No charges for road rage van driver who assaulted cyclist (+ video of incident)

Just hang on a minute. This is an incident where the Police concerned have stated, rightly or wrongly, that their hands are tied. A regular poster on here, who also happens to be a Police Officer, concurs and notes that these are rules which he has to abide by. Note also that like the rest of us, he can only go off the info provided in the article, so is commenting in a general sense.

Thus, this regular poster on here (over a thousand posts no less) has been personally insulted and told to 'ride a bike for a week' - by a person who has been a road.cc user for about the same amount of time (and being active on here far far less).

How the f*** did frustration at the system turn into justification to hurl abuse at a fellow road.cc member who is just one person and not even involved in the incident? Did you also burn an effigy of a recently deceased former PM, and riot in the streets when the opportunity presented itself?

Anyone who thinks that is acceptable is no more than low life themselves and needs to grow the f*** up.

It seems absolutely ridiculous that someone can assualt another person on camera no less, and yet manage to get away with a caution because it is their first offense. I can't understand that but all that effectively does is tell the driver that he didn't really do anything wrong. I bet it isn't his actual first offense, but it is the first time its happened on camera. I'm sure you don't go from nothing to chasing someone, along a couple of roads, jumping out of your vehicle and chasing them punching kicking and throwing them to the ground. There has to have been something before that was either unreported or not taken further. I doubt it will be his last offense either, given he clearly seems to have anger issues. I'm sure the lack of actual punishment here will have done nothing to curb his violent tendencies. And is a f'ing liar having initially claimed he and the van were kicked.

Civil action for assault, physical and mental injury etc?

This is the sort of thing that makes me scared to go out on the bike.

I've been lucky (or unlucky depending how you look at it) to have a lot of full contact fighting experience. Boxing, kickboxing and MMA mostly. There's only one way I could imagine that situation going if that fat little prick did that to me.

The way my luck has been though, the police would probably roll round the corner just as I remove his face and arrest me for assaulting a motorist!

FYI, don't let loose on the police for this guys, they literary can't do anything about it- I'm sure most POs would love to remove this chubby little pest from our generally nice society.

This sounds like a load of old nonsense to me. If someone was caught on CCTV attacking someone else like this, the CPS would prosecute. I know this as it happened to one of my good mates after a drunken night out. In the end the victim decided not to press charges and the CPS dropped their case. In this instance, I would suspect the victim would decide otherwise...

What is more nonsensical, is that, should the cyclist have mounted the curb to get away - he would have received a caution and a £30 fine - regardless of it being a first offence or not.

Pathetic.

(P.s. - this is not directed at Stumpy - nothing to do with him).

Scary really, I sat on a jury for an armed robbery case when the video evidence wasn't anywhere near as clear as this. taking into consideration the van drivers driving, the open door in front of another road user and the assault it does make you wonder. maybe the cyclist should have displayed less skill an put the bike into the open door. hopefully this stays on the driver record to have an effect next time because I agree this probably isn't the first and probably wont be the last. I suspect he might also have lost his job as the amount of grief his employer appears to have received would probably justify that under bring the company into dis-repute. one note of caution thought posting business contact details incorrectly will only hurt the cyclists cause further

Fwiw this whole thing wouldn't have happened if the cyclist hadn't been so impatient and stupid as to undertake a van that was waiting for a car to parallel park. Why do cyclists do that? Just aggravating an already-insane and stupid driver. Why didn't he just wait behind the van? Because he's a cyclist and can go wherever he wants on the roads, including squeezing between a car in the middle of parallel parking and a van waiting to get past?

Obviously that in no way justifies the driver's response. But come on... just because you *can* save yourself 2 seconds by squeezing between and along cars, doesn't mean you *should*. Idiot.

petethegreek, the contact details are correct for Weird n Wonderful from what I can see on their website. The article above has mistakenly name them as Weird and Wonderful, which still has not been corrected. You can see the petshop logo on his hoodie in the Youtube video.
Maybe they should do some sort of tie in with Clarkson. This is the sort of behaviour he seems to approve of...in jest of course

I'm informed by an ex-police officer that the caution route is often taken as, not surprisingly in these cash-strapped days, it saves a pile of money in getting witnesses and pulling together a full court hearing, but perhaps more importantly, as a caution for assault (presumably) it should stay on the driver's record indefinitely and that has been found to have a good deterrent effect over the long term. Some cautions are discounted after a year or two, but one for assault will remain on the chap's record so if he does do something similar again he will be in major trouble.

If he has caused damage and/or injury I would bring a civil claim against his employer (assuming he is employed by Weird and Wonderful as opposed to being Weird N Wonderful) as they are vicariously liable for the actions of their employees.

If nothing else, Weird and Wonderful would become less than impressed by the financial consequences of their employee's actions.

The video evidence will be admissible in a civil court, though I doubt it would ever get that far.

'he cyclist made a bad maneuver when he tried to undertake the van'

this. No excuse for the idiot reacting like he did, but ffs, that's just basic.

The driver shouldn't have got away with this ... he lied about the incident and only admitted to his guilt after he realised that video evidence made his guilt undeniable.

I can't help chipping into the debate, and have to say that the tone of some of the comments on this thread is way off line. The law is not actually there to punish people and though it seems clear this guy has lied and will not be 'reformed' he might at least be scared by peoples reaction into thinking twice next time; the law is there to make society run smoother.
This is why some of the responses to Stumpy's rather tempered statements have been just wrong and inflammatory. People are posting details of the guy and naming other people who work there^, why? There is an obviously implied threat of revenge attacks. Road.cc isn't that sort of internet forum, at least I thought not. Admin could do a clean up on this thread.
If you haven't been here long enough to have some advise directly from Stumpy then stick around a bit longer and see what is what.

tired old fart wrote:

typical cop response go and do your job cop get of the internet and catch someone in the act of assault ride a bike for a week see what it is like you prick stumpy

(Unless you're retired of course...) Why don't YOU get off the internet and go and do YOUR job? Or does your boss not mind you f*ing about on the internet in the middle of the day?

Hopefully though, the assailant is actually the owner of the business and will loose a huge amount of money thanks to the damage to his reputation. That'll be a decent enough punishment in itself if he looses his home or something.

If the owner of this business has any sense then the employee involved in the ridiculous attack on the cyclist will be suspended/sacked and post a public notice on the website condemning his actions. If not then I can only hope the business goes under, painfully.

Unfortunately the employee is her husband! So she can't really sack him.

What's more, she's in the video - there's a lady passenger early on in it and it is her. So she witnessed the attack as well! Then, she goes and denies she knows him!

So am I right in thinking you can go and assault someone and of you haven't got previous your going to get a slap on the wrist and that's it?!. How on earth can that be right?

It isn't, the police appear to have completely copped out of this, when it should have gone to court.

Oh dear, appalled at some of the comments made, I always beleved in reasoned debate but name calling is frankly juvenile. It can be treacherous riding a bike in the city or countryside at times but at least on here we can be civil in our discussions with each other!