 90 % of drivers think they're driving in a rally and thats what you do to go around a corner, swing one way then the other. They call it counter steering, cant believe you've never seen an idiot do this instead of slowing when the approach a junction. The bad part is he obviously didnt check his mirrors first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering
Maybe it is being investigated by the police. We don't know who the cyclist was (road.cc is asking for them to come forward), so isn't it possible (devil's advocate) that a complaint was already made? Do the police accept "third-party" complaints (ie. from the person in the following vehicle, not the the cyclist)?
Another possibility is that the van driver doesn't want to let the cyclist overtake him as then he will be forced to travel at 15 mph when the cyclist hogs the lane making it difficult to get past.
You do know this is a cycling website... for people who ride bikes on the road?
However, in response to your comment, 15mph would be a hell of a lot faster than that van was driving... maybe if a few more people got on their bikes, that van driver would not be caught in congestion.
Also in response... in 20+ years of motoring, I've never come across a cyclist making it difficult to pass them. I've come across plenty of cyclists simply riding along where road infratructure and / or traffic volume have meant it was not safe to pass for a period of time (generally not very long at all)... there is a distinct difference.
As for this van driver... countersteering my backside. It was deliberate.
What worries me more, is people putting forward the overtake as an option. Why, where, how was the van going to overtake? Overtake the whole queue of traffic? overtake into oncoming traffic.... if you were going to do that, why sit in a queue patiently before overtaking at that particular time.
There is no reason, nothing to suggest that the van driver was overtaking, only in the minds of the minority who feel indoctrinated to defend the motorist at all costs.
What information am I missing that suggest that the violent swerve to the right, following the defensive move to the left was not a deliberate attempty to halt the path of the cyclist.
Wondering what his previous overtake was like - when the footage starts, we see the van then the cyclist, so it's possible there's already been one event or confrontation.
All the Virgin liveried vans I see around these parts (South Manchester) also include the name "Kelly Communications", part of Kelly Group (kelly dot co dot uk).
No, just no.
He could not have possibly overtaken the entire queue of traffic in front of him in the 9 second gap between the blocking manuever and the car coming towards the van..... so rule out overtaking.
And it was not a U turn either, because of the fact that he could not have completed the maneuver in one turn (again into the face of oncoming traffic) and secondly if he was going to U turn why after the discussion with the cyclist did he continue on with his journey.
Nothing about the way the driver acted is ever going to convince me that this was anything other than a deliberate attempt to prevent the cyclist from making progress by way of filtering.
This was not careless driving, it was not dangerous driving it was assault with a deadly weapon
If you actually read the wikipedia article you linked to, you'd see that countersteering is something that motorbikes and bicycles do, not vans. The only reason you'd steer the wrong way in a rally is to control the way the car handles loose surfaces and/or under/oversteer. There is absolutely no reason that this van driver would steer left and then sharply right other than to attempt to prevent the cyclist overtaking.
What Jumbotron said x 1000
This also applies to every other bit of half arsed cycle infrasture in the UK. The councils only put in bike lanes so they can increase the speed limit or develop business when planning permision requires cycling provision.
It's cycnical and duplicitous, the real question is why does this happen in the UK and not the rest of Europe?
The answers is we keep selecting corporate fags as MP's and Councillors.
Maybe the van is rear-wheel drive, and maybe it was going much quicker than it appears in the video.
And maybe the road is shale, not tarmac as it appears, and it is actually on a bend, not straight as it appears in the video, and the driver was just about to have a good old drift around it.
Or maybe spen is in a hole and can't stop digging.
This is exactly my commute home!
30 mins earlier and it probably would've been me being filmed. The traffic on this road backs up for a long way as there are 2 sets of traffic lights in a very short space. On the RHS is a multiuse path for cyclists and pedestrians but this is normally only used by cyclists who are going in the other direction, most cyclists stay on the road when going in the direction that this cyclist is going in.
What an absolutely idiotic manoeuver by the van driver. He is obviously annoyed that he’s going to be stuck in traffic for around 20mins and wasn’t happy that a cyclist was going to overtake him.
Those commercial vans all have stickers on them now pointing to the LHS stating how it’s dangerous to undertake, what are you supposed to do???
OK, I'll bite:
- The van is crawling along at less than walking pace in a huge queue of traffic.
- The road is wide enough that the van would easily be able to overtake a cyclist, just as it's plenty wide enough for the cyclist to overtake the van if the driver wasn't a prick.
- No cyclist would put himself in danger by swerving across the road to prevent being overtaken by two tons of moving van.
Even in the highly unlikely event that the traffic disappears, the road narrows and the cyclist swerves around for no good reason, does any of that justify the actions of the van driver that could easily have resulted in serious injury or death?
Enough polite reasoning - you're either a troll or a moron. Probably both.
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