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news
Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgCyclist hospitalised in road rage row fined for careless cycling
A cyclist who reported a road rage incident with a driver that resulted in him being thrown over the handlebars of his bike, leaving him hospitalised with a cut to his head, reported the incident to police and ended up being found guilty in court of careless cycling.
The Manchester Evening News reports that Colin Jones, aged 49, had been cycling along Bridge Road near the Warburton Toll Bridge in Trafford on 23 June last year when Simon Barrett, driving a Honda Civic, cut him up, forcing him to swerve, shouting at him afterwards, “What’s your problem?”
The rider then held on to Barrett’s car to steady himself as a “safety mechanism” as he talked to him, but said the driver then swerved, causing him to fall off his bike. He was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital to be treated for a head injury and was released the same day.
But when he reported the incident to police officers said, after reviewing CCTV footage, that if he pressed the case he could end up being prosecuted careless or inconsiderate cycling, leading to him appearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on that charge on Tuesday.
Haseeb Yousaf, prosecuting, told the court: "Mr Jones attended the police station and he was told that he could be reported for cycling without due care or attention.
“He said he sustained a head injury in the collision but the officer pointed out that he was not wearing a helmet" – which is not, of course, a legal requirement.
Despite the warning, Jones said that he wanted to continue with the prosecution, and at his appearance in court he pleaded not guilty.
Speaking about the incident, he said that after Barrett cut him up, “I could see him looking in his mirror.
“I have then put my hand up in a questioning manner as if to say 'what have I done' and he wound his window down and shouted 'what's your problem?'
“I was engaging in dialogue with the driver so I put my hand on the car in order to communicate with him safely.
"I had my hand on to maintain a safe distance. I believe it was a safe action.
"I was concerned that he had just driven his car at me. I wasn't thinking 'was I breach of some traffic regulation.
"In hindsight I probably should have let him drive on or turned around and ridden back in the opposite direction to avoid any confrontation.
“But he had swerved his car towards me and I believed I should be able to continue on the road without having to stop or turn round for fear of recrimination."
The magistrates found Jones guilty, with the chairman of the bench, Alan Greenwood JP, telling him: "In this case we had to look at the standard of cycling and whether it was reasonable and competent and we believe putting your hand on a moving car, and the fact that this was done over a distance, was below that standard and so we find you guilty of the charge."
Jones, who was said to have seemed ‘visibly upset’ as he left the court, was fined £186 and told to pay costs of £310 and a £30 victim surcharge.
At an earlier hearing, Barrett pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention and was fined £350 and told to pay £85 costs and a £35 victim surcharge.
It’s the second case we’ve seen recently of a cyclist who has reported an incident to police ending up being prosecuted themselves.
Last month we reported how a cyclist who submitted footage of a close pass in south London to the Metropolitan Police was told he will be prosecuted because the video showed him cycling on the footway – even though he was on a shared use path with signage showing it is permitted.
> Police use close pass footage to prosecute cyclist for riding on shared-use path
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.
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40 comments
You are being completely disingenuous to write that I 'jumped in' and 'flamed you ' and 'quoted a post made after your own ' then finish with saying 'leave it there'. You attribute some line of action to me that you have just made up.
I note you make no attempt to address the fact that the costs issue had been raised on page 1.
Yes. I'm fully aware that editing a post changes the order. You had jumped on my unguarded use of the word penalised and had a post in before I could edit it... Even though I had gone back in to add qualification immediately after hitting post the first time.
If you read my full, edited post and my reply to you, you'll see that I've already answered your points.
The table of costs for the various strata of court is available on the CPS website.
If you actually look at both my posts and yours, you might note that the difference is semantic.
I stand by my original statement, that the cyclist being penalised more was unfortunate. The costs were the penalty for an unsuccessful defence having pled not guilty. That was unfortunate.
We can leave it at as there are already far too many keyboard warrior jousts on this website.
Sounds as if the cyclist made a very bad decision in the heat of the moment. Unlike motorists' similar bad decisions it didn't put someone else's life at risk, but it does mean this isn't the most cut-and-dried, one-sided, case of bad driving ever. Not even the strongest example this week, probably.
Unfortunate for Mr Jones, but not that surprising that the legal system doesn't want to distinguish between behaving badly while in charge of a lethal weapon and doing the same without one. He made a further mistake in contesting the case - has he not noticed how biased the legal system is when it comes to motoring? You simply aren't going to be cut the same slack that drivers are, if you broke the law you might as well give up immediately.
Cyclists often side with other cyclists becuase they've seen so many examples of how the legal system consistently sides with motorists (including against pedestrians).
Maybe the driver was trying to shake him off before he cycled into the tollbooth while still holding onto the car. It's possible!
Seriously though, as cyclists, we don't have a huge list of MUST NOT entries in the highway code however:
Rule 68
You MUST NOT:
carry a passenger unless your cycle has been built or adapted to carry one
hold onto a moving vehicle or trailer
ride in a dangerous, careless or inconsiderate manner
ride when under the influence of drink or drugs, including medicine.
Law RTA 1988 sects 24, 26, 28, 29 & 30 as amended by RTA 1991
Both idiots, rightly charged... Adrenaline fuelled or not.
The cyclist being penalised more than the driver is unfortunate, but we need to remember that these were independent prosecutions... It's not like the same judge handed out the fines to each in the same breath. As has already been mentioned the costs associated with his pleading not guilty is what makes the cyclist pay more. The actual fines were lower
But he wasn't - he pleaded not guilty and ended up with some prosecution costs whereas the driver enter a plead of guilty, so less costs.
The cyclist WAS penalised more.
The extra costs incurred were a direct penalty of unsuccessfully pleading not guilty.
I knew someone would jump on that, hence my edit to reiterate the cost element.
Looks like you were flaming me at the same moment though and youre now quoting a post made after your own.
Errrr.....you realise that if you edit your original post then it changes the order of the posts in the article.
I look forward to reading your explanation of how costs are calculated.
If you had read the previous posts you would also see that costs had been mentioned...
p>
From my post several hours ago
I guess that's no effort to address the fact that the costs issue was mentioned on page 1?
I am going to leave it at that.
Best not to make daft accusations of flaming and jumping in a attributing motives you have just made up.
When the car comes into shot it's pretty obvious that the cyclist had their adrenalin flowing and was being somewhat dickish. However, if the driver had held their line then the traffic island would have caused the cyclist to stop, or put your brakes on, or accelerate. The action the driver took was deliberate and life threatening and should be treated as such!
Now seen the video. Very easy to say in hindsight, and I know from experience how different it can be in the heat of the moment, but note to self not to remonstrate with the driver of a moving vehicle who has already shown disregard for your safety, it's just not worth it. If in the words of the cyclist he "was concerned that he had just driven his car at me", don't give him another chance. Driver was lucky to only get 'careless' for that swerve approaching a pinch point though.
There has to be a pc involved for dangerous driving
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-04/driver-jailed-for-ramming-armed-poli...
And four years is a piss take for the crime, still far more than motorists get when it's an ordinary joe/joannna
Just seen the video myself and that's a really dumb way to argue with a driver. The cyclist is pretty much inviting the driver to do a swerve, though that should not exonerate the driver in any way.
The woman was wearing a low cut top and short skirt and flirted with the man, she pretty much invited him to rape her.
Fuck off with your victim blaming, the driver could have done a whole host of things, one of them wasn't to deliberately attack another person with a dangerous weapon!
You're reading me wrong there - I'm not exonerating the driver, just pointing out that the cyclist was being an ass too. It looks to me as though the cyclist was wanting the situation to escalate. I've never felt the need to cycle along whilst leaning against a car's roof - why would you do that unless you were deliberately goading the driver?
Anyhow, if you're going to do an analogy it'd be something like "she was leaning all over me and pushing her crotch against mine, so I just gave a little pelvic thrust to get rid of her".
Mr Jones committed a terrible, luckily not fatal, mistake. As we all know, you *never* touch a motorist's vehicle. They get very sensitive about it.
Most road users get upset when another approaches them and comes alongside to within touching distance whilst moving. Some consider it to be an aggressive action. I'm sure cyclists are not alone in feeling this way.
If you haven't seen the video https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/cyc...
After watching that, they are both idiots. Don't play sticky bottle with cars.
They are both idiots.
the driver assaulted the cyclist in the first instance, there was a further assault later on when the cyclist remonstrated with the person that had already assaulted him.
Woman goes to police, someone just tried to rape me, it's on cctv.
Plod look at video,
"well love, if we prosecute them we'll prosecute you for public order offence for fighting them off and saying some nasty words"
Magistrate, "well it's clear you assaulted your assailent by touching his arm and the language you used was offensive and careless, have a big fine and costs more than the person who tried to rape you"
How is this even lawful, the police should go through with the prosecution of the motorist no matter what, they deliberately tried to pervert the course of justice with that threat.
Fucking wankers!
Well, no. In your scenario the woman's actions are an attempt to fend off and foil an ongoing attack upon her. Not at all analogous to the cyclists, who pursued the driver after the event was over and there was no ongoing risk. Moreover, in choosing to go on to make contact with the moving car the cyclist is voluntarily aggravating the risk to himself and directly contributing to his injury.
The real tragedy is he left his Strava on in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and his ride was flagged for 'Activity in vehicle.'
This reaction is why people claim cyclists defend each other no matter what.
From what I can tell the chain of events was:
1) Driver cuts up cyclists
2) Cyclist shouts at driver
3) Cyclist grabs hold of car
4) Driver pulls away, cyclist holds on.
5) Cyclists falls off bike, because he is holding moving car, and hits head on the floor.
As far as I can see the police did the right thing. The driver was prosecuted for the driving. Got a fine at the lower end because he plead guilty, was probably contrite, went to court and said sorry, made a mistake, having a bad day, won’t happen again etc.
Cyclist hit his head on the floor causing just the kind of injury a helmet would prevent. He would not have fallen had this injury had he not held the car. He makes up some nonsense about protecting himself (with his hand, from a car???). He then continues to push it with the police when he could have walked away. He did not plead guilty and kept arguing with the court (things garenteed to annoy a magistrate). Got a fine at the higher end of the scale.
Seems to me like the right outcome. Emotive language like “assault” or “revenge” helps no one. It just adds to the idea that cyclists will always defend cyclists.
I think the outcome is partly down to intent.
It's generally considered that poor driving is 'accidental' (which I don't particularly agree with), but aggressive behaviour is usually considered intentional.
Also courts don't like people messing with them, so he probably p*ssed off the judge.
The reason that cyclists are often quick to defend other cyclists is that we're all familiar with poor driving and a lot of us get angry when subjected to it, so we can empathise with this particular case.
Since using cameras and submitting footage to police, I've come to think that most of the time it's better to just cycle away and let the footage speak for itself. An exception is when it appears that the driver is just clueless and you happen to catch up with them - sometimes just explaining the situation to them can get the message across. When the driver just apologises, it makes it unnecessary to then contact the police.
(By the way, I don't see how not wearing a helmet is relevant).
I recall a report in Cycling Weekly a few years ago.
A young cyclist was knocked off his cycle in one incident and consequently he started using a camera.
A few weeks later, a car collided with him on the exit of a roundabout. The video showed him "cursing" the driver and the motorist drove away.
The video was submitted to the Police. The driver was traced and she claimed she drove off because she felt threatened by the angry cyclist.
The drover did not face any charge. She avoided the offence of leaving the scene of a PI RTC. Nor was she charged with careless driving, even though the video evidence demonstrated very clearly this offence had been committed.
Reading the many reports on Road.cc a clear impression emerges, the Police or CPS will use any reason possible to avoid prosecution. If your evidence shows any deviation from the Road Traffic Acts, or any susposed acts of retaliation etc. your case is compromised.
I'm not for a minute suggesting that the outcome is proportionate to the two offences but, to be fair: (1) it would be quite difficult for the police to just ignore an offence by the cyclist if it appears in exactly the same bit of footage as the offence by the driver (even if that offence is only ever likely to harm the cyclist) - though I'm surprised it met the public interest test for prosecution; (2) both the fine and victim surcharge were higher for the driver's offence - the reason costs were higher for the cyclist is presumably simply because (unlike the driver) he entered a not guilty plea.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
deedum13.png
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