“No war between cyclists and drivers”, say road safety campaigners, as apologetic BBC backtracks after “inappropriately” describing camera cyclist as “vigilante”

There is no “war” between cyclists and motorists on Britain’s roads, two of the UK’s most prolific camera cycling advocates have claimed, after it was revealed that around 90 per cent of the 150,000 clips of alleged driving offences submitted to police forces in England and Wales have resulted in prosecutions.

However, after covering the rapid growth in third-party road safety reporting in a news article and in a BBC Breakfast segment on Friday, the BBC has been criticised by cyclists for referring to both Mike van Erp (best known as CyclingMikey) and Tim on Two Wheels as “vigilantes”, with Van Erp arguing that cyclists who submit footage to the police are, in fact, the “opposite of vigilantes”.

Following a number of complaints, including from Tim himself, who described the “vigilante” reference as “disappointing”, the broadcaster admitted to road.cc that the initial language used in their story, which has since been amended, was “inappropriate”.

> "Cyclists with cameras are grassing snitches... motorists with dash-cams are responsible citizens": BBC radio discussion looks at third-party reporting (and why do some cyclists get such a hard time for it?)

On Friday morning, in an article titled ‘The cyclist helping to catch hundreds of bad drivers’, the BBC interviewed Birmingham-based cycling instructor Tim, known on social media as ‘Tim on Two Wheels’, whose videos of careless, dangerous, and illegal driving have led to scores of motorists receiving notices of intended prosecution from West Midlands Police.

“I came back from one bike ride and said ‘I’ve had enough, there’s something we have got to do about this’,” Tim, who said he’s been submitting evidence of poor driving to the police for three years, told the BBC.

Claiming that the number of close passes he’s experienced has jumped from a handful a year to two or three per journey in recent years, Tim continued: “As a cyclist, you’re always having to move out of the way and when a vehicle’s too close it can strike you. I’ve been hit several times, cars have actually hit me. When I was younger, I broke my leg and went to hospital.”

Figures from West Midlands Police show that third-party submissions of alleged road safety offices have also jumped from 208 in 2017 to 11,000 already this year.

Earlier in 2024, we reported that the force received 356 reports from cyclists during January, including 90 for alleged mobile phone offences and 190 for “driving without due care or attention” or “driving without reasonable consideration” – with 97 per cent of those submissions resulting in some form of action.

> Police force that prosecuted one driver from 286 close pass reports now taking action in 97% of cyclist submissions

Of the 356 reports received from cyclists, just three (one per cent) resulted in no further action for the motorist involved, 125 led to a fixed-penalty notice (35 per cent), and 15 in a court case (four per cent), while 174 drivers accepted a place on a National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme course (49 per cent), and 33 drivers (nine per cent) received a warning letter. Six reports (two per cent) were classed as resulting in “other action taken”.

For Tim’s part, he says all his videos have resulted in police action.

“Most often the penalty is an education course,” he said. “I think that’s the most appropriate thing. Everyone has a chance to make a mistake and to learn.

“But, for a second offence it would be a fixed penalty notice, points on your licence, and a fine.”

Reflecting on the growth of third-party reporting in the West Midlands, Sgt Stephen Evans told the BBC: “I think people are getting more aware of the poor standards of driving in the West Midlands area and people know now there’s a place they can report it to and the police will take action.”

> Not giving up — why a camera cyclist driven off social media by abuse won’t stop reporting dangerous motorists

Tim, meanwhile, says he believes the “message was getting out” and that he is seeing improvements on the road.

“Inevitably a whole gang of people will start explaining why you’re wrong even though the law is clear on this matter,” he said, referring to the debates sparked by his close pass videos on social media – which, despite their often inflammatory nature, do not indicate the presence of a “war between motorists and cyclists”, he says.

“Most drivers just want to get home safely,” Tim concluded. “It’s a small minority of drivers we're talking about here. They treat cyclists like that… and they treat other drivers like that.”

Tim’s belief that the so-called cyclists versus drivers ‘war’ is a fabrication was echoed by arguably the most famous camera cyclist of the lot, CyclingMikey, who appeared on BBC Breakfast on Friday morning to discuss the growing popularity of third-party reporting.

“Recently, I’ve got the impression that the Met are under pressure, because third-party reporting has become very popular with lots of members of the public,” Mikey, whose real name is Mike van Erp, said during the segment, which saw him appear alongside David Laurie from the National Private Hire and Taxi Association.

“And there are thousands and thousands of these reports pouring in, and I get the impression they’re not able to [prosecute] as many, because they’re overloaded.

“I’ve seen messages from staff at strange hours in the night and on weekends, so they’re clearly working very hard, and it’s appreciated.”

> “People need to see justice being done”: CyclingMikey says camera cyclists suffer online abuse because some motorists “feel they have the right to drive how they want”

Responding to Van Erp’s comments about submitting footage of dangerous driving, presenter Charlie Stayt: “There’s a danger in this that it becomes ‘cyclists against drivers’. And that’s not the point, the point is safety on the roads, isn’t it? But do you cast your camera and your eye equally over cyclists doing wrong things as you do motorists?”

“That’s a great question,” Mikey replied. “And the answer is no. And the reason why is that I have only a limited amount of spare time to do this, so I’m going to deal with the most dangerous. Almost the entire death and serious injury toll on our roads is caused by drivers.

“That said, I’m no fan of bad cycling. I’m totally fine with bad cycling being policed, I just don’t think it will have a noticeable effect on road safety casualties.

“I’m not a fan of this war between cyclists and motorists. There should be no such thing. We’re all the same human beings.”

“Deliberate clickbait anti-cycling misinformation”

While both Tim and Van Erp were quick to diffuse any talk of a ‘war’ on Britain’s roads, both cyclists were on the receiving end of unflattering depictions as camera-wielding “vigilantes” by the BBC.

Earlier this morning, we reported on the live blog that an early version of the BBC’s story on Tim described the cycling instructor as a “vigilante cyclist”, prompting a backlash on social media, with one cyclist describing the language used as “deliberate clickbait anti-cycling misinformation”.

The BBC’s original story

“A vigilante is someone who attempts to apprehend and punish someone who has committed a crime, without the involvement of law enforcement,” Adam Tranter, the former walking and cycling commissioner for the West Midlands, said in response to the BBC’s terminology.

“A person who encounters a potential crime and passes evidence to police is called a witness. Amazing to see the BBC getting this wrong.”

“It's even more disappointing when you’re the cyclist involved. Thank you for raising this Adam. Very poor show from BBC Online,” Tim said. “The article has now been changed. They were very apologetic. It's a journalistic cliché.”

As noted by Tim, the article was amended soon after publication to remove the reference to vigilantes, with a spokesperson for the BBC telling road.cc: “The initial language used was inappropriate so it has since been amended. It was a single mention and removed quickly.”

> "Stoking cyclist hate will get him more publicity": CyclingMikey hits back at Mr Loophole's latest attack on "snitch society" camera cyclists

However, while the broadcaster claims the vigilante reference was a “single mention”, the term reared its head once again during Van Erp’s segment on BBC Breakfast.

The subject was broached when Charlie Stayt asked the NPHTA’s Laurie whether he approved of cyclists submitting hundreds of videos of illegal driving to the police, to which Laurie responded: “To a certain degree, yes. At the end of the day, drivers are breaking the law, they’re using their phones, there’s no excuse or exemption for it.

“According to the new laws, if drivers are holding their phone in their hands, they’re committing an offence, and there is no excuse.”

“Do I detect a slight caution in your voice?” Stayt probed. “The idea that the vigilante approach to this – which is quite a strong word – but the idea that this is not the police, it’s someone on a bicycle. Do you have any caution about that?”

Taxi driver Laurie then said: “I do, because I’ve seen videos where he’s standing in the middle of the road, putting himself and other road users in danger. I see the logic, I see the reasoning and justification for doing it. But he’s not a police officer and he shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the road.”

> “This gives errant drivers carte blanche to do what they like”: Police tell camera cyclists they are “unable to deal” with motorists driving in bike lanes or the wrong way down one-way streets, while warning cyclists to “not confront” dangerous drivers

However, Van Erp was also quick to dispel this notion that cyclists reporting instances of bad driving to the police are vigilantes.

“This whole idea of vigilantism is wrong,” he said. “What we’re doing is giving the evidence to the police and to the justice system, which is the opposite of what a vigilante does. We let the justice system deal with it.”

Referring to Laurie’s suggestion that he “stands in the middle of the road” while filming drivers, Mikey continued: “What I’m doing there is I’m usually filtering through traffic, which is the nature of riding in London – you’re usually filtering past queues of drivers going nowhere. And you end up next to a driver anyway. I’m not posing a danger to anyone, maybe to myself a little.”

“But wait, you are, there is danger,” Stayt’s co-presenter Naga Munchetty countered. “Even when you put yourself in danger. We’re watching a video of you putting yourself in front of a car, that’s not safe. That’s dangerous.”

Van Erp then pointed out that his habit of standing in the road on so-called ‘Gandalf Corner’ in Regent’s Park is to “directly prevent that person from driving around an unsighted corner on the wrong side of the road, which is definitely dangerous”.

When Munchetty enquired whether Van Erp had a “legal right” to stand in the road, the camera cyclist said: “You are allowed to stop an immediate danger – for example, a drunk driver or someone going the wrong way around a corner where traffic will be coming at any minute.

“But that’s a small part of what I’m doing. The majority of what I’m doing is catching up to drivers who are on their phone and then filtering on past them.”