A driver in Birmingham has been caught on camera pursuing a cyclist for several minutes, for no apparent reason, swerving and swearing at him.
The cyclist, posting bike cam footage as Brum Commuter, filmed one journey earlier this month in which the driver of a silver VW Passat swerves and shouts at him repeatedly while, he says, a female passenger physically grabs the steering wheel and hits the driver in an attempt to stop him driving at the cyclist.
The rider, who says there was no previous interaction with the man in the car, eventually appears to trick the driver to turn off at a flyover. Brum Commuter says the police have taken a statement and a copy of the video.
The man, aged 48, told the Birmingham Mail: “I Couldn’t hear everything, what I did hear was just swearing, insults, threats and demands for me to stop and fight him.
“Incidents like this are very worrying as you never know if this particular idiot is going to drive into you or not. If they do decide to make contact, then it would definitely cause serious injury.
“Aggression from drivers is far too common in Birmingham and usually for some slight mistake or in this case no reason at all.”
Study: Parasite hosted by cats may cause road rage
23 thoughts on “Video: Birmingham cyclist pursued by road rage driver”
Brum Commuter gives a perfect
Brum Commuter gives a perfect demonstration of how to deal with this type of road vermin.
Well done Sir!
It seems that the driver of
It seems that the driver of that car has anger problems. There again, when you see some of the hateful comments about cycling under articles in mainstream publications, it makes you half-expect this kind of behaviour.
There needs to be a few cases where the police pursue people like this driver, they are convicted in court, and severe sentences convey the message to the wider public that this is totally unacceptable and they will be caught and punished.
The driver is “annoyed”
The driver is “annoyed” because Brum Commuter filters past him at the lights at the begining of the film. That’s the only logical explanation I can think of. Or he has that cat parasite thing.
MikeOnABike wrote:
Filtering seems very high up on the list of reasons certain drivers hate cyclists (and for that matter motorcyclists). Frequent a biker forum and there will be tons of posts about filtering. Of course on a motorcycle you tend to have heavy boots which can make more of a dent than a pair of Giros, and armoured gloves are surprisingly effective against wing mirrors.
I have a quarter-mile filter on my usual commute, most days someone will deliberately try to block me from going past, sometimes to the point of driving into the oncoming lane.
kil0ran wrote:
…which is why we all choose to cycle rather than sit in a traffic queue. Amazed so many drivers just don’t ‘get it’.
kil0ran wrote:
I really can’t get the issue, if i am in a car in a queue i will keep an eye out for *bikes, on either side coming up and if safe move to make their life easier, it costs me nothing and gives them a bit more room so why not????
kil0ran wrote:
They’re just jealous, is what I’ve always thought: motorists would filter past any line of stationary traffic if they could (look at the number of motorists which do jump queues).
kil0ran wrote:
I’ve mentioned this on another forum and it would seem that a number of drivers are genuinely unaware that filtering is perfectly legal and that the responsibility is on the vehicle pulling off from standstill to ensure that there are no bikes (pedal or motor) filtering on either side.
I am not surprised by this, like when I asked a van why he was unloading in a mandatory cycle lane, he didn’t realise what it was, nor that it was illegal to enter. Though of course that didn’t stop him telling to go forth and multiply in the vernacular.
Driving does seem an awfully stressful experience, I’ll continue to ride my bike as that is fun 🙂
At most just a CD20 and
At most just a CD20 and perhaps vehicle seized. 3-9 points. Car’s only worth a grand so no great hardship for driver.
Tricky situation – if you turn off to avoid you risk a head on if they’re really set on having a go and go round the block to meet you. Probably best to stay on a main road with plenty of people around. If you’re driving the recommendation is always to drive to nearest police station but that’s not really practical on a bike.
OR Brum Commuter has a jersey
OR Brum Commuter has a jersey with “all drivers are cunts” on the back of it, spat on the car while filtering past and made wanker signs the whole time. We just don’t know, so nothing will come of it.
Not news, just like the majority of these YouTube clips of motoring outrage.
I’m not sure why this video
I’m not sure why this video (posted 10 days ago) is suddenly news today, but if you read the YouTube comments you’ll see that “brum commuter” posted an update last week after the police spoke to the driver:
The driver was really apologetic, dreadfully embarrassed and full of remorse. Turns out he had been worrying about it since it happened but had no way of communicating any of this to me. He asked especially for the officer to pass on his apologies to me and an assurance that he was fully aware of how appalling his behaviour was.
All of this came out before he realised it was all recorded; he had not heard/understood my shouts about the camera so didn’t know it was on video.
A couple of interesting things came out of this chat with the police.
1. He had started to calm down when I caught up with him at the lights (near the end) but he thought my shout at the car leaving the pavement was aimed at him and the red mist descended again. I had not noticed him until after that shout; too busy not being run over by idiot on the pavement.
2. His wife was giving him loads of grief in the car during the incident, on the way home and every day since. She got the best chance to say “I told you so . . .” when the police showed up.
For me this is a good resolution – he understands what he did wrong; has been told how to behave in future and assured the officer that it will never happen again. My goal was always to educate rather than prosecute; I would rather have a safer driver today than a punished driver in 12 months who feels his punishment was unjust and becomes an angry anti cyclist driver.— brum commuter on YouTube
I cycle in Birmingham all the
I cycle in Birmingham all the time. I have not noticed any particularly high levels of aggression from motorists.
Fairly dangerous for drivers
Fairly dangerous for drivers in the USA to do that to bicyclists. I know a lot of cyclists that have conceal and carry permits for their handguns and ride with them. An automobile is considered a dangerous weapon and directing one at a pedestrian or cyclist gives them the right to defend themselves with deadly force.
flybywire99 wrote:
Surely nobody is stupid enough to ride around on a bicycle carrying a loaded firearm? Let alone taking the responsibility to escalate what would almost certainly be a bad tempered altercation with another road user to deadly force. Is ‘road rage’ unknown in the USA or is youtube lying? How many American citizens are shot to death each year over parking disputes?
Mungecrundle wrote:
Not sure of the year, but this was slightly eye-opening (although strangely not surprising)
Has ‘I’m Ronnie Pickering’
Has ‘I’m Ronnie Pickering’ got a new car(for him) What a complete nutter the driver is! The police should prosecute him for using a vehicle in dangerous manner endangering life.
All looks to started in the driver’s tiny mind that the cyclist filtered down the inside at the traffic lights.
Cyclist needs a head cam or 360° Nikon
Kudos to the victim for
Kudos to the victim for accepting an apologetic outcome, but to my mind the offender is only apologetic because he got caught and filmed.
This is a driver that clearly has anger issues and he’ll behave similar again. The next time the result could be far worse. Driving like that and having your wife grab the steering wheel to steer away from certain collision and injury requires a loss of licence in my view. Nothing less. As people have mentioned on here before, driving is a privilege not a right. Drive like a cnut, bye bye licence. I
It is entirely self-defeating
It is entirely self-defeating for a motorist to get angry when a cyclist filters past like this. The result is that the cyclist gets to the front of the queue and then goes side by side with the front car or other cyclists (as in the case in this video). It doesn’t hold up the vehicles further back at all.
If you did what these motorists wanted and just sat in the queue it is true that the cylist that filters past you wouldn’t hold you up this time but the five others in front of you would delay you instead of having had the chance to get out of your way by filtering.
Drivers really need to think this through calmly.
I recently saw a video taken by a driver that claimed it showed about 200 cases of “law-breaking” cylists. In reality it showed 4 or 5 cases of cylists going through red lights and on pavements and about 195 cases of filtering that the driver clearly believed to be against the law. This level of ignorance is dangerous in that some nut-cases think that it justifies their rage and other more reasonable drivers will not look for a danger thinking it should not happen.
I frequently cycle up the A30 into Yeovil and at busy times there is a more or less stationary queue for 1/2 a mile and I can easily overtake 100+ cars. I often get someone who winds down the drivers window and calmly tells me that I shouldn’t be overtaking or that it is illegal to be on the wrong side of the road or that it is dangerous. This is not road-rage in any way they are genuinely trying to be helpful.
ooldbaker wrote:
I also commute on a different bit of the A30 in Bagshot that is a solid queue of traffic most evenings. I tend to roll down the middle of the road keeping my eyes open for people turning across the queue, as people will assume that because another driver has left them a gap it is clear for them to cross the traffic without looking.
I often get people who drift to the centre of the road to try to block me and occasionally get comments while I’m waiting at traffic lights that I shouldn’t be overtaking cars.
ooldbaker wrote:
I’m thinking Babylon Hill from Sherborne? My commute is from the other direction, and tend to filter a similar queue along the Lysander Road.
ooldbaker wrote:
Which is why ALL drivers need to be compulsarily retested periodically, and the initial training being far more rigourous. How many drivers actually know the laws they have to abide by? How many drivers actually bothered to read the highway code in any depth when the learnt let along since?
I’ve been thinking about this
I’ve been thinking about this recently and wonder whether the answer is to report these incidents not to the Police, but to the insurance industry. I’m thinking of developing a mobile/web app that would allow road users (whether they’re cyclists, pedestrians or truckers), to tag and identify video clips with registration numbers and reports (a bit like ‘Fill that hole’), and then simply make that database available to everyone, including the insurance industry who would be free to use the data to calculate premiums. Won’t stop everyone, but I think a lot of drivers will think twice when they experience a tangible price for their actions.
dafyddp wrote:
http://rate-driver.co.uk/