A man from Devon has accused a cyclist of taking a ‘chunk’ out of his BMW during a trip to Liverpool. Keith Crewe had parked across a cycle lane on a quiet city road, but refused to move for the cyclist who reportedly scratched the car with a pedal in response.
Dash cam footage of the incident has been published on the Liverpool Echo website.
Keith Crewe, who had travelled to Liverpool from Devon for a family funeral, says he had permission to park his car across the bike lane so that he could load his bags after staying at the Richmond Hotel.
The cyclist who pulls up behind is clearly unhappy with this and won’t ride round the car. He instead picks up his bike and walks onto the pavement, at which point he is said to have deliberately damaged the car.
Crewe said: “There’s a chunk out of the driver side bumper, and there’s a load of scratches. The car is only three years old and I think it’s going to be quite expensive because it’s going to need to be resprayed.
“We’d had a lovely time in Liverpool, it’s a fantastic city and we’d caught up with some family, but this did put a downer on it. As a cyclist myself I appreciate the difficulties of cycling in a busy city and the use of cycle lanes. I also think as fellow road users, we should show some common sense in sharing a road.
“The chap in this video clip could easily have rode around us as there were no cars in a very quiet street on a Sunday morning. Instead, he chose to be pedantic about the use of the cycle lane before purposely getting off his bike and causing damage to our car when he knocked his pedal and scraped along the bumper.”
67 thoughts on “Driver says Liverpool cyclist took a “chunk” out of his car when he parked across cycle lane”
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The driver said he had
The driver said he had permission to park in the cycle lane, so I guess the cyclist could say he had permission for what he did as well. Those two were made for each other.
velo-nh wrote:
Yeah, permission from the hotel who now seems to own the public road and the no-loading cycle lane.
That’s a solid white line
That’s a solid white line that he’s parked across – pretty sure that’s illegal – and on double yellow lines and also blocking cyclists from using the so-called “safe” infrastructure.
He says “I also think as fellow road users, we should show some common sense in sharing a road” – I think that was the cyclist’s point – the BMW wasn’t sharing, it was completely blocking the cycle path.
Next time he comes to park, maybe he’ll think twice before being a complete arse.
Sounds like the cyclist was a bit of an arse too, but maybe this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Finally, a story about a cyclist taking a chunk out of a car as opposed to a
cardriver taking a chunk out of a cyclist.I agree. The cyclist shouldn’t have damaged the car, but the driver certainly wasn’t blameless and definitely wasn’t sharing.
He doesn’t say who gave him permission to ‘park his car across the bike lane’ in the first place. If he’s unable to accept some of the blame, maybe he could get them to chip in for the repairs.
Anyone else think the inclusion of the fact he was attending a funeral was designed to elicit sympathy?
“Keith Crewe, (…), says he
“Keith Crewe, (…), says he had permission to park his car across the bike lane so that he could load his bags after staying at the Richmond Hotel.”
Just like every single client of the hotel I guess.
Ignorance and intolerance,
Ignorance and intolerance, what a pair.
Childish bhavour by the
Childish behavour by the cyclist. And (being an electrican) I’ll bet he also behaves like an arse to cyclists when he’s in his van.
bikeman01 wrote:
OTIO.
In this particular case the
In this particular case the cyclist has clearly been a dick, but if the road was busier I’d always prioritise my safety over the safety of someone’s illegally parked property. I’ve seen people on the school run squeeze pushchairs past cars parked on pavements and really don’t see an issue with that…
Couldn’t the guy park his car
Couldn’t the guy park his car at the edge of the cycle lane?
The cyclist was a bit of a dick if we consider this incident in isolation. But given that he’s probably had loads of incidents just like it, then it’s understandable.
The police always seem to treat damage to a car much more seriously than dangerous driving (as long as no-one is hurt). Hope this guy isn’t tracked down, or gets a decent lawyer.
Bikebikebike wrote:
Exactly: he could have parked with the side of his car against the cycle lane, not *in* the cycle lane.
Quote:
Who gave him permission? If the hotel said so, then they were in error and he ought to take any repair costs up with them, surely? My understanding of double yellows was ‘no stopping, no parking, no loading, nothing’.
brooksby wrote:
Who gave him permission? If the hotel said so, then they were in error and he ought to take any repair costs up with them, surely? My understanding of double yellows was ‘no stopping, no parking, no loading, nothing’.
It makes no difference as to who gives you permission – ultimately you have to obey the law yourself and can’t just move responsibility onto someone else (“they said I could do it”).
I can give you permission to go round and damage all the cars that annoy you, but that won’t hold up in court.
If the driver was confused about the meaning of the road markings and was genuinely mislead by someone (the hotel?) giving him permission, then when confronted by the cyclist, he could have just apologised and moved his car. If a policeman had told him to move, would he have complied?
brooksby wrote:
Not so sir.
mike the bike wrote:
I stand corrected. Please explain, mike.
brooksby wrote:
you have to read the plate that explains what is permitted there…
other European contries have things far more simpler… parking etc. ins not permitted anywhere except for expliceltely define parking zones…
as a result, you can only park where you are allowed to park…
no unsightly yellow lines etc..
brooksby wrote:
Who gave him permission? If the hotel said so, then they were in error and he ought to take any repair costs up with them, surely? My understanding of double yellows was ‘no stopping, no parking, no loading, nothing’.
Double yellows, you’re allowed to stop and pick up, drop off.
Double yellows with hash marks on the kerb, zero tolerance.
Rule 140 of the Highway Code
Rule 140 of the Highway Code says:
Cycle lanes. These are shown by road markings and signs. You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation. Do not drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable. You MUST NOT park in any cycle lane whilst waiting restrictions apply.
Motorist shouldn’t have parked there, even if the Hotel had said it’s Ok!
Cyclist shouldn’t have been a d!ck either.
It’s a one-way road with a
It’s a one-way road with a cycle lane contraflow. I bet this guy rides down here a lot, and I bet he encounters knobheads like this all the time. I don’t blame him one bit. I often come across pavements blocked by idiots and fancy walking over their cars.
I just hope the Daily Heil,
I just hope the Daily Heil, don’t get hold of this… Menacing Cyclist Vandalises Car With Driver Inside
Is there actual footage of
Is there actual footage of the pedestrian damaging the motor vehicle?
If not then as there are no witnesses to the alleged damage being done then police are bound by law to do fuck all.
Even if there was they won’t do anything except shrug their shoulders and tell the driver to go away and stop wasting their time … oh wait, that rule/law only applies to people on bikes on the receiving end.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
You can see the cyclist moving his bike, but you can’t see the contact between his bike and the car. You can hear a bump, so you can infer exactly where and when it happened.
If I was on the jury, I’d say that the cyclist did it, but it could have been accidental – there’s no violent movements.
hawkinspeter wrote:
You can see the cyclist moving his bike, but you can’t see the contact between his bike and the car. You can hear a bump, so you can infer exactly where and when it happened.
If I was on the jury, I’d say that the cyclist did it, but it could have been accidental – there’s no violent movements.— BehindTheBikesheds
I’m sure it was accidental BUT as I tell my kids when they cry “I didn’t mean to..”, that’s not really the point, if your behaviour results in damage then it’s your fault and you pay for it.
bikeman01 wrote:
…unless you do it with a car of course.
bikeman01 wrote:
And if any of your kids put their property somewhere it was absolutely not meant to be, had no right to be, and someone who was entitled to be there had to go out of their way to get around said property, and did it a bit of accidental damage in getting around it, and then your kid whinged to everybody who’d listen about the damage…
… you’d fall out with the entitled little shit sharpish, wouldn’t you?
davel wrote:
I’m sure it was accidental BUT as I tell my kids when they cry “I didn’t mean to..”, that’s not really the point, if your behaviour results in damage then it’s your fault and you pay for it.
— hawkinspeter And if any of your kids put their property somewhere it was absolutely not meant to be, had no right to be, and someone who was entitled to be there had to go out of their way to get around said property, and did it a bit of accidental damage in getting around it, and then your kid whinged to everybody who’d listen about the damage… … you’d fall out with the entitled little shit sharpish, wouldn’t you?— BehindTheBikesheds
There’s a big difference between a kid doing something wrong and an adult doing something wrong.
ConcordeCX wrote:
Allow me to blame bikeman01’s imperfect analogy.
bikeman01 wrote:
that’s a bit harsh on the parents. One of my brothers burnt a school down when he was six. He didn’t mean to. There can be mitigating circumstances you know.
It’s lucky the intolerant
It’s lucky the intolerant cyclist wasn’t there when the Google car was filming – there are two cars illegally parked and apparently unloading!
Someone needs to put the Hotel straight!
Jem PT wrote:
I’d prefer it if the police just stuck a camera there and fined all the motorists who did that. The Hotel are free to tell people what they want – it doesn’t change what’s legal or not on the public road.
Well done cyclist! Did he
Well done cyclist! Did he overreact? Did he fcuk. If he dished out the same treatment to every motorist who broke the law in such a way as to cause him distress/inconvenience/harm, then I suppose it might be an overreaction. But if he did that, he would never get to his destination.
I suppose one can’t defend
I suppose one can’t defend the cyclist doing something that presumaby is against the law, but the law should be changed so that any car parked in a non-legal manner is no longer treated as a ‘car’ but instead can be treated like any other bit of junk dumped in an obstructive manner in a public place.
I doubt anyone would consider it an offense to damage an old mattress or sofa someone had dumped on the pavement, or a pile of rubble someone had left in the middle of the road. A car not in a legal parking place should be regarded the same way. Clearly they don’t want it any more, or they’d have parked it legally.
(I realise the same logic could be applied to bikes locked in stupid places!)
The car was illegally loading
The car was illegally loading where it is marked no unloading at any time. Doesn’t give the cyclist the right to (allegedly) damage the car.
matrichardson wrote:
Correct, but what the hell else could he do? Just blithely continue to accept that driving a car gives you the right to break the law? Reporting it to the police would have resulted in the sum total of sweet fa, and if this had happened to you a hundred times in the past week, you’d probably be pissed enough to actually do something this time.
Should we take the law into our own hands? Sometimes yes. If the police and the judicial system is ignoring our safety and refusing to support the law of the land, then what else is there?
burtthebike wrote:
Yes.
The state has left us no other choice.
Dick, meet Dick.
Dick, meet Dick.
The cyclist would’ve done better to take a photo of the car and post it to the local cops.
OldRidgeback wrote:
The cops don’t do anything. Look at all the close passes in this column. I reported a very dangerous pass and nothing happened.
Cyclists today are demonised (remember the chap who killed the young lady and was convicted using very iffy courct arguments and crap police ‘evidence’).
This and the high risk of injury by morons, is possibly (?) one reason why cycling seems to have peaked and be declining again.
OldRidgeback wrote:
See the Deregulation Act 2015.
OldRidgeback wrote:
who would have done nothing.
Well done Keith Crewe, winner
Well done Keith Crewe, winner of entitled jessie, March 2018. And you whinged to the press too.
Take a bow, son.
“As a cyclist myself I
“As a cyclist myself I appreciate the difficulties of cycling in a busy city and the use of cycle lanes.”
Really?
It’s only a car, mate.
It’s only a car, mate.
“We’d had a lovely time in
“We’d had a lovely time in Liverpool” – what, at the funeral? #anythingforafreelunch
Can we have a crowdfunding
Can we have a crowdfunding page set up to pay for a case of beer for the cyclist?
Who get’s buried on a Sunday?
Who get’s buried on a Sunday?
Is this some tie-in with Easter?
Didn’t really have permission
Didn’t really have permission from anyone able to grant permission. More like someone said you can get away with it and that was what you wanted to hear because it was convenient for you
Saw this elsewhere and wax
Saw this elsewhere and wax amazed at the number of comments by people who had no idea what a mandatory cycle lane is.
Typical driver entitlement to park where the heck they want and stuff anyone else because walking 50m is a bit much for them.
hirsute wrote:
Actually the hotel is at fault.
They know guests will have heavy luggage so should have arranged with the council to put it a couple of proper drop-off points for taxis and cars on the road.
Oh and both guys involved are dicks though I hope the bike pedal isn’t damaged.
“……there were no cars in
“……there were no cars in a very quiet street on a Sunday morning….”
but like the many drivers who routinely pavement park he chose to block the cycle lane rather than possibly disrupt the flow of traffic
anger management for the cyclist and a parking penalty in the post for the driver?
Next time the cops pull me
Next time the cops pull me over when I’m cycling on the hard shoulder I’m going to drag this shit up.
because out of the two, cycling on the hard shoulder is a damn sight less dangerous than being forced into a lane of speeding motor traffic because some twat is parked unlawfully causing an obstruction.
But you won’t have it and thus by doing so are in breach of your sworn oath by being bias and discriminative.
Plod are fucking bent.
I suspect that the clip of
I suspect that the clip of the car with the pedal was not deliberate. I know when I bump a bike up a kerb at an angle, the rear wheel sometimes skips sideways. I suspect he gave the necessary room but the wheel kicked off the kerb and the pedal caught the illegally parked car. Just an accident 🙂 and no-one was hurt 😉
Podc wrote:
Not true. Many drivers have developed a symbiotic relationship with their vehicle in which they feel what their car ‘feels’. That’s why you see instances where drivers get really upset after a cyclist hits the side of the vehicle which is being driven well within arms reach of a cyclist.
Unless you believe some drivers are placing their property above the well-being of other human beings? Surely that can’t be true?
https://www.youtube.com/watch
this is the route from the begining the hotel is on the left with 2 parked cars outside it in the cycle lane
The cam footage shows
The cam footage shows insufficient evidence of any wrongdoing by the cyclist.
Not so funny now, is it car drivers?
Two wrongens don’t make a
Two wrongens don’t make a right
How about some radical
How about some radical redefining of the law to really encourage drivers not to park in cycle lanes?
I was thinking of a law which mandated that a cyclist passing a car parked in a cycle lane was obliged to scratch it on at least three panels. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by community service of booking illegally parked cars for ten hours.
“Doesn’t give the cyclist the
“Doesn’t give the cyclist the right to (allegedly) damage the car.
Correct, but what the hell else could he do? “
Make his own video, like this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ
tarquin_foxglove wrote:
Great vid, but has it changed anything? Are the cycle lanes in NY suddenly free of obstructions? Do the police book anyone who parks in a cycle lane? I suspect not.
Whereas tens of thousands of drivers will have seen this case because the aggrieved driver was stupid enough to publicise it, and are much less likely to park in a cycle lane for fear of getting a scratch on their prize posession.
Dude’s a dick! No traffic,
Dude’s a dick! No traffic, Sunday, loading bags. Sad with loss. Knowing the addiction of physical effort is felt with cyclists; surely riding around and savoring such effort towards further down the road with something more constructive would be of greater benefit.
I’m enjoying life too! I destroyed a mobile phone saving a dragon fly from drowning.
Seeing he refused to move indicates that a conversation had preceded the incident, the driver lost family hence give him a break, the road is quiet. Best wishes sir
Love ya video above. Lol
legit or not from the cyclist
legit or not from the cyclist? one thing is sure , the bmw driver learned his lesson and I’m sure he will never park in a cycle lane again
mathcore wrote:
I disagree: the bmw driver still thinks he’s the wronged party, and will go on to do exactly the same thing next time
brooksby wrote:
Though, if he found it happening regularly whenever he parked there, he almost certainly would become more inclined to find somewhere else, regardless of whether he considered himself wronged or not. There’s no shortage of evidence that that’s what would happen, as its what happens in any number of other situations (most notably with people’s willingness to cycle on roads).
True, a one-off would probably not make any difference, especially if he manages to have the perpetrator punished for it in some way.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Maybe, but some folks won’t learn the lesson no matter how many times you hit them with the learnin’ stick 😉
No loading lines on the kerb,
No loading lines on the kerb, clear signs saying “no loading at any time”, double yellows and a mandatory cycle lane, yet this seems common outside this hotel:
https://goo.gl/maps/6gpW7W2FJkS2
https://goo.gl/maps/x85xANZhKFR2
What is needed is some enforcement of the law, and soime education of the hotel staff who would seem to think they have authority to authorise breaking the law (based on mention of “permission” and the two cars in Google Street View. Tweet the relevant police force?
@merseypolice ?
@merseypolice ?
@Merseysidersp ?
@MerPolTraffic ?
“[Mr Crewe says] he was given
“[Mr Crewe says] he was given permission to briefly park his car across the bike lane”
The only authority that could have given him permission to park like this is the council. He would have had to have applied to the council months before and they would have had to display temporary removal of parking restriction notices around the street in question prior to the event. If this had happened I would be wanting a full investigation as to Mr Crewe’s involvement into his family members death as to plan that far in advance for a funeral is very suspicious!
“[the cyclist] repeatedly insisting he moves the car. When Mr Crewe refuses, the cyclist can be heard scratching the car with the pedal of his bike as he walks off carrying it.”
“[Mr Crewe says] The chap in this video clip could easily have rode around us as there were no cars in a very quiet street on a Sunday morning.”
As the road is one way, but the cycle lane is bi-directional, the cyclist is travelling legally but as soon as he leaves the cycle lane he would be travelling illegally as he would be going the wrong way down a one way street. Instead it seems that he chose to legally carry or push his bike past, the only option given to him due to Mr Crewe’s refusal to move.
*Caveat: I have not watched the video as it is no longer available, I am just going off the report and the details available of the road restrictions