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news
Driver throws glass bottle at cyclist (via Twitter - Jeremy Vine)Jeremy Vine posts video of motorist hurling glass bottle at cyclist… and is accused of ‘bias’ against drivers
Jeremy Vine has been accused of ‘bias’ after the Radio 2 presenter posted a video on his Twitter account which showed a private hire taxi driver throwing a glass bottle at a cyclist following an altercation.
In the video, which was shot yesterday, a cyclist can be seen arguing with a driver while the pair are stopped at traffic lights. Though the initial cause of the confrontation is unclear, the motorist appears to have opened his car door to speak to the bike rider.
The cyclist then hits the car’s side window, shutting the door in the process. He smacks the window a second time before remounting his bike, at which point the motorist emerges from his car and immediately hurls a glass bottle, which smashes underneath the cyclist’s wheels as he rides away.
Following the incident, Vine rides across to tell the driver he “can’t do that”. When questioned by the presenter about what happened, the motorist is heard to reply: “he pushed my car”. Vine replied that “you can’t throw glass at someone”, before riding off.
Today's madness — right in front of me, a cyclist smacks a car window and then the driver gets out and throws a glass bottle at him. pic.twitter.com/n1z2W1TRHF
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) January 31, 2022
The broadcaster, who regularly posts videos of his London commute on Twitter, has been heavily criticised for sharing the footage, which one account claimed presented “a biased view without full facts”.
Bizarrely many of the replies under Vine’s tweet actually defended the driver’s reaction, and accused the presenter of ignoring any potential wrongdoing by the cyclist.
Chrissie Jones wrote: “What about the fact that the cyclist goes through a red light putting a number of people in danger? What about the fact that he shouldn't antagonise the situation by banging on the window in the first place? It's never the cyclist in your book Jeremy!”
One account, connected to a courier firm, replied: “You only react when the driver does something, which pretty much says you’re ok with a cyclist banging a car window?”
“Don't have much sympathy for the cyclist,” another user said. “Aggressively banging on windows isn't great and will just aggravate any situation, as will running a red light. Driver wrong to throw bottle but (mainly middle class) cyclists need to remember that the roads aren't nice places to be.”
> Jeremy Vine films motorist driving down Hyde Park cycle path
Elinor also said: “It's not clear what preceded this, but the cyclist isn't completely without fault here: that was a rather aggressive window bang. It didn't deserve a bottle thrown in retaliation, but it was always going to illicit some kind of reaction.”
One user was even blunter, responding: “What’s he expect? Driver to just ignore him smashing his car? Cyclist is the one that’s mad.”
Staggeringly, another account even appeared to doubt the veracity of Vine’s regular videos, replying: “You seem to film something against cyclists every day, are you sure you’re not just staging these incidents?”
Others, of course, were quick to jump to Vine’s and the cyclist’s defence. Lindsey wrote: “The replies to this are astounding. Does anyone REALLY believe someone would slap a car window for no good reason? The driver bias is ridiculous,” while another user said that there was a “surprising number of people who consider that there are many scenarios where aggressively throwing bottles at people is perfectly acceptable behaviour!”
Some also linked yesterday’s incident to the mainstream media’s controversial coverage of the Highway Code updates, which came into place over the weekend.
Welcome to the hostile environment created by the media over the last week.
This is on you. #HighwayCode https://t.co/0UZfACgiWx
— CyclingInASkirt (@CyclingInASkirt) January 31, 2022
I just literally cycled there where Jeremy films it this morning... That's what feeding motorists with hatred against cyclists ends up with. https://t.co/z3u8sZqQih
— Łukasz M Sielski 🚴♂️🚶♂️🚌🚕 better than 🚘 (@sielay) February 1, 2022
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
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Radar tells me their closing speed, if they are slowing and how far away. Then I decide to say a prayer. The change of light pattern is incidental.
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Quite so, which is why our village 20mph zone covers the whole residential extent. Of course, enforcement is another thing..
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No, that's very doubtful while proper testing would be fully destructive.
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In that £1000 exactly scenario, beginners should probably be made aware that pedals will be extra.
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The relatives might of course disagree, but in general I'd countenance a relatively light sentence* if only we could fix it so that those who...
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67 comments
How does JV get camera shots that look down on his helmet?
you can't send those photos to people you know.
You most certainly can!
and definitely not to people you don't know
He has a 360 deg camera (sorry andystow for wrong use of deg and spacing). You can also see this used in the Winter Walks series on iplayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001226k/winter-walks-series-2-1-a...
You mean a 4π steradian camera, surely?
I believe he has an Insta360 ONE X2 camera mounted on his headwear.
Correct:
https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1473360326531989511
The Punctures! Unnecessary.
With feckin' psychopaths slinging bottles at you, it's kind of difficult to forget!
All the NMotDs have had no effect on passing like this, so anyone with a high profile displaying the problems of cyclists is doing us a favour. The police, with a few honourable exceptions, are going to do nothing for us until we are seriously injured or killed- and not much even then. Passing like this continues because the police have moved on from completely ignoring reports to joke non-penalty penalties, and still refuse to deploy proper punishment. We really are up the creek at the moment, with no end in sight to anti-cyclist driving! This is VW Tiguan PF19 TEO
You touched the glass window on my car and left a handprint - it's my right as a motorist to assault you with a weapon and potentially seriously injure you.
FFS.
The country that the hire car driver emigrated from probably allows such behaviour..
That's pretty presumptuous.
Casual racism - you must be Australian
It's the criminals we exported out you wanna watch out for. Them and their descendants spewing bile.
I can't help thinking that Vine doesn't help the cause sometimes. Not because he is wrong, he isn't, but as much because he creates so much anger, in both sides, posting this stuff, to the point that some drivers are expecting aggro when they see a bike, and therefore it almost creates anger, before drivers or cyclists have had a chance to do anything wrong.
I'm not sure Vine adds anything to understanding on the roads. I think the 'close pass of the day' feature on here at least has a chance of showing drivers what it feels like to be a rider on UK roads. I don't think much of what Vine posts does that, I think it is mostly just a catalogue of anger on our streets.
It's an interesting point. It could be that those so vehemently against were already and won't change - and perhaps they don't do their cause any good. JV is after all largely good-natured, and (IMO admittedly) comes off looking better than they.
I'm not sure Vine adds anything to understanding on the roads. I think the 'close pass of the day' feature on here at least has a chance of showing drivers what it feels like to be a rider on UK roads
I don't agree with this! The landmark NMotD 700 shows that the item is having no effect, and we all know that from personal experience. You appear to be a classic Uncle Tom: don't upset those drivers, they might not be nice to us in future!
I'm not sure Vine adds anything to understanding on the roads. I think the 'close pass of the day' feature on here at least has a chance of showing drivers what it feels like to be a rider on UK roads. I don't think much of what Vine posts does that, I think it is mostly just a catalogue of anger on our streets.
[/quote]
Vines reach far outstrips anything that pretty much any cycling media can hope for. I very much doubt if anyone not regularly on a bike comes to look at "close pass of the day". His raising awareness of idiotic behaviour is OK in my mind.
There isn't really a "cause" as such, but just people wanting to not get hurt or killed just by cycling around on the roads.
I don't think you can blame Jeremy for causing anger except for the motorists that he catches on video and they shouldn't be getting angry, but apologetic at their own behaviour. As for other motorists getting angry - they're mis-directing their own frustrations with over-congested roads at cyclists which is obviously ridiculous as cyclists reduce congestion.
The bigger problem is that certain media outlets promote cyclist hate with complete falsehoods and seem to do their utmost to denigrate cyclists as an out-group when in reality people are often switching between walking, cycling and driving.
Vine might end up getting some people to look up traffic laws and have a deeper understanding of roadcraft, but I'd agree that he's probably focussing on publicity and venting some of his anger with the poor driving he encounters. I think it's worthwhile and hope he continues although I don't follow him - I just see some of the stuff posted on here.
The close pass of the day daily feature is rather pointless though. Drivers (not including those who also cycle) don't exactly flock to Road CC and any that do aren't likely to watch these videos. I also don't understand Road CC's approach. A campaign needs to have aims - achievable ones. Road CC's seem to focus on providing content for the website. Fine as far as it goes, but hardly meaningful.
It's not a campaign, it's a 'feature' - it says so on every NMotD article. Road.cc isn't a campaigning organisation - it's a media organisation. You could argue that all of its output is 'hardly meaningful' in those terms.
"You seem to film something against cyclists every day, are you sure your not just staging these incidents."
Where's that ascii face palm when you need it ?
(-_Q) or Q-/ apparently.
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Who routinely carries a glass bottle with them. Did the taxi driver go 'equipped' in expectation of such an incident?
Nah, purely cooincidental. Sometimes y'just need a little nip of JD to pep you up.....
Just be glad it's not Florida https://news.sky.com/video/man-shoots-own-windows-out-11-times-in-road-r...
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