According to the Daily Mail, there’s a new Cycling Mikey in town. And he’s a Liberal Democrat councillor.
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A few weeks ago, the Mail – a newspaper not shy when it comes to sensationalist, speculative outbursts – anointed Adrian Chapmanlaw, a member of Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole council, as the heir to Mike van Erp’s GoPro-laden throne.
“Meet the new Cycling Mikey,” announced the headline to the Mail’s latest bike-themed ‘exclusive’. Quite the epithet for a camera cyclist whose YouTube account documenting Dorset’s bad drivers boasts just over 500 subscribers. Mikey’s channel, meanwhile, currently has 121,000 subscribers.
It was only fitting, then, that the Mail decided to shower Chapmanlaw with the kind of ‘praise’ normally reserved for Van Erp and his Gandalf-style interventions.
“A snide, aggressive, and vindictive cycling vigilante.”
“A self-appointed busybody.”
“An angrier, swearier version of Cycling Mikey.”
So, what does Chapmanlaw himself make of his headline-grabbing portrayal in one of Britain’s biggest tabloids? Not much, if he’s honest.
“I mean, you’ve got to love the Daily Mail, haven’t you?” the councillor laughs, during his appearance on the latest episode of the road.cc Podcast.
“Their fact checking and making sure they’ve got everything right before they go to print is always amusing, isn’t it?
“I’m sure with my 500 followers on YouTube – compared to Mike’s 120,000 or something – means I’m right up there in equalling Mike’s success at holding bad drivers to account.”
And while Chapmanlaw is dismissive of his own standing within the camera cyclist community, his Dorsets Safer Roads page – set up after he started cycling to work following his election to BCP Council, when he noticed quite a few motorists were deliberately attempting to “intimidate” him – has nevertheless proved instrumental in holding local drivers to account.
“We need to start doing something about it,” he says. “I think the YouTube channel actually helped there a bit because it was putting pressure on the local police.
“And don’t get me wrong, they are brilliant at what they do. But I find that close passes specifically very rarely actually get prosecuted, which is a bit of a shame.
“It almost feels like they need to the motorist to be forcing other drivers to take avoiding action because they won’t prosecute a pure close pass.
“I’ve had some really, really close passes, like centimetres off of me, and they haven’t been prosecuted, which is a shame.”
He continues: “So, most of the actual prosecutions I get back are people parking on the zigzags for crossings and red lights, the odd phone user here and there, all the normal little things that build up.
“But they do just offer themselves up in front of me. And I do try and deter them. My camera is visible. I run a Pass Pixie, which I found made a huge difference, it added about half a metre on average to passes. It was incredible.
“It’s just… the police are good, but the system is faltering. They don’t get proper funding. You might get a different response depending on who’s on duty that day. It’s variable. And it needs to improve.”
While Chapmanlaw laughs off his 15 minutes of fame in the Mail, you don’t get one of Britain’s biggest tabloids coming after you without a whiff of controversy lingering in the air.
Last year, the camera cyclist became the subject of a long-running saga that erupted within BCP Council, after he was criticised for filming motorists illegally parking on zig-zag lines outside a school.
Chapmanlaw’s actions were described by a number of his Conservative counterparts as inappropriate, amid suggestions that his behaviour raised “legitimate safeguarding concerns”.
One Tory councillor was also reported for making “potentially libellous accusations”, a development Chapmanlaw says was “strange, disappointing, and depressing”.
In light of last year’s row, does he still believe he can carry out his duties as a councillor while posting videos on YouTube of drivers breaking the law?
“I believe I have the support of my colleagues,” he says. “And, you know, it is what it is. I’m going to carry on doing what I’m doing for the right reasons.
“If people don’t like that, then that’s their problem, not mine. If that loses my seat, so what? That’s the people have made their choice.
“I’m doing what I believe is right. And if people don’t agree with me and don’t want to elect me for that, then so be it.”
The councillor also acknowledges that he’s often been the target of what he describes as a “barrage of abuse” from certain Dorset-based social media groups – but insists he tries his best to focus on the positive feedback and ignore the pro-motoring ‘trolls’.
“They’ve tried various ways of attacking me and they continue to do so,” he says. “But, again, I’m doing the right thing.
“I’m trying to make things safer for people and if they don’t like it, then that’s their problem. Although I find on my Facebook and my YouTube that I do get a lot more positive comments.
“Now I’ve blocked some of the more consistent trolls, it’s got a lot more positive. And I do have a good amount of support from that, and the local active travel group are supportive of what I do.
“You’ve got to ignore the negativity and just get on with what you’re doing, thank the people that are supporting you, and carry on with your day.
“And I really don’t care what the Daily Mail think of me.”
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