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news
Cyclist at level crossing (via Laughingcow on Twitter).JPG£2,000 reward offered to track down man who jumped level crossing gate with his bike
The charity Crimestoppers is offering a £2,000 reward to track down a man who jumped over a level crossing gate in south west London and told an onlooker who pleaded with him to stop, "I don't f*cking care, mate."
Footage of the incident, which happened in North Sheen last month went viral after it was retweeted by the broadcaster and cyclist Jeremy Vine on Twitter.
The level crossing at North Sheen today. Mate, the barrier is there for a reason. pic.twitter.com/LDlm2nLFRU
(via @laughingcow4)— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 11, 2017
The London Evening Standard reports that the reward is being offered because the train driver, who sounded its horn as it missed the man by inches, has suffered from psychological trauma.
Dave Hunter, head of operations at Crimestoppers, said: “This man could have caused himself serious injury or even death.
“His actions were incredibly dangerous. Someone will know who he is and we hope they will see that there is no excuse for this behaviour.
"The barriers are there for a very good reason.
“As an independent charity, Crimestoppers offers a safe way for people to give information about crime.
“We won’t ask for your personal details - you won’t have to give a statement to police or appear in court," he added.
"We just need to know this man’s name.”
The reward will be valid for three months and is only applicable to information shared with Crimestoppers, who can be contacted, anonymously, on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org
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.
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39 comments
Philshems has the inside knowledge here and talks a lot of sense. I work as a psychotherapist, so like Philshems I have another kind of inside perspective, having studied trauma and seen many traumatised people as patients.
What strikes me most here is the extraordinary, arrogant judging of other people going on here. What some of you seem to be doing is imagining what it might be like for the train driver from your own perspective. Basing your judgement on your imagined self in what you think are similar events, like nearly being hit by a car (which is not similar at all, as Philshems says) is, let's say, unrealistic. You can not possibly know what it was like for him, what else has happened or is happening in his life, how many similar incidents he's been through, what it's like being a driver in charge of a train which is impossible to stop quickly, having responsibility for possibly hundreds of passengers etc. etc. Trauma is complex and multi layered, not the simple, predictable surface reaction you appear to imagine. You do not have control over it, or under what circumstances it happens to you.
What some of you are saying, in effect, is 'he can't possibly be traumatised because I can't imagine it'. Some of you seem to be crowing about what no-nonsense, big tough men you are - what a wimp, unlike me, hey, I'd get over it immediately. In other words, your 'man-up' (idiotic phrase at the best of times) type reaction is a kind of boast, it's you showing off about how tough you are. You can not know how you'd react if you'd been that driver. It reminds me of little boys saying 'if I were in a war I'd just kill them all, yeah, power ranger!' Thankfully there are also some humane adult responses on here, like Giff77 and others.
Obviously it is possible that the driver is trying to get time off or compensation, but he would first be assessed by a psychologist, and believe me people attempting to fake trauma are usually very easy to spot by an experienced practitioner.
But spread over across the larger number of people it happens to, it has a similar culmulative effect. Close misses from cars deter people from cycling (and, in some cases, walking). The people commenting here are by definition among those who didn't find it so unpleasant that they gave up. Those who really find it too much don't cycle.
Ergo, it's not that the train driver needs to 'man up' (I don't believe that is _literally_ what people are getting at), it's that close-passes from drivers need to be treated with the same seriousness as events like this. But they aren't, because car drivers are not held to account the same way that others are.
So if I ask my Regional ops Manager for a few days off because I'm suffering pyschological trauma after almost being killed by a skip lorry (but no actual contact) cutting across my bow at 50+mph to make an offslip on a dual carriageway do you think that would wash?... and that's me on the recieving end. this kind of thing happens to people daily.
whilst I don't dispute it can be shocking if you near miss someone through no fault of your own to suggest mental trauma when there's no injury, no-one being splattered and the incident wasn't your fault so you wouldn't be beating yourself up for it being your mistake, is pushing it to the edge of believability.
As others have said that might sound callous but given what we know about human beings if you suffer trauma from not actually harming anyone they'd be more likely to suffer trauma/be overly concerned about hypothetical incidents that may or may not happen on an every day basis and the ramifications that spill over from that. Do you want someone who reacts so adversely to an every day occurence that isn't even your fault in charge of public service vehicle or be so worried about hitting someone on the roads they be allowed to be in charge of a motorvehicle?
It's completely wrong to suggest that having to make an emergency stop in a train because someone is standing on the line in front of you is an "every day occurrence".
It's because it's such an unusual occurrence that it's not really comparable with the stuff we all deal with every day on the roads.
If something like this happens to me as a train driver, out of the blue, and with no means of taking evasive action, it's likely to have a much greater impact on me than dealing with daily near misses on the roads.
Of course not every driver will be affected in the same way, but hopefully you can see why someone might be. And if they are suffering stress or trauma, the worst thing in world is to suggest they man up and carry on working in an unfit state, responsible for the safety of hundreds of passengers. Luckily for the travelling public the macho culture in the rail industry has moved on a bit in the last few decades.
75% of all suicides in the UK are male, nearly 275 on the rail network on average every year, it's the biggest killer of men under the age of 45, they spend their whole life being told to MTFU . Try cutting people some slack for a change, you may save a life.
As a train driver who cycles to work in central London every day, I've got a bit of perspective on this one.
Most days I have some sort of potentially dangerous experience on the bike. Usually the risk is minimised by reading the road, predicting what some numpty is going to do, and adjusting my speed or position accordingly. Sometimes things happen that you just don't anticipate, and then it's all down to reacting - braking, swerving, whatever.
Either way, when I'm on the bike I'm expecting danger from other road users and generally able to take some sort of mitigating action.
It's not always pleasant, but the pleasure outweighs the risks.
Now contrast this with driving a train. The railway is a closed environment. There shouldn't be anything unexpected on the line in front of you - whether that's a person, a tree, or a shopping trolley. So when you're flying towards North Sheen level crossing at 60mph and some idiot with a bike is about to run in front of you it's very stressful. You can't stop, you can't swerve out of the way. All you can do is apply the emergency brake (which will stop you a couple of hundred yards up the line) and blow the horn. But if he doesn't get out of the way you've just killed someone, and maybe worse - a bike could do some serious damage to a train at that speed, maybe even cause a derailment.
And before you dismiss it as shirking, a few days away from driving after that is in everyone's interest, because trust me, you don't want your next train being driven by someone who's got a serious near miss playing on their mind.
/end thread.
And for the record, I'm not a union supporting tools down sort of brother, I'm mostly further right wing than gengis khan, but you can't dismiss the driver as a 'shirker' for being a bit shook up, train jumpers are common, I'd be shook up if I'd witnessed a jumper in the past and then some 'obviously pissed' pond life just stumbled into my path in this situation also.. they could be a shirker, but you just don't know.
I may think that trains should get automated before cars, that drivers are some what over paid but I never under estimate the physcological effects of killing someone with a train.
Exactly. Most of us will, thankfully, never have a person splattered across our windscreen because they decided to jump in front of a moving train at a low point in their life, because they fell from a platform, or were just being utter morons like the chap in the video. Imagine having to live with the fact that you'd ended a life through absolutely no fault of your own and just by carrying out your day to day employment duties. Doesn't bear thinking anout.
"Man up"? Fuck off.
Not arguing with that as such, but what does that say about the effect on cyclists (and even more on would-be cyclists) of experiencing being cut-up at speed or close passed?
If there's such concern about the effect on train drivers of the rule-breaking behaviour of berks like this, why don't the same people show equal concern about the effect of similarly close misses on cyclists or would-be cyclists by rule-breaking drivers?
Why isn't Crimestoppers appealling for the identification of the drivers seen on some of the clips on here?
It's not necessary to minimise the unpleasantness of such things for the train driver to still feel a bit jaded about how selective this search for miscreants seems to be.
Totally understand behind the bikes point here. There is a tiny little small chance that this driver is suffering from trauma, and it would be hard to prove he isn't, much better than a broken leg. But the sun is shining, great time for some free wages. I'd advise he stays away from any form of transport, doors, pets, the cutlery draw et al for a while though.
As said above, the thought of this as a traumatic near miss is laughable in the context of the 'Near Miss Day 1' video which was such a close miss it hit the victim...
So will Crimestoppers be offering me £2k for every driver who passes me dangerously? I hope they've got deep pockets, this could bankrupt the entire capitalist system, again.
"The media could not be played".
Wasn't even close to getting squished, I fail to see how it was traumatic... Compared to my own actually traumatic experiences on the roads.
I suffer psychological harm every day by talking to customers. One of the only things keeping me sane is knowing how mental most of the general public are.
[I've just been looking on IMDB for a movie I though I saw a trailer for starring Mackenzie Crook called something like One Under where he needed to find someone to jump in front of his train to get a immediate pension after his third 'one under'..... or am i just imagining it?]
Not imagining it-Wikipedia calls it Three and Out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_and_Out
Oh dear that looks rather rubbish but then it does have Gemma Arterton in it so I'd probably still watch it.
Enjoyed watching Mackenzie Crook in the Detectorists. Only just watched Series 1 on BBC2 and didn't realise it's been on BBC4 since 2014 with Series 3 coming later this year until looking it up on Wikipedia just now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
Detectorists is superb. I think both series are on Netflix.
Yep.
I'd have hit the accelerator pedal myself. Splaaat.
Very disappointed not to see a 4 foot bunny hop. "Jumped the barrier" indeed?
bloody casual
Crikey, all those motorists who miss me by inches every day will be queuing up for time off work and compensation now
Trauma?
Non event, missed him by inches, no-one was physically harmed so as we know there's no crime is there
Traumatised, oh get over it ffs, this is an every day event in this country and worse, sounds like someone is after a bit of compo/time off work!
Because seeing someones body smeared across the cab is just... you know, one of the perks of the job?
That may be a 'whoosh' for you, I suspect
What?
"sounds like someone is after a bit of compo/time off work!" after being in a situation where he could have hit a person crossing the line in front of him, impotent to do anything about it, do you think BikeSheds comment is a sensitive one?
Get over yersel. You've no idea about the driver's background. They could already have had to deal with a jumper. you do know what's left when a train hits a body. Nothing much. Your comment is totally insensitive.
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