BentMikey said:
No video - the battery had packed up that morning.
Even if I'd been live, I'd not be putting it because Fedex don't deserve the bad publicity (nobody reads the extenuating blurb on youtube B)), it's still an open case as far as plod are concerned and it occurred far too close to work to advertise. Also, like I've said before, once the initial novelty of the cam wore off I've kept most of my very limited collection of incidents private. There'd be nothing gained by making it public and I'd attract all the usual 'Kill al sicleist fukkers' nutters.Crank - Therein lies the problem about taking a different route. Short of getting a chinook from Odiham to drop me in, there's not a lot I can do.
O - you're right about the instant dismissal part. My initial contact with Fedex was through the customer service and I was passed through to the supervisor asap once I'd explained the goings on. She managed to get in touch with the relevant depot manager who, according to her, went skywards after she'd got the word 'mobile' out. He contacted me straight afterwards and explained that their policy on mobile use is pretty much one strike. It's in the driver's contracts explicitly and they have weekly reminders about the consequences. This driver's subsequent behaviour, the bit that really had me worried, was just flogging an already glue-factory bound horse.
I heard about the driver's sacking from the police, not Fedex directly, so I'm assuming its really happened and isn't just a fob off.
As I expected, I didn't get a huge amount of sleep last night as the whole thing kept replaying itself in my head. Any provocation on my part was minimal given the incident - honestly the only thing I'd done at the time was shout a warning -no swearing - and banged the side of the van, more a push thinking about it. It was all about self preservation. I think he realised I might get on the phone to Fedex and what that would mean, so decided to go for broke and try and scare me off. Not the best judged decision as I'd have moaned like a bastard about the original incident but probably not have bothered with a call if it'd ended there.
About 9 months ago I had a row with another courier and I behaved like an arse. I certainly said enough to muddy the legal waters if it'd ended in fisticuffs. After that, I promised I'd never get into that situation again. My only mistake this time was stopping when he got out of the van - bizarrely I think I was expecting him to put his hands up to the incident because it was so blatant. At least this time I'd learned my lesson and kept my trap shut and my eyes open, even when I thought "he's going headbutt me". Luckily at that point a car drove past and I think he realised witnesses wouldn't be a good idea and snapped out of it.
Not a happy tale and, along with the deliberate dooring attempt of a few weeks ago, its brought to an end an otherwise happy and incident-free few months of commuting.
Thanks again for all the support.
. (Sorry to be flippant). Not to say that you did on purpose of course, as I'm sure he kicked off at you pretty quickly. I would though have been off my bike pretty quick, with it up on it's back wheel, so it was between me and him. The front wheel at chest height can be very effective at keeping people at bay. Just make sure they don't grab it and trying to wrench the bike from you or in trying buckle your wheel and also risk bending the forks. Anyway that's maybe for another time and debate.
