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news
Viral video debated on Jeremy Vine show (screenshot Twitter video/ @azb2019)"Only road user to come out with any credit is the child": Ashley Neal reacts to "terrible driving" in viral video of five-year-old cyclist
YouTube driving instructor Ashley Neal has joined the debate around the video of a five-year-old cyclist and a driver meeting at a pinch point which has gone viral since being first shared by the child's father ten days ago.
Since then it has been discussed during a segment on Jeremy Vine's Channel 5 show, attracted much-criticised comments from Conservative politicians including Sajid Javid, been viewed more than 2.7 million times and subject to national newspaper coverage.
Neal, whose "driving education" YouTube videos have earned him a large platform of 120,000 subscribers, released a video to give his "hot take" on the footage, in which he is complimentary of the child's cycling and describes the driving on display as "terrible".
In the final portion of the video Neal then questions the father telling his son to carry on when it is "obvious" the driver will not stop, comparing it to allowing your child to run around the edge of a swimming pool.
"The big lesson that people should be taking from this clip is obviously the terrible driving and the fact that motorist should have stopped and given way to the more vulnerable," Neal concludes.
"But there is also the added point that even when you think you have priority you should not continue into an escalating risk. The father of this child [by telling him to carry on when he asked if they should pull over] has effectively told his kid to keep running around that swimming pool even though the kid wanted to walk.
"The only road user to come out of this clip with any credit, and it is full credit to them, is the child. The father seems like one of those I've got priority brigade and the motorist is simply dangerous — it is quite ironic that the young child is the only one with any common sense."
Addressing the view expressed by many on social media, including by Conservative politicians Susan Hall and Baroness Foster, that the five-year-old cyclist should not have been on the road, Neal disagrees.
"I think it is lovely to see a young child like this being taught the skills at such an early age. There has been some discussion about the age of the child but for me it has got to be child-specific and there has got to be risk assessment for the road conditions.
"Some children you would be happy that they are going to follow your instructions if you are in charge of them, others not so. This road was traffic calmed and the traffic was quite light so for me there was nothing wrong with this child cycling here.
"This five-year-old also followed his father's instructions impeccably, I would have been totally happy in charge of this child trying to teach him the skills that he needs to ride safely. The speed that they were cycling at and the distance that they were keeping from the parked vehicles was all good and the five-year-old also held a good steady line."
"The most dangerous part of this clip"
"The most dangerous part of the clip" is the motorist, Neal tells his viewers, explaining that as the cyclist is "obviously more vulnerable" the driver should have given way, advice backed up by the Highway Code's 'hierarchy of road users'.
"Plainly and simply the driver should have given way but instead they barge through a narrowing and endangered the life of a five-year-old," Neal said. "What if this child fell off? We would be dealing with a fatality.
"Another thing that backs up my opinion with this is the fact that the cyclist does not have to venture outside of their lane to proceed through the pinch point, the motorist obviously cannot say the same.
"Some people will think whoever gets there first goes first, and even with this incorrect mindset the five-year-old cyclist does arrive at the pinch point before the motorist, but the motorist still barges through.
"They do slow down, but not enough. They should have stopped but because they chose to keep moving this increased risk dramatically. The distance away from the cars on their side of the road was way too close and if another young child had run out between those vehicles it would have left the motorist no option but to swerve in the direction of our five-year-old cycling.
"Another reason to slow down and stop was the close proximity to the oncoming cyclists, but in my opinion this is a grey area that needs clarification. Even if I was driving on my side of the road and it was totally clear the cyclists in the oncoming lane might still be quite close."
Showing the following scene to his viewers to demonstrate such a situation, Neal says he would "still slow down and look after them".
"I do not think the updates in the Highway Code are clear enough on this point. Overtaking cyclists at speed up to 30mph you need to give them at least 1.5 metres clearance, but what if they are coming in the opposite direction?" Neal continued.
"If you did not know my opinion you now do. Try to follow this advice because it keeps everyone safe."
Last week Neal released a video criticising reporter Richard Bilton for cycling through a red light in a clip seen in the recent Panorama episode 'Road Rage: Cars v Bikes'.
Bilton told road.cc the incident demonstrates "how difficult" some junctions can be to navigate on a bike, as well as the wider "reality of cycling on UK roads". Neal had said it "makes a little bit of a mockery when the question is asked 'are the UK roads too dangerous to cycle on?'"
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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146 comments
Oh shit! He's onto us! https://evilcyclelobby.teemill.com/
You're quite right to include extreme cyclist views in your statement. On road.cc there are many extreme cyclist comments, and worse if you don't entertain or agree with these elements they will call you names and demand your immediate cancellation. It is to road.cc's credit that they resist these demands and allow discourse and healthy debate to continue.
I agree with your comments on the incident, which actually chime in with my own: I would have stopped for the child personally, and morally it is the correct thing to do, but in my view there is no concrete rule in law to prevent the driver continuing slowly and cautiously. While you state the car driver was acting dangerously (something which I think can be disputed), what is your view on the legality of the situation if a collision had occurred?
Thanks as always for your wisdom in these videos.
Oh go on, indulge us with some examples.
FFS who left the door open again!
They've hopefully gone to find some examples and I suspect may be some time.
Plenty. The worst are often reserved for the vigilante-style articles on people like van TwErp, or hateful comments on road safety campaigners such as Nick Freeman.
For example, on the Ashley neil article five months ago (https://road.cc/content/news/youtube-driving-instructor-ashley-neal-take...)
Richard D succinctly wrote "Dear Ashley - **** right off."
Brooksby stated "I have no desire to live in Middle Earth or Narnia." in reply to Ashley.
Eton Rifle ruminated "Illiterate twat. Get back to the Daily Heil. You're fooling no-one."
Hawkins Peter raged "Well, you've just outed yourself as being an idiot that can't understand that people are separate from their mode of transport.
I don't think I've got the patience to read the rest of your tripe"
Some other bloke fumed "She encouraged rape by wearing a short skirt".
I'm sure you're getting the idea. This was just by scanning one page of comments on one article.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I don't see what's so funny about that. Nick Freeman is a very well known and well regarded road safety campaigner and legal expert. He is listed as a top lawyer on Wikipedia, and has represented many celebrities, including Frank Lampard against Mike van Erp. He is often invited to give his opinion on a variety of legal issues on multiple TV and radio platforms, including the BBC.
You can listen to his verdict on Mike van Erp allegedly jumping on bonnets (it was disputed in court) at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O3khK-HbwmA. I don't agree with everything he says as I think he is sometimes a bit one-sided, but it's worthwhile listening to his side of the story to get professional input.
Then I will admit defeat and withdraw gracefully as I would struggle to debate the point with you in a polite, friendly and non judgemental way.
He's a well regarded something, that's for sure.
Having watched that vid, Nick Freeman comes across to me as ignorant and clueless.
He asserts that in the (imo) false "he jumped on my bonnet" allegation (he didn't, as the published video clearly shows) Mike van Erp had "cycled in a dangerous manner" in that exact case. Freeman can't even get the most basic facts straight, and he's a lawyer.
In fact van Erp was not on his bike. Quite how you cycle dangerously when your bike is some distance away is ... interesting.
Personally, having read about Freeman's contributions to various cases, such as the Helen Measures case, I think he's a poisonous snake.
To be fair, I don't think he's ignorant and clueless; I think he knows exactly what he's doing, which is to lie, exaggerate and misinform to support his practice which is based around manipulating the legal system in order to ensure that wealthy clients who are clearly guilty avoid punishment. He's pretty clever in his greedy, money-grubbing way.
People who eulogise him as a "top lawyer", people who are so unversed in the most basic rules of law that they don't even know the difference between libel and slander, they are ignorant and clueless, I'll give you that.
There's some rudeness there, but hardly what I would call extreme cycling views. Is that the best (worst) you could find?
Those comments were countering Ashley Neal's view that cyclists should not be uploading examples of bad driving to YouTube (like he wants a monopoly on that?) and that challenging bad driving was the cause of road rage (like if cyclists just ignore the bad drivers they'll go away?).
Hmm. I wouldn't call Ashley's opinion an extreme driving view, but it's extremely naive to think that doing nothing will make the problem go away - and he does do nothing; he proudly stated he's never reported anyone to the police for a crime.
I'd say it really kicked off when a new poster wrote this as their first sentence on road.cc
"As a cyclist and reading these comments, I hate cyclists."
So you hate my mother, my sister and all chidren who cycle. Now that is an extreme view.
Unsurprisingly, there was no real going back after that and HP even said to them that if they changed it, it would simply be about saving their embarrassment.
I apply the Steve K test. Go on the Crystal Palace supporters site and say the same thing and see what reaction you get.
No I didn't. I wrote it as a humorous response to a commenter (not Ashley Neal) who said something about cyclists living in a fantasy world.
"Good because that would be 'elfish, ent-itled and you won't find everyone else fauning over your fantasy world."
Chrisonatrike.
Well this is embarassing - I'm not only exposed (to sunlight) as a troll but even my fantasy world is a fantasy and it seems I'm not even the Lord of the Narnias (or one of the Seven). Back in my wardrobe for me.
So, how did you feel about them when they shut down your previous accounts for racism and libellous comments?
As shown with your attempts on Wiki editing, you do have some extremism yourself.
However, as you have been previously banned for racist comments multiple times now, and also decided on this account to pretend to be initially foreign and throw in some pretty racist views on how foreign people might speak, is there any wonder why we want you "cancelled"?
Are you talking about me, after nearly 40 years of driving? *
C'mon Ashley, don't tease. If there are "plenty" on here then it will be easy to give a few examples, even if you only paraphrase them.
* I'm definitely NOT suggesting that I am above criticism or don't need to improve my skills, merely that like many regular posters on here I have a fair chunk of experience on 4 wheels as well as 2.
Welcome to the every day world of cycling and cycle commuting.
It's very easy to get to an extreme position or viewpoint after nearly being killed whilst riding a bike for the umpteenth time.
TBF I can only see 2 or 3, though I have not read all 1600 comments, and they appear to be regular trolls (or ones I'd see as trolls).
"1 - That street is crying out for a segregated cycleway, preferably as part of a combined thru-routes and 'safe routes to schools' network. Such would at a stroke remove the conflict which caused the questions raised."
I don't think that segrated cycleways are the answer on roads like this. It's already a traffic calming area so overtaking a cyclist would be against the highway code already. We need to clarify the highway code and have better control of parked cars (there's really no need to allow parking on both sides of that street). We can't just keep building infrastructure to compensate for shitty entitled driving
I believe it's Worcester Park / Surbiton area. Which has been a part LTN for decades - exits to the progressively A3 closed off. I have had family there since 1990.
I think that segregated would deliver the ability for children to cycle to school on their own younger and safely. I quite like the idea of Safe Routes to schools becoming a useful lever nationwide for improvement. My general view is that segregated is necessary everywhere there is a 30 limit, and the 20 limits with appropriate road design are acceptable - but perhaps only once we have a wholesale change in driving culture.
I think that one important measure on that street is to make parking one side only. As it stands it would be on the houses side imo.
Though I'd agree that effective traffic calming or an LTN on that street may make quite the difference. That existing traffic calming is chicanes, pinchpoints and bypasses, that is inadequate and 3+ decades out of date (estimate).
Although I was born around 3 miles from there, we moved when I was three and that was in the sixties, so I'm going with your superior local knowledge. Certainly no argument about the inadequacy.
Parked cars do help with traffic calming by restricting space on the road and forcing cars to slow down or stop when another car is coming in the opposite direction. Thic can be very effective on narrow roads during busier times. It doesn't work when there is little traffic.
Obviously some drivers really don't give two hoots about anyone that they think should or could get out of the way whilst they just plough on regardless.
Apologies to keep repeating this but it yes, indeed: where that makes sense. However there is another way (reposting same link to the article). Short: there's a major difference between how UK does "local residential streets" and how the place with the most cycling does. I think this is underappreciated here but could make a world of difference in places like this. Also a) I believe things like this do already in exist in the UK in some places and b) it doesn't involve building "cycle infra" (with all the expense but also drama of that).
Caveats: it *does* rely on people in cars changing their behaviour slightly so "takes time" - presumably the driver here just thinks they've done nothing wrong. Plus those three letters "LTN" could be applied and then we're into party politics. (What am i saying? Any road change invites this...)
Another point from NL is that if somewhere is really a quiet residential street it should not be a main through route for cycling either. Obviously in the UK we're scrabbling for what we can get but in the fullness of time I hope we'll see the sense in this / manage to get some proper space for cycling directly - not just what can be patched together via indirect cut-throughs and back alleys between residential areas.
Pet peeve of mine! I do use and appreciate them where present but I could produce half a dozen examples every day of these being rendered useless by parking. Applying the treatment shown in the article above ought to mean we don't need additional "traffic calming".
Thank you for that link.
That's probably the closest I'll ever see to what happened to me ... except I was doing 30mph down hill, and the 80 year old was estimated to be doing about 30 too.
It's really not easy seeing it happening to someone else - especially as like many of my bones, I only have fragments of memory.
I'm not going to list my injuries (as I've done it enough on here and I don't want it to seem like a competition), and I really, really hope that the cyclist made a full recovery.
The fact that anyone's even questioning whether the rules on avoiding collisions also apply to avoiding head-on collisions is proof we need a mandatory critical thinking GCSE.
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