Angry cafe owner Jason Wells, Jon Ronson and internet shaming

he 'apologised' for his expletive laden rant... he did NOT apologize for the stupidly dangerous overtake manoeuvre which actually hit the cyclist with his wing mirror...

sorry but I' a bit pissed off having suffered thre dangerously close overtakes in just 30 seconds while trying to prevent them in primary with traffic coming the other way...

I'm fscking pi55ed off with the unbelievable impatience shown by other drivers these days...

I drive, I will hold back until it is safe to overtake someone riding a bicycle... but it seems I'm in the minority of drivers...

This neatly sums up my own thoughts on the issue.

While I generally regard attacking someone from the anonymity of a computer screen to be borne of the same cowardice as attacking them from the confines of a motor vehicle, this particular issue highlights a recurring flaw in the justice system, which needs attention drawn to it. Given its notoriety, the manner in which it's handled sends out a pretty strong message about how acceptable this sort of behaviour is.

It's one thing to 'make an examples' of someone - to hand them unjustly severe punishments simply to make a point to others - but trying to pick up the slack from an unjustly lenient legal verdict is another. Not that I regard this as some sort of holy crusade - it's mainly just a lot of people who are pissed off about having being on the receiving end of similar incidents, and are only too happy to turn the tables on the balance of power.

I'm sure plenty of people have stepped over the line though - they always do, and those people could probably do with reading a few of the things Ronson has written.

I think Ronson's generally in the right - if that's not a too twee way of looking at it.

Social media shaming is at best a sloppy form of "justice", but it this case it seems - depressingly - to be the only sort available.

On the one hand I thought publicising his reflective scales picture was a bit unfair - almost no-one looks good from that angle, and I very much doubt he realized how much could be seen when he posted it.
On the other hand, I saw this and immediately thought of Wells -
http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=1918

Everyone's talking about individuals here, the problem is much much bigger..
It's almost irrelevant what the people involved were doing at the time.
This kind of thing happens all over the place in this miserable, angry little country. Quiet coaches on trains, middle lanes of motorways, supermarket car parks, at work, at home.
Every bugger seems intent on putting one over whoever they can in an attempt to get what they perceive they want, or defending their own little mental castles from some imaginary attack on their moral fortitude.
We've become a greedy, narrow minded little nation. Become? Is it worse than it was? Will it get better or worse?? Who knows???

It sucks!

Looks like we exported it to the colonies too..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33059885

I have no problem with any of the shaming etc of Jason Wells.

He is a nasty little man in a large car who collided with a cyclist and then verbally assaulted him & made threats to kill. Yea, the cyclist was a bit angry back but that's understandable. It's always better to to and stay as calm as possible but hard when you've been ran off the road.

Said nasty little man seemed to have a nice little earnaer from trendy cafes, which had a specific focus on cyclists. Personally I hope his business now goes bankrupt as a result. He showed that he had absolute contempt for a significant proportion of his customer base.

If you are going to live by the sword of social media, by posing with big choppers, accidentally showing your tiny nob when boasting about weigh ins, and ponce about showing off your huge house, then be fecking well prepared to die by the very same sword when you grab it by the very sharp blade

I just think the dumb jokes about the reflection of his dick are childish and unnecessary. That's just bullying and it pisses me off that people are stooping that low. In this kind of debate we (Cyclists) are trying to present ourselves as reasonable well-adjusted and intelligent people who have been wronged (as a group). Point-and-laugh jokes about someones penis don't really support that and it's a shame people have resorted to it.

The issue is that the legal process in this country is flawed. If you watch the video and see how many times the cyclist is threatened with his life, and even Jason Wells only states that he won't go through with his threats because there are witnesses.

Yet, in the Evening Standard, two Jewish men get two verbal threats and the suspect ends up in custody on suspicion of threats to kill with the area closed by the Police.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/jewish-men-subjected-to-shocking-an...

I'm not belittling what could be considered a horrible racist incident involved the two Jewish men, but the cyclist was hit by a car, a weapon. On purpose, with intent to injure or intimidate and then the cyclist was continually threatened on film for 4 minutes. Had Jason Wells made an error when trying to hit the cyclist with his vehicle, he could have seriously injured him or killed him. And the threats were all on film. A £90 fine for a public disorder offence? Something is very wrong.

You are NOT the law. Justice is delivered by the law, not by a bunch of vigilantes hiding behind their computers.

The law may have decided £90 was appropriate, and that was a judge and a jury and a set of lawyers, following an agreed system of laws to come to a decision.

Just because you don't like the outcome of that process doesn't permit you to brandish your own punishments.

What next? Pitchforks and flaming torches as you burn his business down?

Whilst I don't necessarily agree that the harrassment this guy's been subjected to is right, proportionate or beneficial, I think sadly it's taken the focus away from his idiotic and dangerous behaviour.

According to RoSPA statistics, in the roughly 3 months since Wells went on this rant and nearly ran this poor guy over, around 25 cyclists will have been killed, and 4400 injured on UK roads.

http://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/pedal-cyclists/facts-figures/

Pretty damning really, and far more important than whether sharing pictures of his tackle on the internet is going to upset him in my opinion.

It's not surprising many people - me included - feel that we need to get involved in these cases in any way we can, because clearly our legal system isn't fit to deal with them.

I think it all depends how far an internet "campaign" goes.

I have no problem with cyclists deciding they don't want to patronise his cafes. That's a rational choice given the information about his attitudes and behaviour, and given the authorities failure to do much about such bad driving. Its making a statement of exasperation with the general tolerance of such driving.

The thing is though, I don't think it will amount to much, if anything. To sustain a meaningful boycott requires a lot of effort. I would bet at the the very most it just might cost him a tiny bit of lost profit that will add very slightly to the pathetic fine.

But personally I didn't like the attention to the infamous enhanced photograph. I can entirely understand the temptation, but to me that was all getting way too 4chan-esque.

That he made an embarrassing error with posting that picture, really didn't have anything to do with his lousy driving.

Basically, a bit of public disapproval for the act is OK as long as people don't sink to the level of the Daily Mail (following Milliband's wife around while trying to find some dirt), or the Murdoch phone hackers, say.

Its when internet mobs descend to the level of professional journalists that it gets really bad.

This won't affect his business to a great extent. 99% of the population have no idea who this guy is, or the name of his cafe. Even most cyclists on a jolly day out around London won't know. This is a niche story, that although has been picked up by the Daily Mail etc, most people have forgotten about this by now.

For some reason I looked at the DM comments on this and even by their sad standards this attitude towards cyclists is far more common than I thought. Do I feel bad for social media justice but if the CPS cannot protect cyclists I see this happening again, just like Emma Way...

I really want to remove the penultimate paragraph from that "offence" comment, because it's a really bad way of saying what I meant to say, but the site will drop the comment to the bottom and make the thread rather confusing. Hmm.

I hope the people who want to see Wells bankrupted will give some thought to the people who work for him in his cafes - and especially the guys who work in his bike repair operation - who could be left out of work as a result.

Hopefully he has got the message. We should leave it at that.

A lot of good points here.

For me, one of the key things is that Jason Wells gets to see that what he things is acceptable is perceived by many people as very far from acceptable. He may not give a sh*t about that. However, the fact that it may endanger his business is something that he will at least consider. I have absolutely no sympathy for the man whatsoever.

I very much dislike the social vitriol, but I love the wry humour. I don't like the fact that this raises the temperature of the Us and Them hatred.

Essentially though, this is a barometer of how people feel - about the way they are treated on the roads, and about the way the justice system works (or doesn't).

No, Jason Wells is simply getting what he deserves. It's not just a 'social media' campaign either, the story was considered news-worthy enough to make both the local and national newspapers.

Social media has given a voice to more people to publicly express how they feel about the issue. That has to be a good thing.

Btw, the 'disclosing private sexual photographs' originated from Well's own Twitter feed. He took the photo of his bits and *he* chose to publish it on the WWW.

I say let the internet have it's day day. I particualry liked the 'reflective scales' image that was put of there of him (unsure if real or not but very funny) no crimes are being committed or physical violence towards him, it's just words and defamation of character and Jason Wells who has clearly profited 'a lot' from cyclists deserves everything he gets.

Remember today's news is tomorrows chip paper!

Worst or best scenario.. maybe all of this will mean poor old Jason Wells might have to downgrade to a £40k car instead of an £60k car next time.. and maybe just maybe the next time a car driver approaches a cyclist, they might just think the cyclist is 'cam'ed up' and consider passing them safer.

Aside from the issue of the social media campaign or internet vigilantism, depending on your personal view, I think that there is something longer term that we as cyclists can do.

I cycle, drive, walk and run. I have had to speak to antisocial cyclists, drivers, walkers and runners about the dangerous way that they are conducting themselves. I have occasionally also made mistakes and silly decisions myself which has resulted in other road/cycle/footpath users having to accommodate me. I would like to think that my mistakes are minor and very rare, but I do not claim to be perfect.

The point is that as humans we are fallible, whether it be distraction, tiredness or as seen in this incident, anger. Why don't we ask cyclists do more to publicly support driverless vehicle development, with the aim of making roads safer for our community. By their very nature driverless vehicles will be much safer than 2 tonnes of metal controlled by a lump of ignorant meat.

I'm my ideal world drivers will be banned from the roads in 20 years time and these kind of incidents, and worse, will be recounted with amazement.