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news
Near Miss of the Day 316: Parliament Square driver tells cyclist he should have "used the f*cking bike lane"
Our Monday Moaning piece last week entitled ‘Why don’t cyclists us cycle lanes’ prompted one road.cc reader to send in a video for our Near Miss of the Day feature which shows a driver telling him that he should have “used the f*cking bike lane” in London’s Parliament Square.
With the introduction of Cycle Superhighway 3 in 2016, there are protected cycle lanes and early start traffic lights at several of the entrances to the square, but it can often be quicker and easier to take the main carriageway when the lights there are green.
Chris, who shot the footage, which shows him approaching the square from the Millbank direction with the Palace of Westminster to his right, told us: “There is the option to use the bike line, but as the light was red, I chose to use the main traffic lane. The driver then close passed me.
”When I stopped to challenge her, her response was that I should have ‘used the f*cking bike lane’.
“Later she asks: ‘Why do you think we build them?’ And she suggests I am going to get killed cycling in the manner I do.
”People driving cars often use what they perceive to be indiscretions on the road as a justification for road violence.
”My point would be that even if I was obliged to use the bike lane – which I wasn’t – it is no excuse for such behaviour.
“The police issued a notice of intended prosecution but later had to withdraw it because of an "administration error.”
He added: “I think it’s a pretty good layout – I generally feel safe using it.
“The big bike box on the junction to the square is very good.
“I only started commuting that way recently, so I don’t know how it was before.”
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
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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67 comments
Someone driving a car "quite close (but slowly)" to a cyclist could still KSI them, I think...
I can't rememebr the exact new item, but a small van driver approached a cyclist waiting ahead at a junction, scoped them onto the bonnet, then did a rapid stop which dumped the cyclist straight onto their head. They died of their injuries, although it was low speed.
Did you actually think about what you wrote there?
Yes I did. Thanks for asking.
We have bulls on the road and the answer is that other road users should avoid them? Not instead do something about the bulls?
I used to love watching this in London. One Dick argues with another Dick.
Usually it was buses and cyclists - call me old fashioned but I would give 2 tons of metal a bit more respect or scoot off down the bike lane. History is littered with the mangled remains of people who stood 'on principle' Just sayin'....
And the cyclist is a dick because ?
Or do you think he should have bunny hopped over the raised divider once the 'driver' tried the squeeze them out ?
Point taken. The bike lane is crap it just funnels the cyclists back into the traffic - not good.
"We pay for the roads".
No love, that would be tax payers and I bet the majority of middle aged male cyclists pay somewhat more tax than you do.
Oh! Cos she's a woman she can't hold down a very highly paid job which necessitates her paying loads of tax?
And you call her "love"
Well Done You!
She had a crap car.
If you look up any pay stats, the differential in pay is clear.
The statement was clearly one of probablity since the word 'bet' was used.
Besides which, if it were a bloke in the car, the answer would have been the same except to substitute dickhead.
Yeah.
Cos that's a crap car (what's wrong with a VW Polo anyway?) and well off people always drive nice cars.
But that's OK.
Let's just leave it that you're ALWAYS in the right and everyone else (me in this case) is always in the wrong.
I made a few statements based on probability which you can test out if you like. I did not make a claim that certain people always drive a type of car.
As I said.... Let's just leave it that you're ALWAYS in the right and everyone else (me in this case) is always in the wrong.
You have hirsute bang to rights on the 'love'. That was taking a dive off of the moral high-ground and thus a bad idea.
But on the tax point he's probably got statistics on his side. I suspect on average middle-aged male cyclists do pay more tax than someone in a car like that. And she's the one who bought tax into it with the 'that we pay for' stuff.
It was a prejorative term like dickhead.
A sexist pejorative term, though. If a crap driver were black I doubt you'd use a racially-specific disparagement. Getting off the topic though - which seems to be that some people think that if nobody can claim to be morally-perfect, then all rules of civilised-behaviour can be disregarded entirely.
You sound like my wife !
I think it would be sexist if I didn't give a similar label to males.
As to paying for the roads, unless the cyclist has somehow no expenditure and earns less than 10k, then they are making a contribution to the roads via some form of taxation.
My reading of this is that the driver was intimidating from the start of the clip, at that point there was no cycle lane and they seemed to be alongside the rider.
Agree.
As he was intending to move into the rightmost lane at the next set of lights it doesn't make sense to move into the leftmost lane before the turn. I wouldn't do that either in a car or on a bike, and definitely not when an entitled, aggressive moron is trying to bully me because she thinks bikes shouldn't go in the 'car lane'.
Perhaps the cyclist should have swung his dlock at her head and if she protested said it wouldn't have happened if she had been using a motorway, so it's her own fault really.
And then watch at the resources and time the police put into finding the assailant and charging them with attempted murder. And the newspaper column inches devoted to it. Maybe a Channel 5 programme as well with the tearful victim (honest, hard-working, tax-paying motorist) explaining how terrified she was at the unprovoked actions of the assailant (criminal, tax-dodging, cyclist scourge).
Bet there wouldn't be any "administrative errors" then would there? It would be fast-tracked to the courts before the first edition of the Daily Mail was even off the press.
If I'd been cycling on the right of the rider, I'd probably have assumed that he would use the cycle lane, though his road positioning didn't suggest he was going to pull over, so I'd have held back a bit and muttered in a very British fashion... I wouldn't have overtaken on the approach like the motorist did, not with traffic and lights ahead.
Some crap parking by the police.
I'm just back from a quick trip to see friends in London yesterday. I walked from Seymour Street around Mayfair last night, then from Seymour Street to Kings Cross last night and this morning. A few cyclists out and about, and one very near miss - driver with tunnel vision. Seeing the entitled attitude of many drivers, and the frustration and horn beeping if a green light was not actioned within Fighter pilot reaction times just put me off riding there. I am so glad I live in the Sticks.. You London cyclists are a brave bunch..
The main lights had already changed from green, at least to amber, by the time both car and cyclist went through - both too distracted by their own rightousness to bother noticing the lights.
The car is visible holding station just off the cyclist's rear quarter from quite early on, deliberately not squeezing past, doubltless expecting to get by at the separated cycle lane through the lights. The cyclist then moves out into her path (to avoid the inconvenience of a red light) just when she would have been expecting to safely overtake. It does not excuse her then squeezing by regardless, but I certainly have no sympathy for the cyclist and can understand how this sort of behaviour winds motorist up.
”this sort of behaviour”. What, cycling in a manner which he is perfectly entitled to do? So the driver makes an assumption (about him using a cycle lane up ahead), then finds he doesn’t, so instead of abiding by the rules of the road and showing courtesy to other road users by staying behind or giving more room (such as the recommended 1.5m) she DECIDES to squeeze the cyclist towards the kerb, all so that she can get round the corner and join the queue at the next red lights. She does this as a form of punishment because she feels she has more rights to the bit of road that the cyclist was occupying.
So perhaps motorists would get less ‘wound up’ if they weren’t in such a rush (just to get to the next set of red lights 50yds ahead), obeyed the Highway Code and showed a little more respect to vulnerable road users. Did you ever think of it that way round rather than believing that the cyclist was in some way at fault just because the driver didn’t like him being ‘there’ when she wanted to be?
PP
The cyclist holds their line and the 'driver' makes an assumption about the cyclist's direction. But instead of using the brakes decided that squeezing the cyclist was the better option.
You need to learn the law, cyclist has priority as they were in front, end of story, presuming another road user is going to do x is why motorists (and indeed cyclists) crash into other road users and stationary objects like trees, walls, ditches and come off at bends etc etc
The driver had a point, the cyclist didn't help matters by using the same sort of cycle lane further along. As cyclists, we need to 'play the game' a bit. If I was that driver there, I'd have assumed the cyclist was going to use the cycle bit, and not have been overly impressed that they chose not to. However I wouldn't have squeezed the cyclist, just braked and let him have some space. Poor riding, poor driving, that's not a good cocktail. I often ride that bit of Parliament square, I go out of my way to use the cycle bits, it's not worth the aggro / accident, not to.
Did you read the article? With the explanation of why they weren't using the cycle lane at that point?
You know cycle lanes are not actually compulsory? Use them if they make your life easier, according to the HC.
Why should it, as it seems to be, only the cyclists who are expected to play the game??
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