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Bromley Common overtake video still (CyclingMikey on YouTube)Video: Motorist speaks of "upset" after helmet camera footage of bad driving posted to YouTube
A driver in South London has spoken of the “upset” he felt after footage of him exchanging words with a cyclist after trying to pass him at a pinch point on the road was posted to YouTube. The driver seemed to have interpreted a signal from to hold back from the rider, who also told road.cc why he takes helmet camera footage and uploads it to the video-sharing site.
Robert Lewis, aged 56, was seeking to overtake a recumbent bike ridden by YouTube user CyclingMikey as the pair headed along Bromley Common on Thursday 20 March.
As the video shows, with a pedestrian island ahead on the road creating a pinch point, the cyclist gestured to the motorist to hold back until it was safe to overtake.
But the motorist seems to have misinterpreted it as a signal to overtake, and afterwards there was an exchange in which he told CyclingMikey that he should be on the cycle path on the adjacent footway.
The driver, 56-year-old Robert Lewis, told This Is Local London: "I didn't sleep very well over the weekend because it really upset me.
"I didn't sleep very well over the weekend because it really upset me.
"I don't really get into confrontations with people on the road. I don't speed, I've never had a parking fine since I started driving in 1975.
"I'm annoyed he's put this thing about me on YouTube.”
Referring to the incident, Mr Lewis said: "He's given me this hand signal and I am thinking he's wanting me to pass.
"He says 'stay away from me' and he says he's going to put the video on YouTube which I think is an infringement of my privacy.
"I think he does normal cyclists a disservice by not using the cycle lanes for safety reasons, but happily using them if traffic impedes his progress," he added.
That final point perhaps reinforces a misconception held by many motorists who believe that cyclists are obliged to use on-road cycle lanes or shared use paths on the footway.
In fact there is no legal requirement to do so, and due to the presence of pedestrians on the footway plus the presence of driveways and side road junctions, it is safer for faster moving cyclists to be on the main carriageway.
CyclingMikey, who in the description to the video points out that besides being a cyclist, he's also an experiencd driver, told road.cc: “I feel bad that he's upset about this incident, but then how does a little embarrassment compare with the fear and danger he caused me?
“It's very dangerous to cyclists for a driver to attempt to overtake at a pinch point, and I have been knocked off by a driver doing something very similar in the past,” as shown in this video.
Since posting that footage in October 2011, he’s since been overtaken by the same taxi on at least two occasions – six months later in April 2012, and again in January 2013 – and was given much more space each time.
Regarding Thursday’s incident, he said: “This section of road is a difficult one for cyclists as most of us are simply travelling too fast for the pavement cycle path, and the lane itself is narrow and has the pedestrian islands.
“I first became aware of the driver whilst watching traffic coming up for an overtake in my mirrors, and I judged that he would attempt to overtake me through the upcoming pedestrian refuge.
“I signalled right, and let there be no mistake, this is a very obvious right signal, not a waving through. I like to think I make super obvious signals, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could mistake a right arm out as waving them through. This was enough to get him to brake and back off.
“I then made a look signal and pointed to the traffic island as we went through it, and then after the traffic island waved him through, essentially doing his overtake planning for him.
“This is when he chose to come alongside and too close to me and offer advice about riding in the cycle lane. Had he instead chosen to overtake as all the other cars did, I doubt I'd have bothered to upload the video.
“I didn't report him to Roadsafe as this is fairly minor, but had I done so I'm reasonably sure they would have written him an educational letter.”
We asked CyclingMikey why he uses cameras to record footage of examples of bad driving – and, it should be said, cycling – he said: “I'm one of thousands of cyclists who use cameras to educate and improve driver and cyclist behaviour.
“As more and more drivers realise that so many of us are filming, they begin to take more care around cyclists generally. It's no different to all the Russian drivers using dashcams, a natural reaction to bad driving and bad justice.
“I have a playlist of repeat ‘customers’ who generally considerably improve their behaviour on the second encounter,” as happened with those taxi videos linked above.
He added: “I can't imagine ever needing to or wanting to use a camera in the Netherlands.”
Last week, we reported how helmet camera footage from cyclist Dave Brennan had led to a Glasgow driver pleading guilty to four charges including dangerous driving.
In its article, This Is Local London has asked motorists who have had what it describes as an “altercation” with CyclingMikey to get in touch with it.
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.
Latest Comments
- E6toSE3 8 hours 19 min ago
I've posted before about being 69, lifelong cyclist as my main transport, much of it in, through, under, over London and how it's bicycles that...
- David9694 9 hours 21 min ago
I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
- check12 11 hours 1 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 12 hours 34 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 14 hours 55 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 15 hours 43 min ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
- bikeman01 17 hours 22 min ago
I love how wannabe racer reviewers talk about fork flex under braking like their tyres are made of glue. I find traction gives long before fork flex.
- hawkinspeter 18 hours 29 min ago
They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 19 hours 19 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 19 hours 46 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
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75 comments
And this video shows that using the road instead of the cycle path is the safer option?
Agree to some degree about making non-standard hand signals, it can cause confusion.
But having said that there have been a couple of occasions where I've had some idiot bearing down on me when there's a hazard up ahead and I've stuck my right hand out as if to signal a right turn, but doing this just to get the fucker to keep their distance, it works (as a last resort).
So the driver pulled alongside the cyclist starts an argument about a cyclists right to be on the road and gets upset about it being publically available
An aside - assuming Mike is able bodied and whatnot - why ride a recumbent in London? It's hell, surely? You're low down, can't see nearly so much of the road ahead, drivers can't see you so easily, you're slower, more vulnerable... why do that to yourself?
Dude... careful. That's really close to the language some drivers use about all cycling.
Recumbents have their fans and that's good enough for me. It's a bonus that I think they look really cool.
Ride road most days, and to be honest the lane is quite narrow, the road would probably be safer widened and remove the shared path, further along the same road is a very narrow cycle lane.
As Confucius said, be careful what you wish for...
As cyclists, we want more people on bikes. We also want proper segregated cycling infrastructures to accommodate them. of course, we want to reserve our right to travel on the road if that's preferable and we want motorists to drive slower and with way more consideration.
Well, earlier this week, a cycle scheme was predicting 2 million extra cyclists commuting this summer (an exaggeration, granted) and councils and local authorities are building cycle infrastructures. If we're not careful, we run the risk of sounding like we want to have our cake, and eat it...
Yes, this. This is precisely the problem there. Drivers' attitudes regarding cyclists on the road are not going to change for the better with more segregated cycling infrastructure, in fact the effect would be quite the opposite I would imagine.
We don't need segregated infrastructure. We already have infrastructure, we just need it to be made safer. For everyone - young and old, slow and fast.
This means the political will to see it through. This means more money to be put into enforcement of road rules. Cameras everywhere, zero tolerance on transgressions, with the revenue from fines put back into that very scheme.
Eventually it will sink in, even for the dumbest knuckledragger, that it's not worth to endanger someone's safety in order to save 5 seconds when it could, nay, will cost you several hundred quid.
It's cr@p... it's madness to expect cyclists to use the shared paths when they have to stop for every single sidestreet and entranceway... dismount all over the place whenever there's a bus-stop/pedestrian crossing...
and don't get me started on the ways in which it dissappears just when you need it most at junctions or are expected to cross the side arms of the junction by means of pig-penned two stage crossings... and barriers/chicanes all over the place in cycle paths on the offchance some motorcyclist might be tempted to ride on them...
Feeder cycle lanes and ASL's are a fine way to get you into the blind-spot of many a lorry... or risk a left hook because you couln't get into them before the lights changed.
It's all cr@p, especially when compared to best practice over on the continent in the form or Dutch and Danish facilities...
With "we already have infrastructure" that needs to be made safer I was referring to our roads. Not painted "cycle lanes" etc.
I've debated with the man a few times in fora and on twitter. He has strongly held opinions. Opinions I don't entirely agree with. But I'd rather he did his stuff the way he does it, and represents his view forcefully, than have many of the other mealy-mouthed motor-centric cyclists that I encounter 'stand up' for my place on the roads.
Man complaining about invasion of privacy runs whining to the press and has his name, age and road published.
Also:
Ha!
Just the other day I had a driver trying to "nudge" me into an optional cycling lane at a pinch point. Joy.
Anybody else noticed that a lot of drivers see a completely straight, stretched out right arm not as an indicator of a cyclist turning right but as an invitation to accelerate past the cyclist?
I encounter this almost every day, it's getting quite annoying.
Yes, the driver was at fault for not forward planning.
But the cyclist was equally at fault for exactly the same reason.
If the cyclist had read the road and taken the primary position on the approach to the pinch-point, he would have prevented a potentially dangerous overtake and there would have been no problem.
Leaving space to be overtaken dangerously almost seems like a wish to be overtaken dangerously for the sake of some footage for Youtube.
Perhaps Mikey should think about educating himself before he talks about educating other road users.
Also, there seem to only really be two types of 'anti-cycling' articles; motorists saying, "they should get off the road, as it is for cars", and pedestrians saying, "they should get off the pavement, as it is for pedestrians".
If these two groups got together, perhaps it would be clearer that urban spaces fundamentally require somewhere that unarguably "is for cyclists", without depriving them of their rights as road users (as the cycle path in this video would do).
Until that happens, I think we'll keep seeing inferences to cyclists infringing on the space of 'others', no matter how legally off the mark the claims are.
driver screwed up by trying to overtake, as it really is his decision at the end of the day and he shouldn't pay a blind bit of notice to anyone elses signals and gestures.
However works both ways, as a cyclist I am very very wary of how I signal and how it can be interpreted. REally is a case of if in doubt don't. If you don't want to be overtaken at a pinch point look and move over. Make it so you can't be overtaken, it really isn't that hard.
As for the cycle path issue, there really does need to be some government information campaigns on this.
The main problem with not using the road, is that you lose your rights as.. well, a 'road user'. Which means having to stop and give way at every turning, and is generally slow, demeaning and unpleasant.
Not that using the roads can't also be unpleasant (as demonstrated here), but at least it's not self-inflicted or guaranteed.
I had a really unpleasant exchange with that CyclingMikey on Twitter recently. In my opinion, he is not a force for good - by being so aggressive and dogmatic, I actually find he ends up being more obnoxious than many of the motorists he targets. He was completely unwilling to enter into sensible and constructive debate - I say this as a passionate cycle commuter and campaigner for cycling safety, hardly his mortal enemy one would have thought? Still, he comes across as so hysterical - I suspect he probably has issues far and above his concerns about aggressive drivers but there we are...
Was it the mayo on chips thing? Honestly, never go there with a Dutchman, I've made that mistake only once...
I've ridden with mike a few times. He's a lovely bloke. He is dogmatic on fora though, I'll give you that, but I've met a few people, who on fora are really difficult to deal with, but just lovely people in real life. He definitely falls into the latter category.
He certainly comes across as you describe in this video. It seems unfortunate that so much publicity has come out of this, I don't think it will do us much good.
that may or may not be so, but even more so overtaking shouldn't of been hard the road has good visibility, niether the traffic islands or bike where altering their speed.
I've known him for about 8 years, on fora and in real life. We've argued/debated at odds many times. Like everyone, he's many things, but hysterical is definitely not one of them, he's one of the least hysterical people I know, I'm not even sure he's ordinarily capable of being hysterical...
If you're a passionate cycle safety campaigner, who argues from a considered and educated point rather than mere opinion, and can cope with being shown to be wrong, then I'd suggest you could do a lot worse than re-evaluate your perception of him.
It would make a refreshing change if the little clique from a certain forum didn't spend so much time defending him. This is not that forum and it's a bit tedious that Mikey is yet again seeking to dominate and dictate opinion elsewhere and roping his little gang in to scream and shout on his behalf. Yet again it ends in the same thing which is Mikey shouting "look at me am really important" and then his cronies stepping in when all the normal people tell him to jog on as they are tired of listening to him. No one uses this particular site to be lectured by the likes of Mikey or his London based online clique. It's frankly annoying that yet another previously entertaining cycling page is turning into yet another mouth piece for London's most narcissistic recumbent rider.
This conspiracy theory stuff is really irrelevant to the topic, in my opinion.
(Though I guess it fits your user name!)
Seriously? So from your train of thought am I now supposed to berate the original poster for roping you in? Or, perhaps are you an adult who makes his own choices?
Maybe you are judging me by your own standards... but me, I'm a big boy, all grow'd up and everything. Right or wrong I make my own choices whether you, he or anyone else like it or not.
So you're suggesting that people are allowed to slag off people that they don't know, but people who know them (better) aren't allowed to post similarly? Leaving anyone neutral with a totally biased perspective... Wow!! what a great forum!! and thanks... you've just reminded me why I post in such places under a pseudonym...
Are you really so desperate to belittle someone, someone that you presumably don't even know, that you'd stoop to dreaming up (entirely incorrect) reasons on how you can blame another adults actions and choices on him??
As for your incorrect assumptions, I very much doubt you know the only forum that I've been on with him for the last x years, and I can pretty much guarantee no-one else from that forum has posted.
The closest Mikey had to any involvement on me posting here, as either a forum or this specific article, would be that me getting interested in such things a handful of years ago would have been partly due to him posting about similar things.
Well done you for giving in to peer pressure.
And there lies the rub - agree with mikey or put up with this kind of incoherent ranting.
If you are not so easily lead as you claim then you are not proving it by posting a lengthy rant ripping in to any one who dares suggest that maybe he is not the kind of spokesperson most cyclists want representing us in social media. This must be the 4th forum not including twitter and you tube carrying his footage and opinions forward as if they are gospel and an overly vocal minority are supporting it.
Lovely person or not he comes across as shrill and hysterical in every form of media he hijacks as a self appointed expert. It's worrying as he is making the car v cyclists issue adversarial, he might not think that but that is what is happening. Sooner or later he is going to smugly utter the words "you are on camera" and some one is going get out and fill him in and smash the camera. It happens to photo journalists all the time and it's only a matter of when and not if it happens to him.
But hey ho, lets not let common sense stand in the way of self promotion.
Sigh... what peer pressure is this now that you're guessing at?
I just posted to say I know him, and he's not hysterical. End of story. No judgement on those who's opinions differ, no statements about who can post what, all of that his come from you and you only.
My original post was polite and concise, to give a little balance. It's not a "long rant".
You then went off on one.
Now, you've got a huge problem, because I know for a fact, as already stated ( *yawn* ) that I came here entirely under my own steam.
I _know_ that all your guesses are entirely wrong.
I _know_ that your conspiracy theories are entirely unfounded, and that therefore, on the balance of probabilities, His Mikeyness is probably not trying to take over the multiverse one car driver at a time ( with himself being a car driver... argggg the paradoxxxxx ).
You want to argue based on common sense, while also basing your argument on your incorrect guesses about why I posted, which you've then extrapolated to fit your Mikey conspiracy theory.
Well done on publishing that hypocrisy to the world!
If, as you indicate, you'd prefer to debate this based on common sense, then of course you'll be keen to set the record straight and retract all your guesses and their derivations.
Either way, have a nice day!
Not a bad effort that, your cheques in the post...
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