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Tailgating London bus driver (Twitter: Rendel Harris)"I've got a cyclist here!": Bus driver who tailgated cyclist tries calling the police for "getting on his nerves"
As a cyclist, being tailgated by the driver of any vehicle is bad – but when it's a bus driver, who tries to overtake by speeding, then gets out at a red light and not only seeks confrontation, but swears and threatens to call the cops just because you "got on his nerves", is surely worse, as a London cyclist tells us.
Rendel Harris was going down Herne Hill on his bike yesterday just before noon, when a driver behind the wheel of an out-of-service Go Ahead London bus started driving just "two to three metres behind" him, and tried to overtake twice, despite him already riding at the speed limit of 20mph.
Harris told road.cc: "He was behind me for about 800 metres, in which time I was never below the 20mph limit for the road (it's a steep hill). He twice pulled out to try and overtake in that time and had to pull back in due to oncoming traffic."
Herne Hill 2/9/23 11.30AM
1/5 Bus driver of Go Ahead vehicle SN58CEY (out of service) tailgated me all the way down Herne Hill, driving 2-3m off my back wheel, and twice attempted dangerously to overtake, even though I was riding at the 20mph limit for the road. pic.twitter.com/iUDfYRHX8Y
— Rendel Harris (@Rendel_Harris) September 2, 2023
Based on some quick calculations, that would place the bus driver behind Harris for approximately 90 seconds.
He added: "The only other cyclist about was my wife but she was behind him so no issue, the traffic in front I caught up with near the bottom of the hill so being behind me did not slow the driver up for a single second!"
> "He has to wait, that's all there is to it": Jeremy Vine slams bus driver for near miss
As soon as both of them come to a halt at the red light at Herne Hill station, the driver screams while still seated in his seat: "I've got you, I've got you!" He proceeds to climb out of the bus hastily and rings up the emergency services, telling Harris: "You stand right here and shut up. I'm going to call the police you piece of s***."
"I'm a bus driver and I've got a cyclist here," the driver says on the phone. "I need police assistance right now." Presumably being asked what was the emergency situation, the bus driver can be heard saying: "He's really getting on my nerves."
Harris cheekily remarks: "Really getting on your nerves isn't a criminal offence buddy!"
Best quote from this film by @Rendel_Harris https://t.co/uCEvm2n37f pic.twitter.com/0Z0Vtu0Yi2
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) September 3, 2023
Harris said that he could hear the police dispatcher ask: "Have they assaulted you?", to which the driver says: "No." The dispatcher asks again: "Have they threatened you?", and the driver replies: "Not yet."
Harris tries to ask him his name, but the driver walks away. Shortly after, he told road.cc that he climbed back in his bus and locked the doors, telling me that the police were coming.
"He didn't do anything, he very weirdly went and hid in his bus on the top deck, then every so often he would pop up and apparently take another photograph of us and then disappear again!," Harris said. "When we left I knocked on the door and shouted that we were leaving unless he could tell us the police were definitely coming, he didn't show his face!"
He also tweeted: "This person is clearly not sufficiently mentally stable to drive a large vehicle (or indeed any vehicle) on public roads," adding that he will send a formal complaint to Go Ahead London.
road.cc has contacted Go Ahead London for an update on the situation, and the private bus operator group told road.cc that it was "urgently investigating this footage and will interview the driver".
Harris, a road.cc reader and regular cyclist, meanwhile, added that he had been out for a 40km ride in London this morning and every bus driver he encountered was "lovely". "As with most things it's only a tiny minority," he said.
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after completing his masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Cymru, and also likes to write about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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51 comments
What a meltdown!
Hopefully he'll get done for wasting police time as well as the traffic offence. Do you have rear camera footage? I guess the bus will have CCTV.
No, I keep thinking about getting a rear camera but the sheer hassle of the continuous recharging etc puts me off. Might be time...to be honest I'm not overbothered about getting him points or whatever, just think he needs taking off the road by his employers before that anger translates into someone getting hurt.
Just get a cycliq rear - fit and forget
It's not fit and forget its 200 quid,plus it's battery life isnt great and unless someone actually drives into your back wheel, the footage never looks that bad.
The '6 Gen 3 battery life compared to the '6 Gen 2 is poor ..
But compared to the majority of other 'action' cams, the battery life is quite good in camera mode only.
If the length of your ride is 3 hours, then the '6 will do it easily in camera mode only.
If longer, then take a power pack with you and top it up while having your coffee stop.
The main problem with the Cycliq cameras, is that there just isn't the competition out there that provides an equal or greater product.
True, cheaper cameras exist, but then you find image quality is crap, or there's no image stabilisation so the video is impossible to watch, or battery life is even worse.
Which just highlights its not fit and forget. I think mine is a gen 2, image quality is great, battery life well 3 hrs is less than a weeks commuting, so it's something you have to be onto recharging constantly to be using regularly
And what's the value ultimately? unless someone drives into you from behind,the footage doesn't ime tend to show as much, as the forward facing camera does.
I've found that the rear tends to have more useful footage of poor driving, especially if they're tailgating you which also helps to get a very clear view of the number plate. Most close passes that I've had don't look so bad from the front footage though YMMV.
So this is one example, with a pass pixi fwiw, where the van in the Cycliq6 (rear) doesn't look to be as bad a close pass, as the front cam view does. The front view gives you the sense of where the van is alongside the rider, the rear view as long as they aren't hitting you well they're there, but that's all you're getting from it.
And I believe thats why with another white van close pass, where my front cam had failed so I only had the rear cam view, the police only gave the driver, with an untaxed van, some words of advice.
Yeah, it depends on the nature of the pass. I've had incidents where the front view is better - typically where they're cutting in front of you, but the rear is better for "punishment" passes (aka coward's pass).
Cameras are a faff, even the cycliq, and I only bother with the fly6 when riding short errands on the town bike. So totally understand the single camera approach.
It's because I lock the bike up and leave it, so need to remember to remove the camera (mainly for the data on it, they should really encrypt dashcam/bikecam SD cards, but I'm not aware of any devices that do).
Always dual cameras on longer roadbike rides though and that rarely leaves my side.
I think you're being too kind. The guy shouldn't be driving full stop.
There are too many aggressive people who think it is OK to threaten someone simply because they're on a bicycle. I've had it happen a few times over the years and I've had my fill of it.
People shouldn't feel they need to run a camera in the first place!
Check Techalogic DC-1. It's helmet mounted so it automatically goes indoors with me at the end of a ride, making it more convenient to charge at work, harder to nick off the bike, and records front and rear simultaneously.
It needs a better helmet mount to be less conspicous, but I've cobbled one up.
I rate the Techalogic DC-1 too. It's up high so if my front and rear Drift Ghost XLs mounted on the bike miss something the DC-1 will catch it and visa versa. The DC-1 is better in low light and records where I look but I prefer the Drifts as it's hard to beat 9 hours battery life, they don't look like cameras and they click off the bike in a second when I park up and can be swapped to mutiple bikes just as quickly.
It's a sad state of affairs when I feel the need to spend more on cameras than I did on the bike though.
I can heartily recommend the MagicShine SeeMee DV rear light and camera - hefty old battery and decent clear image.
Do you have any video footage online from that camera?
The video on the company website is set to Private, and you cant download the user manual as the link resolves to a 404 error.
There is some in here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ3iEE3SpnM
Doesn't look very good at capturing number plates, unless they deliberately blurred them. Could probably do with image stabilisation.
No IS ..
That's what I was concerned about.
It's a long body and the mount is in the top 1/4 ... leaving a nice springboard vibration amplification.
Plus side ... it does use the Garmin 1/4 turn which is far better than the Cycliq 1/8th turn ... which opens up better, non-proprietary mounts like universal action cam mounts.
Still got to to get over that vibration springboard though ...
It's a shame, and if this Fly63Gen dies like my last one (about an hour in torrential rain that caused flash flooding, on the pannier mount and no mudguards killed it ... First one I've had die like that), then I might give this a try.
I had my original Fly12 die along with a Fly6CE at almost the same time and I ended up buying the latest Fly12 and Fly6 as I don't think there's anything better at the moment. It's a shame as they're expensive and certainly the Fly6 seems to have longevity issues (this was my 3rd). I bought the silicone covers for them both to hopefully provide a bit of protection. Annoyingly the Fly6 cover doesn't have a hole to access the charging port so you need to remove the cover to charge it. I ended up using an xacto knife to cut a flap in it to fix that - much better now. I do prefer the new 1/8th turn mount for the Fly12 as it's easier to remove from the bike now compared to the old GoPro style screw mount.
I keep popping that lens cover out of the Fly6 silicone cover when I'm removing it for charging ... its bloody annoying.
I use a pannier mount (and mudguards) on the commute bike and on my leisure bike, I have the camera mounted on my right seat stay using an action cam mount. Frees the seat post up for the beast that's the Garmin Radar ...
The camera itself still twists on and off, so there's no messing about once the mounting is fitted.
[I was pleasantly surprised by this mount https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B48TX6K5?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
It seems to be quite well made, out of reasonably decent quality materials. So far, its been worth the price]
Thank you for adding to the pressure on GoAhead, Adwitiya, submitted a formal complaint to them copied to TfL this afternoon; it's good to hear that GoAhead are already investigating as I do strongly believe that the sooner this guy is off the road the better before he does some serious damage.
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