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Sussex swearing man YouTube stillVideo: Ultra-sweary driver fined for threatening rant at cyclist
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
What an absolute charmer. Sadly, he seems to be so deeply angry with the world that a $6 million fine proably wouldn't make any difference...
Not quite sure how to take this.
1. He was found guility of acting like a dick in the street, which is good though we don't know what he did that made the cyclist run his mouth off at him to get this reaction.
2. From what it sounds like the cyclist ran his mouth off at the original incident, and this is a prime example of if you're going to mouth off at people then expect something back off them (no justification for what the driver did, especially the swing at 0:15s), no one likes getting told they're in the wrong, and if the cyclist had done it in a less than savoury manner, like the driver. Stopping, and filming when he did so the cyclist knew exactly what he was getting into when stopping, why not just carry on and leave the stupid old git stood there looking like a twat!
A possible outcome. As is being pursued by the bloke who's just taken the trouble to stop and have a go at you.
That is something you have to consider, especially in a remote isolated area rather than urban roads where you can get away.
However, something I always advise new cyclists, is the simple rule that if you are confronted by an angry motorist, never ever stop next to them. That includes pulling up right next to the drivers door.
You need enough distance to be out of reach, and to dismount and put the bike between you if they turn violent. You're very vulnerable whilst you're balancing on a stationary bike, where as a wheel in the face will make most people think twice.
This. The guy was clearly so aggravated by the incident that had the cyclist just ridden past then I suspect he would've jumped back in the car and chased him down, with god-knows-what consequences. Probably safer for all concerned to have stopped and taken the verbal battering!
Problem with this video is that there was clearly some earlier altercation that resulted in the chap reacting like this, but that (perhaps conveniently) wasn't recorded. The level of the reaction just makes me think that the cyclist must have done something to provoke it, which then makes the eventual outcome of all this seem a little disingenuous.
Not to condone the driver's behaviour, or suggest that this is what actually happened *cough* but if I've ridden like a bit of a knob and another road user has brought that to my attention, then I certainly wouldn't be doing or saying anything to provoke a further reaction. Christ, if people exist in such a hair-trigger state such as this bloke, then who knows what you might expect in return...
I think the answer to the chap's question is "yes".
He hops now, does he? Must've been worse than first thought.
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