Video: Road rage meltdown driver who threatened to kill cyclist fined for public order offence

bobby_brains wrote:

Without a shadow of a doubt I would have punched that prick right in the mouth. Hard.

"Hello officer, I was in fear of my own life and acted in self defence."

I'm with you, I have no idea how the cyclist stopped himself.
For those of you criticizing the cyclist for not being more restrained, do you suffer from a lack of adrenalin? I have absolutely no idea how he managed to not put him on his arse.

Rockplough wrote:

It's a shame that someone like Jason Wells, who has built up a seemingly successful business would be so pathetically insecure. God help anyone who complains about the food in his cafes. If anyone wants to comfort him, he can be reached at @brewwells.

Damn, I've eaten in the Brew in Wimbledon Village. That won't be happening again.

Malaconotus wrote:

Streetview link not cool. Facebook page fair game?... https://www.facebook.com/#!/BrewCafe

Absolutely. Name, shame and campaign. Don't facilitate nutters.

ianrobo wrote:

Story has made the Daily Heil now, better not gone on if stupid comments from idiots makes high blood pressure !!

I thought the guy who simply posted "You slaag" was quite funny.

Best rated comment is currently "I hate cyclists too", which won't be a surprise to anyone. The Daily Mail is the paper for people who hate.

Must ride must ride wrote:

The driver hit the cyclists with his wing mirror and then accused the cyclist of 'thumping his car'.

When ?

PaulBox wrote:

bobby_brains wrote:

Without a shadow of a doubt I would have punched that prick right in the mouth. Hard.

"Hello officer, I was in fear of my own life and acted in self defence."

I'm with you, I have no idea how the cyclist stopped himself.
For those of you criticizing the cyclist for not being more restrained, do you suffer from a lack of adrenalin? I have absolutely no idea how he managed to not put him on his arse.

Disappointing to see people advocating cruelty to animals.

bikebot wrote:

Rockplough wrote:

It's a shame that someone like Jason Wells, who has built up a seemingly successful business would be so pathetically insecure. God help anyone who complains about the food in his cafes. If anyone wants to comfort him, he can be reached at @brewwells.

Damn, I've eaten in the Brew in Wimbledon Village. That won't be happening again.

Damn, I've spent money in the Putney one too.

Genius..

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

mrtambourineman wrote:

Unfortunately people will judge me based on your actions, just like they do when other cyclists ride through red lights and we all take the blame. There is a great community spirit within cycling and I'd hate to have that disrupted by actions like these.

Drivers don't treat cyclists (and pedestrians) badly because they once saw one jumping a red (or a pedestrian dropping litter), they do it because it benefits them to do so and because they can get away with it.

Plus, because some of them have psychological 'issues' they are acting out. Oh, and, to be fair, because other factors put pressure on them to do it (e.g. professional drivers under extreme time constraints, or stupid road design creating confusion).

In short - I don't agree.

Edit - Your argument is a bit like saying that if only all black people behaved perfectly at all times and never reacted to racism, then white people would all promptly decide to stop being racist (and I know throughout history some black people have indeed had that view, but its not exactly been generally accepted, and certainly hasn't been validated by events).

The perception that "there's one rule for cyclists and another rule for motorists" in relation to skipping red lights, the whole 'road tax' nonsense and so on does of course play a role in motorists' perceptions and therefore their treatment of cyclists. I refer you to the wealth of psychology literature which links a person's beliefs to his/her actions. Basic psychology. Your other possible explanations for an angry motorist's behaviour are plausible (but don't complete your argument in the sense that they would contradict what I have said; rather, we are both offering different and equally valid explanations).

Your race comparison is rather extreme, eh! Society has moved on from characterising people solely by the colour of their skin and allowing, say, one black person's behaviour colour (pardon the pun) the perception of black people on the whole. Unfortunately, however, society frames the motorist/cyclist 'debate' in these black and white terms (again, excuse the pun). It speaks of "cyclists", rather than human beings who happen to be riding bikes. "Cyclists" die on our roads, rather than human beings, and it is "motorists", not other human beings, who kill them. It neglects the fact that many cyclists also drive and many drivers also cycle. By defining people solely by the mode of transport they currently use, we are robbed of our autonomy, our ability to make independent decisions and our ability to act individually; society/the media's coverage of the cyclist/motorist divide therefore paves the way for one person's actions representing the community's as a whole. I don't like it, but it does. So, no, I don't think my argument links quite so closely with the race idea you present (but your response certainly got me thinking about the issue-so thank you!)

mrtambourineman wrote:

Your race comparison is rather extreme, eh! Society has moved on from characterising people solely by the colour of their skin and allowing, say, one black person's behaviour colour (pardon the pun) the perception of black people on the whole.

Unfortunately, I think you'll find that "some of society has moved on from ..." etc

bikebot wrote:

OK, so here's a little quiz. Take a look at this -

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.462706,-0.249938,3a,88.5y,190.06h,69.03t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s3a1wcxlggh4kSazpUJG8cg!2e0

It's the roundabout in the video. Look at the position and direction of the give way marking, and where the lane stops and begins again.

Now if you were using the bike lane on the right, heading south, what is the correct legal way to cross the mini roundabout?

Was that mini-roundabout put in relatively recently, long after the on-pavement cycle path? Edit - oh, streetview 'timemachine' says its been there for years. It just that it looks as if they put it in after the cycle path without really deciding how they relate to each other.

mrtambourineman wrote:

Obviously what the driver does it wrong but, more importantly for me, as a cyclist myself I am ashamed of how the cyclist in this video overreacts and goads the driver. We are in a difficult enough position as it is, surrounded by motorised metal boxes that could kill us with a split second mistake, without lowering ourselves to this level, with embarrassing swearing matches and macho aggression. To the cyclist who was involved in this: please take time to think about how you respond to people in situations like these. I know it's difficult when your adrenaline gets going in these situations (I can hear it in your voice!), but you cannot react like you did. Unfortunately people will judge me based on your actions, just like they do when other cyclists ride through red lights and we all take the blame. There is a great community spirit within cycling and I'd hate to have that disrupted by actions like these.

Oh, where to start. I honestly think the cyclist was restrained, given that he'd just been threatened with a ton of metal. Followed by any number of violent threats, culminating in a threat to kill. If you just shrug these thing off people like this think it's acceptable behaviour. The driver was totally in the wrong from beginning to end, and if the cyclist has help him along the way to show just how much of a psychopath he is more power to him.

And further to that, just because I ride a bike it doesn't make me responsible for the actions of other cyclists. I love to be able to hold all motorists responsible for the actions of the HGV driver that killed the little girl on the pavement outside of Bath just after Christmas, but because I'm not totally metal I don't. If a motorists thinks your responsible for the actions of other cyclists, call them out on how metal they are, don't start playing there game.

Housecathst wrote:

mrtambourineman wrote:

Obviously what the driver does it wrong but, more importantly for me, as a cyclist myself I am ashamed of how the cyclist in this video overreacts and goads the driver. We are in a difficult enough position as it is, surrounded by motorised metal boxes that could kill us with a split second mistake, without lowering ourselves to this level, with embarrassing swearing matches and macho aggression. To the cyclist who was involved in this: please take time to think about how you respond to people in situations like these. I know it's difficult when your adrenaline gets going in these situations (I can hear it in your voice!), but you cannot react like you did. Unfortunately people will judge me based on your actions, just like they do when other cyclists ride through red lights and we all take the blame. There is a great community spirit within cycling and I'd hate to have that disrupted by actions like these.

Oh, where to start. I honestly think the cyclist was restrained, given that he'd just been threatened with a ton of metal. Followed by any number of violent threats, culminating in a threat to kill. If you just shrug these thing off people like this think it's acceptable behaviour. The driver was totally in the wrong from beginning to end, and if the cyclist has help him along the way to show just how much of a psychopath he is more power to him.

And further to that, just because I ride a bike it doesn't make me responsible for the actions of other cyclists. I love to be able to hold all motorists responsible for the actions of the HGV driver that killed the little girl on the pavement outside of Bath just after Christmas, but because I'm not totally metal I don't. If a motorists thinks your responsible for the actions of other cyclists, call them out on how metal they are, don't start playing there game.

The very first thing the cyclist says is "shut the f**k up...you f***ing a***hole...get the f**k away from me, you c**t". I personally don't see this as restrained but we can beg to differ. This was, in my opinion, the perfect response to escalate the situation. It's 50-50 in terms of abuse/aggression at this early stage. I'm not sure the cyclist is aware that he is helping the man on to demonstrate his psychopathy. Rather, I think he sounds scared and has also seen red.

And, I agree with you on your second point but unfortunately it's the way that many people reason, using examples from recent memory and putting people into categories. I'm talking about public perception rather than responsibility. Like you say, you are responsible for what you do and I am responsible for what I do.

Essentially, if we're going to take the moral high ground and condemn people like this motorist (as we should), saying that verbal abuse such as this is unacceptable, then we can't verbally abuse people ourselves!

mrtambourineman wrote:

It's 50-50 in terms of abuse/aggression at this early stage.

You've got that totally wrong. Land Rover driver threatens cyclist with two tonnes of metal moving at speed while hurling abuse at cyclist. Cyclist, feeling very threatened hurls some abuse back. If we cancel out the spoken words on either side of that equation it would appear that the Psychopath is up by the act of putting the cyclist at direct risk of severe injury.

Yes, the cyclist has engaged the leather-clad ape in a nasty verbal exhange. Maybe he could have handled it better and been more restrained, he also could have conceivably been a lot less restrained given the situation, so from that perspective he was somewhat restrained. He was just dangerously overtaken twice in quick succession and the second one was a quite deliberate aggressive move that was very dangerous to him.

Getting out of the Land Rover is also way more aggressive than telling the driver to shut up.

mrtambourineman wrote:

Obviously what the driver does it wrong but, more importantly for me, as a cyclist myself I am ashamed of how the cyclist in this video overreacts and goads the driver.

I imagine it was the adrenalin talking. I know that when that sort of thing happens to me, I get louder and about a half octave higher. Something like that happens, and then Tight Leather Jacket Man is in your face and you can't escape, I can completely understand the cyclist's reaction. It's not like he walked up to TLJM in a supermarket car park as he was getting into his SUV, was it?

As a second point, why do you feel ashamed by the actions of a complete stranger, someone you're likely not to know and never to meet? The fact that he uses the same mode of transport as you is surely irrelevant.

MercuryOne wrote:

Had a packet of sweets thrown at me by a motorist last week furious that I was tailgating him on my bike as the car in front of him was too timid to overtake another cyclist on a twisty country lane.

And you deserved it. Why are you tailgating the driver in front? We all complain rightly about stupid and dangerous overtakes, when someone is being cautious why try and wind them up?

Sheesh!

fast as fupp wrote:

should have nicked his keys when he was out of the car.

Brilliant!