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“Bikes can f*@% off” says Jeremy Clarkson in YouTube rant

In the week James May urges drivers "not to buy this anti-cycling stuff" Britain's petrolhead-in-chief goes big on anti-cycling “stuff” in video meltdown...

“I can’t hear myself think over the sound of public transport,” says Jeremy Clarkson against a background of vehicles that are decidedly not public transport passing by in a video interview with Drivetribe, entitled 'Bikes can f*@%k off'. “Stop sulking, you’re driving a car, you blithering idiot,” he adds. Because no car driver in London was ever made miserable by being held up by, you know, other motorists.

It's a bit of a contrast with the comments supportive of cyclists made just last week by his co-host of Amazon Prime's The Grand Tour, and previously BBC's Top Gear, James May.

> "Don't buy into the anti-cycling thing" - James May tells drivers to stop worrying about cyclists 

Clarkson is sitting outside a café in the affluent part of west London where he has his home in the capital. It’s on the road where Transport for London’s plans to install a cycleway to protect vulnerable road users was blocked recently by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

“So this is Holland Park in London, one of the most beautiful streets in London because of all the tree that line it,” says the motoring writer and broadcaster. “And these are trees that the Mayor of London wants to pull down to make way for a cycle lane. Well, he can f*ck off. I mean, the man’s obviously deranged. You can’t pull trees down so people can cycle.

“I know that cycle lanes now are seen as the single most important thing in the world by all those lunatics with five hardened bananas on their head and a little GoPro, but they can f*ck off, they’re not.”

No tree was ever harmed in the building of a road.

“I was just coming just now into London on the A40 … well, they’ve taken one of the lanes away to make a cycle lane, massive traffic jam resulting from it, and stuck in it is an ambulance.

“Someone is dying of a heart attack somewhere up in Acton, the ambulance can’t get there, because they’re building a cycle lane.

“We live in absurd times. Absurd.”

He certainly has a point there. Though many people may see these times as “absurd” for reasons other than the ones Clarkson does.

The patient in the ambulance could perhaps have been a cyclist knocked off his or her bike by a motorist due to the absence of safe infrastructure.

Would he have complained had the roadworks been for anything other than building a cycle lane? Somehow, we doubt it.

And once built, cycleways actually provide a quicker way for the emergency services to get to where they are needed, a motor traffic free route, rather than trying to thread their vehicles through queues of cars, buses, vans and lorries.

“In Hyde Park, they took half the road away to make a cycle lane, even though there was already a cycle lane running parallel to it 30 feet away.”

There was a shared use path, which is a different issue altogether. And what motor traffic there is through Hyde Park flows as freely as it ever did.

“So now there’s a choice of cycle lane when you’re in Hyde Park, why?

“Let’s have a look here. Car, car, taxi, van, bicycle. Well, not really a bicycle, one of those foldaway ones. It’s ridiculous, car, car …  and it’s a lovely summer’s day, you’d imagine people would cycle but nobody wants to, You’re sweaty, you smell!

“Look at him! How much has he contributed to the economy today? Nothing. Nobody wants to sit next to him because of the smell of his armpits.”

A succession of people on non-folding bikes cycle past throughout the video, by the way.

And it’s well documented of course that where cycling infrastructure is put in place, the local economy benefits.

And perhaps more people would cycle through Holland Park were it safer to do so. Particularly heading towards Notting Hill, it is a hugely intimidating place for people on two wheels due to road furniture, coaches, buses and lorries, and vehicles trying to get in front of you to turn left at the succession of traffic lights.

Waving at a double decker bus, Clarkson says: “And you can’t go on those because you’ll get a disease.”

“If when you get to work and you cycle there and you need to make up for the calories you lost by cycling and you have an avocado that’s been flown from, I don’t know, the other side of the world, you’d be better off environmentally going to work in a Humvee.”

In terms of gross weight, a Humvee – the military version of a Hummer – is roughly the same weight as getting on for 10,000 California Hass avocados.

And of course, the carbon footprint of an avocado ends when you eat it on your sourdough or other bread of choice; but when you proudly take delivery of your ridiculously sized vehicle, you’re only just starting with the environmental cost.

The video, you’ll have noticed, is entitled ‘A cup of tea with Jeremy Clarkson’, although it looks more like a cup of coffee to us … leafy environs or not, neither tea leaves nor coffee beans are indigenous to Holland Park, or anywhere else this side of Africa, Latin America or the Indian sub-continent …

“And this information is not coming from my head. It’s coming from the Guardian newspaper. That’s where I found it.”

Google “Humvee” plus “avocado” plus “Guardian” – never happened, did it?

“The Guardian will tell you that you have to eat to get the calories you need to ride a bicycle. Is anyone paying any attention to any of this? No they’re not. ‘We’ll just have cycle lanes, it’s good for the environment’ … No it isn’t! It isn’t!

“It’s just ridiculous, we’re living in stupid times where people say, ‘It’s really important we have cycle lanes’, it’s the latest thing … ‘Oh, we’ve got to have a cycle lane we’ll have to drive one through the middle of the Tower of London, yes, we must do that, pull it down, pull it down, we must have a cycle lane, it’s where we want one’ … they can f*ck off.”

News for Jeremy; the East-West cycleway starts just to the east of the Tower of London, and passes right in front of it; not THROUGH it, IN FRONT of it. Go take a look if you don’t believe us.

“And you know how things are with green stuff, we must all buy diesels ‘Oh, you can’t have diesels you must have petrol, you can’t have petrol, you’ve got to have a hybrid, you can’t have a hybrid, you’ve got to have electric’ … they’re going to do the same … ‘You’ve got to have bus lanes, because buses are the most important thing, oh we can’t have bus lanes, buses are bad, we’ve got to have cycle lanes …

“And then they’ll say one day, ‘Oh, we can’t have cycle lanes’ because everyone’s decided that bicycles are bad for the environment – which they are, by the way,” he says with what is presumably meant to be a knowing look towards the camera – and we’ve got to use Spacehoppers and everyone needs Spacehopper lanes so they can bounce to work.”

Oh, Jeremy. Mate.

“And here’s another thing. The cycle lane they were going to build along here, four and a bit miles, £42 million, that’s what they were quoted. They can f*ck off, you can’t charge forty … that’s £10 million a mile for just painting a little bicycle on the road, you can’t charge £10 million a mile for that. I’d have told them to f*ck off.

“And that’s the good thing, the council has told them to f*ck off, even before the consultation period was over, they’ve actually said, ‘No, we’re not going to have a cycle lane here, it’s idiotic, and the Mayor is arguing with them, ‘People are going to be killed’, yes they are, you are absolutely right Mr Mayor, if you get your cycle lane.

“Because, there will be a huge amount of congestion and all the ambulances won’t be able to get through.”

A planned cycleway, let’s remember, on a route where cyclists have been seriously injured and – in the case of Eilidh Cairns – lost her life. There's still a ghost bike in her memory there ... on the very route that Clarkson opposes.

As for the £10 million per mile … well, compared to say the £1.5 billion being spent on upgrading 21 miles of the A14 in Cambridgeshire, that strikes us as a bargain.

“And do you know what their solution is to that? Only as I speak to you today, whatever it is, August the second, some left-wing think-tank that advises Corbyn has come up with a really good idea, which is to ban all private cars from London in 11 years’ time.”

What a great idea. Could we ban black cabs, Ubers, HGVs and delivery vans while we’re at it? Asking for a friend.

“So why build a cycle lane, then? No cars, so why build a cycle lane then? Because you’re going to have no cars, so why build a segregated cycle lane?

“Why spend £42 million of our money on something which you say you aren’t going to need?”

We know British politics can be difficult to follow at the moment, but clearly we missed the bit about Jeremy Corbyn forming a government and being able to implement something that is advice from a think-tank, not policy.

“They can all f*ck off. All of them.”

You said that before.

Oh wait, there’s more.

“I sunburned the top of my head today. And that’s global warming. No, wait … it’s August, that’s what it is, it’s August.

“I’m well aware a lot of people are going to disagree with what I’ve said, but let’s not have a row, let’s not shout and yell and scream, as we do on the roads – well, you do on the roads – let’s not have a Jeremy Vine moment out there when he films some poor woman who he’s inconvenienced and she has to go to prison as a result.”

So we can add climate change denial to the list. And,. for the record, Shanique Syrena Pearson was convicted in February 2017 of driving without reasonable consideration and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in an incident recorded on Vine’s helmet cam in July the previous year.

However, her nine-month jail sentence was not due to that incident alone.

She was already subject to a suspended sentence for actual bodily harm and assault, which is what triggered a jail sentence; in the absence of that, the likelihood is that she would have received a non-custodial sentence.

“Let’s have a debate, comment below … If you agree with what I’ve said, comment below, let’s have an intelligent debate, let’s not just … “ [he makes the wanker sign]

The invitation to comment does not seem to have been extended to people who disagree with him.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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43 comments

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cycle2santiago | 4 years ago
0 likes

I never knew Katie Hopkins had a twin brother. Their view of the world is either so narrow, they fall down stairs because they can't see them or, more likely, desperately seeking clicks without understanding that they are spouting 100% garbage.

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cycle2santiago | 4 years ago
0 likes

I never knew Katie Hopkins had a twin brother. Their view of the world is either so narrow, they fall down stairs because they can't see them or, more likely, desperately seeking clicks without understanding that they are spouting 100% garbage.

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Neatpetec | 4 years ago
0 likes

Thought I'd ventured onto the Guardian. So much vitriole.

In my entire life I've managed to drive and ride almost every vehicle class except road roller, invalide carriage and psv.

As a cyclist I feel very poorly represented here. There seem to be many here that feel JC is responsible for the tossers that navigate our highways. He isn't.

If you see an offence get the police involved - that's what your paying for.

As to personal thoughts on the way transport is going I'm betting he's not far wrong. As soon as they have perfected autonomous vehicles - apart from cycles - all you will be able to drive - are your loved ones mad. (So don't get too serious)

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RicePudding | 4 years ago
1 like

"Bicycles are bad for the environment"

Dumbest statement of the year award goes to...

With a car, every part of its existence is bad for the environment. With a bike, its footprint ends upon its manufacture, it is sustainable all the time it is used after that.

Looking at the last year, my car has done less than 3000 miles and my bike has done almost 2700 miles. That's close to half of the journeys made without impacting the environment and roughly 720Kg of Co2 emissions that won't exist because of cycling.

Not to mention that the wallet is a lot heavier because of the journeys in the car avoided.

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brooksby | 4 years ago
1 like

Where's a Grampa Simpson shouting at a cloud gif when you need one?

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
2 likes

brooksby wrote:

Where's a Grampa Simpson shouting at a cloud gif when you need one?

Here?

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
5 likes

brooksby wrote:

Where's a Grampa Simpson shouting at a cloud gif when you need one?

This is the cloud that he was shaking his fist at:

 

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srchar | 4 years ago
1 like

Have a like for the Stewart Lee reference.

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handlebarcam | 4 years ago
3 likes

Nope, you're all wrong*. This isn't a comedy character we should lighten-up and enjoy. Nor is it a bitter old man who genuinely wants his followers to harm cyclists. He is a millionaire, who is paid extremely well to make content. But these days it is all behind a paywall, so he realizes he must throw some free titbits to his base now and then. He has easily enough money that he doesn't have to personally "suffer" cyclists ever again. But he knows that he made his fortune appealing to the kind of idiots who do, and who think being "stuck" behind a cyclist for ten seconds is torture, and that cycle lanes are an affront to their human right to be 100 metres further forward in the queue of traffic than they are. He is Virtue Signalling (or from our point-of-view, and any rational one, disvirtue signalling). Note the repeated and obviously-scripted use of the F-word, just to show he really cares. So he makes the occasional YouTube video, or appears on GMTV or The One Show or whatever, and says something faux-controversial, to prevent him being seen as an elite, which is what 21st century conservativism is all about (after a few centuries of being the precise opposite.) Of course, he really is an elite - he beat up an underling who didn't bring him the food he wanted - but to people whose prejudices he affirms that is irrelevant.

* I haven't read most of the other comments, I'm making an assertion without evidence, but it's just a joke like on Top Gear.

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Guyz2010 | 4 years ago
1 like

Clarkson is so funny, its all show. If he really wanted to drive he wouldn't do it in London anyway. He's just being controversial pr1ck as he's always been. Nuff said.

If I knew he was driving behind me i'd deliberately get in his way and laugh inanely while i wobbled around on two wheels.  1

 

 

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dassie | 4 years ago
0 likes

He seems to be more and more a caricature of himself - in this case probably to try and get more YouTube channel clicks & comments.  Ignore.

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David9694 | 4 years ago
1 like

One of the hardships of getting on in years is that your values, and those of society around you can go out of synch. It’s a vicious cycle of losing the ability to engage, to regain the synch.

You had your youth, where it was more about your priorities, your aspirations; that’s a long time ago now. attitudes, priorities and sensitivities have changed, it can be very hard to come to terms with.  

You end up frequently confused, confused for example by what public authorities are doing, “why can’t they just leave things alone?” you say. Increasingly, no-one listens, “we’re just going to put you in the chair now”, the carers say to even your must impassioned treatisies. You have to change your behaviour to avoid the cycle of rejection, censure and isolation, but you don’t know how. 

 

Jeremy Clarkson is 59.  (according to Wikipedia)

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burtthebike replied to David9694 | 4 years ago
1 like

David9694 wrote:

Jeremy Clarkson is 59.  (according to Wikipedia)

59?!  A misprint surely?  79 I would believe.  Good to see that he isn't vain enough to go down the cosmetic surgery route though.  Or maybe he doesn't have enough money to correct such gross, total, overwhelming ageing.

I've had a hard life, and I'm 67, but my neighbour complimented me on how young I looked, and compared to that fat wrinkly whale, he was right.  And I'm slightly less miserable than him.

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ConcordeCX replied to burtthebike | 4 years ago
1 like

burtthebike wrote:

David9694 wrote:

Jeremy Clarkson is 59.  (according to Wikipedia)

59?!  A misprint surely?  79 I would believe.  Good to see that he isn't vain enough to go down the cosmetic surgery route though.  Or maybe he doesn't have enough money to correct such gross, total, overwhelming ageing.

I've had a hard life, and I'm 67, but my neighbour complimented me on how young I looked, and compared to that fat wrinkly whale, he was right.  And I'm slightly less miserable than him.

now imagine what the lining of his arteries must be like.

 

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ChrisB200SX | 4 years ago
0 likes

Wouldn't it be ironic if JC got knocked off his bicycle in his home borough.

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RobD | 4 years ago
2 likes

I saw a similar video recently of him ranting about Formula 1 and how to fix it, it seems like he (or the youtube channel that have been posting it) have stumbled on the ideal kind of click bait material. He's very good at getting under people's skin and saying a lot of things just to wind them up, unfortunately it's sometimes pretty irresponsible considering the kinds of people who actually listen to him.

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FrankH | 4 years ago
2 likes

I like Jeremy Clarkson, he offends all the right people. The people who take themselves way too seriously.

And if you're so stupid that you can't see that he's like a naughty little boy trying to find out how offensive he can be then you are one of the above mentioned "right people" and you deserve to be offended. angel

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to FrankH | 4 years ago
2 likes

FrankH wrote:

I like Jeremy Clarkson, he offends all the right people. The people who take themselves way too seriously.

And if you're so stupid that you can't see that he's like a naughty little boy trying to find out how offensive he can be then you are one of the above mentioned "right people" and you deserve to be offended. angel

Or you can see it as impressionable people see things like this and Cycling, Scourge of the streets and think, "See these cyclists don't deserve to be on the roads as they are holding up ambulances etc," and then makes the streets even less safe. 

Unfortunately some people do need to take responsibility for what they say and not try to blame it on the "act" like Trump and Alex Jones do. Unfortunately it is harder to trace Clarksons cause and effect but I'm sure there are alot more people driving faster and taking less responsibility on the roads because of him and his programmes.  

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hawkinspeter replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 4 years ago
1 like

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

FrankH wrote:

I like Jeremy Clarkson, he offends all the right people. The people who take themselves way too seriously.

And if you're so stupid that you can't see that he's like a naughty little boy trying to find out how offensive he can be then you are one of the above mentioned "right people" and you deserve to be offended. angel

Or you can see it as impressionable people see things like this and Cycling, Scourge of the streets and think, "See these cyclists don't deserve to be on the roads as they are holding up ambulances etc," and then makes the streets even less safe. 

Unfortunately some people do need to take responsibility for what they say and not try to blame it on the "act" like Trump and Alex Jones do. Unfortunately it is harder to trace Clarksons cause and effect but I'm sure there are alot more people driving faster and taking less responsibility on the roads because of him and his programmes.  

I can see your point, but I'm siding with FrankH on this one. I did enjoy watching Clarkson on Top Gear (haven't bothered catching the new series yet) and found him genuinely funny at times. Now, I have a sense of irony and I interpret a lot of Clarkson's public persona as being almost a self-parody and sending up the lout-ish motorists' attitudes. However, I can totally see how some people would see it as a rallying cry and be emboldened by it.

At the end of the day, though, people are responsible for their own actions and I can't blame Clarkson for a motorist driving dangerously.

He's basically a troll.

 

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FrankH replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

<snip>

At the end of the day, though, people are responsible for their own actions and I can't blame Clarkson for a motorist driving dangerously...

Exactly. I never got away with "My sister made me do it" even when I was a child. People using a variation of that excuse as adults need to grow up.

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srchar replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
2 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

 

I did enjoy watching Clarkson on Top Gear and found him genuinely funny at times. Now, I have a sense of irony and I interpret a lot of Clarkson's public persona as being almost a self-parody and sending up the lout-ish motorists' attitudes. However, I can totally see how some people would see it as a rallying cry and be emboldened by it.

At the end of the day, though, people are responsible for their own actions and I can't blame Clarkson for a motorist driving dangerously.

He's basically a troll.

+1. Here, have an acorn.

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ConcordeCX replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

...

At the end of the day, though, people are responsible for their own actions and I can't blame Clarkson for a motorist driving dangerously.

He's basically a troll.

People who incite and encourage others, or set up the apparatus which permits others to commit crimes, are also responsible for their own actions, and should face equal consequences.

So at the risk invoking Whoever's Law, other people's responsibility does not absolve Clarkson any more than your argument would have absolved Josef Goebbels, or the presenters on Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines during the Rwandan genocide. If it did then there could be no crime of incitement to commit a criminal act. 

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hawkinspeter replied to ConcordeCX | 4 years ago
0 likes
ConcordeCX wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

...

At the end of the day, though, people are responsible for their own actions and I can't blame Clarkson for a motorist driving dangerously.

He's basically a troll.

People who incite and encourage others, or set up the apparatus which permits others to commit crimes, are also responsible for their own actions, and should face equal consequences.

So at the risk invoking Whoever's Law, other people's responsibility does not absolve Clarkson any more than your argument would have absolved Josef Goebbels, or the presenters on Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines during the Rwandan genocide. If it did then there could be no crime of incitement to commit a criminal act. 

I don't see that he's inciting any action, but instead he's inviting comments on his over-the-top opinion on cycle lanes. He's responsible for what he's saying, but it's semi-humorous so shouldn't be taken at face value. Obviously his aggressiveness against cyclists is irresponsible, but I get more worried when similar sentiments are expressed by politicians with a more sinister agenda than getting some attention.

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slappop | 4 years ago
5 likes

He's not even 60, yet looks like a guy in his mid-70s. I can't imagine he has much mental faculties left given what he looks like on the outside...

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Organon replied to slappop | 4 years ago
1 like

slappop wrote:

He's not even 60, yet looks like a guy in his mid-70s. I can't imagine he has much mental faculties left given what he looks like on the outside...

He used to smoke. I hope I am in better nick than him at that age though. 

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mrchrispy | 4 years ago
2 likes

ignore the fat plumb. he craves the attention.

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HarryTrauts replied to mrchrispy | 4 years ago
3 likes

mrchrispy wrote:

ignore the fat plumb. he craves the attention.

Exactly.  Don't feed the trolls.

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Michael Scott | 4 years ago
8 likes

He’s correct of course. Segregated cycle provision is unnecessary as we have perfectly adequate roads to cycle on. Or at least they would be if motorists would stop killing, injuring and intimidating (this last one, often deliberately) cyclists

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HoarseMann | 4 years ago
1 like

Incoherent twaffle

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EM69 | 4 years ago
3 likes

So this is what he is reduced to, I wondered what had become of him?

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