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Jeremy Vine video 13/09/2023 (Twitter)Jeremy Vine's lucky escape as bike run over by reversing driver who turned onto cycle lane
Jeremy Vine has shared footage of a terrifying and shocking incident in London this morning which left him desperately banging on the back of a van as the driver reversed over his bike having turned onto a stretch of cycling infrastructure.
The presenter and broadcaster, who works for the BBC and Channel 5 and documents his cycling travels around London through videos posted to his Twitter account, appeared to be unharmed in the incident, which happened near Euston.
This morning. About an hour ago.
Illegal right turn, then watch.
Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/FRBqXiazgY— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) September 13, 2023
Calling it "unbelievable", he shared the footage with his 788,000 followers, captioning the post: "This morning. About an hour ago. Illegal right turn, then watch. Unbelievable."
In the video, Vine can be seen cycling towards the Tavistock Square junction with Bedford Way when a van driver turns across his path onto the latter street.
However, the driver makes the turn too soon and turns onto a strip of segregated cycling infrastructure approaching the traffic lights.
As Vine calls out and honks his horn to the driver, the van stops, before the driver reverses back out of the infrastructure hitting Vine whose Brompton goes under the vehicle as he shouts out and bangs on the back door.
A passer by can be heard shouting 'stop' while another vehicle blares its horn at the driver in attempt to catch their attention.
At the end of the clip, the van driver moves forward, releasing Vine's bike from under it, as the scene unfolds next to a 'give way to oncoming cycles' sign. When the driver exits the vehicle he asks Vine: "Are you okay, sir" and wheels the bike to the side of the road.
For those wondering, I’m unhurt, and so (incredibly) is my Brompton.
I somehow lost the numbers of the two kind witnesses so, if you’re reading this, please DM me.
Here you can see my concluding conversation with the van driver.
Thanks to @insta360 for always covering me. pic.twitter.com/4krJJEC0B6— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) September 13, 2023
Some have accused Vine of going through a red light at the start of the junction, however it appears to just be the effect of his 360-degree camera making the traffic light for drivers coming from the right of shot look like it is facing a different direction.
Looking at the wrong light pal pic.twitter.com/ugIt1mYL1Q
— Lewis Brad 🤙🏻 (@Life_of_Lewiss) September 13, 2023
Responding to one person saying it was red, Vine replied: "It's green, Monica. Don't drive. Please."
As recently as Friday, Vine took to X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, to appeal to motorists to stop making right turns across the path of cyclists, a manoeuvre he said was "making it dangerous to use a bicycle".
Last month, he made the case for drivers being told not to overtake cyclists in major cities, adding that he would like to see motorists pull over if they see him behind them "because they know I'm faster".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
Latest Comments
- Rendel Harris 1 sec ago
Ah right, I thought you meant you wanted day by day what's on at the Olympics today notifications!
- eburtthebike 1 hour 6 min ago
How are the cyclists going to hear it? They might hear a word or two as they ride past at 70mph, but unless there are speakers every couple of...
- perce 1 hour 11 min ago
Best wishes to them both. Despite an early setback I hope they have a great time and enjoy their trip.
- brooksby 1 hour 56 min ago
That's some really really long fingernails you've got there!
- Veganpotter 9 hours 21 min ago
It's not too bad. Most just make enough to get by and make people have to accept waiting or a different color. They know people are going to be...
- eburtthebike 10 hours 5 min ago
Indepent drivel: I like it.
- eburtthebike 10 hours 10 min ago
Cycling for mind: Some seriously shit steering there.
- chrisonabike 13 hours 30 min ago
I like this sales attitude! Old style UK deprecation. "There are better brands - but try our pedals. Some people like them."...
- HLaB 14 hours 23 min ago
The world's biggest violin, meanwhile I'm playing the world's smallest
- mctrials23 14 hours 28 min ago
You would like to think that 7 might make it a bit harder to ignore but I'm sure there will be a good excuse
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125 comments
Jeremy does seem to have a lot of bad luck.
No. He just documents what happens to thousands of cyclists every day.
Just looked at the video. At first viewing I thought "Why did Vine put himself in danger by continuing around the rear of the van?". Then I thought about it a bit harder. His initial stopping point was fairly close to the van, and he couldn't really have stopped much sooner. That left him two options. Get around the small gap to the rear or stay where he was but either leaves him in danger once the van starts to reverse with a lock on because the front of the reversing van was going to swing toward him with him right in its blind spot down the passenger side.
Personally I might have taken a third option and gone around both the van and the other side of the traffic island, putting that between me and the van but then that puts me on the wrong side of the road and into a different dangerous place. And that's with the benefit of hindsight and the clarity of thought provided by not being imminently crushed by a large van.
Definitely extremely poor driving by the van driver. Making one mistake is dangerous but we all make them occasionally, making three or four basic errors in quick succession like that leaves me questioning their right to hold a driving licence.
This incident reminds me a little of the "Reverse up the one way street killed pedestrian" one in Wigton.
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/23414744.carlisle-van-driver-jailed-d...
Don't usually comment on Vine's videos, but this one was worth a go.
My own personal take (and I'll admit that it's significantly harder to judge distances, speeds and perspective with a 360 camera) is that while the lorry driver made two mistakes (the wrong turn and an incautious reverse - extremely dangerous), a better trained cyclist would have been extremely aware that mistake 1 would very probably lead to mistake 2 and would have stayed well clear of it. This is not to say that Vine was at fault here (he wasn't), but defensive cycling (as with defensive driving) is all about being able to read the road ahead, predict the behaviour of other road users and ensure that, first and foremost, you keep yourself out of potential danger regardless of who is in the wrong.
In this regard, Jeremy may want to give some thought to whether it's better to be "right" or "alive". I know which one I'd pick...
Some good comments here
Nice to see some of the road.cc members showing some sense for once and some actual sensible comments suggesting Vine was also wrong (or plain stupid in my view)
The usual suspects here can't bring themselves to publicly agree with me haha
Ah the usual suspects. I think your getting confused, they were a much derided band who no-one took seriously. I think their one memorable gig was at a new Decathlon opening where unfortunately their equipment blew up. I seem to remember the drummer formed a new band, Martins Heartbroken Chucklemonkey. They weren't very good though, no originality and so, so predictable. I did quite like the film though.
Is that the same band as "creepy obsession" that Rendel was talking about previous?
The guys who followed other guys around, making random trolling comments under everything that they posted?
Do you know they were actually banned from top of the pops? They tried getting back on under another name. Cheeky monkeys.
Oh shocking stuff. What's funny is that apparently a strange fat guy who had another name called Clem should be banned too but the banning panel are corrupt and just stick their heads in the sand.
Strange fat guy? Your knowledge of obscure rock bands is pretty impressive I have to say.
Thank you - my knowledge is all-encompassing.
Which is why I'm always right, and everyone else is wrong.
Yet you STILL seem to believe that I'm someone else. That really is the joke that keeps on giving.
Strange Fat Guy were quietly removed from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by the Woke Police (yes, the Millenial Post-Punk Skiffle/Nu-Metal crossover quartet - they run security there as a side hussle) back in '21 by the way. Right leaning types everywhere lost their shizz about the cancellation apparently.
Clem Fandango over & out (or something)
I agree.
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Lefty, please STOP immitating Rendy. He is the ONLY ONE on this site who is right abour everything.
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Or are you Rendy in disguise? Playing agent provocateur?
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We need to be told.
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They probably can't help it; they've even confused their username with his on several occasions.
Oh yes I'm sorry - I didn't think about that, apologies for encroaching on sacred ground there. Maybe I'm just below him then
Just had a phone call from a mate. He said '' Hey Clem'' (he always calls me that, don't know why) ''are you coming for a bike ride or what?'' So I'm off now.
Can you hear me?
I hear you Clem Fandango. Bit knackered after my bike ride, in fact I suppose you could say I'm toast.
Your mate isn't Ray bloody Purchase by any chance?
Yes. Yes he is. Do you know him?
I do indeed. Drops by the studio now & again. He keeps calling me Perce for some reason. I haven't the heart to correct him, it interferes with his performances.
I concur.
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LOL! Like it, Lefty.
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Nah, you're thinking of the film. Spacey. Was really good.
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I think you have summed up the problem very well. I am sure most of us on here could easily have avoided the situation and accepted the delay caused by a driver seeing "only a cyclist" and not ceding priority. We could doff our hats at the same time and thank them for not killing us. Unfortunately giving way to bullies rarely ends well and in my opinion the fact that some cyclists stand up to the bullies and insist on their right to be treated properly on the road is a good thing for all cyclists, including inexperienced cyclists who have not yet learned all the situations where they need to watch out for drivers putting them in danger.
As for the being "right or alive", if you are experienced and weigh up the risks you can be "right and alive". I could be driven into from the rear at anytime on the road, should I pull into the side and stop every time I hear a car behind me?
In my opinion the risk of giving into bullies and thus reinforcing their behaviour far outweighs the risk of confronting inconsiderate driving, before it progresses to dangerous driving, if you are experienced and know what you are doing. I think JV falls into that category and I for one am very grateful to him. The same goes for Cycling Mikey.
I think this is perhaps different from other videos he's posted. In this case, it was an honest mistake by the driver at a confusing junction (after all, he didn't try to keep going once he realised he'd gone wrong), followed be a poorly executed (and dangerous) reversing operation. I don't think there was any bullying here (although obviously many other examples of it elsewhere) and this doesn't feel to me to be a "stand your ground" sort of case. The videoed interaction between Jeremy and the driver afterwards (which seemed good natured and a recognition of an honest mistake from a driver who immediately held his hand up to admit it) felt - to me anyway - to reflect a case of a mistake rather than what is more commonly seen in these videos - overt arrogance.
I think this particular video is, oddly, not representative of many of his videos (and others posted elsewhere) which show ignorance and arrogance. This one just looked like a good old fashioned mistake (which, I personally feel, wasn't all one-sided) which probably could have been avoided by either the cyclist or the driver, even if ultimately the driver was at fault.
Don't get me wrong - I don't like to be bullied on the road and am a strong advocate (and implementer) of defensive cycling, and feel that I am significantly safer on the road as a result. I just feel that this particular case wasn't actually representative of the real problems that cyclists experience on the roads, despite, perhaps, it appearing to be so at first glance.
Some interesting (and nuanced) comments here though. I've enjoyed reading them.
Please do not excuse incompetent and dangerous professional drivers.
There was no was this mistake was anywhere being "honest"
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