Van driver is sacked by his firm after CCTV footage shows him swerving into a cyclist.

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OP
OP
thomas

thomas

the tank engine
Location
Woking/Norwich
threebikesmcginty said:
"Cyclists are law-breakers and should be banned from the road - therefore their point of view is void"

Clears that one up...



Well, having said I was going to miss it, I did catch it. Think the companies' director shouldn't of bothered mentioning the cyclists position as it is quite likely his position was planned and sensible, rather than gutter hugging.

One sensible comment about banning the driver for life, with another 2 saying that cyclists are annoying and should face this type of thing, lovely.
 
BentMikey said:
...and it would be easy to miss the many many thousands of cyclists and all their many journeys which are fun, enjoyable, and don't get talked about much. Or the fact that as a regular cyclist you're likely to live two years longer than the general population, or that cycling in London at least, is getting safer and safer all the time.

Give up cycling, and you're probably shortening your life expectancy, even if you're managing to avoid the intimidation.


This is a joke right?

Not so long as there are moronic idiots about.Even I got driven at a few months ago.This is the mentality of some motorists out there.That's if they aren't using their mobile phones.
 

gouldina

New Member
Location
London
Mad Doug Biker said:
People cycling on the pavement though still pisses me off, but at the same time, I can understand where they are coming from as I have in the past, had my handlebars clipped by a passsing van, nearly causing me to crash into the kerb which I was DIRECTLY beside (it was pretty hairly moment until I gained control again).
I was young and thought it was a mistake on the driver's part, but when I think about it now, it must have been deliberate as I was as far over to the left as I possibly could have been without being on the pavement!

This happened to my missus and the lesson to learn is not to cycle next to the pavement but further out. At least then you've got somewhere to go if the motorist is too close.
The thing is I doubt it was actually deliberate but a lot of motorists are just careless of the safety of cyclists. I do a little informal data gathering on a road I take all the time where one side has a bike lane and no parking and one side has parked cars and I can report that most motorists on this piece of road give more room to the cars parked on the other side of the road than to me on my bicycle. Why I have no idea. I can only imagine that they just don't think much about me at all.
 

downfader

extimus uero philosophus
Location
'ampsheeeer
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...-deliberately-swerving-into-london-cyclist.do

This has already been raised on other forums I notice. The LCC have made some comment on it and commended the firm and the police for dealing with it promptly.

Comments have started, but theres now a report abuse button for the slanderous and abusive:
I have to side with the knee-jerkers on here; this chap looks like exactly the sort of cyclist who thinks nothing of holding up traffic as he tootles along in the middle of the lane at 10mph. Probably also cycles two abreast so he can chat about oppressive regimes with one of his other loony lefty friends.
 

Mycroft

New Member
why in the name of fried fudge do people with so little brain power always seem to lump things into the right-handed or left-handed bins?

pity the ambidextrous!

the cyclist is a civil servant, so i assume that if labour lose the election this guy will still be working?

compulsory IQ tests for all road users IMO, that might reduce road use a fair old bit.
 

downfader

extimus uero philosophus
Location
'ampsheeeer
Mycroft said:
why in the name of fried fudge do people with so little brain power always seem to lump things into the right-handed or left-handed bins?

pity the ambidextrous!

the cyclist is a civil servant, so i assume that if labour lose the election this guy will still be working?

compulsory IQ tests for all road users IMO, that might reduce road use a fair old bit.

I know. I'm sick of the "tree hugger" or "liberal" sh** myself. Churchill was a Liberal and the greatest political leader we ever had! Nothing wrong with being a leftie or a tory either imo, now if he cycled around London with a BNP flag on his back I'd understand a jibe.

And yes, most civil servants keep their jobs in some capacity after a change of government.
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
hackbike 666 said:
This is a joke right?

Not so long as there are moronic idiots about.Even I got driven at a few months ago.This is the mentality of some motorists out there.That's if they aren't using their mobile phones.

Sadly HB, I don't think BM is joking, he actually believes the propaganda that is put out. See Tinut's synopsis on my related thread.

https://www.cyclechat.net/

Tinuts said:
I can completely sympathise with your point of view having found myself, on occasions, similarly questioning the merits of continuing to cycle on the UK's increasingly crowded and hostile roads.

It seems that not a cycling day goes by without some close call - a too close overtake, a SMIDSY, another example of attempted intimidation or abuse. Cyclists continue to die on our roads and their deaths, usually at the hands of careless motorists, go relatively unpunished. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the motor vehicle is probably the best tool of choice for those looking to commit murder. Don't bother with trying to buy a gun from some seedy supplier in Peckham, just hop in a car and drive over your intended victim. You'll probably end up with a fine and a few months driving ban as opposed to life imprisonment.

Oil prices may be rising, petrol becoming increasingly expensive and the roads more crowded but that doesn't appear to stop people from buying ever larger gas-guzzling vehicles, many of which now insulate the drivers from the outside world so effectively that they could be likened to the sofa-in-front-of-your-TV on wheels. Witness the preponderance of monstrous and totally unsuitable SUVs on our roads. Is it any surprise that, to people whose experience of driving is effectively only one step away from that of playing a computer game, their attitude towards more vulnerable road users should be so careless? Surely if you run over a cyclist they just get up and cycle off, don't they? Just don't scrape the paintwork or dent my bumper, mate. In fact, the last time I was knocked off my bike the young driver got out of the car and, with me lying groaning in the road, proceeded to check his paintwork for damage!

Of course, the total gridlock which the ever increasing numbers of vehicles promises to deliver to our road system has prompted the powers that be to encourage us all to get out of our cars and onto our bicycles. This, or perhaps the relentless rise in petrol and public transport costs, has certainly resulted in a spectacular increase in cycling in the major metropolises. What it has also resulted in is a noticeable hardening of attitudes against cyclists. Like Crankarm, I've been cycling for many years and many thousands of miles and can, with confidence, state that the effects of this anti-cycling mentality, as exemplified by motorised road users, have never been so obvious to me as they now are.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the main reason I come across for people choosing not to cycle here in London is that they perceive it to be just too dangerous. With the same administration that is exhorting us to get on our bikes being strangely silent when it comes to legislating and implementing measures protecting cyclists' rights to safe passage on our highways , who can blame them?

It would be very easy, at the very least, to legislate minimum overtaking distances (In fact, it amazes me that neither the CTC nor the LCC are campaigning for this when passing too close is one of the major bugbears of road cycling in the UK). It would be relatively easy to train Police officers to take cyclists' complaints seriously rather than with the somewhat dismissive attitude many of us have encountered. It would be relatively easy to legislate greater sanctions against motorists causing death by dangerous driving or using their vehicles as intimidatory instruments. It is, after all, a great many people (not just cyclists) who favour dramatic increases in penalties for the latter. And yet the silence on these matters from our administration is deafening.

We are at a time when there have never been fewer Police patrol cars on our roads and when there has never been a greater perception by motorists that demeanours carried out on those same roads (save those governed by speed cameras) will go unpunished. Is it any surprise, therefore, that there is an increasing number of the more bone-headed type of motorist who are prepared to take the piss with our wellbeing? Especially when the likelihood is that they will get away with it? Sure, we can all go out and get helmet cams; indeed, I've done so myself. That's not much good, however, when you're lying in the road dead at the hands of some idiot motorist! Still, at least your video evidence will help secure them a slap on the wrist and paltry fine.

Yes, Crankarm, I thoroughly sympathise as I've been so close myself on a number of occasions! But I'm still here.......for now.

My apologies to all if this post is too long for anyone. Just be thankful that it's very rare for me to be confined to bed with a temperature and sore throat……..and too much time on my hands.

:smile:
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
Rest assured that the last few days I have been using the car, I have given the few cyclists I have seen a lot of room passing them on the other carriageway as if overtaking a car when it was safe to do so and slowing so as not to scare the crap out of them.
 
Crankarm said:
Sadly HB, I don't think BM is joking, he actually believes the propaganda that is put out. See Tinut's synopsis on my related thread.

https://www.cyclechat.net/

Looks like I took the 1980's too much for granted as I have had two of these drive at me incidents in the last 5 or ten years.Never had this in the 1980's.Interestingly enough it was Mile End Road boy racers last time as I couldn't get out of the way fast enough.SO as he drove past me he swerved left making me swerve left to avoid him hitting me.No bad for a gutter hugger with nowhere to go?

Get this with peoples attitudes when I speak to them...so obvious bias and hatred towards cyclists.Had this discussion in the messroom many times but why do I try defending myself with statements like I don't RLJ when people are not interested?
 

HJ

Cycling in Scotland
Location
Auld Reekie
thomas said:
a van driver is sacked by his firm after CCTV footage shows him swerving into a cyclist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rz360

It's a shame there isn't a link to the footage/story on what happened...but the show might be of interest to some.

I won't be listening as I need to pop out, so if anyone does hear it let me know if it's worth listening to :laugh:

(some people with helmet cameras might like to ring the show...possibly)

One down only a few thousand more to go... :smile:
 
Location
Midlands
The good thing about it is the publicity it received - albeit the cyclist was partially blamed and the van driver semi martyred - people will realise that they can be dismissed for this sort of behavior
 

Mad Doug Biker

Just a damaged guy.
Location
Craggy Island
gouldina said:
This happened to my missus and the lesson to learn is not to cycle next to the pavement but further out. At least then you've got somewhere to go if the motorist is too close.

Which was ok, but it was a busyish road and I was not travelling very quickly, so if I had been further out then I'd have held traffic up behind me.
It isn't a very wide road either, but this van was WAY closer to me than the other traffic was, so if I had been riding further out, then God only knows what would have happened.

Incidentally, I try to cycle in the right lanes where possible, obey traffic lights, etc etc, so I don't just blindly blunder along in the gutter all of the time.

Actually I try and use alternative and safer routes where possible. I see that some members on this forum seem to be a bit snotty about Cycle paths, but I'd rather use them than get harrasssed on a road!
In fact, I can more than garauntee that a journey on the road will take WAY longer to undertake than if it was on a cycle track!
 
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