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Live blog: Protected cycle lane or dooring zone? Protest planned against car ban on Cheltenham’s Boots Corner, 2019 La Course by Tour de France will consist of just one multi-lap race, road rage cyclist jabs his bike into Mercedes bonnet + more
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Thu, Oct 25, 2018 14:45
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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.
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Latest Comments
grOg 1 hour ago
@eburtthebike Most of the people cycling mikey confronts with his vigilante behaviour are using their phone while stationary in traffic; while illegal, conflating those offences with the murderous actions of this deviant person is patently ridiculous.
grOg 1 hour ago
@Rendel Harris Of course it wouldn't work; the sort of person that would be banned would have plenty of mates that would fill jerry cans for him so he could fuel his car at home.
grOg 1 hour ago
@BroomBroomBroom I cycle commuted for 30 years, with a number of close passes and a few crashes that gave me pause to consider the risks of cycling on public roads, but what made me give up was a diagnosis of osteoporosis because cycling was my exercise activity and because cycling is not weight bearing exercise, it leads to bone loss; I now mix walking and jogging to commute and have introduced a program of weight-lifting to try and reverse the osteoporosis.
chrisonabike 1 hour ago
More on the "e-bike scourge" from the beeb: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmn068ywr9e1o OTOH well, yeah - stuff that facilitates crime (and is cheaper / easier to get than cars / ICE motorbikes) is gonna be used by criminals. Plus: Well... I'm not happy either with the lack of interest in doing something about the mass sale of things which almost all aren't going to be used legally. But ... like guns? Don't think that's a helpful analogy there.
Sniffer 3 hours ago
@Rendel Harris It should be simpler. In this case, and other cases where individuals drive while banned, there will be many people who know there is a banned driver behind the wheel and turned a blind eye. If we could find a way to make it culturally unacceptable the cases would drop. The change it attitudes around drink driving made a huge difference and it wasn't just the punishment. Unfortunately, we see the media run campaigns on the 'war on motorists' rather than try and change societal attitudes. The sequestration of vehicles as a punishment I think is an opportunity. Car removal, for many motoring offences and if you let a banned driver drive your vehicle I would include vehicles from employers and associates of a banned driver.
eburtthebike 3 hours ago
"Over the course of the evening, your friend made Gabrielle Debotte write a note on her phone with a false account that she had not seen you on the day of the collision at all." I sincerely hope that friend is in police custody awaiting trial for aiding and abetting and perverting the course of justice. And I hope he gets the same judge.
wtjs 3 hours ago
@rbrtribble All accidents including eg: a touch of a bumper should be reported to the police and an interview with a traffic cop before driving away from the scene What sort of dream world is this?! None of these fanciful wishes will happen in the car-crazed 'we'll give you a subsidy so you can drive and park everywhere with no thought to sensible fuel-conserving driving' UK. Sadly, the succession of dreadful Tory nonentity transport ministers has been followed by a succession of equally dreadful Labour ones, all desperate to avoid being accused of the 'war on the motorist'. Lilian Greenwood was charged with implementing the January 26 Government Road Safety Strategy until she was moved to be replaced by another deadbeat intent on doing nothing for fear of upsetting drivers. Labour could fight the established police strategy of ignoring and actively opposing any legislation to the benefit of cyclists, but they won't. The police are intent on protecting motorists from VED evasion, MOT offences, mobile phone offences, white line offences and most importantly cyclist-close-passing offences. I ask yet again for the evidence of effective police action against this latter offence (not the joke advice letter or joke driving course), but this evidence never appears. The obvious conclusion is that this police action does not exist.
eburtthebike 4 hours ago
@kingleo They aren't the only ones!
Rendel Harris 4 hours ago
@Sniffer This is why I would like to see every driving licence having a readable chip that showed the driver status and making it impossible to get fuel from a petrol station without presenting it at the pump as proof of validity. Of course there would be ways around it, getting mates to fill up the car etc, but with an estimated 650,000 unlicensed or licence suspended drivers in the UK restricting the fuel supply could do a lot to hamper them. The same chip could carry proof of insurance and MOT for the car, again, no proof, no fuel. Cut offenders off at source.
eburtthebike 4 hours ago
Whilst extreme cases shouldn't make law, this case does demonstrate that the justice system is failing to protect innocent road users. If people continually break the law, then either the crimes aren't being detected or the punishments are not severe enough. In the case of road law, it's both, and the chances of being caught driving dangerously are miniscule, and even if caught, the offender will at most be banned, which they can and do, ignore. So how to get dangerous drivers to reform or make sure they don't drive? 1. Police on bikes. Just look at how many criminals cycling mikey has had convicted. A real police constable could do so much more. 2. When caught, immediate impounding of vehicle, rapid review by a judge, so the punishment immediately follows the crime. 3. No points on licence, no hardship pleading, just removal of licence. Three months for a first offence, then rapidly escalating to lifetime ban for the fourth. 4. Anyone caught driving whilst banned gets an immediate three month prison sentence, second offence a year, third ten years. I'm sure there are plenty of other good ways of making our roads safer by removing the incompetent and dangerous drivers, but it's a start.
33 thoughts on “Live blog: Protected cycle lane or dooring zone? Protest planned against car ban on Cheltenham’s Boots Corner, 2019 La Course by Tour de France will consist of just one multi-lap race, road rage cyclist jabs his bike into Mercedes bonnet + more”
Best Daily Heil comment of
Best Daily Heil comment of the day ref that ‘crazed cyclst’..
‘If that lycra g i mp came it with me I’d r oger him up the b um, teach him a lesson.’
LOLZ!
Can we have a whip-around and
Can we have a whip-around and raise some money for a case of beer for this cyclist? And the one in Liverpool a month or so back.
That junction is outside
That junction is outside Borough Station. The van driver was in left turn only lane and cut across to go straight ahead.
A few things stand out here:
1) The van driver states that he sees this cyclist every morning. Is he saying that he drives that same route every morning yet he still doesn’t understand the road layouts? That’s concerning. And even having had the hindsight of this incident and research the local road layouts….he *still* agreed for this video to be published! Is he that thick?
2) Despite his dangerous manoeuvre, he does his window down to shout at the cyclist – whilst driving a van.
3) He pulls in front of the cyclist with his van in order to stop him.
4) The media picks up on the scratched paint and runs with the destructive cyclist headline. He shouldn’t have done it but the bigger crime is driving a 2 ton van with no awareness of road layouts, no awareness of right of way, and driving without due care and attention.
The cyclist’s behaviour is wrong but I can’t help feel it’s a sympton of how cyclists are treated.
no suprise that the video
no suprise that the video fails to show how the guys bike ended up virtually under the front of the van.
cyclists dont just go attacking people for the hell of it, we know its wrong but sometime when you fear for your life, you get frustrated with people who just doint give a shit
I notice we see none of the
I notice we see none of the video of the run-up to this incident and what might have provoked the response…
Ah, more video at the link. I
Ah, more video at the link. I like the bit where the driver keeps saying, “It’s on camera,” as if he thinks that will support his claim that he didn’t drive alongside him shouting at him or cut the cyclist up and force him to stop.
rkemb wrote:
Which link? I can’t find anything with the full video?
LastBoyScout wrote:
The London Evening Standard link below the clip above:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/moment-cyclist-smashes-56000-mercedes-with-his-bike-in-road-rage-fury-a3970106.html
Starts with the extract here but then shows the 60s or so leading up to it.
rkemb wrote:
Just watched that version. Gosh – that escalated quickly, didn’t it?!
(So, I think that the Merc driver pulled over in front of, or on top of, the cyclist, for no apparent reason and then decided to try and deny everything. Lots of “It’s on camera!” even though the car’s camera showed absolutely zip – since it was pointing forward and all the juicy stuff was off at the side (I think). Merc driver was in the wrong lane at the junction/lights, but without actually seeing what was going on ‘off camera’ I can’t really decide on whether or not ‘throwing a bike at the car’ was or was not an overreaction…
)
rkemb wrote:
Certainly makes more sense from the full length video. Cannot condone the behaviour of the cyclist involved but in my opinion the van driver spent £1500 on a lesson about picking on another road user equally as aggressive as himself.
rkemb wrote:
Certainly makes more sense from the full length video. Cannot condone the behaviour of the cyclist involved but in my opinion the van driver spent £1500 on a lesson about picking on another road user equally as aggressive as himself.
Terrible driving by van
Terrible driving by van driver, bad reaction from cyclist. Who’d want to commute in London every day and start your day stressed up to the eyeballs!
tigersnapper wrote:
It’s more stressful driving than cycling, in my experience. Hence so many drivers trying to get you.
tigersnapper wrote:
Seriously, I cycle over 20miles a day in London, but I’ve never got close to getting this stressed! Ok, so the driver was a dick and in the wrong lane, but part of the joy of cycling in a city is you can just continue on you way, leaving idiots like this stuck in traffic (that’s why they get wound up).
a1white wrote:
Likewise. I ride all over town and have very little difficulty with drivers. I tend to choose quieter routes (another advantage of cycling is that these are often quicker anyway) but it’s generally not a stressful experience. And I see few of the sort of episodes in the video.
Indeed it’s probably better than many smaller places where the roads are narrower, motor traffic perhaps faster, and drivers don’t expect / aren’t used to / apparently have difficulty seeing cyclists.
Plus as a1white says, you’re generally faster than they are!
Duncann wrote:
It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, as the saying goes. Take the main ‘A’ ‘roads into London and you’ll get the Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers passing you four inches from your right elbow, at speeds up to 85 mph. Take the quieter roads, and it’s a foregone conclusion that there is no CCTV and less chance of witnesses, so you’re going to get bullied and threatened.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
That’s really not what I meant / my experience.
a1white wrote:
That’s a bit like saying that people shooting at you shouldn’t bother you all that much, as long as they keep missing you.
“He alleged that the cyclist
“He alleged that the cyclist deliberately collided with his vehicle and when he confronted him, pulling up alongside him near a curb, the cyclist abused him and assaulted him.”
There are numerous problems with that statement. How likely is it that a cyclist would deliberately collide with a van… and then get upset with the driver about it?
Drive dangerously around a cyclist and attempt to hurt them, then cry assualt when the tables are turned, pathetic, he wasn’t so big when he got out of his “£56,000” taxivan thing. I love the way the bystander reacts to the random offer of a handshake, says it all about the driver.
This really is a case of the driver getting what he deserved, hopefully he’ll learn from it and drive better in future, one can only hope.
Curious that its only the
Curious that its only the edited/shortened clip which supports the “psycho cyclist” narrative which went viral and nothing showing why the cyclist might be so angry…
brooksby wrote:
We all know that people will only put out what suits their own personal agenda, changes will be made in that one day this video will be sufficient while the next they’ll be demanding all sorts of supporting evidence. It’s the way of the world. Facts, truth and consistency have nothing to do with anything.
don simon wrote:
hawkinspeter wrote:
Or, I suppose
I don’t think the Deliveroo
I don’t think the Deliveroo drivers/riders will be too bothered about the driving ban in Cheltenham if the ones around here are anything to go by.
One way street? Not if it’s quicker for me…
Cycle path? Isn’t my motorbike a sort of cycle, it’s a bike, isn’t it?
Amber light? Foot down.
ASL? Opportunity to gain a couple of meters having fucked up while trying to beat the amber light.
Pedestrian crossing? I’ve got someones lunch/diner here you selfish bastard!
No left turn? Only applies to you.
Across the pavement? Naturally.
Hey, I’ve got to earn a living, so I’m fully justified in risking your life.
Smashes?
Smashes?
Mercvan taxi man has been on
Mercvan taxi man has been on the radio calling for number plates for bicycles whilst explaining why as a professional driver he was not going to wait in a queue of traffic when he could cut up the inside in the wrong lane, and that was perfectly safe!
Hope the police take into consideration his tailgating of the cyclist, use of the horn, distracted driving, possible forcing of cyclist off the road and parking on a yellow line.
The Mercvan man claims to be
The Mercvan man claims to be a professional driver, a chauffer no less, and that he was assaulted. If that standard of driving is acceptable from a professional driver, there is something wrong with the qualification system for being a professional, and I didn’t see any actual assault on him, unless pointing your finger in someone’s face is an assault. Mind you, I reckon driving your car at a cyclist qualifies as assault.
I hope his employers made him pay for the damage his appalling driving and infantile attitude caused.
burtthebike wrote:
Assault is the threat to apply force, so technically waving your finger in someone’s face could well be assault, particularly if you were shouting threatening things. The driver batted the guys hand anyway, so he clearly felt threatened…
Mind you, driving aggressively at someone could equally qualify under the strict definition. Good luck with getting anyone to take that case, though.
[/quote]Assault is the threat to apply force….
[/quote]
Common Assault – s39 Criminal Justice Act 1988: reads as follows: An offence of Common Assault is committed when a person either assaults another person or commits a battery. An assault is committed when a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to apprehend the immediate infliction of unlawful force.
No mention of threat. Probably an action more likely to contrave s5 of the Public Order Act versus what seems to be a case of Dangerous Driving.
That cycle lane in Trafford
That cycle lane in Trafford is utterly ridiculous, and if I lived there I would be demanding to see the documents about its design and the safety audit. It isn’t just an accident waiting to happen, an accident is guaranteed, if you can call something with such complete lack of attention to safety an accident. Either the parking lane needs to be the width of a car door farther out, or the bollards need to be a continuous fence, preventing passengers opening their door into the cycle lane.
If any cyclist is injured in a collision because a car door was opened into their path, it would appear inevitable that the council which designed and constructed this utterly abysmal death trap would be sued. Perhaps then they’ll design it right, but why is it even possible that such a clear and obvious danger could be conceived, designed and constructed without someone noticing that they had screwed it up so comprehensively that a one-eyed ameoba with astigmatism could see it?
I’m paraphrasing. If the
I’m paraphrasing. If the victim apprehends the infliction of force, then that means the perpetrator is threatening to apply it.
Bedides, the legal definition is arguably even looser than my shorthand.
As a Cheltenham resident, the
As a Cheltenham resident, the changes are good, yes there has been some displacement. But the town centre is a far nicer place. Obviously drivers are going to moan, and if you go on facebook there are plenty. However Cheltenham is a fairly small town and fairly flat. Infact a pretty ideal place, in theory, for cycling and walking about. The town does have a pollution issue, so car use needs to be reduced, and no matter how many carrots you offer the only way to reduce car use is a stick.
If you keep on pandering to drivers then you are never going to get people out of cars. The reports from the council, which match my observations, are town centre footfall up, cycling up and bus usage up.
There is no such time as 12pm
There is no such time as 12pm (or 12am for that matter).