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Mr Penis Head holds forthVideo: "My name is Penis Head" — meet Britain's sweariest driver
Sometimes helmetcam riders get talking to drivers who’ve done stupid things and the conversation goes no further than a simple apology, albeit often followed by “mate, I didn’t see you”. But sometimes, despite being clearly in the wrong, a driver will go right off the deep end anyway, like the chap here who we’re going to call Mr Penis Head, since he says that’s his name.
It’s one of the few repeatable things he does say and you’ll want to turn down the volume if your workmates have tender ears.
In the video, the rider who goes by the YouTube handle Urbane is crossing a roundabout at what appears to be the end of Harbourne Gardens in Southampton.
As the rider approaches the first exit from the roundabout, Mr Penis Head, driving a Jaguar with stickers and logos enters the roundabout. The rider sounds his horn and after the driver stops and reverses into the roundabout a full and frank exchange of views follows, with Mr Penis Head delivering most of the frankness.
In his comments on YouTube, Urbane says: “I thought I was pretty diplomatic, considering the circumstances” and we tend to agree. Here’s how it went down in his own words:
Parental Advisory... Excessive swearing, aggressive behavior and stupid driving.
This rabid loon is called, by his own admission, Penishead Cockfacedcunt ;-0 although it said Mark on his sticker.
He is probably an inspirational figurehead and a fine representative for PowerSlideRides (logos and his name conveniently plastered all over his XJS), but I fear he may have had a tad too much high octane go-go juice in his veins, when he nearly ran me over this morning. Perhaps he had been drinking diesel instead of petrol that morning.
I hit my horn, as a warning, before the car is even on the roundabout, and (despite what he says) you can see that I am easily half way across before the car rips past, narrowly missing me on my bike.
He screeched to a halt and reversed round the roundabout (!) to confront me for having the temerity to honk my horn at him. But he soon scuttled back into his vehicle when I was not intimidated by his shiny piston shaped head and aggressive swearing.
I thought I was pretty diplomatic, considering the circumstances, if he had just said sorry everything would have been quickly forgotten. But now, I'm going to let the viewers decide...
Who do you think is being aggressive? 
While Mr Penis Head doesn't manage the sheer delivery speed and quantity of expletives of the previous holder of the title of Britain's Sweariest Driver, we think he makes up for it with a wider range of creative abuse. Coincidentally, or perhaps not if you believe that the car you drive says something about your personality - both of the potty mouthed protaganists drive Jags.
We should point out that although the car in this video clearly displays the name, phone numbers and website of a business that doesn't necessarily mean that the driver is associated with those phone numbers - and as the business in question has so far proved uncontactable the true identity of the driver cannot be verified - except that he goes by the name of Penis Head.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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192 comments
As bikebot says, back to the incident in question. I defy anyone to tell me that someone with these levels of anger issues should be behind the wheel of a car. What gets people into this sort of state, drink? drugs? roidrage?
I hope this footage gets viewed by the police and this idiot gets prosecuted as he is a danger to all road users and a foul mouthed aggressive menace. He will definitely injure or kill some one some day driving like that if he hasn't already. He needs to be banned and fined and his awful car crushed. This should make him reflect on what a bad driver and human being he is.
Anyway chaps it's been an interesting discussion, I've got work to do ahead of meetings in the morning and this along with the football is not helping.
To those who were reasoned in their debate - whether we agreed or not, thank you...
To those who descended into insults, name calling, threats or accusations you need to learn from your mates who are willing to hold a discussion.
You're the cyclists car drivers have a problem with, and people like you who drive cars are the guys you all have a problem with.
I shall leave you with the following..........
Had the car driver stopped after the near miss, get out of the car apologise and check the cyclist was ok before moving on with a lesson learnt for the future, would this behaviour have made it on to video or been praised?
Would it ever have come to light and been discussed?
Or, if the cyclist had pulled out in front of the car and the reverse scenario occurred, would you feel the same?
Just something to ponder - i don't know the answer
shaking like a leaf?
Of course he's shaking like a leaf, some eejit just barrelled past him at high speed apparently without due care and attention.
The question I would ask is "would Mr PH have stopped his souped up jag if Urbane happened to be in a car and sounded his horn?" Somehow I don't think so.
There is a significant minority of motorists who use their vehicles to bully other drivers out of the way and bully more vulnerable road users off the roads altogether. Mr PH comes across as one of these individuals. Maybe he is an alright bloke when he isn't behind a steering wheel but I would suggest for the benefit of his wee ticker or those ulcers he do the right thing and voluntarily hand his license in.
I'm now bored by this discussion but would just like to make these final observations.
Harry.j came into this forum because he was sent a link to the vid. Harry.J has been thoughtful, polite and courteous in his contributions, I'm sure that he is sincere in his views, even though they are unfortunately misguided.
However, the unpleasant, foul rants given in response by some members of this forum are cyclings equivalent of Mr Penishead (aka Mark Angliss) and make me embarrassed to be associated with this thread. You do yourselves no favours guys and undermine your argument too boot!
I'm still curious what action will be taken against the driver. Having thought about it I've realised that reversing back over a roundabout is actually a very serious offence. The bloke in the Jag is a nutter and his behaviour suggests his temperament is not well suited to being a licence holder.
Harry J - you've been subject to a lot of insults that aren't particularly fair. But please don't stand up for this bully behind the wheel. While he may be a thoroughly decent fellow in other respects, his standard of driving is dangerously deficient.
"Mark Dreamshack" ha ha....thats all you need to know really.
Nice car tho.
Some people here seem to be misdirecting their anger at Mr Penishead towards Harry_J for some reason.
You might not agree with what he says, but he makes his points calmly and politely. Replying with mudslinging and name calling just puts us all in a bad mood.
Stop it you twats!
@Harry J. Whilst I completely disagree with the internet lynch mob approach against the 'Penis Head' driver, let me enlighten you as to why you may have encountered some hostility.
You post here addressing cyclists as though we are one entity and are of all the same mindset. You accuse 'us' of displaying blanket animosity. You accuse 'us' of keeping score. You ask why we can't just Co exist? You cite your examples of bad cycling you've seen as though there is some collective responsibility we have and sins we all must atone for.
You even preface this by saying 'at the risk of really annoying everybody'!
So you know what you're doing, and yet get all offended when inevitably people argue with you. Pretty close to trolling and not the innocent exchange of views you make it out to be, IMO.
The fact is, most of the time cyclists and drivers get on. We do co exist. The problem occurs when road users, on both sides start the 'them and us' attitude, which you're displaying.
If you hadn't given up cycling and persisted, you would probably see this too. We have to co exist in this country because 60 million vehicle users would not be sustainable or desirable to anybody living on this island.
Some very interesting observations here, I understand the concern that i may be trolling but let me say that i like a good debate and am always happy to accept a reasoned argument that differs from my own.
With that in mind, @700c I see what you are saying about my blanket observations and i may well have been unfair in making them as sweeping as I did... my only defence was that this being a cycling forum I was asking a broad question and also (incorrectly) felt that the atmosphere of conflict between cyclists and motorists would be an accepted situation.
So let me withdraw that aspect if I may, my examples were simply to highlight that it is not a one way street and perhaps to give an insight into how a motorist sees things.
I also accept that cyclists are motorists as well and no doubt see the same things time and again.
Personally i despair when I see dangerous and inconsiderate driving, there's way to much of it. I drive all over the world and find UK roads to be the worst in terms of awareness and indeed general 'niceness' the only nation i have found that are less aware than us are the Belgians!
In terms of my comment about bad cyclists being as dangerous as bad drivers perhaps you're only looking at it from one side......
A bad cyclist is far more likely to get hurt than a bad driver and even though the danger is to themselves it still has repercussions to their family, to the motorist that is involved, the healthcare, police and passers by, perhaps you took it as me suggesting that a bad cyclist might injure someone else? it's less likely that will happen but it is still possible.
A bad motorist might well hit a cyclist and that's a nightmare, but if they hit another car in traffic (i'm talking slow seeds here) then it's not a big deal - a few metal scrapes and exchange of insurance details.
Whilst i'm on that subject - insurance - if a cyclist hits a car and damages it who pays? if a cyclist hurts someone, who pays for that?
it's not a danger thing but it would be interesting to know if some of the bad cyclists might improve if they had to pay third party insurance and some sort of no claims was in jeopardy if they were involved in a collision or altercation?
Finally, I concede the point that we're talking about a few bad apples here not cyclists as a group - most are fine and the co existence with those is working well, however if i can concede that point is there a similar concession to motorists?
I will happily debate Newtonian physics with you, which law would you like to start with?
Many of us do have third party insurance...but I think it'd be a great idea to make it mandatory.
@harry_j
Really haven't the energy (kinetic or otherwise!) but...
Cars have far more momentum/kinetic energy. Hence do far more damage. Also suffer less damage. Hence there's a greater incentive for cyclists to be careful. Also, really bad cyclists remove themselves from the road, if not the world, while bad drivers just carry on indefinitely (_even_ after killing people, as with Joao Lopes and many others, and of course even driving bans don't seem to stop many of them).
(As an aside, whenever I encounter a reckless/anti-social motorcyclist I end up thinking 'no point getting angry, he won't be around very long anyway', because motorcyclists seem much closer to cyclists in terms of paying for their own mistakes)
Plus _even_ when its a bad cyclist who makes the mistake, its still the presence of the car which creates the danger in the first place - cyclists on their own couldn't achieve that level of carnage, it requires a car to be present, even if its not the driver's error.
Furthermore the actual statistics fit what one would assume from the psychology of self-preservation - motorists are more likely to be the party who made the disastrous error.
Your rather rare scenario of 'cyclist causes car to crash into something else' is cancelled out by the exact inverse scenario where a car causes a cyclist to crash. But that still leaves the far, far more common situation of a car hitting a cyclist directly.
As for costs and bike insurance - maybe cyclists should be obliged to have insurance, lots of them do anyway (bikes get nicked a lot after all) but is it really a huge problem considering how rarely it becomes an issue?
And I can't help but notice how frequently I see damage to road infrastructure round here and I doubt that its cyclists who knock over bollards or smash road-side fences etc and then zoom off, and someone has to pay for repairing that.
Finally I'm not letting drivers off the hook of the huge damage their emissions cause in terms of health effects - that's actually greater than the RTA casualties.
And personally, in the end, I tend to blame bad road design above all, rather than motorists. Obviously cyclists seem to be divided on that issue.
Ok, I'm on the verge of giving up, there's too much out of context quoting and what appears to me deliberate point scoring without wanting to take a point of view on board.
If you want me to say you're right ok, I will, but I'm going to try one last time:
A bad cyclist is dangerous, more so than a bad driver.... TO HIMSELF. The bad cyclist is going to get hurt and that is dangerous.
Order of magnitude? I do understand scientific notation and mathematical concepts but the application of that concept doesn't fit in this context to be honest, unless you are suggesting an exponential relationship between cyclists and motorists?
I get the idea of giving cyclists room, I even get the riding two abrest - it's far more sociable, I'm glad to hear some cyclists have insurance - I do believe it should be mandatory - all other road users have to.
I'm not sure i can agree that the division is in the minds of drivers i think it's on both sides but not with everyone... some cyclists and some drivers.
Education, tolerance and acceptance in all things especially sharing use of the road.....
Having said that i'm not sure I can accept Uruguay are better than we are... that just sucks.
There's a labowski quote for just about any situation
Oi! I resent that!
Totally agree, it's the reason why motorist are responsible for thousands of deaths and serious injuries every year. and because these sudden and violent deaths are caused by the sacred cow that is the car the public in general to turn a blind eye to it all.
If it was a form of cancer that was resulting in the sudden and violent deaths of thousand of other wise heathy people you would be able to move for fun runs trying to find a cure. but seeing as it cars and car driver that are doing it we'll all turn a blind eye and hope it doesn't happen to us.
That's an interesting point but it doesn't answer the main question.
What i'm trying to say is that motorists and cyclists are a fact of road life.
Scoring points, however logical is a battle that takes more energy to fight than will ever be recovered surely life is too short to have that attitude?
I disagree by the way, bad cyclists are just as dangerous as bad drivers...... imagine a cyclist swerving suddenly, a car avoiding him and crashing into another?
I don't think i can subscribe to the 'it's ok to be a bad cyclist because you'll only kill yourself' that's not an excuse...
I don't want to hit a cyclist, or anyone... it's a horrific thing to happen
There's no need to be patronising, i'm simply trying to get to the bottom of this..'little anecdotal stories' and 'more vulnerable road users' suggests that it's a one way thing, i'm saying it works both ways and it really shouldn't.
Personally I am wary of cyclists, bikers, kids, dogs or other cars - they are all unpredictable. I'm not saying one is good and one is bad i'm just saying why try and score points when the only one keeping score is you?
I drive and cycle and I don't agree with you at all. I'm not in favour of bad cycling, but I don't think the blame is anywhere near 50-50.
Cars go much faster and are many times heavier, so they do masses more damage. Many drivers are considerate, but far too many put cyclists in danger because they don't understand how they should drive, or are too impatient to wait until its safe to overtake (or, in this case, to wait for the cyclist to go round the roundabout). There is too much impatience, and too much of a get-out-of-my-way attitude.
I have never ever been scared of being run down by other cyclists, but maybe conditions are different where you are.
You're probably right about the incident you describe being the other guy's fault, although of course we won't hear his side of the story.
Honestly?
If i was having a near death experience twice a week because of something i chose to do, I'd have to say i'd try not to do it.... or at least change what i am doing...
You know Einstein's definition of insanity?
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
As i said above, it's not deliberate it's a simple (and sad) fact of going out on the roads....it's why i stopped riding, i felt it was too dangerous - i got hit by a bike on my bike because he went through a red light - no insurance no apology just rode off.... i got picked up by two other cyclists who moaned about the other one..... the sad fact is that human beings come in all forms good and bad.... this is not cyclists v motorists it's bad people making life harder for the good ones and the sooner this civil war ends the sooner you will realise you're fighting the wrong enemy.
That's a little sensitive isn't it?
I am not Mark, or the guy in the video...I'm sure the owner of the site will be able to establish my location via ip address.
However lets not let a baseless accusation get in the way of a reasoned discussion shall we... Distraction techniques are a little petty no?
Arfa (nice cockney phonetics by the way, A is for 'orses perhaps? :D) You appear to have missed the whole point of what i took time to think about, construct and then share with you - your response is a threat.... how is that helpful or indeed different from the attitude you are complaining about?
Come on , i've taken time out of my evening watching Spain get humiliated to discuss this with you, surely there's more in your locker?
In the context of the story above the car driver was in the wrong in every way possible... no argument about that.....
The cyclist didn't start or provoke it... i'm not talking about that, it's not a case i would defend.
I'd like to live in that world too, but we don't do we....
I'm not saying shit happens i'm saying cycling is dangerous, you're vulnerable and you accept it.... you know the risks and you choose to do it....
Driving is also dangerous, I'm just as vulnerable in my car to an 18wheeler pulling across me on a motorway but i accept the risk and drive accordingly.
I choose not to cycle because the risk is more than i am happy to accept.
I'm not saying don't ride, i'm saying ride safely and accept that you're not in full control of your destiny.
Can you tell me that's not the case?
Good i'm glad.....I hope you stay safe.
Accidents are not caused, or indeed very rarely happen, collisions are caused, crashes are caused. Most, if not all, are avoidable, therefore NOT accidents.
A fair question, so, considering I'm not a lawyer or a cop....
By the look of it he didn't give way to traffic..... because he
a. didn't see it
b. saw it and didn't care
c. saw it and judged it
by his reaction i would suggest it was 'a.' so whilst dangerous it's not a crime (i think?)
his reaction afterwards was over the top but there were no blows and the verbal assault was both ways... he was in the wrong but i'm not sure if an actual crime was committed? - I don't know for sure.
I'm guessing it's based on fear and adrenaline... we've all seen it - doesn't make it right but you can see where it came from.
The thing i don't get is the reversing - i've no clue about the legalities of that manoeuvre so perhaps that's where the law may get involved?
Overall i can't see the police being interested, it's wrong as there should be a yellow card system so it's logged but sadly there's stuff like this going on al the time.
That's just based on a dispassionate view....i've already said above i would not want to defend this and that he was in the wrong... it was a lucky escape for the cyclist and i'm glad it was just a verbal clash in the end.
Thank you....
may i amend one word....
change misguided to different?
Just for a bit of detente.
You are correct I've been insulted just for putting a point of view.
I've also been misjudged, misquoted and generally vilified. Sounds a bit like how you guys feel on the road i guess so perhaps this is payback?
i appreciate you saying that but what you give with one hand you take away immediately. At what point have stood up for the driver? I've said i don't know if it's Mark and that the driver was in the wrong and i could not defend his actions..... please guys if you want a reasonable discussion stick to the words i've said not the ones you'd like to respond to. This isn't politics!
Love the XJS. Cept this tool has committed an abomination by adding decals. Also the XJS is meant to purr and when she growls it's a low menacing growl. Not that horrendous racket emitting from the twin pipes
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