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Video: Ultra-sweary driver fined for threatening rant at cyclist

Rider says he hopes abusive motorist will think twice in future

A driver who launched a terrifying foul-mouthed tirade against an Eastbourne cyclist has been ordered to pay a total of £640 in fines and costs after the rider caught the incident on video.

Mark Baldwin, 60, climbed out of his Jaguar on March 10 this year to attack 38-year-ol cyclist Eddie Bell. Mr Bell used his phone to record the altercation in which Baldwin crammed 25 swear-words into 37 seconds of name-calling.

After the video appeared on YouTube, Baldwin voluntarily visited a police station, according to The Argus.

He appeared at Hastings’ Magistrate Court on August 19 and pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive words or behaviour with intent to cause the victim to think violence would be used against him and was ordered to pay a £505 fine, £50 victim surcharge and £85 costs. According to Sussex police, an additional charge of assault was dismissed.

Mr Bell told The Argus: “I was quite happy with the amount of disruption, cost and worry this has caused him over the last six months.

“Hopefully he will think twice about his actions in future.”

If you need a memory refresher, here's the original video. As you might expect, it's very much Not Safe For Work unless your co-workers have the kind of broad minds about swearing normally only developed by those who work in sport publishing.

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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37 comments

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DrJDog | 10 years ago
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I dread this sort of thing happening to me when I'm in road shoes. My SPD shoes, fine, but road shoes?

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notfastenough replied to DrJDog | 10 years ago
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DrJDog wrote:

I dread this sort of thing happening to me when I'm in road shoes. My SPD shoes, fine, but road shoes?

That's always my thought, and that's having spent years practising martial arts - in terms of physical defence it all comes to nought if you may as well be basically wearing ice skates.

Ultimately, it comes down to skills that are considerably more difficult to learn - not putting yourself in that position, never taking the bait to respond, keeping your ego out of the driving seat etc. Easy to talk about, much harder to practise when your adrenalin jumps!

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binsted | 10 years ago
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Had a serious verbal altercation similar to this but it happened so quick and out of the blue i never had time or thought to record it on phone.

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drfabulous0 | 10 years ago
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Probably wouldn't have happenned to me as I have learned to replace the wanker sign with a friendly smile. But if it had I would have just kicked him in the nuts, job done. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I don't feel the need for a helmet cam to film myself looking at a cyclometer.

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vanmildert replied to drfabulous0 | 10 years ago
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drfabulous0 wrote:

Probably wouldn't have happenned to me as I have learned to replace the wanker sign with a friendly smile. But if it had I would have just kicked him in the nuts, job done. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I don't feel the need for a helmet cam to film myself looking at a cyclometer.

Haha brilliant! - Laughed out loud at that comment! Now that is a video many would enjoy watching.

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philbo | 10 years ago
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The old boy looks a bit confused to me, perhaps he can't find his way back to the care home he lives in.
However nothing is gained by a cyclist giving a w4nker sign to a motorist, it only creates you grief at best and getting knocked off your bike at worst.

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Eebijeebi | 10 years ago
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Could just be a Mr Nasty in action or perhaps there was a case for the cyclist having to retrieve his phone recording form his own rectum?
Only half a story there and many don't take kindly to being called such names.
Beware the consequences of affronting strangers.

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Chuck replied to Eebijeebi | 10 years ago
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Eebijeebi wrote:

Could just be a Mr Nasty in action or perhaps there was a case for the cyclist having to retrieve his phone recording form his own rectum?
Only half a story there and many don't take kindly to being called such names.
Beware the consequences of affronting strangers.

To me this sort of sums up the problem. The implication is that calling someone a w*nker is a disproportionate response to someone being careless with your life. And the implication of that is that your life is less important than the unimpeded progress of some massive bell-end in a big car.

Depressing stuff. Also, I agree with people above who reckon that this guy will be feeling massively hard done by. This is partly why I never bother remonstrating with people in the road- there is very little chance that they will go away thinking "Gosh, he was totally right- I really should think about how I drive and reconsider my huge sense of entitlement." Far more likely they'll go home ranting about bloody cyclists.

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CXR94Di2 | 10 years ago
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Hahaha what a plonker, got exactly what he deserved. He will be very wary of confronting anyone just in case he will be recorded and subsequently charged  1

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Gourmet Shot | 10 years ago
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Seriously..........filming in portrait mode....WTF??

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Pipkins replied to Gourmet Shot | 10 years ago
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What a charmer !

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Airzound | 10 years ago
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So he got nothing for driving a Jag?

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vanmildert | 10 years ago
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What a thoroughly nasty individual. Clearly has mental health issues.

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jova54 | 10 years ago
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Quote:

......it's very much Not Safe For Work unless your co-workers have the kind of broad minds about swearing normally only developed by those who work in sport publishing.

You've obviously never spent any time with the Armed Forces. 25 swear words in 37 seconds; Pah! Amateur.

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WolfieSmith | 10 years ago
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There's a lot of angry people out there who will take no criticism whatsoever. I had an altercation with a short, baldy Phil Mitchell in an Astra last year. He was pulling out of a car park on the opposite side of the road to turn right as I came along. Rather than wait or flash me through he was across the centre white line and almost alongside me as I passed. I had right of way. He was being impatient so I shook my head at him.

Next thing he's pulled alongside screaming abuse and threatening to get out and 'kick my head in'. We were stopped by this time so I asked him if he was in such a hurry that he almost cut me up why had he now all the time in the world to hold me up ( and a queue of cars behind us) while he had a fit in front of me.

He came out with the classic. "I'm a f**king Cyclist too you f**king T**T!!"

I just shook my head again said "I'm leaving you now.." and cycled off. He was as good as gold coming past so he must have calmed down a little.

As someone said earlier had I been in a car and shaken my head nothing would have happened. It wasn't even driver v motorist as he was a cyclist too. I assume he was having a bad day and wasn't taking any advice from anyone.

I might also assume he was a nice guy most of the time but I doubt it. Seemed like a right little tosser to me.

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vanmildert replied to WolfieSmith | 10 years ago
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MercuryOne wrote:

There's a lot of angry people out there who will take no criticism whatsoever. I had an altercation with a short, baldy Phil Mitchell in an Astra last year. He was pulling out of a car park on the opposite side of the road to turn right as I came along. Rather than wait or flash me through he was across the centre white line and almost alongside me as I passed. I had right of way. He was being impatient so I shook my head at him.

Next thing he's pulled alongside screaming abuse and threatening to get out and 'kick my head in'. We were stopped by this time so I asked him if he was in such a hurry that he almost cut me up why had he now all the time in the world to hold me up ( and a queue of cars behind us) while he had a fit in front of me.

He came out with the classic. "I'm a f**king Cyclist too you f**king T**T!!"

I just shook my head again said "I'm leaving you now.." and cycled off. He was as good as gold coming past so he must have calmed down a little.

As someone said earlier had I been in a car and shaken my head nothing would have happened. It wasn't even driver v motorist as he was a cyclist too. I assume he was having a bad day and wasn't taking any advice from anyone.

I might also assume he was a nice guy most of the time but I doubt it. Seemed like a right little tosser to me.

last 8 words sufficient to sum that up.

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Jimmy Ray Will | 10 years ago
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That old dude got lucky really... he'd have not smacked me like that and had such a tempered response.

I'd have been turning the camera off pronto...

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bikebot | 10 years ago
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On a related note, does anyone know how Mr Penishead is doing? Business going well?

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andyp | 10 years ago
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'Two cyclist were killed and the driver had to pay £120!'

and was jailed for 8 years, let's not forget. Which is a pitifully small sentence, but let's not pretend that it was just about the cash...

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Binky | 10 years ago
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Two cyclist were killed and the driver had to pay £120!

The law makes no sense what so ever  102

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Skylark | 10 years ago
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This granpa is good.

Should be channelled to a few on here.

 24

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anarchy | 10 years ago
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Did you call me a wanker, you cunt?

Classic.

Yeah, but you just called me a cunt, you wanker, let's call it evens

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Philip Whiteman | 10 years ago
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I am not entirely clear as to why the additional charge of assault was dropped. From the video, Baldwin made a clear physical assault.

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bikebot | 10 years ago
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But no fine for being a crap stereotype? Had the magistrate never seen a Guy Ritchie movie?

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cyclingdave70 | 10 years ago
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What is concerning is that a casual tut or disapproving nod from within a car at someone in another car, *may* not get noticed! but when you are on a bike! it's plain for all to see!

I could be a similar gesture from the cyclist may have set this driver off, Or could have been antagaonised by another cyclist before - who knows.

Stay safe all, and careful what do!

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Mandy-Jo | 10 years ago
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He's a bit angry isn't he!!

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oozaveared | 10 years ago
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Get a helmet or bar cam. They're worth their cost.

The fact is that the video had him bang to rights. I expect once his wife saw it she pointed him at the cop shop.

He pleaded guilty as well. He didn't try to make up some crazy justification for it about what happened before.

he shouldn't have done it
he got caught on camera
he turned himself in
he pleaded guilty
Fair play to him

£500 fine is a decent result.

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glynr36 replied to oozaveared | 10 years ago
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oozaveared wrote:

Get a helmet or bar cam. They're worth their cost.

They are when just used 'passively' but there is a minority of YouTube warriors who seem to try and get a reaction from drivers, so they have something worthwhile to upload, that's not just their commute/ride.

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andyp | 10 years ago
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this f*cking article is proper c*nting b*stard ace news. Glad that this f*cker got such a f*cking great tw@ of a fine. The w*nker.

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tp88 | 10 years ago
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Words can not describe. What a prat.

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