There’s a chance you might have seen a clip of a confrontation between a cyclist and a certain Baron Gove of Torry in the past 48 hours. It was an unnecessary confrontation in my opinion, and I’ll now do my best to explain why. 

The rider who posted the footage – a prolific London camera cyclist who once captured a van driver allegedly doing something very inappropriate while behind the wheel (let’s leave it at that) – waited for the light to go green, and turned left onto the main carriageway. There is a ‘no left turn/except cycles’ sign, so the cyclist proceeded correctly.

Jeremy Vine tweet screenshot, 16 June 2026
Jeremy Vine tweet screenshot, 16 June 2026 (Image Credit: Jeremy Vine)

The UK’s Highway Code now incorporates the concept of the Hierarchy of Road users, and Rule H2 says that pedestrians “have priority when on a zebra crossing, on a parallel crossing or at light controlled crossings when they have a green signal”.

The lights on the pedestrian crossing had been red for several seconds when we see Mr Gove and another man step off the pavement, which means they should have waited (for this reason I believe Jeremy Vine is actually incorrect in saying Gove had “right of way” in the tweet shown above, but in general his assessment of the footage is similar to mine).

Rule H1 of the Code clearly states that it is the responsibility of “ALL road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, to have regard for their own and other road users’ safety” – however, Rule H1 also says that we must be “considerate to other road users and understand their responsibility for the safety of others”: “Cyclists, horse riders and drivers of horse drawn vehicles likewise have a responsibility to reduce danger to pedestrians”, it continues.

This ambiguous wording essentially means that even if a pedestrian is not acting responsibly, you still have some responsibility for their safety. In the event of a collision, that means the cyclist could be found partly liable.

The case of Robert Hazeldean – a cyclist who was successfully sued by pedestrian Gemma Brushett following a collision even though he was cycling through a green light at a junction – is a prime example of this, although unlike Gove, it was said that Brushett was already crossing the road when Hazeldean set off (thanks to specialist cycling lawyer Rory McCarron for reminding us of this case).

But… in our angry cyclist’s interaction with the editor of the Spectator there was no collision, so pretty much everything I’ve written above is hypothetical. The cyclist did everything right… until he opened his mouth, and posted the footage to the world’s worst social media platform, accompanied with a scathing caption implying that Gove is a “menace” to cyclists. 

Several of our Near Miss of the Day articles on road.cc have featured cyclists who said words they perhaps shouldn’t have after close passes from irresponsible or dangerous drivers, and I openly admit to having done this myself – but from my own experiences, this is often a physical gut reaction to a terrifying encounter, and not necessarily directed at the perpetrator. Those who haven’t experienced it might struggle to understand and file it under bad manners or unnecessary aggression, including a couple of police officers we’ve featured over the years who wrongly claimed they were unable to prosecute dangerous drivers if the victim can be heard swearing in the footage. 

In this case, I don’t believe it was a fight or flight reaction. The cyclist came to a stop and avoided a collision with Gove, and couldn’t have done any more here in my opinion, despite what some might be saying on social media in a desperate attempt to pin the blame on the cyclist. What he absolutely could have avoided was the unpleasant words directed at Gove in the aftermath, whether he/anyone else thinks he deserved it or not.

In his retort, Gove was careful not to go into details about who was or wasn’t in the wrong. His use of “unmannerly” appears to be referring to the cyclist’s reaction only, and of course, there’s the obligatory “as a cyclist myself” remark: “A misinformed social media pile-on directed towards anyone who rides a bike, due to the actions of one individual who I could have ignored when he posted the footage to social media? Not on me. I’m a cyclist myself.”

So, what can we learn from this “unmannerly” non-collision? Because of how the situation played out, nothing much. 

Mr Gove came away thinking he had an unnecessarily unpleasant interaction with a ‘typical cyclist’ while going about his day. Buoyed by the ill-informed reaction to the footage from some corners of ‘X’, he hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged that he could have done anything to avoid that interaction. The cyclist maintains that he was technically in the right, so continues to excuse himself for reacting the way he did in the aftermath. 

The result? A few carefully considered observations, drowned out by many more claiming that the footage is typical of ‘cyclists’ – a homogeneous blob that exists to be hated and maligned, and this footage will only reinforce that stance to people who unfortunately think that way. 

So, if any readers experience a close call with former education secretaries or any other pedestrians when you have priority at a junction or crossing, here’s my advice: say nothing and go on your way, ask if the pedestrian is ok, or even calmly explain that you went on a green light so got a bit of a scare. You could even still post the footage to your social media hellsite of choice – in this case I still think the algorithm would have been sufficiently interested, but the optics (a calm reaction vs an angry one) might have swayed the verdict more in your favour in the court of public opinion.  

Anger and fear is understandable if you’re the more vulnerable road user, as cyclists know all too well. If you’re not the more vulnerable road user, a little bit of understanding and restraint may go a long way.