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Instagram urged to remove videos showing moped riders pushing London cyclists off bikes

Cycling UK says videos show "despicable behaviour" and "glamorise petty crime"...

Videos posted to Instagram show moped riders in London deliberately pushing cyclists from their bikes, with Cycling UK describing is as “despicable behaviour.”

In one video, a moped rider shouts, “Get over!” as he pushes a cyclist into a brick wall, with another rider shouting, “He’s off, he’s off!,” reports The Times.

A separate video shows a cyclist falling off his bike, his head hitting the ground, after a moped rider struck his bike’s handlebars with a tool.

Paul Farrelly, the Tory MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme and who site on the House of Commons select committee for digital, culture, media and sport, said it was “utterly wrong that social media is being used to glamorise crime” and called for the videos to be removed from social media.

His views were echoed by Sam Jones, senior campaigns officer at Cycling UK, who said: “This sort of behaviour is a sick joke which is putting people’s lives and well-being at risk.

”It is despicable behaviour which seeks to glamorise petty thuggery.

“Social media outlets have a responsibility to make sure content like this doesn’t make it before the public – but perhaps more importantly this should be a wake-up call that the country needs more roads policing.”

A spokesman for Facebook, which owns Instagram, has said that it is investigating the accounts concerned to ascertain “whether they violate our guidelines.”

He added: “Illegal activity, including the support or praise of it, is not allowed on Instagram.”

Earlier this year, police in Lancashire appealed after moped muggers left a cyclist with serious head injuries after pushing him off his bike in Preston.

In August last year, we reported how a cyclist had urged fellow bike riders to be vigilant after muggers on mopeds tried to rob her in North London, while last December, an off-duty Metropolitan Police officer who was commuting by bike arrested a pair of moped muggers after he saw them riding suspiciously on a footpath.

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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19 comments

Avatar
vonhelmet | 4 years ago
1 like

GSRD is gender, sexual and relationship diversity, apparently, which is the same but different.

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downfader | 4 years ago
0 likes

I have also tried to report videos that not only feature violence, but encourage others to do the same on facebook, insta and twitter. Nothing ever gets removed. The selfharm and suicide stuff had to go national on the news before they bothered to act. And even then it took them weeks.

 

I would honestly laugh my backside off if I found out any one of these scummy websites had gone bust now tbh.

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A440 | 4 years ago
0 likes

How dare anyone call for a ban on mopeds, on the very site that reports on them daily? This site can't get enough of mopeds, disguised as "E-bikes".

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Luca Patrono replied to A440 | 4 years ago
1 like
A440 wrote:

How dare anyone call for a ban on mopeds, on the very site that reports on them daily? This site can't get enough of mopeds, disguised as "E-bikes".

Yes, except for those small, petty matters of the relative mass, maximum speed and ability to move without effort on the part of the users.

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hawkinspeter replied to Luca Patrono | 4 years ago
0 likes

Luca Patrono wrote:
A440 wrote:

How dare anyone call for a ban on mopeds, on the very site that reports on them daily? This site can't get enough of mopeds, disguised as "E-bikes".

Yes, except for those small, petty matters of the relative weight, maximum speed and ability to move without effort on the part of the users.

You missed out the noise and exhaust fumes.

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FluffyKittenofT... | 4 years ago
0 likes

About time mopeds - their sale, purchase, use, or posession - were simply banned.  They serve no useful purpose (pizzas and other fast food can be delivered by bicycle, or people could maybe get off their sofas and go get it themselves and at least work off some of the calories, or maybe cook some real food, even?).

Their primarly appeal seems to be to the criminal and anti-social.

Why would they be missed?  What are they actually _for_, other than acid-throwing, petty theft, and riding on footpaths?

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hawkinspeter replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 4 years ago
4 likes

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

About time mopeds - their sale, purchase, use, or posession - were simply banned.  They serve no useful purpose (pizzas and other fast food can be delivered by bicycle, or people could maybe get off their sofas and go get it themselves and at least work off some of the calories, or maybe cook some real food, even?).

Their primarly appeal seems to be to the criminal and anti-social.

Why would they be missed?  What are they actually _for_, other than acid-throwing, petty theft, and riding on footpaths?

What happened to "2 wheels good, 4 wheels bad"?

 

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Gus T replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 4 years ago
3 likes

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

About time mopeds - their sale, purchase, use, or posession - were simply banned.  They serve no useful purpose (pizzas and other fast food can be delivered by bicycle, or people could maybe get off their sofas and go get it themselves and at least work off some of the calories, or maybe cook some real food, even?).

Their primarly appeal seems to be to the criminal and anti-social.

Why would they be missed?  What are they actually _for_, other than acid-throwing, petty theft, and riding on footpaths?

 

Maybe in towns but in rural areas mopeds can be a lifeline for teenagers, just like cyclists there are good and bad moped riders.

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to Gus T | 4 years ago
0 likes

Gus T wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

About time mopeds - their sale, purchase, use, or posession - were simply banned.  They serve no useful purpose (pizzas and other fast food can be delivered by bicycle, or people could maybe get off their sofas and go get it themselves and at least work off some of the calories, or maybe cook some real food, even?).

Their primarly appeal seems to be to the criminal and anti-social.

Why would they be missed?  What are they actually _for_, other than acid-throwing, petty theft, and riding on footpaths?

 

Maybe in towns but in rural areas mopeds can be a lifeline for teenagers, just like cyclists there are good and bad moped riders.

 

Banning in urban areas could be an acceptable compromise.

 

I've yet to encounter a "good" mopedist in the city.  And it's absurd how many jobs now are insecure driving jobs, delivering things that don't really need to be delievered, with timescales that pretty much demand law-breaking to meet, or ferrying lazy people about.  We're not a nation of shopkeepers any more, we're a nation of couriers and taxi-drivers.

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Rick_Rude | 4 years ago
1 like

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

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exilegareth replied to Rick_Rude | 4 years ago
8 likes

Rick_Rude wrote:

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

Mate, no disrespect, but LGBT / GSRD people have to put up with eggs, and much worse, every day, and have exactly the same gripes as cyclists - often they're also cyclists. If you think it's a sensible to tackle the issue, by claiming a permanently oppressed group is somehow ore privileged than you, you're at risk of people thinking you're a bit of a bigot.

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burtthebike replied to exilegareth | 4 years ago
7 likes

exilegareth wrote:

Rick_Rude wrote:

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

Mate, no disrespect, but LGBT / GSRD people have to put up with eggs, and much worse, every day, and have exactly the same gripes as cyclists - often they're also cyclists. If you think it's a sensible to tackle the issue, by claiming a permanently oppressed group is somehow ore privileged than you, you're at risk of people thinking you're a bit of a bigot.

Very true.  It is the same group of juvenile, small-minded, ignorant people that attacks any out group, and we need to empathise with each other and fight the common enemy.

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Rik Mayals unde... replied to exilegareth | 4 years ago
1 like

exilegareth wrote:

Rick_Rude wrote:

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

Mate, no disrespect, but LGBT / GSRD people have to put up with eggs, and much worse, every day, and have exactly the same gripes as cyclists - often they're also cyclists. If you think it's a sensible to tackle the issue, by claiming a permanently oppressed group is somehow ore privileged than you, you're at risk of people thinking you're a bit of a bigot.

Maybe I have led a sheltered life, I know what LGBT means, but can anyone tell me what GSRD stands for? This is the first time I have come across it. 

Avatar
Sriracha replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 4 years ago
1 like
biker phil wrote:

exilegareth wrote:

Rick_Rude wrote:

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

Mate, no disrespect, but LGBT / GSRD people have to put up with eggs, and much worse, every day, and have exactly the same gripes as cyclists - often they're also cyclists. If you think it's a sensible to tackle the issue, by claiming a permanently oppressed group is somehow ore privileged than you, you're at risk of people thinking you're a bit of a bigot.

Maybe I have led a sheltered life, I know what LGBT means, but can anyone tell me what GSRD stands for? This is the first time I have come across it. 

Likewise. So I looked it up. My imperfect understanding is that in the face of the ever lengthening acronym currently LGBTQIAPK a new acronym has been coined, standing for Gender Sexual and Relationship Diversity, to encompass current permutations as well as those not yet known.
http://beyondthebinary.co.uk/lgbt-vs-gsrd/

Avatar
Rik Mayals unde... replied to Sriracha | 4 years ago
1 like

Sriracha wrote:
biker phil wrote:

exilegareth wrote:

Rick_Rude wrote:

No doubt if I drove past a Pride march and egged them I'd be arrested the same day. Meanwhile serious injury for instajapes isn't worthy of anything, not even removal from the websites. 

Mate, no disrespect, but LGBT / GSRD people have to put up with eggs, and much worse, every day, and have exactly the same gripes as cyclists - often they're also cyclists. If you think it's a sensible to tackle the issue, by claiming a permanently oppressed group is somehow ore privileged than you, you're at risk of people thinking you're a bit of a bigot.

Maybe I have led a sheltered life, I know what LGBT means, but can anyone tell me what GSRD stands for? This is the first time I have come across it. 

Likewise. So I looked it up. My imperfect understanding is that in the face of the ever lengthening acronym currently LGBTQIAPK a new acronym has been coined, standing for Gender Sexual and Relationship Diversity, to encompass current permutations as well as those not yet known. http://beyondthebinary.co.uk/lgbt-vs-gsrd/

Thanks for that, my first thought was to Google it, but I was scared what might appear in front of my eyes, especially as my wife is sat next to me! I remember I once Googled 'Adult only camping' whilst looking for a quiet child free site. I can't begin to tell you what came up, dogging sites was the top!

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vonhelmet | 4 years ago
1 like

They don't give a shit. I've reported similar videos on Facebook and been told they don't breach any rules.

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brooksby | 4 years ago
0 likes

Just asking, for a friend, but does this mean that we're allowed to strike them back?

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CygnusX1 replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
4 likes

brooksby wrote:

Just asking, for a friend, but does this mean that we're allowed to strike them back?

Only if you, sorry - your friend, videos it and post it on Instagram

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Jackson | 4 years ago
9 likes

Giving people serious head injuries is not petty crime. These incidents are serious and potentially lethal assaults.

Not sure if my overconsumption of UK cycling media is causing me to overstate the risks, but these stories make me think it's just not worth it any more. I don't want to ride on roads in a country full of people who hate cyclists, without any police. 

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