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news
Edinburgh Potterrow - cement blocking bike laneCyclist left shaken after being pelted with cement on Edinburgh bike path
A 67-year-old cyclist says he was left shaken after being pelted with cement by an angry worker accused of blocking a cycle lane in Edinburgh.
John Mitchell was cycling towards Potterrow from Nicholson Square, in the city’s Old Town, near the University of Edinburgh, when he was forced to slow down after noticing that the bike lane he was using was obstructed by a cement mixer.
Mitchell stopped to film the obstruction before asking one of the workers if they had permission to block the path.
After an angry confrontation, Mitchell says he started to cycle away when the worker threw a shovel full of cement at his back, plastering his jacket and parts of his Moulton bike.
"When I approached Potterrow from Nicholson Square it was all cornered off with no signs put up and there was a cement mixer blocking the road,” Mitchell told Edinburgh Live.
"As I headed into that section, the cement mixer was completely blocking the road and with the barriers up I couldn't get out, so I stopped and got off to video it.
It’s actually Potterrow. I phoned the police as it was an assault pic.twitter.com/l8Hkf5rEzF
— John Mitchell (@john_auldtoon) February 8, 2022
"There was a couple of workmen in the restaurant and a big chap came out. I asked if they had permission and he said, 'No and I don't f****** care', when I said that wasn't on.
"I then told him I'd report it to the council and he replied in an aggressive manner, 'do what you like.' He was over six foot tall and built like a tenement block. I'm 67 and five foot six, so I decided to just leave it and got on my bike to cycle away,” he said.
"As I squeezed onto the pavement to cycle off, he threw a spade full of cement at me. I couldn't believe it and said I'm phoning the police, to which he said again 'phone who you f****** want.' It's outrageous so I phoned 999. I was concerned if he were to behave like that and hurt somebody else.
"There was a witness there, a young student who saw it and said that's not okay. The police came around this morning [Wednesday] and took a statement.
“They said they are investigating but they might charge him with vandalism rather than assault, as assault has to show intent to harm.
"I was so shaken, I just went home. My bike and clothes are covered in cement. He covered me in it. It’s a wax jacket so I’m hoping it’ll brush off. Hopefully it will come off my old Moulton easily.”
According to Mitchell, police are now investigating both the worker and his employer, while the City of Edinburgh Council has also said that the matter has been passed to their roads team for further action.
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.
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73 comments
He was shaken,not stirred..
Sounds like aggregated assault to me.
Does that make them a hardcore criminal?
Stop hoggin the thread...
I think it's a cover-up and as a scottish resident I won't have you harling accusations about.
No, but if he goes to prison he will be mixing with some hardcore types.
There's mortar this than meets the eye.
Just hope when the police come knocking this thug will be bricking it...
Well, all the evidence is pointing to it...
Certainly from what's been cobbled together here.
Venn diagram of:
-Entitled arseholes who take the space made available to others because... well just because
-Defensive arseholes who explode with violence when their shortcomings are pointed out
-Exploitative arseholes who evade tax and use deception to get round laws designed to protect people
-Hypocritical arseholes, the ones that will scream at people to get out of the road, accuse various 'others' of not adhering to laws, the ones that are belligerent in claims that their taxes are being misspent on things they don't approve of.
Well done on the guy for asking a reasonable question, and a shame that he was assaulted for it. My first thought was that I might have called the non-emergency number but that's easy for me to say when I'm far younger and haven't just been attacked by some unstable arsehole
On the Twitter thread, you can see the number plate on one of the vans is SK20 YYE which is currently untaxed
You'd have thought they would have remedied that by now !
Oops - I just dropped a cup on my keyboard and it somehow reported an untaxed vehicle to the DVLA
Buy that cup a coffee!
Thats rather unfortunate.
It's okay - the cup was empty and there's no damage done to the keyboard
"There was a witness there, a young student who saw it and said that's not okay. The police came around this morning [Wednesday] and took a statement.
“They said they are investigating but they might charge him with vandalism rather than assault, as assault has to show intent to harm.
"I was so shaken, I just went home. My bike and clothes are covered in cement. He covered me in it. It’s a wax jacket so I’m hoping it’ll brush off. Hopefully it will come off my old Moulton easily.”
This is bizarre, he's talking about the incident of the previous day and hoping the cement comes off, he should have cleaned it off as soon as he got home. Of course then the police would not even charge with vandalism due to lack of evidence.
I hope he sues the company for the damage to his Moulton and jacket and any possible rehabilitation (e.g. spa days) to help him get over the incident.
He says himself that he was badly shaken, quite understandably; people don't always act rationally when they've had a shock.
Meanwhile another cyclist got jealous. "Cement? What I wouldn't give for a shovelfull of cement. Luxury..."
bicycle? luxury; in my day, I had to carry cement and bricks on my back!
Is this a Scottish law thing?
In England, assault includes simply believing you were going to hit, there does not actually have to be physical contact.
Builders and roads.
I reported the builder of this house:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/oxV8WKW1L8cbKRKc6
Note that when finished he parked a Range aRover on the drive. I pointed out to the planning committee that the drive was not a turning area as presented in the plans and the sarcastic response from the councillors was that the owners would just have to buy a small car - a very strange attitude.
The builder got a visit from health and safety over site safety, his workers balanced on top of half built walls over an open cellar - one and a half storey drop - but he also set up a trestle in the highway and vehicles had to simply drive around his heap of wood and tools for a couple of weeks.
Why didn't Mr Mitchell simply cycle or walk around the temporary obstruction without causing a fuss? That would have cost him a second or two rather than the hours spent complaining and cleaning his gear. The workman was just trying to earn a living.
Perhaps he was not just thinking about himself, but the nuisance to other legitimate users of the lane including school children?
It is telling that the builder blocked the bike lane, not the pavement.
or the road
Why didn't the workman simply park in the vehicle lane? The one made for vehicles... that would be fine as he is simply trying to earn a living
Great precedent, let's allow anyone to block the cycle lane as long as they're earning a living. Cement mixers in the cycle lane? No problem, they're just earning a living. Delivery vans and taxi drop offs in the cycle lane? No problem, they're just earning a living. Market traders' stalls in the cycle lane...
Good for Mr M for standing up to a violent bully and for the principle that cycle lanes are to be kept clear for cyclists. Already in some parts of London numerous tradespeople are starting to block cycle lanes willy-nilly whenever it's convenient for them and pushing riders out into the road - where of course other commercial drivers yell at them for not being in the cycle lane. People should cause a fuss.
Your post implies that basically the cyclist deserved, as a 5'6" pensioner, to have a much larger, younger, man attack him with potentially hazardous substances because he refused to let the bully have his own way.
Why didn't the workman apologise and move his mixer. It wouldn't have taken in him long and would have saved in hours in police, council, HSE discussions that he will now be having
Also various infringements
Lack of signs as required by law - Chapter 8 Traffic signs manual Works on/using the highway also require a licence from Council.
Offending per #Section95 #RoadsSc1984 soiling the road with cement
No H&S plan for COSSH
But hey, he was earning a living so we'll let him off. Who needs all that red tape to keep the public safe ?
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