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news
Cyclist at level crossing (via Laughingcow on Twitter).JPGVideo: Cyclist almost hit by train after forcing his way through level crossing gates
Police are investigating an incident in which a cyclist forced his way through closed barriers at a level crossing in south west London and was almost hit by a train.
The footage, originally posted by Twitter user Laughingcow4, was widely shared on the social network after being retweeted by broadcaster Jeremy Vine.
The level crossing at North Sheen today. Mate, the barrier is there for a reason. pic.twitter.com/LDlm2nLFRU
(via @laughingcow4)— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 11, 2017
Vine added: “And when this jerk has to be scraped off the front of a train, the poor driver needs counselling for years.”
The footage was shot at North Sheen station, with one onlooker who urged the man to stop receiving the reply, “I don’t f*cking care, mate.”
He then gesticulated angrily at the train as it passed within inches of him, with the driver sounding the horn.
Laughingcow4, said that the train driver performed an emergency stop, meaning that the crossing became blocked and the man, whom he described as “very aggressive,” had to carry his bike over the footbridge.
South West Trains has confirmed that British Transport Police, which regularly underlines the importance of waiting at level crossings when the barrier is down, are investigating.
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.
Latest Comments
- froze 2 hours 6 min ago
Spending $500 on a used bike might get you more bang for your buck. You could find a higher quality bike that's been gently used, as opposed to a...
- antigee 2 hours 30 min ago
That's how I read the video...deliberate undertake of right turning car using the low kerbed path....so should have gone to a higher court and...
- Sam3 3 hours 54 min ago
Those were on the top side of the tube....
- kingleo 3 hours 55 min ago
A lot of car drivers are like the cowboys of the old Wild West in America who carried two guns - any slight provocation and they had no qualms in...
- grOg 4 hours 46 min ago
At first I thought your comment was clever sarcasm but then I realised, no, just another Guardian reading woke lefty..
- Robert Hardy 7 hours 24 min ago
As I used to understand it, if the intention was to cause grievous bodily harm and the person died in consequence, then the crime was murder,...
- AidanR 7 hours 24 min ago
I'd call this collective punishment of cyclists, but actually it's punishing cyclists for the actions of people riding illegal electric motorbikes.
- David9694 7 hours 28 min ago
I think I lose half a point as it isn't shown fully flipped, it's only on its side. That would mean 0.75 of a point for the Festival Way one in...
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I'm very pleased with my Prestacycle ratchet bit driver, which I take on all my long distance trips
- mdavidford 9 hours 44 min ago
Au contraire - there was plenty of beer available. Although, OK, it was probably pubs rather than bars.
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38 comments
Even further aside, your 'Bee mechanism' is right to be fired-up: bees and wasps kill as many people as terrorists in this country, and we're constantly being told to shit ourselves about them.
Or is it that we should only be as worried about terrorists as we are about bees? I can't remember which.
Hv3 vs Davel
with the original topic now well and truly behind us - a guy who doesn't effing care if he's hit by a train...
I haven't dared venture into the horrors of the Standard comment pages on this - does someone want to give us the gist, or can I guess?
The thing is and if I've guessed right, we are hard-wired for some types of prejudice - however if we make a little effort, we overcome this elementary programming. "Teenagers, you're all alike" and so on - we edit and we generalise e.g. about people we know: "Jenny, she's always rushing about" and groups we identify. Evidence is optional: we might have seen Jenny rushing about twice this year and there was that time in 2015.
There's an inbuilt warning mechanism against threats - e.g. bees, you're all the same, i.e. you might sting me (I have heard about someone being stung) and especially in the absence of ointments and doctors, I'm not going to wait around to find out if you're the stingy sort, or the nice sort (or an imposter who doesn't even have a sting.) I think there's also an instinct for derring-do, but that's another story.
When I encounter a BMW or an Audi not being driven aggressively, I'm always a bit surprised - they're all the same - well, nearly.
So now I find myself, by dint of my cycling, a member of a group and on the receiving end of this type of prejudice from others - and it's not very nice.
We want the motorists who come up behind us on the road, and who we meet at junctions, etc to have at the fore-front of their minds that the bike is actually a person - with a back story, future plans, people counting on them and so on. So that's why, coming back to the video incident, this guy's behaviour doesn't help the rest of us cyclists in practical terms because prejudice hasn't gone away and it drives a car that is potentially dangerous to us if we're not seen as deserving respect.
Finally, it looks to me like the person who called out to him, and got a mouthful for their pains, may actually have saved his bacon - he looks to stop on the first track because of this: had he carried onwards another second or two, he'd have been on the further track at exactly the wrong moment?
Is that Wiggins training (no pun intended) for Paris-Roubaix comeback? He has let himself go a bit since he stopped racing.
Oxygen thief
That train has an impressive horn.
At the risk of seeming preechy and self-satisfied, for which I aplogise in advance, if I am...
I seem to recall numerous contributors to this blog getting angry about an earlier article re police prosecuting cyclists who flout the law.
In response I posted something to the effect of "Try living around here where cyclists think the law doesn't apply to them and will do damn well what they like, e.g. cycle the wrong way down a cycle lane etc, etc". It reflects badly on all of us who ride bikes.
Well, this is just a few miles from where I live and I see stupidity and ignorance and rudeness from people with bikes, like this every day. Though this does take stupidity to new stratospheric levels!
The only saving grace is that he'd be a prick, even if he didn't just happen to have a bike in tow with him.
I hope, for his own good, the idiot learns a lesson by being dragged through the courts, before he gets dragged under the wheels of a passing vehicle. Unfortunately, people like him are just one more reason for motorists to be irrationally angry at the reasonably behaved majority of us.
I don't think you're particularly 'preachy' or self-satisfied. But you are wrong.
The vast, vast majority of posters on here don't hate motorists. The majority also are motorists. There is loathing for lazy, incompetent, selfish, ignorant motorists. There is grouping together of these for sake of argument - I use the term motons to refer to fat, lazy, thought-stunted car slaves. There is loathing for the way the law prioritises their excuses over the lives of people wanting to ride a bike.
But there is nowhere near as much treating them as a homogeneous motorist blob as you seem to think, because doing that to a bunch of individuals would be stupid, and, rather than winning an argument, it would merely highlight the prejudices and limitations of the person doing it.
It's the same for 'cyclists' and 'they're giving us all a bad name'. Only in the minds of stupid people, who have already had their minds made up that day by the rag they read or another simpleton's Facebook post.
Too much alcohol + Neanderthal brain pattern + Small penis = very angry individual. Ergo Marginal trains !
I like the way he has a go at the train for being in his way!
Why are idiots like this still alive despite their best attempts get run down?
Couldn't even do that properly.
Probably the same reason you're still alive.
Would a few of you mind going onto the various comment pages of the Standard, Mail etc and apologising profusely on behalf of all cyclists? I can't do it all by myself.
I don't see motorists flooding this website with apologies for crashing into people and things so I think I'll give it a miss, thanks. Morons exist in all shapes and sizes and use all forms of transport - this particular moron happened to be on a bike but that's where the similarities between me (us?) and him end. He could have been on foot and bundled his way through the gate - would you expect to see apologies on his behalf from ramblers? Or on a scooter for which children should apologise?
I... um... never mind.
I can do it here: I, a representative of all cyclists, hereby apologize for the idea that any individual cyclist is representative of all cyclists in whole or in part. In addition, as a two-legged human I apologize for all two-legged humans. And further, as the possesor of a nose I apologize to all victims of terrible, horrible crimes carried out by nose-wearers.
I've been trying but the anti-cycling morons are all over them.
Shame they're not so vocal to denounce the activities of their fellow drivers. Levi Bellfield was a driver after all.
That used to be on my regular commute - sometimes it's a '4 train day' sometimes just one. Still, if you're that much of a hurry there's always the footbridge.
Sheen's village idiot is alive and well, at least for the time being. No doubt someone in Wotsit Rail will have to ask 'How can we prevent.....?' You can't prevent acts of wilful circumvention.
Sterilisation?
Contact my secretary about a slot for next Wed between 15:00 and 17:00. I would be happy to make sure you never reproduce. I would like to offer you alternative times but unfortunately the other hours are fully booked with my usual occupation of making Nazi-eugenicist comments on websites.
Either that's ott sarcasm, or you've had the humour bypass operation in your own clinic.
Narr, just put a cushioned 'cow catcher' on the front of trains to toss mistakes like this away from the train rather that pointlessly fouling the flat front of train, so traumatising the driver and the poor sods who'd have to clean the train later.
Maybe next time......
No seriously, there is a foot bridge (out of shot) just to the left. I've carried a bike over it a few times - this particular level crossing is down more than it's up.
Yep - this one:
https://goo.gl/maps/tZDdQWutmN92
He must have been utterly tanked beyond belief.
Wouldn't totally surprise me if the bike were nicked either.
Bike Radar reader ... expecting the train to stop for him.
Pitty the train didn't hit him. What a total waste of oxgyen. Idiot!
Better luck next time driver
Are you sure you have the right website? There must be something more appropriate for your demographic elsewhere.
Train almost hit by cyclist. Surely.
That's not a cyclist, that's a moron with a bike.
He's a much a cyclist as the Vidette van driver was a driver. Both are morons and morons can be cyclists and drivers.
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