Video: Helmet camera footage leads to aggressive driver pleading guilty to four charges

It surprises me, that the aggressor, doesn't destroy the video camera. If I was being threatened. My weapon of choice would be my bicycle, and my means of restraint would be nice long zip ties. Very useful for emergency bike repairs, and if of sufficient length capable of cutting off the blood supply to the brain.

In self defense training the first principal is usually to avoid an actual physical confrontation.

The second is to ensure you can remain in control of any weapon until the confrontation finishes, being thumped with your own chain whip would be embarrassing/terminal

excellent result - about time fines were given out, doesn't happen enough

So those officers think endangering and physically assaulting a cyclist is perfectly fine but him opting to defend himself is a punishable offence? What the actual heck ... you really should have followed this up again and again until something was done about it.

Why did even they have to try him? He has ignored a judge or magistrate who removed his driving licence, why is this not contempt and automatic jail time?

Just a quick comment for Martin Cox on "tooling up". Courts will wonder why you were carrying such an implement ? Was it for a genuine mechanical need or was it a weapon ? Was it something cyclists normally carry ? Why had you chosen to carry it. If the answers are that it was for anything other than normal mechanical usage then you are in the brown stuff. Also, you have just put your premeditated thinking on the internet.....
As others have said, avoidance is your best bet. Ian Botham famously said that he didn't fight because it was a choice between prison and hospital food, neither of which appealed.

Driving sentences should involve attending compulsory chain gangs fixing pot holes. Ignore the humans rights crap, do it, do it, DO IT.

In self defense training the first principal is usually to avoid an actual physical confrontation.

As being on cleated shoes, and sometimes a bit breathless from cycling, puts you at a significant disadvantage then avoiding the physical onfrontation is even more important. A bike often offers a way to avoid the confrontation by not stopping and if necessary cycling in a place the driver cannot follow - an option I resorted to last summer to avoid a particularly irate 4x4 driver who wanted to fight because I shrugged when he passed me too close and too fast more than once.

The rider in this case had a camera running and was able to use the footage against the driver - much better than using a chain whip or fists.

The real issue in this story is the lenient treatment of an individual who uses a vehicle as a weapon, threatens assault and is driving whilst disqualified - is it any wonder it gets people worked up?

Minimum £500 for careless driving. Not too much to ask considering the cost of running a car for a year.

You also kinda wrote it on the internet.

well i am unbalanced (on cleats) and fearful and just happen to have an item I can use on my person with which to defend myself against an unprovoked attack m'lud

I'm simply responding to the, premeditated - as the driver had stopped and waited, aggression in front of me

@themartincox. Your response has to be 'reasonable' so if the attacker had say a tire iron then maybe. If not it's a bit like bringing a gun to a knife fight.

i was pondering upon the whole self defence thing this morning, especially in relation to the muppet and his abusive language that was highlighted yesterday.

if, as a cyclist, I am carrying an lump of steel in my pocket - say a chain-whip for example, and I am about to be attacked I have a ready-made self-defence item to hand (which would validly be on my person as a tool) could I then use that to thrash a potential attacker should they stop their car?

its not premeditated as its a usable tool that just happens to be at hand very quickly - i think Im on to a winner

Business opportunity there - camera company making a camera and marketing it for providing admissible, evidential footage after home office / plod / CPS approval

Or a company already making plod - spec cameras branching out into commercially available head cams.

Thus removing questions or possible legal defences regarding lens angle etc

Driving without a licence. Take him out of the gene pool please.

The £375 fine, 48 week driving ban and 150 hours of community payback, does seem rather a feeble response. I would have expected there to have been a far longer driving ban, as this is clearly an individual who is not safe on the roads. This is just an other example of the culture of the Sacred Driving Licence at work, it really is time we put a stop to it.

I believe this is one of the scenarios which the current sentencing review for driving offences was intended for. I seem to remember some of the news coverage late last year making particular mention of dangerous & careless driving whilst disqualified.

It sounds as though the court has done its job in this case within the guidelines it has today, but it does demonstrate that the penalties for such dangerous individuals do need to be stronger.

At the moment, the law can't even disqualify a driver in an effective way as the consequences of ignoring a ban aren't deterring those receiving them.

Driving is seen as a right rather than a privilege and something you need to be qualified to do. Until that's changed, dangerous driving and while banned will never be punished in a way that will stop them.

As someone who lives in Glasgow though, I'm thrilled to see someone be punished for treating a cyclist like this. Well done Dave Brennan.

Driving while banned and still getting less than a year's ban?

Ban for life in these cases...

Our high speed legal process in action again? It takes nearly a year to appear and the Aussies can get it done in a week Still at least they charged him with something.

Well done Scotland for allowing the video footage as evidence. It has been disallowed in some English courts recently.