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London van man and cyclist (via Facebook).jpgVideo of cyclist's revenge on sexist London van man goes viral
A video of a female cyclist taking revenge on sexist men in a van has been widely shared. Much initial discussion centred on whether her response was proportional, but there were also questions over whether the video was real. The company that posted the video has since admitted that it appears to have been staged.
The video begins with the cyclist stopped at traffic lights at the junction of Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road. A van has pulled up alongside her, but then steers towards her while the lights are on red.
At that point we start to hear that one of the occupants is addressing her.
"Alright, want my number?" he begins.
When she doesn’t, and shows her displeasure, he quickly moves onto suave bon mots such as "Oi! What charm school did you go to, eh? and "Shut up, you old dog. You on your period?"
Leaning out of his window, he twice tries to touch her and the increasingly irate cyclist at one point pushes the van’s wing mirror in – but it is the wing mirror on the opposite side that eventually comes in for more serious attention.
She gives the van’s occupants the finger as the driver pulls off, but then heads in the same direction and catches up with them on Chenies Street where they have pulled over.
She stops, tears off the driver’s side wing mirror with her bare hands and then rides away.
“That’s exactly what you deserve, you scum,” says the motorcyclist who has been behind the whole time, filming all of this with his helmet cam.
The video has been picked up by a number of newspapers and is being shared widely across social media.
Reactions have been strong. The most popular response on the Viral Thread post above was by Domenic Dimonte, who said: “The girl is 100% in the right and if you disagree you were probably in the truck.”
In contrast, David Murdoch offered: “Jail her!, criminal damage to property, just a couple of good old blokes about a job of work. along comes missy bossy boots and despite the guys being nice and joking with her she chases them and damages the van... I blame pc politics meself.”
Lexi Rae meanwhile was clear that she had no time for the man in the van. “THERE SHOULDN'T EVEN BE A QUESTION OF WHO WAS WRONG. Not only was he verbally harassing her, he put his hands on her more than once. FUCK that guy and fuck his mirror.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- neilmck 4 min 33 sec ago
It also means a detour which is a big deal when you have to pedal so cyclists will tend to stick to the road. Also such a cycle path will be used...
- eburtthebike 5 min 44 sec ago
You should learn to share the road: like the drivers do.
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I don't think Lime are anywhere near folding.
- Andrewbanshee 14 min 8 sec ago
As you said the pedals will be hidden anyway. My shoes, 3 pairs of them, have reflective strips on the heel and my winter trousers do too on the...
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Other drivers only care about disabled people when it gives them a way to object to cycling infrastructure.
- mark1a 8 hours 18 min ago
I'll put you down as a no then.
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Well if you *can* interview the original riders at all surely they worked, at least?...
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Live: Car plunges over wall and lands on beach rocks...
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And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
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59 comments
Lucky to get away with a broken mirror.
Justice would have them tied to the van and dragged along.
Well done to that women for deaing with he scumbags.
While we know that this incident was captured on camera, the lady didn't. - As far as she knew there was no evidence that she was put in danger on the road, harrassed, verbally abused and physically assaulted.
Apart from being angry, how vulnerable must she have felt?
She knew too well if she had reported the incident to Police nothing would have happened. And even if the Met Police picked it up they would have been two of them in the van, denying everything. It would have just turned into an ordeal for her with no justice done.
Do I condone her action? - No, I don't.
Do I understand why she acted like this? - Very well.
Yes, by all means, prosecute her for property damage but don't forget to prosecute the van driver and passenger for:
- dangerous driving (into her space)
- harrassment
- verbal/sexual abuse
- physical assault
I think, she would happily take a community service order and pay £100 for the wing mirror if the two van 'inmates' would serve a while behind bars.
I think it's also very sad that there are numerous people just walking by and hardly giving it a glance when this happend.
This is illuminating isn't it?
Amazing that some folk think it OK to start a verbal confrontation and not expect, and think it inappropriate for the victim to react.
The whole point of the folks in van starting this was because they felt safe, abusing a vulnerable individual. The point is they sought out and enjoyed the victimisation of someone they believed they could play with like a toy.
As mentioned, if this had been a man, they wouldn't have done it... simple as.
I hate being PC on this, but actually the action of the van drivers really angered me and I am pleased that the woman took direct action.
In response to comments above... if the police took these matters seriously, then maybe that level of direct retaliation would not be necessary... however the police do not act on these situations. until they do, then yes, direct action is needed.
As I've bleated on about previously, vigilante action is the refuge of those feleing deserted by authority. it is also the only way that authority will take things more seriously... when enough people take the law into their own hands, the law will step up. Until then, we are all pissing in the wind moaning about it.
Very satisfying, you reap what you sow.
That scarf is going to go in the chain and cause a horrid accident though!
remember Isadora Duncan!
Excellent. Here's hoping these scum were driving the van for someone else, and lied about what happened to the wing mirror, so they get the sack. Even with the pixelisation (why?) of the number plate and their faces, it should be possible for their boss to put two and two together. If he cares. Or maybe it is a she, which might explain their tiny-penised misogyny.
The only sad thing is the knowledge that if the same justice were served out on the biggest sexist and groper in the world, the one who is enboldening little shits everywhere to be more brazen, then the cyclist would be taken out by his Secret Service agents.
Good for that lady!
The police do FUCK ALL to motards. The only way for them to get any kind of payback for this kind of shitty behaviour is to hand it out yourself.
I am astonished that more people on bikes don't end up sorting matters themselves.
And that folks is what our new walking and cycling commisoner would have us believe is a safe environment for walking and cycling. This is prime west end territory and these knuckle draggers feel completely at liberty to intimidate and harass with impunity from the safety of their tin can.
Elsewhere in the standard you can watch video of a woman knocked off by a van from behind and the metropolitan police tell us there's nothing further to do as the lady concerned wasn't seriously injured or killed.
This is what happens when you ignore low level unlawful behaviour and allow it to become the norm. Sooner or later it will escalate into full on violence all because there is absolutely zero interest in upholding the law on the roads in London unless it becomes just too hard to ignore.
There must have been something happening before the camera caught up with them. She already looked mightily pissed off, and the guy in the van had driven right over into her space (over an ASZ, too). I hope the police chase them up and give them a warning for sexual harrassment, maybe physical harrassment, too.
Awesome! Well done to the girl!
Just a shame that those van-driving retards were ever allowed to dirty our streets in the first place.
I commute on a daily basis and see confrontation between cars and bikes daily, This incident appears to be a blokes in a van being verbal then a girl on a bike taking it to another level, I don't condone the blokes behaviour but think the girl was going OTT and should have just cycled off noting the number plate and reporting it if she felt that strongly about it.
The problem we are seeing more and more is a "You and Us" situation and it's getting dangerous for the cyclists, this sort of thing will only make things worse.
My advice is report it and don't take the law into your own hands and certainly don't damage any car/van.
Purely out of interest - without the cam footage, do you expect that the Police and/or CPS would take any action based on a report like that?
Based on previous experience, the woman would have had to suffer major injuries or death before an incident would be taken seriously.
So, while I agree that ripping off their wing mirror won't solve the problem, unfortunately, I don't think the powers that be are likely to deal with this kind of verbal and physical abuse either.
This has little to do with modes of transport - and everything to do with bullying and sexual harassment. I was shocked to hear from female friends just how commonplace this is - if guys attacked one another in this way, the result would be a bloodbath, but scum like this will attack women because they don't expect them to fight back.
How would you feel if that was your partner, mother, sister or daughter being harassed, would you still think she's blowing it all out or proportion, she just take the abuse on the chin?
You know very well if she reported this to the Met Police she'd be lucky to get a letter of acknowledgement in the post.
Take the mode of transport out of the equation (as others have said) and you have a typical example of the culture of ignorance shown by certain men towards women.
It can be seen on another thread posted today by road.cc - the still taken from a video shows three ladies and it seems fairly obvious this is designed to draw men into viewing the video. Almost predictably one of the comments is:
"Plasterer's Radio [236 posts] 14 hours ago
0 likes
I'd poke the ginger one in the middle 1st"
Like a dinosaur from the 70s. These attitudes are unacceptable these days.
I say well done to the lady for sticking up for herself; if she was one of my daughters I'd be proud of her.
You are the definition of a snowflake my friend.
Your method, two things might happen:
1. The police do fcuk all.
2. The police give them a slap on the wrist.
Either way, the two knuckle dragers will repeat their behaviour tomorrow.
Her method means that there is a very small chance that they might think twice about repeating it. Plus, I bet she felt a hell of a lot better for doing it.
In the words of a very wise motorcyclist "they got what they deserved". Personally I think she should have used the mirror to smash the driver in the face, but that might have been going over the top.
This "kind of thing" has been going on for years, people in cars and vans think they are immune and can do whatever they feel like. Luckily it is only a small minority that behave like those two, but it does happen constantly. If you ride a bike in this country you are seen as far game and treated to all kinds of shit behaviour that you shouldn't have to put up with.
And can we stop this bullshit about not damaging cars/vans, like they are the most important thing? I've lashed out at cars before when they have deliberately gone too close to me, and that really sends the knuckle draggers over the edge. "YOU TOUCHED MY CAR! I'LL KILL YOU!" Scumbags.
This.
It doesn't matter if this particular video is fake or not (and I do kind of hope it is
): the point is that this sort of thing ("down with this sort of thing!") happens all the time and gets written off by the Powers That Be as just one of those things...
IMO there are too many people in motor vehicles who feel all insulated from the outside world because they are inside their protected, air conditioned metal box with surround sound and FB access. Maybe they think that they become invisible/untouchable as soon as they pull their heads/hands back inside their box? Like some sort of cyborg tortoise?
I think that these people see their car/van/whatever as part of their house, and like dogs bark at anyone going too close to their garden - just in case they were going to encoach on their territory - these people will lash out at anything that touches their car.
I think it's BikesnobNYC who constantly refers to "the car that the bank owns until I finish paying them back" - that's the thing: people spend thousands, or tens of thousands, on a moving sitting room status symbol, they they mortgaged their soul to get it, and god forbid that anyone else so much as breathe on it. A neighbour of mine spent a fortune on a classic VW campervan, and now he daren't actually drive it because he's afraid of getting the front chipped...
Anecdote alert: this one time, a car stopped right across a pedestrian crossing at which I was waiting; he hadn't even tried to stop at the stop line; I shuffled around behind it, slapped the back with a gloved hand, and shouted that the driver needed to learn how to drive. Seconds later, the driver's out of his car, screaming at me not to touch his f-ing car, did I f-ing want some, etc etc. Luckily I was already on the bike, just laughed at him and rode off. Some people, eh...
"A video of a female cyclist taking revenge on
catcallingmen committing public acts of sexualised verbal abuse and physical assault in a van has been widely shared with much discussion about whether her response was proportional"There, fixed that for you Alex (you might want to edit the original text). If that were my daughter, or wife, reading a media outlet playing down the actions as 'catcalling' would make me rather upset.
p.s. she's a grown woman, not a cat.
We deliberately used 'sexist' in the headline for similar reasons. I've changed the opening sentence too.
Just to be clear, we didn't change that because of your comment KiwiMike but because one of our other news editors pointed out it should be consistent with the headline.
There was some debate about using 'catcall' or 'sexist' in the headline. Given that catcalling is self evidently a term for sexist behaviour - the definition being, to shout comments of a sexual and derogatory nature. Catcalling also suggests that the comments were of a sustained nature - which they were. In the end we went with 'sexist' for the headline to remove any ambiguity for those who don't actually know what the definition of catcall is.
Now that we know it offends KiwiMike so much editorial debate has moved on as to whether we should put back in.
Tony, road.cc editor
Fast news cycle eh Tony?
To clarify what was possibly taken as overly-grumpy: I'm increasingly coming down against any language that (deliberately or not, obv. 'not' in this case) normalises or seeks to minimise the consequence of an action. Call it a rest-of-life effort to give our daughters a better world to grow up in. I make zero apologies for doing so.
'catcall' is a description for (OED) "A loud whistle or a comment of a sexual nature made by a man to a passing woman". I believe most people would think of such behaviour being done at a distance, e.g. from a building site, where the victim has little practical recourse and the perpetrator is highly unlikely to face retribution.
In this case, I must agree with the OED - those men were not 'catcalling'. That was targeted, over a sustained period of time. She wasn't 'passing'. Hence why it just jarred as a phrase, and could be read as (again, not deliberately) playing down the seriousness of the action. I knew this wasn't the editorial intent, but it read that way. Hence why my comment got a ton of likes, others must have agreed with me.
Personally, I'd find it refreshing to see all media call things what they actually are. Avoids misinterpretation.
...but as it's been exposed as fake, it's all a hill of beans, really. Good-o, until the next cycle-related Fake News kicks off. Jeez, we're easy to wind up aren't we?
The two scumbags should be identified so that their wives/partners/daughters/sisters get to see what pieces of shit are really like.
You believe they have wives and partners? I hope not, as nobody wants vermin breeding.
She's a legend. Harassing scum like that should have been drowned at birth.
Made my day
And special mention for the biker for telling it like it is at the end there!
well done that lady!! watching that revenger really cheered my day, and yet shamed me that our society still produces ignorant scum (the motorcyclist had it correct) like that. those "men" deserve to be shamed and villified.
Nothing like far enough but this video is really stirring up the fucknoodles in the comment sections in the usual rags. Not good for the blood pressure so I'd give them a swerve.
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