'Cycling' cafe owner launches raod rage attack at cyclist

[Kell]

This video posted on YouTube yesterday.

http://road.cc/content/news/152934-video-road-rage...

Turns out that the irate motorists owns Brew cafes frequented by many cyclists.

Think it's a place to avoid in the future.

[Kell]

dick_turpin said:

shakotan said:

I'll cop flak for this I know, but it's long been my opinion that cyclists have no place on modern roads.

They just don't mix well with the rest of the traffic that uses the same stretch of tarmac. It's not the cyclist's fault, they are just too slow and too vulnerable.

There needs to be either a totally separate infrastructure if used for transport, or restricted to off-road situations for leisure.

If you ban cycles from roads, most of them will just drive instead.
Do you think that will make congestion better or worse?

I honestly can't understand why some people can't grasp the simple and obvious truth that more people cycling is better for everyone - even people who will never, ever cycle.

I think it's more the point that modern roads can't cope with the volume of cars. The more people that cycle, the fewer cars will be in the way. The more cyclists on the road, the quicker your overall journey time will be - regardless of whether or not you get held up by 20 seconds waiting to overtake. For the most part of my commute in central London I'd estimate that I'm quicker than 90% of the traffic on my route - and I'm a slow, fat knacker.

[Kell]

I've stopped hitting cars when they get too close after I swung out to hit one, lost my balance and ended up going arse over tit.

WRT to the cycle lane, a couple of my mates use that road and have also confirmed that the cycle lane is not fit for purpose. For one thing, if you're travelling the way that this cyclist was, then you're on the wrong side. Apparently it's difficult and dangerous to get onto in the first place and then it's difficult to get off. Not to mention all the cars driving straight across it willy nilly.

One thing I would say is that if you cycle in London, or indeed anywhere, where the road is narrow, then you've got to expect a few close passes. Whether or not they're legally, morally, sensibly the correct thing to do or not. In that video, I'd probably not have taken umbrage at the first pass, but I definitely would have got on my high horse with the second one.

[Kell]

I don't think it's 'everyone' gunning for him, but cyclists who've quite rightly had enough of this type of behaviour.

Given that his café near Richmond Park gets a huge chunk of revenue from Cyclists it's fair for them to boycott the café and to bring the owner's behaviour to the attention of the cycling masses.

All too often, people in cars/vehicles don't think about the consequences of their actions as there's literally no need. People get killed while legally cycling along a road and all the driver had to do to be absolved of any blame is to say that the sun was in their eyes.

Where's the fairness in that? How do you think their families feel?

I've watched the video several times and I didn't once pick up on any 'thud' - but that's not to say it didn't happen. As I mentioned previously I've hit and kicked several vehicles in the past - including putting a massive dent in the rear door of one who side swiped me in the middle of Marble Arch roundabout after swerving across several lanes without looking. In every instance bar one, it's escalated the situation to the shouting and screaming heard in the video.

But I'm still in two minds as to its effectiveness. For the doddery people that weren't paying attention it will serve as a wake up call to be a bit more careful in the future. But for those angry bds that already hate cyclists, it may provoke their hatred even more and the next cyclist might not be so lucky.

Here's an example:

I recently had a much closer call than in the video in that a van driver actually tried to force me into a line of parked cars by bumping into my bar ends. I had blue paint on them after I had to brake and the bars scraped along the length of the van.

I know it was deliberate as he looked me dead in the eye as he came level with me before he then proceeded to move over. For the record, I braked, went around his off-side and slammed my hand into his side mirror and called him a . I was expecting him to get out the van and we might have a talk about it. Instead, he swerved out of the lane of traffic he was in and chased me up the road in the van - on the wrong side of the road. While the initial incident was at about 10mph, in the follow up he drove his van directly at me and I only escaped because I bunny hopped onto the kerb. He then got out the van and chased me on foot with something in his hand. Looked like a wrench, couldn't be sure. At that point, I decided that the time to talk was over and cycled off.

Why did he do this in the first place? I genuinely can't think of a reason. I know that I filtered past him (and about 5 other cars at the previous set of lights) but I didn't touch his van or force him to stop as he was already stopped. So I know I escalated the incident by hitting his mirror, but I genuinely saw red.

So as much as there are plenty of SMIDSYs out there, there are also some vindictive bds who think attacking cyclists is fair game.

[Kell]

nitrodave said:

Too f***ing right! never touch another persons vehicle. I hope one day a cyclist puts a nice dent into your car when you mistakenly get a little too close. See how you like it. I doubt you will thank them for it.

You're missing the point - these were all after I'd been hit and/or knocked off. If they then picked themselves up, bleeding, from the ground I wouldn't just drive off like this driver did. That's why his car got a kick. For the record, my helmet was ruined, my bike was scrapped and I couldn't ride for a month. But he felt like it was nothing and just drove off.

TKF said:

Funny how some people never get into scrapes whilst on the bike and some people seemingly always get into them. I wonder if there is a Venn diagram showing the correlation of tts, normal cyclists and cylists that give the rest of us a bad name?

As above. If you think I'm somehow giving you a bad name by having drivers knock me off my bike then you're on another planet.

Edited by Kell on Thursday 4th June 10:05

Edited by Kell on Thursday 4th June 10:27