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Oxford Road, Manchester (via StreetView)Police want to speak to cyclist who was allegedly punched in face by Manchester bus driver
Police would like to speak to a cyclist who was allegedly punched in the face by a bus driver following a collision on Manchester’s Oxford Road at around 8am on Friday.
The incident was reported to police and the bus company Stagecoach by witness Katya Lamb. Writing on Facebook, she said that the incident occurred at the top of Oxford Road, heading into the city centre, right by the flyover.
There were suggestions from one passenger that the cyclist had ‘cut up’ the bus. According to Lamb, that woman subsequently admitted encouraging the driver to punch the cyclist.
“I heard the crack when it connected,” she wrote. She said she thought the blow had broken the cyclist’s eye socket such was the severity and speed of the swelling.
“I will never forget his face,” said Lamb, referring to the bus driver. “Or the moment I saw the realisation in his face about what he’d done and was probably going to lose his job.
“Especially when he witnessed the exchange between me and the gobby cow and I’d said to her, ‘You quite clearly incited this. Thanks for admitting that.’”
Lamb said she told the driver that he didn’t have to listen to the woman or open his window to punch the cyclist.
“I apologised to him that I had a picture of the bus and was going to use it and report it. That’s when he told me I’d ‘interfered’ enough for one day and to get off his bus so he could get on with his day.
“I wasn’t actually ‘on’ it as I’d just been standing on the pavement at the doorway trying to stop the two passengers who’d been trying to get off to deliver further punishment to the cyclist (one was making it clear he was going to punch him too). I kept them talking to give the cyclist time to get to safety. Mob mentality gone mad.”
Lamb didn’t get the cyclist’s details or give him hers.
She said he was a white male in his early 30s, about 6ft tall. “Serious cycling gear and cyclist build so obviously a well-experienced cyclist. He was wearing black cycling pants, navy fleece with pink and white visibility stripes, black gloves, helmet and ruck sack. He’ll have a huge shiner on his left eye by now (it was swelling in front of my eyes).”
She said she had a swift response from Stagecoach. “They’re horrified one of their drivers acted this way. Already had a response from them to my email that they asked me to send this morning with my picture of the bus in question. They’ve said someone senior will be in touch. No complaint about Stagecoach’s handling of this so far.”
Greater Manchester Police have been approached for comment.
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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A friend of mine was given a left turn hook by a woman car driver, leaving him in a heap on the floor, the woman accused him of riding into her. Bus driver to the rescue, told the woman 'no he didn't, you turned across him' upon which the woman apologised. The bus driver also offered to be a witness, good and bad among all! Ironically my friend was in a hurry to join the club run and left the scene, rueful later that he had not taken the bus drivers offer along with other details.
"navy fleece with pink and white visibility stripes" Rapha dude with big shiner, should be easy to find.
Honestly I don't know how a cyclist can cut someone up. More likely cyclist is coming along bus/taxi/bike lane, moves over to the next lane just as bus decides to pull away. Bus driver doesn't keep his eye on mirror as he pulls out, pushing the cyclist right. There is a bit of a tap and cyclist come around to door to harang driver...
I've had this sort of thing happen multiple times down the 42 route, sometimes by the same bus repeatedly. It takes 2/3 seconds to pass a bus, so I try to move out early to pass them so as to not just appearing at the back corner at the last moment, unfortunately the new infrastracture can sometimes leave you boxed in behind a bus, the bike lane and approaching cars; you have the option of just stopping and waiting for who knows how long behind the bus or swinging around the back with the chance he will pull away. It's not like they should forget there are cyclists around.
I have to say it, but is this story real? Bus driver egged on by a passenger to attack a cyclist who may or may not have cut him up, and he acknowledges her existence and does as she says, and then the other passengers pretty much decide they'll have themselves a lynchin' until held off/talked down by the plucky lone voice of reason/humanity? And the cyclist victim is nowhere to be found and the police weren't involved? Whilst it could be real, It sounds more like the plot of a tv episode, tbh.
I had a look at the original FB post and the comments below, there was one from road.cc asking Katja to PM them the crime reference number so they could verify with police, so I assume they did and the police confirmed that they received a complaint.
So the story checked out that far at least.
Oh, okay: thanks for that (not on fb so wouldn’t have known that otherwise).
The story checks out as Katya reporting a crime but not that the crime actually happened.
TBH I know assaults happen all the time but this sounds pretty fantastical. The bit about a broken eye socket... If that happened to anyone surely they'd be straight to hospital and straight onto the cops.
In many ways I do hope this is nothing more than a made up story, even though not much surprises me these days.
2o2m
Katya emerges as the hero in this. She has a lot of guts. It sounds as if she might easily have been assaulted by the two passengers, egged on by the "gobby cow".
She and I both have fine Lancastrian names, but she deserves a sky high pile of chapeaux.
BTW, I don't really understand why cutting up* is considered so inappropriate by so many motorists or how a cyclist could appear threatening to a bus driver! Perhaps the driver was having a paranoid episode or on inapproriate drugs.
Alex. will you please update this story if action is taken and if the victim emerges.
* Cutting up: As a sometime "motorist" I think this is when somebody moves back into your lane as soon as they're barely in front of you. Since they're moving faster than you, they're immediately well ahead of you, so I don't see what the problem is supposed to be. Lorry drivers usually flash their lights so that the overtaker knows exactly when they can move across. Maybe I'm not describing cutting up? (Hmm, I'm now thinking that I'm going to be hit by a slew of comments correcting me on "cutting up". Actually, I don't think I want to hear from people who are incensed by cutting up. What I care about is that the cyclist recovers and the bus driver loses his licence.)
I wasn't having a pop at Katya, far from it.
And yes, your descriptiion of cutting up is perfect. It's interesting that slower cars are quite happy to move in front of faster moving cars becasue thay have to overtake, often forcing the driver to brake, but flash the faster moving car who they deem has pulled in front of them too closely. In spite of them increasing the gap due to speed difference.
The first is what I would define as “cutting up”. A slower moving car changing lanes without looking on a multi lane road, crossing an exit of a roundabout from the wrong lane (ie in the left hand lane for the first exit and just carrying on round and changing lane without any thought for others. Especially when you have a roundabout that exits on to a file carriageway).
Unfortunaly many people define it is “pulling in front of me” like the twat yesterday who tried to block me from pulling in to lane 1 on the M40... or bus drivers who pull out without looking and then are shocked by a cyclist that was passing them.
Don, I don't always agree with you, but in this case I certainly wasn't having a pop at you! I was just endorsing your comment. At least you and Argos74 named Katya in your comments, everybody else ignored this Lancastrian role model.
Not a common occurrence, but I've encountered enough aggressive driving from Stagecoach drivers (and lousy driving in general) to stop me using the Wilmslow / Oxford Road corridor alltogether. Safer to mix it with artics on the dual carriageway.
[edit] If there is any positive to be drawn from this, it's the actions of - non cycling, car driving - Katya Lamb in assisting the cyclist after the assault, and reporting it to Stagecoach and GMP. Chapeau and much cake.
Katya- a good Lancastrian name too.
Personally this driver should be found and smashed in the face with a baseball bat..
I have been punched in the face *twice* inside two weeks in the past... Pretty scary... http://bikeby.bike/bikes/20-assault/
Wow! That was hard to read. We've definitely got to do something about dangerous drivers.
You explained you are 'old and white'. You described the guy laying on the floor, you told the reader the builders were Polish, and yet you didn't describe the two people who punched you in the face. Did you not get a good look at them? Were they wearing balaclavas so you couldn't describe them? Some descriptive detail about your assailants would be consistent with the narrative.
I though the old and white comment was unnecessary too.
Oh, that's because I didn't really want to give in to racial sterotypes, though I am happy to stereotype myself. Does it matter what they were like to look at? Didn't at the time, scary has no colour or age attached.
punched in the face twice in 2 weeks.. Well you must be doing something wrong that doesn't seem normal I'm afraid !!
No, normal is letting these twats get away with it. No one should do anything that upsets the new apple cart of doing what we want, when we want.
I wish you were right. I've been attacked twice for just being a cyclist on the road. There are nutters out there.
Yes, I had the outrageous and unjustifable cheek to angrily wave at drivers who were coming at me the wrong way down a narrow one way street at 30 mph (same street, twice). I think the urge to self-preservation is pretty nomal in that kind of circumstance.
Third time's the charm?
Maybe Strava needs an 'assaulted' button like the 'commute' one?
Very concerning to see the mob mentality even in bus passengers, and surely it is time that hating cyclists was added to the laws on hate crimes?
This is the effect of the msm continually publishing articles attacking cyclists, far to many to mention, but some have featured on this site e.g. that fake psychotherapist woman and every time the DM mentions cycling.
Been going on for years. I had a run in with a bus about ten years ago in Madrid, a woman got off at one point and had a pop at me stating that the bus driver had a living to make and I should let him get on with it. She was non-plussed when I told her that I had a life to live and the bus driver was trying to stop me doing that