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news
Dramatic footage shows Tesco delivery driver knocking cyclist off bike on London cycleway (+ video)
A man has been fined after a cyclist riding on a busy cycleway in London was knocked off his bike by a Tesco delivery driver who turned left across his path but later denied he had been driving the vehicle.
The dramatic incident was filmed in May and has now been uploaded to YouTube by road.cc reader Chris.
It happened on Cycleway 8 – one of the original ‘lick of blue paint’ Cycle Superhighways that afford nothing in the way of physical protection – on Millbank, just after the junction with Vauxhall Bridge Road.
The driver could not have been unaware that there were cyclists to his left, with the start of the video showing around a dozen of them positioned in the advanced stop line area ahead of him as they waited for the traffic lights to change to cross Vauxhall Bridge Road.
Nevertheless, after the lights change, the driver passed Chris then turned left into a small cul-de-sac, knocking the front rider from his bike and, as this still image shows, the cyclist was very close to having his leg crushed by the vehicle’s nearside front wheel.
Chris told us that the cyclist was able to ride away from the scene, and that the case has only just gone to court – although incredibly, the driver refused to admit that he was driving the vehicle at the time.
“This meant the police could not charge him for driving-related charges as he could not officially be identified - despite the video evidence,” Chris said.
“Instead he was prosecuted for ‘failing to nominate driver. He was given a £300 fine, plus £332 in costs and six points.
“Despite the employee refusing to take responsibility for the crash, Tesco admitted liability in the insurance claim.”
Chris added that in a later part of the footage he captured, not shown in this edit (which has been uploaded and shared with the cyclist’s permission, “the employee states the cyclist had been in his ‘blind spot’.”
In October 2015, cyclist Julie Dinsdale lost her right leg when she was crushed by a left-turning Tesco lorry as she rode along London’s Old Street with her partner, mountain bike pioneer Keith Bontrager.
The following August, the driver, Florian Oprea, was fined £625 and had his driving licence endorsed with five penalty points after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention.
Dinsdale said afterwards that she was “hugely disappointed by the decision of the Court which finds that despite the evidence that I was visible to the driver, he should not be handed a more substantial sentence given the impact his actions have had on my life.”
> Cyclist who lost leg ‘hugely disappointed’ by driver’s £625 fine
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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60 comments
But if you knew that you were turning left in a couple of hundred yards, would you overtake the riders off the lights, guaranteeing that there won't be a gap for you to spot?
This wasn't a segregated cycle highway, it was the major road, with right of way over traffic joining and leaving it, so I'm not sure why you bothered to post this comment as it has zero relevance. Neither did the cyclist undertake a moving vehicle. Did you watch the video at all?
My comment/question was in the wider context of how these lanes work, not specifically related to the incident. Why are there always pedantic kn#bs (trolls?) on these discussions? (fogot, it's the interweb - yes I did watch the vid).
It's pretty simple. Give way to traffic going straight.
If it's a bus lane, give way to the bus, segregated cycle lane give way to the cyclist, none segregated cycle lane and you want to turn left but they are too close to not cut them up give way to the cyclist, oncoming traffic give way before you turn right.
This is the same if you are in the middle lane on a motorway and have seen your exit and there is a car in the inside lane, let them pass before you move. Don't just cut them up.
The excuse put forward by the driver is utter BS.
Firstly, he would have seen the cyclist as he passed them, just prior to making the turn, so the judge should have called BS, secondly.... the driver was fully aware that the cyclist was there, why else would he have driven onto the wrong side of the road on the entry into the cul-de-sac.
Having been involved in accidents before I would be making sure that I have undisputable proof of who is driving by way of helmet cam footage (Provided they stop).
It would be interesting to see more of the footage, to see if there were any other Tesco employees there at the time. If there were no other Tesco employees there, then how can there be ANY dubiaety about who was driving the vehicle.
I believe that a failure to nominate should mean an individual being given double the tariff of the offence for which they are accused of. That way there is no benefit for not nominating.
If its in respect of a company failing to nominate than they should receive a substantial fine of say £10,000.
It all sounds a bit draconian but they need to remove the benefit of keeping your mouth shut.
The whole video was obviously staged as the cyclists were all waiting at the red traffic lights, and we all know that all cyclists ignore traffic lights!
Seriously this is an outrage. If this really is the state of play then there is a serious loophole that is open to outright abuse.
Makes no sense at all that the option not to nominate is there for TEsco
"The Road Traffic Act 1988 also places a duty on a body corporate to keep a record of who was driving a specific vehicle at any given time. Should a body corporate be found guilty of the offence and the offence occurred as a result of negligence or connivance of a person within the company, that person can also be held individually liable and subject to penalty points and a fine.
A conviction for failing to provide driver information will result in 6 penalty points and a fine of up to £1000. The police may also continue with the original alleged offence on the basis that there will be an assumption that the registered keeper would have been the driver of the vehicle at the time. This would obviously be difficult for them to prove in the absence of any other evidence. Failing to provide driver information is a strict liability offence and you may be convicted even if you do not receive the request for information."
https://www.ashfords.co.uk/news-and-media/general/what-is-failing-to-pro...
How did Tesco not have to show who was driving ?
Who else at Tesco got points ?
As others have already stated here, the driver cannot be prosecuted for 'Failing to Nominate'. Only the Owner/Keeper of the vehicle can commit that offence and I doubt he is an 'owner-driver'. I would like to think Tesco's keep detailed records of who is driving which vehicle & when. That aside, there can be absolutely no excuse for the extremely poor standard of driving by this professional driver. Clearly, his driving has fallen far below the standard required of him; which is how these cases are decided upon, therefore should have been looking at Dangerous Driving.
"Clearly, his driving has fallen far below the standard required of him; which is how these cases are decided upon, therefore should have been looking at Dangerous Driving."
Which is why he has "failed to Nominate" as it caries a lesser punishment
I doubt it, unless the police and the CPS took it VERY seriously, and being the met, they very rarely do, it would be driving without due care and attention, 3 points and £100 maybe?
The problem is Tesco almost certainly record who is supposed to be driving a particular van,but almost certainly cannot guarantee they actually were.
It wouldn't be the first time a organisation who thought it recorded its employee allocations, discovered they were woefully inadequate in light of an accident.
I suppose all the dash cam footage was lost too the audio of which could have been interesting!
I hope they were sacked by Tesco for refusing to nominate.
Were there 2 people in the van given a person exited on the passenger side?
In which case it would have been clear who was driving.
Is it normal for Tesco deliveries to be double-crewed? Because I'd imagine it's the passenger who gets out at the end of the clip, not the driver?
No, usually a single driver. I have seen two make deliveries when there is a trainee. Might that be why Tesco's are unsure which was driving?
Well, we know who got out the passenger side...
I was a customer service manager for Tesco for a couple of years, having responsibility for grocery delivery drivers.
All vans on a particular delivery round had a reference like 'L56' or 'E99' for example, this was because if they were running late then they had to inform head office where a national database was compiled every day to keep track of operations and because this reference (van) was allocated a mobile phone so drivers could be contacted if a customer did not receive their order for example.
Drivers were not allowed to answer phones whilst driving mind you as it was a sackable offence. Vans were usually single crewed and used sat navs but there was never enough working ones to go around all the drivers, so it is possible that a 'new' driver would have someone more experienced in the van with them for a day or two to show them the route.
Also Tesco were using more and more agency staff to drive the vans as they were payed less than Tesco staff, so it is possible that Tesco would not have had a clue who was driving the van, as staff could change on a daily basis and there was a high turnover of staff as drivers got fed up of customers giving them grief and a lot of the agency drivers could not speak much English because many of them were Eastern European, especially in the London area for example, so you sometimes never got to know their names.
Some of the agencies Tesco used were pretty dreadful, but supplied cheap staff and potentially they may have not known who had been sent to drive what van on any particular day and as Tesco didn't have a clue who they were when they turned up in store to do the driving, things could easily get very confused believe me.
This may sound odd but Tesco are the biggest grocery delivery company in the world and the big delivery 'warehouses' in London may have a lot of vans going out every day, I can't remember exactly how many but maybe 80 to 150 vans as its a big area to service.
I no longer work for Tesco - I handed my notice in for a number of reasons as you can imagine - too much stress mainly!
How did anyone know if they held a valid licence if they had no idea who was on shift?
This was a contractual obligation of the agency as the drivers were not employees of Tesco.
Tesco would request a certain number of drivers to be supplied and the agency would supply suitable licensed staff.
When I was working for Tesco we never checked the integrity of agency staff, it was down to the agency to do all the checks - it is quite a common arrangement in all sorts of industries.
It is certainly possible that someone could turn up and pretend to be someone else I suppose, this has been happening with UBER drivers according to news reports, not that I am suggesting Tesco allow this but I never had a clue who was who with the agency staff to be honest as they changed so frequently.
If agency staff were any good, then Tesco would after six months or so offer them a full time job as a Tesco employee, they nearly always said yes as the pay was a lot higher and they got perks like staff discounts in store and more holidays for example.
Only then would we ask for proof of qualifications like a driving license and also proof of being legal to work in the UK.
But like I say, this is common practice across all industries who utilise agency staff and no doubt the likes of ASDA, Morrisons etc all work the same way.
Fine answers and thanks for giving them.
Did the agency staff have to sign out the vehicles?
Bollocks, of course reasonable proof was available as to who was driving. Tesco have to have records of who is driving which vehicle at what time for a whole bunch of reasons.
Agree that the offence of failure to nominate should carry a greater penalty - I completely fail to understand why this should even be an option.
Also, is it normal practice in London for Tesco deliveries to be double-crewed? I'm assuming its the passenger who gets out at the end of the clip, not the driver?
Exactly what I was going to say. Tesco must know who was driving, unless they've contracted it out to a delivery company, but whoever owns that vehicle had to have known who was driving. Maybe we need to picket Tesco?
Can't quite understand how the driver wasn't identified at the scene, surely the police were called and details exchanged? What worries me is that this will be picked up by loophole lawyers and used to avoid many more prosecutions.
Straight out the Donald Trump playbook.
I think he has minions to drive his vans.
I think its about time that someone guilty of "Failure to Nominate" becomes "responsible for the actions of the driver". Because ininstances like this some callous folk will smple be trying to be guilty of a lesser charge.
Reminds me of one a while back wih a Volvo driving straight into the back of a rider and leaving the scene.
Also the fleet manager will be keeping very strict records of who has responibility for what vehicle when, and these records should be used in evidence to identify the driver
As it was the (alleged) driver, not Tesco (who presumably are the registered keepers) that was prosecuted for failing to nominate presumably Tesco said the van was being used by X that day, and X is saying "not me, guv".
FFS.
This is an odd one.
The Tesco delivery manager didn't want the charge, points and fine, so the driver decides, even though readily identifiable, to make it worse for themselves.
Watching the YouTubes of CyclingMikey and CyclingGaz, failure to nominate for phone use means 6 points and £800+ fine rather than a £200 one.
And properly adjusted mirrors on a small vehicle like that eliminate "blind spots". The driver decided to place the rider in the blind spot by the decision to overtake.
The Tesco van has onboard recording.
I reckon that's the driver getting out of the passenger side . Takes him ages to get out, and the van is right over the wrong side of the road and up towards the bushes and wall.
if Tesco can't say who was driving , take the penalty points up the ladder to the top of the tree . I'm sure if 'Mr Tesco' suddenly got 6 points on their licence because of some knob head van driver then they would be able to identify who it was ...
Ridiculous loophole. Should be an automatic vehicle confiscation with a big fine at the very least if they can't provide the driver details...they might nominate the driver if it's gonna cost them 20 grand+...
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