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news
Aggressive driver in Kensington (source Jeremy Vine on Facebook).PNGClarkson accuses Jeremy Vine of "selfish" cycling, while driver who kicked him says she was "provoked"
Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has accused BBC broadcaster Jeremy Vine of “selfish” cycling after the latter posted a video this week showing a driver kicking and swearing at him. Meanwhile the motorist involved has accused Vine of riding dangerously, claiming that he “provoked” her.
The incident happened by Kensington Town Hall on Friday 26 August as Vine rode home from work, with the radio and TV presenter posting it to Facebook last Monday and confirming it had been passed to the Metropolitan Police.
> Video: Driver tailgates BBC's Jeremy Vine then kicks out at him
Vine had been riding in the centre of the one-way street, which had parked cars either side, when a motorist came close to his rear wheel.
Subsequently he stopped to remonstrate with the motorist, who then got out of her car and started abusing him verbally, also kicking out at him.
Like many cyclists, Vine had chosen his road position to prevent any motorists behind from attempting what would have been a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre as well as to stay out of the ‘door zone’ – indeed, the video shows that when the driver got out of her car, her door hit a parked vehicle.
Clarkson saw things differently, however. In his column in The Sun, he said of Vine: “He can be seen cycling down the middle of the road, deliberately blocking the cars in his wake, and when one gets too close he stops — still in the middle of the road — so he can record the woman driver’s foul-mouthed tirade.
“The message is clear. He’s been verbally assaulted while on a noble quest to save the polar bear.”
He continued: “But hang on a minute, Vine. How did you know that the woman in the car behind wasn’t rushing to see her injured child in hospital? How did you know there wasn’t a pregnant girl on the back seat who was about to give birth?
“Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to be stuck behind a sanctimonious cyclist when you really are in a genuine, tearing hurry?
“Of course, it is not illegal to cycle slowly down the middle of a narrow street. But it is selfish and annoying for everyone else.”
Vine, who this month becomes the main presenter of BBC’s Crimewatch, was not too troubled by Clarkson’s comments, telling the London Evening Standard: "I love Clarkson and I laughed all the way through his brilliant column.
"Obviously I didn't hold the lady up - after her violent reaction I let her pass, and, sure enough, caught up with her at the next lights.
"I live in hope that one day road users can all co-exist without this sort of thing."
According to The Sun, the driver involved – a 22-year-old student from Brixton named Shayna, who did not give her surname – blamed Vine for the incident.
“He made me look impatient but he was riding on the pavement and came out on to the road in front of me, with no hand signals,” she insisted.
“The road had parking on either side. He was dangerous. He pulled out in front of me, making me have to make an emergency stop. Then he had the arrogance and cheek to block me in the middle of the road, that’s what set me off.”
Vine’s video shows the motorist’s car turning onto the street where the altercation took place, initially 20 yards or so behind him.
However, the driver added: “Cyclists feel that they can just come into the middle of the road. It’s not right. And to top it off he followed me after.
“He made out that I attacked him, and I’m an angry woman. I was provoked but I’ve been portrayed as a psycho.”
She told The Sun that she had not yet heard from the police, but Vine’s representative told the Independent the footage had been passed to the police, saying: “If this lady thinks she has a right to kick, verbally abuse and threaten other road users, then she is even more dangerous than I thought.
“The police have all the evidence and we should wait for them to decide what offences were committed.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- bensynnock 6 min 2 sec ago
I see a car go through a red light at almost every single cycle at every single junction. ...
- eburtthebike 12 min 46 sec ago
And demanding that the real issue, lack of safe cycling infrastructure is addressed immediately, not blaming the victim.
- mctrials23 17 min 49 sec ago
If you can do it on that you ain't pushing very hard.
- chrisonabike 1 hour 4 min ago
Also don't forget - Sustrans are a charity *....
- chrisonabike 1 hour 16 min ago
Yes ... but (just due to the large numbers of people affected) this likely would only proceed in the UK at a very ... cautious ... pace....
- EK Spinner 1 hour 33 min ago
Arsehole in the van not with standing, how did they manage to get a risk assessment allowing a race (a group not a TT) group to be competing on ...
- RafaDy 1 hour 28 min ago
I think reviewer completely missed the point here trying to match bike's name with what it can do. Ribble is namin git's bike weirdly, the...
- Moist von Lipwig 4 hours 54 min ago
Bit of googling gone wrong in the article - the JAT is the Junction Assessment Tool, the Joint Approval Team appears to be a coutner terrorism...
- HKR 6 hours 9 min ago
Can't believe that child threw his bike on the floor at the end of that. Young people today have no respect... ;))
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59 comments
I think this just highlights the need for separate lanes for cyclists, motorists and pedestrians. Visit Copenhagen to see how it's done. In fact just look on Google street view!
London population density: 1,510 ppsm
Copenhagen population density: 772 ppsm
That means in London there are more than twice as many people in any given square meter. And growing.
Just using London as an example of a fairly dense city, (it's not even top 40). People need the land for house building, so I'm not sure where the extra space for roads and separate cycling infrastructure will come.
All cities have amazing cycling infrastructure - it's just ram packed with people in massive, polluting and dangerous metal boxes.
The real solution to problems the world over is to get people out of them and onto bikes. En masse. But that's a hard thing to do and say, especially for a politician.
Car ownership here and the world over is analogous to gun ownership in the States. People freak if you so much as touch their car. As if it's their child or nutsack or something. Totally irrational. Only other thing I can think of is flesh eating - animal agriculture. Massively destructive and either tied or worse than transport pollution, yet people freak out if you bring it up.
Regardless - the future requires a massive reduction in private car usage. There is no possible model where population growth and car ownership growth works.
No! you're falling for their trap!
at least in london (where i drive and cycle) when cyclists and cars are separated the cyclists get given second-rate infrastructure (too narrow, too windy, too dirty, hard kerb edges, too many extra new traffic lights) while the segregation just reinforces the "them and us" separation, and gives angry car drivers one more thing to moan about.
The remaining road is now too narrow; just try riding on a road next to a segregated cycle lane and see how long it takes before someone tells you to get off "their" road and into "your" cycle lane...
I'd much rather they just painted the left lane on all mult-lane roads blue and put a cycle symbol on it. Much cheaper, quicker, easier and then maybe, just maybe, people could learn to share.
Might be fine for you. It's not going to be OK for an 8 year old kid, or a pensioner.
Good old Jezza C giving the hornets nest a good kick....
Maybe someone should have pointed out to him that the car in question was not road legal at the time (no road tax) and still is not road legal despite the fact that this has been on the news and in the public eye for a good while. Just saying......
I was driving the other day on the M20 motorway. The Docks and register had just unloaded so there were a lot of lorries about. The 1st 2 lanes were taken up by lorries which I was overtaking in the 3rd. I eased off so to cars could move out to overtake the lorries as well as it was wet and they would have pulled into my braking gap anyway so this was preferable hold speed then having to brake. The car behind (was in a well known German car make, but I won't stereo type), started flashing his lights and jesticulating while sitting 2 mm off my bumper. He expected me to swerve out the way which would have involved trying to swing into the narrow gaps between the vehicles I was overtaking and slamming the brakes on to get to down to their speed. Though the road was wet and busy but this guy thought that he right to drive at 120mph outweighed the safety of everyone else much in the same way as this woman. I am sure Jez Clarkson has moaned about such drivers before when he was driving but never worried that they might be rushing to hospital before. With that logic no one would get anywhere as we would be sat at the side of the road letting through "more deserving" travellers who might have an emergency.
"How did you know that the woman in the car behind wasn’t rushing to see her injured child in hospital? How did you know there wasn’t a pregnant girl on the back seat who was about to give birth?"
This is a really daft argument but it illustrates the mindset. To people like Clarkson, cyclists using the road in a way that means drivers perhaps can't get where they want to go as quickly as they would like are being selfish.
All the other drivers that are doing exactly the same thing just by being on the road are fine though. Or does Clarskon think drivers should pull over as soon as a car comes up behind them or starts tailgating them - after all, they could be going to see their injured child in hospital, right? Why hold them up when they could just be reasonable and get out of the way?
I bet he doesn't think that. But who knows what Clarkson really thinks, he gets paid to spout this stuff after all.
“He made me look impatient but he was riding on the pavement and came out on to the road in front of me, with no hand signals,” she insisted.
Hmmm...looks from the rear angle video that he was already on the road when the car turns into it, some way behind him.
It's amazing how some people will swear blind that blue is red despite the overwhemling evidence to the contrary!
He continued: “But hang on a minute, Vine. How did you know that the woman in the car behind wasn’t rushing to see her injured child in hospital? How did you know there wasn’t a pregnant girl on the back seat who was about to give birth?
Err..the fact that she's obviously got time to get out of the car to vent her spleen for a good few minutes might be a clue? Tool.
Wonders will never cease, Clarkson wasn't being racist.
She'll get a Caution. Positive discrimination, being black and female, will play a part.
It's true that offical judicial guidance now advises to treat women more leniently after studies showing the effects short prison terms have on their mental state and related innocents (ie. kids). Slog through this for more: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications/equal-treatment-bench-book/
The opposite is true if you're black though. BAME offenders are at a significant disadvantage when trying to avoid custody:
http://www.irr.org.uk/research/statistics/criminal-justice/
A study in 2011, based on an analysis of over one million court records found that black offenders were 44 per cent more likely than white offenders to be given a prison sentence for driving offences, 38 per cent more likely for public order offences or possession of a weapon and 27 per cent more likely for possession of drugs. Asian people were 19 per cent more likely than white people to be given a prison sentence for shoplifting and 41 per cent more likely for drugs offences.
Selfish cycling? Literally hilarious.
Clarkson wrote in his article that cyclists should give up on playing with 'children's toys'. Sadly, I think that statement sums up impatient motorists sentiments quite succinctly.
The irony that Clarkson has spent his entire adult life telling men to buy supercars as their ultimate toy is hilarious.
Clarkson really does like to play a parody of himself. Half the things he says are genius, and half are like this... controversial for controversial's sake.
He's just trolling - and getting upset at the peice is kinda the point he looking for. Best to ignore.
Clarkson's argument us just stupid. If she was in the middle of an emergency, she would have shouted something like 'let me through, this is an emergency', instead of assaulting him with expletives.
A big problem stems from how young drivers are taught. Instructors should drum into them that roads (especially narrow ones) have to be shared with other users whether that's a bike or milk float.
I'm not sure if its only me but i wish Jeremy Clarkson would fuck of into the rain forest and get's bitten by something that will give him a painful and slow death the man is just an utter WANKER who doesnt matter in this day and age!!!!!
The women also should look at this video and question herself if she feels she should be aloud to drive a car with that temper she is holding. If it wasnt Jeremy vine she took it out on it would have been some other member of the public be it a driver, cyclist or pedestrian
Ah Jezza; not waving.... drowning.
"...that’s what set me off.
As Louis CK once said "you tested my reactions.... and they were good!"
It's always nice to compare someones lie filled statement with a video and audio recording of the event.
Maybe it was a genuine false memory thing - the adrenaline and the talking to the newspapers made her re-imagine what happened to protect her own reputation. But, it definitely makes her look a bit "unreliable witness".
It's appears that she hasn't watched the video herself....and seen that there's a front AND rear camera. I don't care much for Clarkson's view but her continued arrogance and denial of what happened is the main issue here.
She still thinks she's done nothing wrong. The book needs throwing at her.
Clarkson "“But hang on a minute, Vine. How did you know that the woman in the car behind wasn’t rushing to see her injured child in hospital? How did you know there wasn’t a pregnant girl on the back seat who was about to give birth?"
Reminds me of the woman in my local paper, convicted of speeding, who said in her defence that she was rushing to comfort her grandchild, who had been injured by a car.
Surely it's time to pension off poor old Clarky? Not just irrelevant, not even amusing, just boring really.
Poor old Clarkson must have tied himself in knots agonising over who to aim his vitriol at: the cyclist, the woman driver or the non-Caucasian Brit. Nice to know where we stand in Jezza's personal pecking order of hatered.
You'd have thought with all this exposure she's receiving and that it was shown that her car was untaxed, that she'd hastily attend to this, but her car is still untaxed. Lets hope it gets towed tomorrow
That was what was confusing me: why give an interview to the Sun bleating about how you were provoked when you shouldn't have been on the sodding road in the first place?! FFS
The thing that puzzles me about such incidents, is that the motorist gets really upset about being delayed by a few seconds, but is prepared to waste much longer than that arguinging the toss about it.
As for the 'you lot' comment, well that was kind of ironic.
It reads like Jeremy Clarkson needs a new ghost writer.
Had I previously been unsure about Jeremy Vine's behaviour (which I wasn't) then the intervention by Clarkson would make me feel that Mr. Vine was indeed in the right.
The worrying comments coming from Clarkson are those where he talks about what if the motorist were in a genuine hurry such as rushing to visit an injured child or carrying a woman about to give birth - basically what he is saying there is that if a driver has a genuine reason to hurry then they should be free to do so and everyone (especially cyclists) should get out of their way.
One day we may reach a point where people understand that driving has to be done properly, that personal circumstances and being in a hurry do not change that and that every other person is just as important and their life as valuable as your own (but I'm not holding my breath).
Well done Mr. Clarkson you've managed to reinforce the opinions I already had of you.
He also doesn't say how a cyclist riding so as to protect themselves is supposed to know that the motorist behind them is in a hurry for a genuine reason (pregnancy etc) and is not just being a bully (headlight morse code or something?). What he doesn't say is that he wants cyclists to get out of the way of every car, just *in case* they have a genuine reason.
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