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news
Driver mounts kerb during bizarre rant at CyclingMikey (CyclingMikey, YouTube)“I have honour, integrity”: Phone driver launches bizarre rant at CyclingMikey – before mounting footpath
Road safety campaigner Mike van Erp, whose videos of law-breaking drivers have resulted in hundreds of motorists being fined or prosecuted, has had his fair share of bizarre encounters during his 15 years of two-wheeled activism.
But the most recent video from the now-famous camera cyclist (who goes by the alias CyclingMikey) is perhaps the most bizarre yet, as a phone-using convertible driver – after being caught red-handed by Mikey – launches into an extended, explosive rant, during which he brandishes his military credentials, extols his own “honour” and “integrity”, and… drives straight into the kerb.
The incident, which occurred in January on West Carriage Drive in London’s Hyde Park (but was uploaded to Mike’s YouTube channel yesterday evening), took place as the safety campaigner was riding alongside a reporter, as part of a feature later published in the Daily Mail.
After spotting the driver of a Volkswagen convertible illegally using his phone to text, Mikey approached the motorist, who initially appeared confused by the cyclist’s presence.
> CyclingMikey ends up on car bonnet during confrontation with angry motorist
“It’s funny how you guys don’t admit it. Carry on,” van Erp told the perplexed driver, sparking the peculiar diatribe that followed.
“I’m ex-military, brother,” the motorist, clutching his hand to his chest, told van Erp. “I have honour, integrity.”
Informing the cyclist of his familial ties to the “special forces”, his head turned back towards van Erp, the driver continued: “I’m the youngest of three military brothers, who died for our country, to do things right, to help our people.”
As the driver angrily lectured Mikey, he evidently forgot to keep an eye on the road ahead, and drove straight towards the footpath, mounting the kerb in the process.
That mishap – and van Erp’s warning for him to “pay attention to his driving” – didn’t seem to deter the motorist, who has since been variously compared online to Alan Partridge or a posh Ronnie Pickering.
"I was following the correct protocol" smells like a posh Ronnie Pickering to me https://t.co/au320kKD8l pic.twitter.com/7rpvAXpLaK
— Hodson and Hudson Fan Club (@sturmeyarcher3) August 14, 2022
> “How would you like to be on camera now?” Shirtless driver accosts CyclingMikey
Winding his window down, he continued: “What you do and say to other people, judging them, when I was following the correct protocols of the Highway Code and the law. Do you have anything else to say?”
After van Erp said that the driver “can tell it to the magistrates”, he responded: “Fine. What have I done wrong? I’ve made my point enough, in the biggest possible picture – of humanity, what we were prepared to do to die or live, for others and ourselves.
“So,” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together, “I have nothing further to say to you at all. And if you don’t get it, that’s your challenge, not problem, challenge, to overcome, and help other people.”
Van Erp then replied: “Oh I’m helping other people by stopping phone drivers like you.”
After telling the cyclist “I give up”, the irate motorist accelerated away in the direction of a startled pedestrian, and almost into the back of the line of traffic.
According to van Erp, the registered owner or nominated driver of the vehicle is currently being prosecuted by the Metropolitan Police for allegedly failing to tell them who was driving at the time of the incident.
“It could entirely be a mistake,” van Erp says. “These things do go wrong sometimes and post doesn’t arrive, in which case he should be able to effectively defend his alleged failure to nominate.
“I rather can’t help thinking that the failure to nominate was intentional, mind.”
> “Tired of road crime” – CyclingMikey on episode 16 of the road.cc Podcast
Mikey’s encounter with the “ex-military” phone driver isn’t the first time that the camera cyclist has been subjected to an angry tirade from a disgruntled motorist.
In June, on the same road where January’s incident took place, a shirtless Range Rover driver – who recognised van Erp after spotting him filming another driver using their phone behind the wheel – struck the two-wheeled activist’s helmet and told him: “I feel like smashing your face in, f*ck*ng people over like that. Why don’t you f*ck off?”
In January, Mikey also claimed that he had been assaulted and that his bike had been damaged after filming a motorist using their phone while driving, while in March he ended up on a car bonnet after stepping out in front of someone driving down the wrong side of the road, who then decided to simply continue on their way.
Van Erp, whose efforts to bring law-breaking drivers to justice are in part motivated by his experience as a teenager when his father was killed by a drunk driver, has said that in 2019 alone he caught 358 drivers – and two cyclists – breaking the law, with fines totalling tens of thousands of pounds after his submission of footage to the police.
He is well-known for posting footage on his YouTube channel of people he has witnessed committing road traffic offences, including a number of famous faces such as film maker Guy Ritchie, former boxer Chris Eubank, and ex-Chelsea footballer and current Everton manager Frank Lampard.
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
- Billsmiles 4 min 52 sec ago
I'm guessing a lot of students choose to live at home because of the cost, commuting a fair distance, student digs too cost at least £650 pcm - ...
- notMyRealName 22 min 39 sec ago
The hummvee shorts are great, I just wear them with bibs underneath rather than the liner that came with them.
- wtjs 11 hours 10 min ago
it seems that most places just rely on sufficient policing to reduce the issue...
- Matt Page 11 hours 54 min ago
Many manufacturers, including Scribe, can give you methods to reduce the noise level. On Scribe, and other ratchet designs it's usually just adding...
- wtjs 12 hours 32 min ago
It wouldn't work at all where wtjs lives...
- Sriracha 12 hours 49 min ago
Pretty sure AI could skim through hours of footage in a few seconds to identify suspicious events. Of course someone in authority has to care in...
- chrisonabike 12 hours 57 min ago
Bonsai samurai? Or is it just a case of "they seem to get smaller every year"?
- mdavidford 15 hours 40 min ago
I dunno - seems like it's coming round on a regular basis...
- Rich_cb 17 hours 22 min ago
The mistake is to focus on the US....
- chrisonabike 17 hours 34 min ago
I mean it seems silly to complain in detail when we're firmly in the territory in the UK of "you will have to live with this the rest of your life ...
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29 comments
What an absolute TERWATT. Can you imagine what his partner has to put up with. Wow!
Mikey, please keep up the fine work. Expose these fuckwits. Thank you.
Not a fan of van twerp but this was very entertaining..
I'm amazed to learn that now those ex-military members in the UK can ignore the laws of their own country. I thought that was limited to Boris and his cohorts!
Hairdressers car posh bloke is my favourite driving criminal !
I especially liked the way he was trying to puff out his chest while sat twisted in a his seat.
I don't know what he's on, but I can confidently say he's on a lot of it...
There's rather a good song by one of my very favourite bands, Half Man Half Biscuit, entitled What Made Colombia Famous (Has Made a Prick Out of You)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9lkCYkViwc
Everyone is saying Captain Sunroof looks like Alan Partridge, but to me he's more like Chris Morris. I mean - that haircut????
Yet another "twat" caught. Well done Mike keep up the good work
This is so terrible and amusing that I'm nearly ready to accuse Mikey of hiring an actor for the benefit of the TV crew.
Nearly. What a twit!
For some reason I kept thinking of the immortal lines from Fawlty Towers:
Basil: I was in the Korean War, you know, I killed three men.
Sybil: He was in the Catering Corps, he poisoned them.
Isn't that Steve Coogan getting material for a new sketch? It sounds like the kind of script he would write.
It's his addiction to speed he has difficulty controlling, not to the phone...
"My brother in law owns a sword shop, and one of my nephews was nearly a blue belt in taekwondo."
The very essence of entitlement and upper class twittery "I've done something good, therefore I can break whatever laws I like." Astonishing. At least the rant was quite literate and lacking in words of the four letter variety; and quite funny.
I wonder if he'll be laughing about it with his mates when they see it? Of course he will, twits that entitled have no shame.
Wasnt a large part of the character defence of Dr Helen Measures that she did charitable works and went to church and stuff, so that should count against accidentally killing someone on the road?
This chap couldn't be more Alan Partridge-like if he tried. I can't help thinking he was probably in the territorials. I know a couple of guys who were in the paras and one who was in the SAS. None of them would come out with this sort of twattery.
Or possibly no further than public school cadets? Most genuine veterans don't feel the need to mention it, I knew a guy in Cambridge who was a former Marine and SBS working in security, he made a point of not mentioning his service in any confrontation, "It just makes the idiots want to fight more, they think you'll be a scalp."
The TA? That is the SAS isn't it? Saturday And Sunday.
(A) this guy appears to be a tosser.
(B) please don't disparage the Reserves (used to be the TA). They train bloody hard, in their spare time (using a lot of it), and plenty of them have been on operations. It's not an easy job. They also don't behave like this guy, in my experience.
I'm not disparaging the reserves, I'm making a joke about people who have delusions of adequacy and saying they're something they're clearly not.
I remember reading an article years ago, which reckoned that something like 50%-75% more people claim to have served in the armed forces (in particular, in the special services) than ever actually have.
Yes, the largest regiment in the British Army is 22 SAS with 125000 members, if the number of people who said they were there on the Iranian Embassy roof is anything to go by.
It was OldRidgeback that disparaged the part-timers..
Chocolate soldiers 'choco's' or weekend warriors in Australia..
Like yourself I know a handful of fellas who served in some of the more elite regiments and it was very difficult to pry out of them anything beyond a vague reference to their regiment. They did though carry themselves with authority and confidence and had none of this flannel shown by this particular fella.
Note he didn't claim to have been in the SAS himself, he said he had family ties to it (for whatever that's worth). Judging by his accent I'd totally believe this guy went through Sandhurst and there are near as many entitled twats there as in any other branch of British society. Remember the serial fraudster who cheated on Millionaire was a serving Army officer.
I was once confused for an officer when I walked into my unit off-duty in civvies and advised the soldier calling me Sir that I worked for a living, ie, I was an 'other ranks' slave like him.
Only one thing that would have made him more of a Tosser with his "special forces" rant would have been him wearing a tight khaki army t shirt...