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news
Cyclist accused of smashing car windscreen with bike lock during road rage clash (credit: David Ross)Cyclist accused of smashing car windscreen with bike lock, “turning it into a weapon”, in alleged road rage clash with driver
The father of a motorist involved in a road rage incident in London last week has raised concerns that bike locks can be “turned into weapons”, after footage was posted online of a cyclist appearing to use his lock to smash a car windscreen, before swinging it towards the driver, during a heated confrontation.
The incident, which has been reported to the Met Police, took place on Rotherhithe Street, near Elephant and Castle tube station in south London, on Friday 21 March at around 4.25pm.
In a short clip, filmed by an onlooker and posted by the driver’s father, David Ross, to social media, the cyclist can be seen wielding a bike lock above his head as the motorist makes his way around the vehicle and the cyclist’s bike, which can be seen lying on the road.
The cyclist then proceeds to hit the car’s rear windscreen with the lock, appearing to smash it, before attempting to hit the driver, 26-year-old Regan Ross, using the lock.
Onlookers can also be heard shouting for him to “stop”, asking him “what are you doing?”, while at the end of the video the motorist can be seen approaching a member of the public, appearing to ask them if they had captured the incident on their phone.
Any retweets to help @metpoliceuk find this dangerous man who attacked my son and his car with his bike lock would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. The incident took place last night at Elephant & Castle. pic.twitter.com/Wkh9q6bGwj
— David Ross (@davidross72) March 22, 2025
Due to the edited nature of the clip, it is unclear what caused the incident, but the driver’s father David has claimed that the cyclist “must have gone into the back” of his son’s car, a collision he says was captured on a bus driver’s dashcam.
“He was commuting home and as he pulled up to stop, the cyclist, who I presume obviously didn’t see him, must have gone into the back of him. The bus driver saw that happen and has the dashcam footage,” Mr Ross told the Standard.
“The man then goes into the side of my son’s car and says, ‘what’s going on?’ He has a bit of road rage on him at the moment and then he starts having a go at my son and the rest you can see on the video. He starts smashing the windscreen.”
Mr Ross also told the newspaper that he is “bloody furious” about the cyclist’s actions, raising concerns about the potential for bike locks to be used as weapons in similar road rage incidents.
“I’m concerned that people can carry these things and turn it into a weapon,” he said.
“My son’s lived in London since he was 18, so he’s got used to the daily grind but we as parents are bloody furious, but he’s made of tough stuff. He’s more upset about not currently having a car.”
He added that he handed the footage to the Metropolitan Police, who say they are aware of the incident.
“Police were called to an altercation between a driver and a cyclist on the junction of Newington Butts and Walworth road, Elephant and Castle at 16:25hrs on Friday, 21 March,” a Met spokesperson said.
“It is reported a cyclist hit the driver’s car from behind, and then proceeded to remove a bike tool from his bike and smash the car windscreen.
“We are aware of reports circulating of the altercation. We remain in contact with the victim.
“Anyone who witnessed the incident, or has any information or footage is asked to call 101 or post on X @MetCC quoting CAD 3618/22Mar.”
> Police make arrest after sickening footage of cyclist slammed to ground by driver goes viral
While the Met are yet to take any action regarding last week’s altercation at Elephant and Castle, last September we reported that, in the wake of a similar viral road rage incident, a 37-year-old man was arrested in Edinburgh, after a video shared to social media showed the moment a cyclist was thrown to the ground by a driver who slammed the victim’s head against the road.
The video, which has been viewed more than 27 million times, shows a cyclist stood in front of a vehicle as its passenger remonstrates with him in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
A male driver is then seen getting out of the vehicle, before walking up to the cyclist and grabbing both hands around his neck before slamming the rider off his bike and hitting his head against the road. Afterwards, the passenger and driver returned to the vehicle, which had a learner plate in the front windscreen, while the cyclist was seen holding his head and lying motionless in the road.
Police Scotland later confirmed that a 37-year-old man had been “arrested and charged with the alleged assault of a 34-year-old male cyclist”.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 17 min 30 sec ago
I had to walk past my old stomping ground on Park Row the other day, which is the western end of this same scheme (Marlborough Street by the BRI,...
- brooksby 21 min 46 sec ago
Or turning that on its head: the aforementioned paint can can cause harm if it is *accidentally* damaged or is otherwise used in a way for which it...
- eburtthebike 4 hours 49 min ago
A comedian with a purpose can achieve more than the politicians e.g. Zelesky.
- Hirsute 6 hours 25 min ago
Sounds a bit specific though given 90% are bought on some sort of finance.
- Rekrab 6 hours 43 min ago
MORE LANES, MORE LANES!!!!
- Simon E 6 hours 50 min ago
The numbers don't tell anything like the whole story....
- David9694 8 hours 1 min ago
check under 'W'for "What cars do to people"
- Global Nomad 8 hours 42 min ago
good to see you're testing the farsports wheels - hope to see road.cc continue to expand the range of brands it considers. These or the shallower...
- chrisotherwise 9 hours 16 min ago
Sadly very normal. And the sand contains loads of evil little shards of flint.
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69 comments
A 26 yr old in a £60k BMW M2
Wish I'd worked harder at school...
Quite probably on a lease, like 30% of new cars sold in the UK (I believe that percentage rises for the more expensive brands/models) so it doesn't really belong to him (although in his mind I'm sure it does). You can lease an M2 for around £600 a month and it's both sad and hilarious to see how many people are prepared to waste huge amounts of money on such deals (where you never own the car and have nothing to show for all the expenditure once your lease is up) and indeed put themselves in serious debt to afford them just so they can keep up with the Joneses by pretending they are successful enough to own such a vehicle.
Is it as low as 30%? I was under the impression that virtually no new cars are actually - you know - "sold" any more…
You can lease an M2 for around £600 a month
This is off-topic, but sheds some light on the dodging Ways of the Wealthy. We all know that there's an exceedingly high probability that the driver of this vehicle is an utter tool. This reminded me of one of my own videos of a BMW M-something, so I looked it up- it's an RLJ at 50+ mph.
https://upride.cc/incident/a15tjv_bmwm4_redlightpass/
Turns out it's an M4, so clearly an even greater tool, and that A15 TJV is no longer attached to a vehicle. BMW-Apologists will say that he's naturally just bought another BMW M9 or whatever in order to enjoy crashing through Lancashire lights at 100 mph, but we also all know that the same vanity plate would usually be immediately applied to the replacement psychomobile. Therefore, because we know he hasn't suddenly taken to cycling and is driving about in something unless he's been 'totalled', he's 'hiding' this plate to avoid the consequences of anyone such as an insurance company searching the internet for A15 TJV- which does bring up the upRide video. As you all know, the police did nothing at all about the red light offence, which has now been 'disappeared'. This reminded me of the disappearance of 4148 VZ, which was this bus which you've seen before. The plate was de-allocated within a few months and has now been reassigned to a different bus owned by Travellers Choice
https://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/
With Lancashire Constabulary refusing to say what, if anything, was the penalty for that offence, the offence completely disappeared,
I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money (whether outright or monthly) on a car - particularly as I only do about 3,000 miles a year. I generally like to own rather than rent things. I would feel environmentally guilty about replacing a perfectly good car every time the lease is up. Other such objections.
And yet still I feel weirdly jealous of people with nice new cars and if my numbers every came up I'd be straight down to a car dealership.
That's more than double my car mileage but I'm kinda in the same boat, but I don't feel jealous of folk I'd rather have the freedom to spend my cash elsewhere.
Agreed, though those in thrall to the car lease would probably think the same of my coffee expenditure...
Fixed that for you
Leasing a car out is worthwhile if the expenditure amounts to less than the value depreciation during the lease term. Doesn't happen often, but occasionally some good deals can be had, like the recently seen BMW i7 for £350 a month over 24 months. £100k cars. I wouldn't want one, but on those terms it is a steal.
Only £350 a month? I wonder why? (Great car I'm sure, but I hate the recent BMW grille design)
But what is the small print for mileage, state of the vehicle after 2 years? Lots of potential extra costs.
Also you don't have to get a new car, used ones are available.
Sounds a bit specific though given 90% are bought on some sort of finance.
Mr Ross will shit it when he discovers cars being turned into weapons.
Also, have we got footage that doesn't massage ultratwat musk's ego?
And finally, why do these muppets throw around words like 'obviously' to support their argument, yet demand full facts on another day?
"My son was driving normally and then stopped and then a cyclist ran into the back of him because he obviously didn't see him and then the cyclist went into a rage" is about as likely as there not being 1000’s of KSI's on the roads this year.
I'd go for 'the sun was in my eyes' as a defence, get away with murder with that one...
1kg bike lock used as a weapon - major news story.
1,800kg vehicle used as a weapon - happens >50 times a day in Greater London alone, not news at all.
There is not enough information in the piece to make any comment on this particular case but on a general note it seems to me that years of inaction by many police forces in failing to deal adequately with submitted footage of poor driving around cyclists may lead to more of this vigilante behaviour. Many of us have patiently reported bad driving for many years only to be met with the responses summed up in this piece from roadcc.
https://road.cc/content/news/close-pass-isnt-offence-says-police-officer...
'He’s more upset about not currently having a car.”
obvioulsy.
From the position of the cyclist when the video starts and the position of the bike later, it looks highly unlikely that the cyclist went "into the back'' of the kid's car. If the cyclist had hit the back, he'd have come off behind the car. His position near the front of the car when the video starts looks more like something happened near the right rear of the MV. The cyclist could have clipped the car by not paying attention when it stopped. Or the car could have moved right and knocked the cyclist off the bike. The window smashing is over the top, but the use of the lock as a "weapon'' is clearly a defensive act upon being charged by a young guy looking as if he wants to do harm. Not to mention that the cyclist never hits the kids with the lock, which it appears it would have been easy enough to do. If you watch the video closely, in fact, it appears the cyclist even leans back (the view is partially blocked by a woman's head) during the kids' rush as if trying to avoid a blow from the kid. But hey, let's all go with the analysis of the father, a far from disinterested party, who has to guess at what happened when his kid could obviously have told him what happened, or at least the kid's view of what happened. Maybe daddy thought that view didn't look good so he made up his own version? Hard to tell. Maybe the cyclist will emerge to tell his side of the story.
Where the cyclist is at the start of the video isn't really relevant, since it clearly doesn't capture the start of the incident. The bike is lying at the rear of the car though.
Surprised cmedred cant see that. Good job he wasnt a witness.
Also its not a 'kid'. Kids dont drive cars.
"The cyclist could have clipped the car by not paying attention when the driver stopped."
"Or the driver could have moved right and knocked the cyclist off the bike."
http://rc-rg.com
Thnaks for the link @mitsky
Interesting that within the foreword there is a discussion on accident:
“The word ‘accident’ is particularly problematic. ‘Accident' suggests that something was unavoidable and beyond control, yet we know most, if not all, road collisions are avoidable or preventable. I am pleased to see that the research shows we have made good progress in avoiding the word accident in favour of collision or crash."
And
"We analysed 227 police articles from 45 forces. While 75% referred to drivers as people, i.e. ‘A 20-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving…’, almost as frequently this came after several references to their vehicle. In a third of cases a driver was not mentioned at all, and 30% of stories described the vehicle as active. Some more extreme examples were ‘the vehicle attempted to go the wrong way along a slip road’; while more recent examples even described an ‘offending vehicle’."
Also the use of excess speed not simply speeding.
Great buy in from the Graeme Brown. This needs communicating to all the press!
It gets posted in road.cc comments around six times daily.
I will take it as a personal activity to send it to all editors who continue to use accident incorreclty.
In fact lets start with the BBC who always blame dleays on "accidents" rather than stating that some muppet has driven beyond their competence and precipitated a collision. Increasing the risk of death, very serious injury and significant delays to all other road users.
Oh, they're aware of them - https://road.cc/content/news/bbc-defends-accident-describe-collisions-297145
I pointed out the use of incorrect language to the BBC's senior transport correspondent Tom Edwards.
I even pointed out that the All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking was using the correct language, not the same as his, and suggested to him that he challenge their writing.
He blocked me.
(I was not abusive or trolling, he simply disagreed with me and did not put up any usefull argument to defend himself or justify the contradictory language like when its a cyclIST that hits a pedestrian.)
Comments are disappointingly tribalist.
I probably shouldn't have been surprised... We're really no better than the motorists and their hate-spewing, are we?
Well, you doubtless know yourself best. As for the comments below, I see no "hate spewing" against drivers or cars in general, just a suspicion as to whether we are being told the full story or not. If the comments really were like those one finds against cyclists on virtually any story involving a driver/cyclist confrontation on a motoring website, or indeed just general social media, they would be saying shame the cyclist didn't stove the driver's head in, cars shouldn't be allowed on the road at all, why don't drivers grow up and get a bicycle, got to be the driver's fault, it always is… they don't say that and they are not the same as motorists and their "hate spewing", not at all.
Not tribalist but trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the parental intervention and the reporting.
We don't know what happened, Dave Ross doesn't know, the bus driver and his dash cam don't know, the bystanders that rush to bring out their phones rather than trying to dissipate the anger and down play the situation don't know.
@LOSD Do you know?
The only people that do actually know are the 2 parties that are dancing around the car, one of them appears to have told his dad what happened and his dad has made public assertions based on hearsay.
I wonder what would happen if the cyclist comes out with his own camera footage that indicates a period of woeful driving and threatening behaviour from Tough Stuff Ross.
There are at least 3 versions of events, both of the parties recollections and the truth. Hence my desire to hear the full story.
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