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news
Video: "You're not a motorbike" - driver in four-letter rant at cyclist
A cyclist has posted helmet camera footage to YouTube of his encounter last Friday with a motorist who unleashed a four letter rant on him in South London.
Despite being in a slow-moving queue of motorised traffic, it seems the driver was upset with the rider being in the middle of the lane.
His anger, and use of some extremely colourful language, increased when the cyclist declined to use a cycle lane – although there is no legal requirement to do so, and often road layout means it is safer to use the main carriageway.
In the description of the video on YouTube, user 4ChordsNoNet said: “This is a fine example of how some, and I stress some, motorists think that cyclists should cycle on the left and keep out of their way.
“When he first tooted me there was literally nowhere for him to go. I wasn't holding him up, in fact throughout the entire video I didn't delay his journey for one second.
“I chose to ignore him, rather than engage with him, and this seemed to wind him up a tad,” he added, with supreme understatement.
In the video, shot at Mitcham Common, the motorist shouted at the cyclist: “You really don’t want to get run over you know.
“You’re in the middle of the road like a motorbike.
“You’re not a motorbike. Go back to cycling school.”
With the bike rider continuing to take the lane, as he is fully entitled to do, the motorist became increasingly angry.
He said: “If you get run over, what are going to tell me then? “You c*nt. Can you see the cycle lane on your f*cking left?
“Can you see it? You fucking tosspot. You fucking c*nt,” he added.
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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55 comments
I don't see much of the action taking place on a roundabout, just a street with virtually stationary traffic. We can all join the rightous brigade about taking the lane but if he'd done what all the other cyclists in the film had done and filtered through the traffic no one would be posting vidoes or swearing and he would have got there quicker.
If you want to sit in a line of traffic: get a car.
None of which answers my question of why he should use the cycle lane. He knew where he was going, he didn't hold anyone up. What did he do wrong? Besides which, it's not his responsibility that the mentalist in the Peugeot was swearing.
He's approaching a roundabout, and at cost to his own journey time joins the traffic queue. He could filter up the left safely here, but then what? Still be stuck on the left, or filter up the left and then cut in front of a car in the queue?
Incredible if cyclists get caught on the left of turning vehicles they are at blame for putting themselves on a dangerous position, yet if they join the queue and wait patiently and safely they are also at fault.
Because he knew he was going to get a monster number of clicks on youtube for his clip and he wanted the advertising revenue.
At 0.001p per click I've made precisely 14.8p so far, so I really don't think so.
Because drivers have a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of the give-way lines at the entrance to roundabouts. Making using such a cycle lane a risky thing to do .
Early on in cycling, before I worked out to ignore them, I did use such lanes, and kept getting nearly hit by cars being driven out right in front of me onto the roundabout (they stopped, but at the other side of the cycle lane, not at the stop line).
(There's also the risk from drivers turning off from the roundabout and cutting across/into you, though I only remember the first scenario happening to me)
Edit - it does seem that one of the main 'skills' you have to learn when riding a bike on the road, is to ignore most of the official instructions given in the form of paint.
The official written advice often explicitly tells you to do just that, which just makes it all the more weird that they keep painting this stuff in the first place.
We all know there are plenty of irate arseholes driving cars but what's shocking here is the very profundity of the man's ignorance.
How are the driving schools failing us so badly?
This needs a national campaign.
.
It seems like he got annoyed when he couldn't squeeze his car into the gap of queuing traffic (that he had speedily overtaken and nipped in at the last) and his frustration built from there. I'm so glad I live in Cornwall and it's only a few selected weeks of the year that the anger increases, and subsequent standards of courtesy and driving plummet.
I'd say he wouldn't talk to his own mother like that, but quite possibly he does.
My ride home from work has one fairly long section of road with a cycle path. The surface isn't great and there's one bit that is absolutely dire so I stay out of it at that point. The other day some idiot in a beemer took exception to it and beeped at me and as he went past he was stabbing his finger over to the left indicating where I should be... I gave him a lengthy look at my middle finger in return.
Further round that stretch of road are loads of turnings to the left that are ripe for left hooks. I've been close to being hit a couple of times there, but I'm usually cautious enough to hold back when anyone passes me just in case they go straight into turning. Taking the lane there keeps you out of harm's way, but drivers don't much like that either.
Wouldn't normally comment on video stories (already commented on the original video), but I know this spot well.
This is the roundabout he's approaching. If it's not obvious from the video, the cycle lane continues around the outside edge of the roundabout to the far exit. I've added bad squiggly lines to make it really obvious why it's awful.
And of course the driver was turning left, so he was actually asking the bike to get in his way. Genius.
Sorry, but where else would the cycle lane go?!? inside would be more dangerous, so that leaves just a flyover! Really think cyclists - and I am one (5k p/a) - need to be sensible, assertive and get on with it.
I don't really want to start quoting highway design manuals at this time of night, but for a roundabout you either set the lanes back to surround the motor traffic with seperation, or you stop them before the entrance so that cyclists take the appropriate lane with the motor traffic. Running a bike lane around the outside edge like that is pretty much the worst thing they could have done.
It's all about sightlines and where people will be looking. A driver pulling out there will be looking to his right, and will drive straight into a cyclist immediately to his left going striaght on. If the lane is set back to surround, he'll be looking forward again before he encounters the cyclist.
And here is the Internet's most famous example of such a design, it's really rather hypnotising.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ArchieNlEUWS-CRM/live
Dunno about the UK, but our road code says cyclists should go through roundabouts in the middle of the lane so it is not a ridiculous idea.
exactly there is no position for a safe cycle lane at a roundabout, therefore cyclists should be sensible and assertive and take the appropriate lane for their destination, just as cars and motorbikes do.
I believe this is the behavious the cyclist in the video was attempting to use, but some moron moton objected to it, because some total spanner in the highways department thinks a cycle lane round the outside of the roundabout is a good idea, with cyclists turning right positioned on the left of cars turning left.
Hats off to the cyclists, exactly how every cyclist shoud react to drivers like that. I wish I could say I always remain that cool!
Is it my imagination but do Peugeot drivers seem to be extra agressive?
Put that cyclist on the Queens honours list. Handled impeccably.
Indeed. Rather ill educated moron making a dickhead of himself for all the world to see. Bellend.
Defo got an attitude problem, and as for riding in the cycle lane, you must be joking, it doesn't look much wider than handlebars and much more dangerous than taking the lane. Full marks to the cyclist for staying calm.
Has this been reported to the authorities?
Which authorities? The police? They don't care about motorists being abusive towards anyone else, especially towards people on bicycles.
Driving instructors are all motorists who do not ride cycles? The instructor test has nothing in it regarding cycles? The driving test that the schools are preparing a learner driver for has nothing in it (apart from, sometimes, one question in the theory test) about cycles?
Or in short, the driving schools don't care, and there is nothing making them care.
haha...what a bell end.
I think he needs to go to anger management classes...where was he expecting to get to, being one place up the queue...?
For many motorists, that's enough: one place forward, in the very same queue, but *not* behind the cyclist.
Every second behind a cyclist is a millimetre off your penis. A milli off your willy, you might say.
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