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news
Video: Driver calls 999 to report cyclist for not getting out of her way
A video of what a cyclist described as a “bizarre sequence events” including a driver calling 999 to complain that he hadn’t pulled over to let her past on a narrow rural road has gone viral on YouTube, racking up nearly 50,000 views on the video-sharing site.
The incident happened last month in northwest Kent. Stuart, who filmed the footage, told us: “I was cycling along Rye Lane between Otford and Dunton Green near Sevenoaks; it’s a very narrow winding road.
“I was aware of a car behind me for a couple of minutes, but there was nowhere to move over without stopping altogether, and a car can’t go much faster than a bike there anyway.
“Also, if I’d let it pass and another car had come the other way, they’d both have had to stop, and so would I. I knew the road was widening out shortly so I kept going.
“When the road widened the driver pulled alongside me and accused me of ‘ignorance’, apparently for not jumping into a hedge to let her pass immediately.”
It seemed to Stuart that the exchange had ended, with the motorist heading off up the road, but he said that “as I came round the next bend she had stopped her car (in the road, impeding traffic, ironically) and was filming me.
“An increasingly bizarre sequence of events included her calling 999 to complain that she thought I’d been a bit rude, and flagging down another driver to have a mutual rant about uppity cyclists, all while ignoring the distressed cries of her children.
“Eventually, when it became clear that the police didn’t fancy coming out to intervene on matters of courtesy, she went on her way.”
“This is all quite funny, but cyclists shouldn’t have to endure this sort of thing, and she also made some nasty insinuations about my having scared her children, or that the situation was that a man was threatening a woman (this the week after Sarah Everard’s tragic death),” he added.
“In fact she’d started all this, and I’d deliberately restrained my language and kept my distance to avoid distressing the kids. It’s all the more galling because there’s a main road going exactly the same way, which I avoid because of speeding drivers; now I’m being hassled on the alternative route too.”
One commenter to the YouTube video said, “The very worst part of all of this is that she will not ever realise she was wrong, and will rant to her friends about this ‘idiot rude cyclist’ who so upset her children with their actions - thereby entrenching more negative views of cyclists in general. Over something that was entirely her fault.”
Others suggested she should be reported for using her mobile phone while driving, while another said, “I pity her kids.”
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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94 comments
Is that what is known as a 'Karen'?
If we were in America, then yes.
or Amy Cooper?
Her kids are probably distressed because she is behaving aggressively towards someone on a bike, shouting out of the car window and making threats.
If she was in such a frigging hurry, why pull over and get out of the car? The arrogance on display is quite something.
Ah yes - didn't the delightful Amy call the NYPD because "a Black man was threatening her".
Such "threats" taking the form of his politely asking her to put her dog on a lead in an area of Central Park where signs asked everyone to keep their dog on leads because of nesting birds...
(Lost her her job and her reputation, IIRC).
Reminds me of an incident in London where a white van driver swore and drove at another cyclist in front of me, and then told him to pull over so he could beat him up, because "swerving in front of his van" (aka filtering in slow moving traffic) apparently posed a risk to his young daughter who was in the front seat. Leaving aside the distress her father's behaviour likely caused, I wish I'd had the presence of mind at the time to point out that the illegal absence of any sort of child seat was likely to pose more of a risk to her safety.
But how many of these children will grow up just remembering that time a nasty cyclist made mummy upset?
I would imagine most - this is to be expected . Kids learn from their parents. Garbage in, garbage out
was forced onto grass by UPS driver and he told me I should move for him on a single track road
I was forced onto the grass by an Amazon Driver on single-lane road yesterday (coming opposite way, so not quite the same) - he, slowed right down, passed me carefully and thanked me genially.
What we're up against on the road..its beyond acceptable!
I was in the area today so took a detour down this lane, albeit driving not cycling. What a nightmare it is. I had to reverse a short distance to let an elderly driver pass using one of the many drive ways along this stretch. There are multiple tight and blind bends , most of which require a driver to slow to crawl (1st gear) to negotiate safely. I have to agree with the cyclist that to stop and let a driver pass would be largely futile as they couldn't go much faster anyway. I was actually behind a cyclist near the beginning but after having to stop and reverse to let the other driver pass, I ended up passing them in exactly the same spot as shown in the video.
If anyone is interested I have uploaded the video of my drive along Rye Lane .
https://youtu.be/MSy0adMTCxo
Thanks for that. Shows there was little point the cyclist stopping. I wonder what the lady would have done if she had met a pram coming the other way?
Went for a walk today and ended up on 'blind lane' which was like that. I thought if any drivers come this way, then they should have gone the longer way!
Just squeeze pass as close as possible. A woman actually scraped along my daughter's pram when she was a few months old. I screamed. She stopped and accused me of hitting her precious car. Cars are so much more valuable than babies obviously!
If anyone is interested I have uploaded the video of my drive along Rye Lane .
https://youtu.be/MSy0adMTCxo
Excellent! This demonstrates even more convincingly what a dreadful, selfish nut-job this woman is: channelling at the cyclist all her rage that there isn't an RFID traffic light exclusively for her, causing her to have to wait for all those vehicles.
I really can't bear to watch. I remember reading an account on here from the rider of what sounds like this incident before the video came out.
I remember him saying his voice goes "posh" when stressed, and him hearing half the 999 call - the woman being asked by the call handler if she was endangered by him and she couldn't say that she was.
She evidently tried very hard to get someone else to take her side. If you work in any sort of enforcement role, you're very careful to avoid doing this.
I wonder what her life is like.
Sad.
Funniest video of the year! Thank you!
What is it about the presence of the bicycle that can cause the perception of time to become so warped for some motorists?
As unlikely and random an edge case as this is, it's another good reason to ride with a camera. I can imagine her story to the police being even more embellished if she didn't have the nagging thought that it had all been recorded.
the driver was actually not completely wrong ( in her assertion) at the start. It is generally considered common courtesy, that slow moving vehicles ( caravans / tractors / horses etc.) should pull out of the way to allow any built up traffic to pass, when / where practical, if there is a build up of traffic on a narrow lane, caused by a slower moving object. However, she's mis applied it there. It's really only for situations where there's no prospect of the road widening out sufficiently, and where there are suitable places for the 'holder upper' to move in to. It certainly used to be the case, on small rural roads, during 'busy' months, in places like Devon and Cornwall. However, the rest of what she did, was just funny / laughable, and pulling alongside to have a go / take photos was wrong / illegal.
Had a day trip to N Norfolk last Wednesday and probably spent more time in a single afternoon stuck in queues of traffic following telehandlers and tractors dragging large pieces of farming equipment than I have spent waiting to pass cyclists in my entire lifetime.
It wasn't that the agricultural drivers didn't pull over, it was the lack of spaces to do so and the number of slow moving combos on the road. Eventually you just have to accept it as normal traffic for the area and remember to bring the motorcycle next time.
As far as this video is concerned, from the point where it starts (and maybe the car had been following for some time and the cyclist could have had multiple opportuinities to wave her past), but what we see is a section of road where there is no prospect of a safe overtake, nowhere to pull to one side, a cyclist moving at a reasonable speed and probably about as fast as it would be safe to drive, and the queue of traffic behind consists of a single (oversized) vehicle. Furthermore the cyclist has local knowledge and knows that the road will soon widen at which point he makes no move to block the overtake opportunity.
The driver is completely wrong in her assertion, hysterical in her reaction (There, I said it "hysterical woman") and her action of calling the Police and making a claim of threatening behaviour by a man is so far out of order given current sensitivities on the subject. Just imagine that a local squad car happened to be in the area and responded? It is easy to see how the cyclist's details would be taken, possibly followed up with a formal interview with the consequent stress and possibility of such a record seriously affecting Stuart's future employment opportunities. Without the camera he might have found himself on the wrong end of a justice system eager to demonstrate it's credentials as a protector of women against aggressive males.
I really hope that this video makes its way back to her somehow and to everyone she has no doubt told her story to about the arrogant cyclist who threatened her children in an unprovoked road rage incident and that she reflects on her behaviour that day.
Not least because the HC rule applies to a queue of traffic, not a single vehicle.
I am sure her life will have been ruined by having to wait an extra few seconds.
Guaranteed, if it had been a horse she wouldn't have complained.
That she tried to convince the 999 rspondent and others that he was threatening her is concerning. What if she has done this before or does it again, and some poor bloke is thrown to the floor by police and arrested simply because she said he threatened her and her kids? I would hope the police do get involved now, as I would be surprised if her actions on this video haven't committed at least one punishable offence. Kudos to the rider for staying calm.
We saw her taking a photo with her phone while driving - that's against the law, no question about it.
Not according to Ramsey Barreto.
It's a complete disgrace that 18 month safter announcing that he would close this loophole "urgently", Grant Shapps has still done the sum total of bugger and all to actually do so, other than to launch a consutation.
The lawyers found a lophole in a poorly drafted piece of legislation that any halfway competant draftsman could close with an afternoon's worth of work.
WTF was there to consult about? It clearly offers no benefit to road safety, and an awful lot of impediments to it, to allow drivers any excuse to use a mobile/handheld device while operating what is probably the most dangerous machinery that 99.9% of them will ever get close to using. Try to operate a circular saw at work while using a mobile phone in any way, shape or form, and you can almost certainly kiss goodbye to your job. Yet thois Government seems to think that it's perfectly fine to leave it a couple of years before doing something about this menace.
But then, in so many other ways they are in the pockets of interests like the mobile phone operators, so perhaps I should not be surprised.
thats not the case, the consultation has been held, closed in January,the results of which should be published imminently, and the new law was due to be drafted and placed before parliament in this session.
the reason it takes time is because what they had was a perfectly reasonable piece of legislation there before, but that couldnt predict how the future of mobile phone tech was going to advance,and thats how we ended up with this loophole, and the consultation is needed so that they try and create something thats fit for purpose and doesnt get undermined by some future loophole or tech advance that makes the set of words they use immediately redundant.
however as I repeatedly highlight when this topic comes up,whilst it might not qualify under the mobile phone use part of that law s.41D(b) Road Traffic Act 1988., it certainly qualifies against the not being in proper control of a vehicle and aware of traffic ahead part, s.41D(a) Road Traffic Act 1988.
Wave goodbye to some of your fingers too...
Literally astonished! I didn't realise this level of stupidity actually existed.
And has a licence to drive a killing machine!
Scary, let me add..."whilst being entrusted with the lives of small children"!
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