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news
Car wheel at speed copyright Simon MacMichael.jpgBMW driver "deliberately swerved" at cyclists near Richmond Park
Police in south west London are investigating an incident in which a motorist is alleged to have deliberately tried to knock cyclists off their bikes, causing two to fall off, with occupants of the BMW he was driving then becoming involved in an altercation with riders.
The incident happened at around 4.30pm yesterday near Richmond Park in Priory Lane, Roehampton.
Martin Conway, who was riding away from Richmond Park yesterday, told the London Evening Standard that the driver swerved into his path on purpose and repeated the manoeuvre on other riders as he passed them.
“I heard a car come close behind me, a black car swerved into my path and I wobbled but I didn’t lose my balance,” said the 41-year-old, who works as a personal trainer.
“The car tried again with the cyclist in front, again, he wobbled, steadied himself and didn’t fall."
“At that point the driver then mounted the pavement. Two cyclists came off their bikes and another swerved into a fence."
When the car stopped at a traffic light, the driver then became verbally abusive, according to Mr Conway.
“The driver told me he was going to f*ck me up,” he explained. “After being threatened I called 999. At this point the driver got out of the car.
“He then pushed me to the ground and threw my phone on the floor, stamping on it until he smashed it.”
He said that he felt “lucky” nothing more serious had happened and that “this road rage incident could have turned much more nasty.
“I’m a regular cyclist and you see this kind of thing on YouTube a lot but it’s left me completely shaken and whenever a car comes up behind me now I get nervous,” he added.
The motorist is said to have grabbed the neck of another cyclist, 19-year-old Tom Keech, who was taking photographs on his smartphone.
“He saw me with my phone so I ran but then I got pushed up against a phone box,” said Mr Keech, who added that the incident left him “in a state of shock.”
He managed to hold on to his phone and the motorist then drove off with his passengers.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told the Standard: “We attended the scene where it is alleged that two males who had been in a vehicle became involved in a dispute with a male cyclist.
“A phone belonging to the cyclist was thrown to the ground and smashed.
“Officers from Wandsworth are investigating, at this stage there have been no arrests.”
Priory Lane was the scene last year of an episode captured on a helmet camera and posted to YouTube in which coffee shop owner Jason Wells, who was driving a 4x4 launched a foul-mouthed tirade at a bike rider after clipping him with his vehicle's wing mirror.
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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27 comments
This stretch of road is really 'kin dangerous. The council should do something about it can't we riders get a petition together??
If you ride on the so-called 'cycle path' you are at risk of getting T-Boned multiple times by traffic coming out of the many residential drives, businesses and side roads that cross the path along its whole length. It is nothing more than a widened bit of pavement which has made the road even narrower!!
If you ride on the road you get bastards like this harassing you so you cant win and it is bloody dangerous.
Unfortunatley I have to ride on it twice a day every day during the week. It is a massive detour to go any other way so I just have to grit my teeth and bear it.
I have had people shout at me "Get off the road, Why dont you use the cycle path!!" but for the reasons outlined above the road is marginally safer.
This sounds like a particularly nasty case and I feel very sorry for the people involved. I hope they catch the bastards and throw the book at them!!
??**Criminal damage, Wilful destruction of property, Dangerous driving, Driving UTI?**??
@brooksby - it is still alledged as it's not yet been proven in court, innocent until proven guilty, etc.
The BMW driver should be made to read this. It will confirm his worst suspicions and hopefully make him explode with fury...
https://medium.com/@kellycatchpole/i-am-a-cyclist-and-i-am-here-to-fuck-...
I don't see how the Met can "allege" that the incident happened. Clearly it did happen, given the number of witnesses and the unlikelihood of someone stamping on their own phone.
The only fuzzy bit, that's open to interpretation, is the background and/or possible justification... And for that they really need to speak to Mr BMW, so shouldn't tracking them down be the priority?
has anybody got the non blurred out photos to post here and or links to social media so we can all share and shame like they did with the previous one?
Blimey ! it seems like another life time ago I used to train round a quiet Richmond park with a small group including a local Pro, never any issues.
Well! I suppose it was about 30 years ago, don't know how you guys do it nowadays ?
We do it in HUGE groups. We speed through the park killing deer and small children yet at the same time we go so slowly that we cause holdups and traffic congestion.
We wear pink hi vis that costs £1000 from Rapha yet no-one can see us in it unless we're actually breaking a law in which case we become visible to everyone within half a mile.
When we use the cycle paths, pedestrians are terrified and scream at us to get on the road. When we use the road, drivers are intimidated and scream at us to get on the cycle path.
None of us pay any taxes or contribute anything to the economy yet we still manage to spend £20 each in the various cafes on the route every single ride.
As a result the poor innocent hard-done-by motorist has a duty to run us off the road at every opportunity. Occasionally a motorist will do this a bit too enthusiastically and be fined £35. A cyclist trying to escape from such a motorist will be fined £200 for every red light they jump.
It's great, you should try it!
Isn't the same place that Mr tiny cock of brew wells had a melt down as well
edit, yeah should have read the story to the end
Yes its the same stretch of road!
Love it when the media always focus on the 'BMW' driver.
I'm a cyclist and BMW driver and I'm a very, very nice person.
No, really...
Likwise.
Ditto.
Me too and everyone knows i'm ace!!!
Feel your pain
Cyclist and audist
I'll see that and raise it, cyclist, audi driver and a cop. There's no way I'm going to win not with this lot !!!!!
The Met Police seem to be very slack dealing with this assault.
Priory lane is fairly narrow and should be just a residential road, but gets used as a rat run to avoid Roehampton lane. It's busy with cyclists going to/from Richmond park, and the rat runners get annoyed as they can't overtake the cyclists due to the numbers of cars. You often get really bad overtakes along here and plenty of speeding.
Like how the Evening Standard has blurred out the faces in the photos, but left the BMW personalised number plate visible in the second photo.
Of course they are! The victims of the assault were in bicycles. As such, they simply don't matter to the cops.
Standard.
I think you'll find the police have their hands full arresting cyclists who frighten their horses.
I see the evening standard are doing their best to help identify the people involved by blurring out their faces! WTF
Show us who these w@nkers are and let them be shamed.
So, were the cyclists wearing helmets and hi-viz?
Must have been, otherwise the driver would have hit them without noticing, driven off, and later been judged to have been completely blameless
Meanwhile in the real world, cyclists are fined £hundreds for jumping red lights, killers of cyclists are fined £80, Nick Asad sends vigilantes out but the police are only interested in key snatchers but not in young attempted thugs with baseball bats.
File this under 'cyclist provoked him'
Cheap magnetic trackers would be great. Cyclists could carry one around and if some dipstick road rages on them they could tag the pram before it drives off. Track it on your mobile.
Awesome idea - Dimension Data had small saddle-mount GPS tags for the TDF bikes this year and they weren't too big, either. Just need to know if there's an app for that...
Looked the concept up earlier and the tech isn't there yet. Well it is but super pricey. Over 200 quid to get started and pretty bulky. No-one would do it.
There is another way. You would have to use long range RF chips to tag cars, pretty cheap, but to find them you would need to create a network. Best way of course is to get all cyclists to download an app. The app would be able to use your phone's wifi to find any RF chip that was in it's range once reported.
Would be a bit like playing Pokemon Go, but catching dodgy drivers instead. Simple and not expensive, but to work you'd need huge participation as wifi range isn't amazing.
Pipe-dream sadly!
Tech for the latter is here already - Tile Kickstartered it a couple of years ago. Relies on mesh network of Tile users to work, would probably be usable in London and other big cities.
Interesting! Going to check that out when I'm back today. See if they could adapt it to the UK. If they have an app developed already then a trial in somewhere like London would be perfect.