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Jeremy Vine bus near miss (Twitter/Jeremy Vine)"He has to wait, that's all there is to it": Jeremy Vine slams bus driver for near miss
Jeremy Vine has criticised a London bus driver for making a right turn as the presenter approached, forcing him to brake to avoid a collision.
In the footage shared on Vine's Twitter account — where he regularly uploads videos from his cycling travels around the English capital — the BBC and Channel 5 broadcaster can be seen riding along when the bus driver makes a right turn across the lane Vine is using, cutting across him and forcing him to slow to avoid a crash.
Vine asked his 790,000 followers, "Hey bus people what's this about?", and the clip has been viewed more than 4.3 million times since it was uploaded on Monday afternoon.
Hey bus people what's this about? pic.twitter.com/pBI5HuZBmK
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) February 27, 2023
In reply, one former bus driver suggested the manoeuvre would have been dangerous to stop, suggesting "once the bus is in a turn, it is very difficult to stop, without causing risk to passengers".
"It seems from your video that the bus was already turning before you got close, and had to complete the manoeuvre," the former driver added.
Vine replied: "He has to wait. That's all there is to it." He also dispelled any likely accusations that the driver would not have been able to see him.
Just getting ahead of all the “HE OBvioUSLy CoULDnT SEE YOu” replies, this was me leaving the house this morning pic.twitter.com/Tiw3tVK2vS
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) February 27, 2023
Last week another London cyclist spoke out about the "bullyish" bus driving that prompted a Transport for London investigation after footage of the rider being squeezed towards the kerb by a passing driver was shared on social media.
The footage featured on our Near Miss of the Day series and prompted Transport for London's head of bus operations Rosie Trew to tell road.cc that "driving that endangers cyclists or pedestrians is unacceptable and far from the required standard of our bus drivers".
The cyclist involved, Lauren O'Brien said the dangerous driving happens "quite often" and described how often bus drivers put her in a situation where "I'm going to have to make a quick decision to brake, get out the way of the bus before I have a collision."
"It just winds you up so much because it's bullyish behaviour, you have no option but to brake or you're goning to get hit by a bus, so they're putting you in this horrible, impossible situation where you've got to just get out their way – which shouldn't be the case at all," she said.
"Sometimes you just want to, you know, go up to and be like, 'Why are you doing this? Do you know how scary this is when you drive like that? You clearly don't if you're doing that, you clearly don't understand why or you wouldn't do it'."
TfL told us that all London bus drivers are currently undertaking a Vision Zero training course, which aims to teach new skills in hazard perception and to provide them with a better understanding of the risks to cyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and passengers, along with ways to prevent driver fatigue.
TfL says the course is "designed to create the safety culture and attitudes" that will help the body achieve Vision Zero for London.
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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From the article above.
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82 comments
Every day, another example of JV being an arse. He has all the gear and no idea. That bus driver was already turning when he'd have had view of Vine. Once again, Vine doesn't look ahead and properly anticipate potential hazards, he motors on until he has to slam on the brakes. And then starts whining. It's all about his 'rights'. Fools like Vine give ME a bad name and make me a figure of hate for some bad drivers. It would have been more dangerous for the bus to slam on the anchors, and he'd have still ended up blocking Vine's progress. Vine is unnecessarily confrontational, and in a way, a perfect representation of woke, whining about your 'rights' whilst being oblivious to the bigger picture. He's behaving like an arrogant narcissist.
For the record, I've ridden a bike for 43 years, raced to a high level, completed 100,000s miles and lost three good mates to bad drivers (Hook, Negus, Carr, I think about you guys every time I put my leg over the top tube). For heaven's sake Jeremy, get off your high horse and GROW UP.
I'm a cycling fanatic. But I don't get Jeremy Vine.
I watched his show this am. His Yorkshire viewers were complaining that they were witnessing MOTORISTS driving 100+ MPH through their village In a 30mph zone.
The title to Vine's QnA segment.... Should all 30mph villages have speed cameras??
WTF???
After having to listen to the awful public feedback that had been allowed to filter through. I was incensed. No one. Including Lord Vine. Had brought up the suggestion of SPEED BUMPS.
WTAF!
SPEED BUMPS ARE THE ONLY INSTANT DETERRENT THAT CAN AND WILL SAVE THE LIVES OF YOUNG CHILDEREN.
Speed bumps will also lessen cyclist road deaths.
Jeremy Vine. Are you an apologist for the shit system????
Courtesy of Viz:
I'm no Alex Belfield. But Lord Vine needs to get off his arse and start doing some good by promoting speed bumps. Stop the shitchatting.
SPEED BUMPS ARE THE ONLY WAY TO FLY.
COME ON VINE. DO SOME PROPER WORK.
We all seem to be castigating JV here as it didn't appear too close but I'm thinking that his camera is doing him no favours as it appears to be doing an anti-Father Ted. We must get some perspective here!
If it's wide angle then, as American mirrors have written on them, "objects may appear further away than they are". I may be wrong with the exact words but I'm not Meatloaf....
If the bus appeared twice as far away as it really was, it would appear that there's plenty of space. However, that space would be consumed at an apparent double speed so it looks like he hasn't slowed down but actually sped up as it's an illusion caused by the camera.
If you have a reversing camera on your car it looks like you are miles away from objects behind but when you get out and look or just look through the rear window, you are actually really close!
Try it on your camera on the phone, most will now go below zero on the zoom and his camera is effectively at something like 0.3 to 0.5. Not a lens expert so please correct me if I have it wrong but the point is that it isn't showing the images as we see it with our own eyes. Most of us with a camera will have suffered what we feel is a close or dangerous pass but it doesn't look anywhere near as bad on the camera footage.
all I would say to that is as an experienced road & commuting cyclist until Im in the center of the junction, Im not expecting anyone to cede priority to me and I ride accordingly
drivers wont cede to you approaching on a junction like that at all, they think you are too slow, especially if youve not even crossed the ASL.
and to be frank I wouldnt actually expect them to either.
I don't think I would have been concerned about this as I try to give way to buses anyway. They are keeping a lot of cars of the road and the passengers should expect to progress at least as quickly as a car. Had it been a car I may think differently.
The issue for me is that if JV had to brake to avoid a collision the driving is at least inconsiderate and he has a right to complain. As I see it the more motorists get away with inconsiderate driving the more they push it and the possibility of it ending badly for the cyclist increases. Taking steps to deter it before it gets to this stage makes sense to me which is why I am usually disappointed with police responses on NMOTD. A warning letter should suffice. It would take little time and would help to make future tragedies less likely.
Did he even have to brake or just simply freewheel ? ok the bus driver doesn't know if he's riding a fixie, but it wasn't an omg I must grab all the braking I've got to avoid this moment, it was just moderate your speed a notch, drop your cadence a bit,work with the flow of traffic everyone can negotiate this junction without drama if we want it be that way
Maybe its just me but I can't imagine a ride where I don't have to do something like slow abit or not ride as fast into a situation like that and don't have a problem with it.
because most of my rides will often involve situations that are way beyond inconsiderate driving and are bordering dangerous driving and every so often are where I'm left thankful to still be alive.
Let's deal with the really bad stuff first, then we can have a conversation about the inconsiderate
I did say IF he had to brake. It's not obvious to me from the footage whether or not he did but having had a car pull across the road heading towards me at speed recently, I slammed on the anchors. The severity of the braking really didn't come across in the helemt cam video. The rear bike mounted camera showed it much better.
If inconsiderate driving were dealt with quickly with a warning letter from the police to the registered owner I believe it would have an effect in the long term, with minimal expenditure of police time. It may take a while but I would be quite happy to spend my retirement sending in clips if the police would be more proactive. I wouldn't blame anyone for not reporting though, it is a time consuming and often frustrating activity.
I can see your point of view but in my opinion letting the little things slip makes it much more difficult to deal with the really bad stuff.
One last thing, I don't like seeing bullies get away with it, which is basically what inconsiderate driving is.
Most of us with a camera will have suffered what we feel is a close or dangerous pass but it doesn't look anywhere near as bad on the camera footage
I have been pondering whether the veracity of this statement depends on the model of camera and I suspect it doesn't: if you film on 'wide angle', passes look closer and your own speed looks greater. Initially, I did ponder remaining on wide-angle, but the 'appearance' is never going to make any difference to the police, who operate on the 'cyclist not dead = no offence' principle. I am an admirer of JV, although not of Radio 2, because he keeps hammering away at keeping the matter of cyclists in the public eye. He has the widest of wide-angle cameras, but it's difficult to know what happens after the processing that extracts the view he wants. My suspicion is that the video displayed shows the crossing bus about as close as it could be showed, and that JV is perfectly aware of his brakes and was in no danger from the bus. The point he is making is that drivers in general, bus drivers in particular and the police have no intention of taking seriously any HC guff about 'priority to cyclists'.
if you film on 'wide angle', passes look closer and your own speed looks greater
This UpRide video illustrates this, and has just been accepted. It was accidentally filmed on 'wide' (the non-magnified version of GoPro's normal field of view), whereas the others shown on the UpRide map along this stretch of road are 'magnified' (= smallest field of view), shown on the APC van incident below
https://upride.cc/incident/fh16fhz_golf_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/md68fwc_apcovernight_whitelinecross/
The bullish behavior is the bus-driver norm. To stay on schedule, they're used to forcing their way into traffic and daring others to hit them. The bus driver would have done the same with a car coming in this case, I'm sure. So the big question is: Should bus drivers be expected to treat vulnerable road users differently, or should vulnerable road users be expected to cycle or walk defensively to protect themselves from buses?
I think Vine comes across as a self-entitled middle class twunt at times.
This was one of those times.
It's all well and good being lit up like a Xmas tree, but you've got to be able to read the traffic too.
It doesn't take much to ease on the brakes for a few seconds, but then again how do you keep your social media "followers" agog otherwise?
It's not a well designed junction. The bus driver almost certainly can't see Vine (no matter how brightly lit he was) when he starts to turn, due to the van that's trying to turn right. The bus driver isn't in the right, but it's an easy mistake to make. By the time that he could see Vine, doing an emergency stop would probably have done more harm than good, as the former bus driver says.
When I was a learner I was always taught that you should cross behind the car coming towards you, I presume because of the visibility. As traffic increased we've seen far more of these junctions where the drivers cross in front. I understand why but it wouldn't be done based on any coherent risk based thinking.
I'd cut the bus driver some slack; its maybe not that polite a manoeuvre but it's not a life threatening near miss. I rather have a bus operating smoothly and efficiently than 30 odd private cars.
The bus driver commences a dangerous turn across oncoming traffic without first ensuring it is safe to do so. It's pretty simple.
Lots of people here getting their knickers in a twist about someone posting a clip of said bad driving... and yet somehow trying to blame the cyclist who has documented that bad driving. The mental gymnastics of lunatics knows no bounds.
But it's not dangerous. It wasn't good - but it wasn't dangerous.
It wasn't lawful, for sure.
Neither Chris B200SX nor I said it was.
Lots of things aren't lawful. They aren't automatically dangerous.
Veering a bus into a vulnerable road users direct path so they have to brake to avoid a collision... isn't dangerous. Really??
In this case... no. Really.
I note that you cannot argue in good faith as you use "in this case" as a caveat to your truthful answer which is yes it is dangerous, but you simply cannot admit it and appear wrong.
It's a binary answer to the question, there is no separate "in this case"... and you know it
Lol... we've all had enough with context! Context can go to hell; its either black or white, right or wrong... nothing, and I mean nothing sits between the two...
Good luck with that.
I think there is a big difference between has to slow from 15 to 12mph to avoid a collision and has to slam the anchors on and stop within 5m to avoid a collision, which your generalisation misses.
I'd ratehr we saved the internet outrage for dangerous dricing rather than rude driving. Honestly If I had a dash cam in my car I could pust an incident like this every 20 miles or so. But what would be the point.
All it is is chaff that hides the truly dangerous driving videos
IMHO, Vine risks an element of the boy who cried wolf by treating his cycling videos like his TV and Radio shows, I wouldn't be surprised if we see him confronting a driver trying to blame them for a puncuture.
Jeremy when he sees a potential incident.
It's amazing how he accelerated... to a stop.
That's what generally happens when you get somewhere quicker than you would have done if you'd have held your speed or *shock horror * decelerated slightly after anticipating what the bus driver is halfway through doing.
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