Videos posted to Instagram show moped riders in London deliberately pushing cyclists from their bikes, with Cycling UK describing is as “despicable behaviour.”
In one video, a moped rider shouts, “Get over!” as he pushes a cyclist into a brick wall, with another rider shouting, “He’s off, he’s off!,” reports The Times.
A separate video shows a cyclist falling off his bike, his head hitting the ground, after a moped rider struck his bike’s handlebars with a tool.
Paul Farrelly, the Tory MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme and who site on the House of Commons select committee for digital, culture, media and sport, said it was “utterly wrong that social media is being used to glamorise crime” and called for the videos to be removed from social media.
His views were echoed by Sam Jones, senior campaigns officer at Cycling UK, who said: “This sort of behaviour is a sick joke which is putting people’s lives and well-being at risk.
”It is despicable behaviour which seeks to glamorise petty thuggery.
“Social media outlets have a responsibility to make sure content like this doesn’t make it before the public – but perhaps more importantly this should be a wake-up call that the country needs more roads policing.”
A spokesman for Facebook, which owns Instagram, has said that it is investigating the accounts concerned to ascertain “whether they violate our guidelines.”
He added: “Illegal activity, including the support or praise of it, is not allowed on Instagram.”
Earlier this year, police in Lancashire appealed after moped muggers left a cyclist with serious head injuries after pushing him off his bike in Preston.
In August last year, we reported how a cyclist had urged fellow bike riders to be vigilant after muggers on mopeds tried to rob her in North London, while last December, an off-duty Metropolitan Police officer who was commuting by bike arrested a pair of moped muggers after he saw them riding suspiciously on a footpath.
Simon has been news editor at road.cc since 2009, reporting on 10 editions and counting of pro cycling’s biggest races such as the Tour de France, stories on issues including infrastructure and campaigning, and interviewing some of the biggest names in cycling. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, his background has proved invaluable in reporting on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, and the bike industry. He splits his time between London and Cambridge, and loves taking his miniature schnauzer Elodie on adventures in the basket of her Elephant Bike.