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CCTV footage captures Boris Johnson's cycling "near death experience"

Mayor of London, Transport Minister, and top adviser have lucky escape

Dramatic CCTV footage (below) caught what London Mayor Boris Johnson described as a "near death experience" last Friday morning while he was cycling on the streets of London. The mayor was out riding on a prospective route for one of the 'cycling super-highways" mooted for the capital accompanied by Transport Minister Lord Adonis and the Mayor's head of transport policy, Kulveer Ranger.

The three were amongst a group of cyclists who can be seen coming around a bend on the street in Canary Wharf when they are overtaken by a fairly fast moving recycling lorry. As it passes the group one of the lorry's rear doors swings open hitting one parked car and then hooking on to another and flnging it across the road into the path of the cyclists who are obscured by the back of the lorry.

In the CCTV footage the lorry driver can be seen getting out of his cab and inspecting the damage to the cars… his day then takes a real turn for the worse when Boris appears, bike helmet in hand and scratching his head, which given the circumstances was admirably restrained of him.

Boris did managed to extract one positive from the experience as an aide to the mayor told the Guardian An aide to the mayor said: "It was pretty awful. "They were shaken up and Boris was shocked. But it makes the case even more for his super highways."

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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OldRidgeback | 14 years ago
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Interesting - I know scrap lorries and skip lorries are involved in a disproportionately high number of accidents, many of which relate to poor driving and poor vehicle condition. I remember reading statistics on this somewhere, might have been info from the DfT.

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SimpleSimon | 14 years ago
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Not sure what is more dangerous in London now - cycling or parking!

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hammergonewest | 14 years ago
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Or what went through his mind when Boris suddenly hove into view

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wild man replied to hammergonewest | 14 years ago
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Bloody hell, that was frightening.

You'd have thought Ken Livingstone would have got over it by now...

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PzychotropicMac | 14 years ago
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wonder what sort of a meeting the driver had with his boss after that.

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neilwheel | 14 years ago
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Isn't it amazing how Boris can tell, almost by some kind of strange instinct, there's a camera present and push his way into the shot!

Allegedly.

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