People who attack cyclists

BBC Radio presenter JoAnne Good loathes cyclists and the BBC gives her a daily radio slot to pour out her venom. Jeremy Clarkson has warned cyclists in a column: "Do not cruise through red lights. Because if I'm coming the other way, I will run you down, for fun.". Times journalist Matthew Parris chuckled that "A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists".

So I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that some people attack cyclists:

Police are appealing for witnesses after a cyclist was hit in the face by a tangerine thrown from a passing car in Oxford. At 4.40pm yesterday, the man was cycling along the cycle track next to the Northern Bypass towards Marston, just past the Cherwell Bridge when he was hit by a tangerine. He was taken to hospital where he has been kept in for treatment to serious bruising to his left eye, swelling and bleeding from the iris.

PC Chris Reilly, of Cowley police station, said: “This may not seem too serious an incident, but the piece of fruit was travelling at high speed and it has left the cyclist in a lot of pain. "It hurt him so much he first thought he had been hit by a brick. “This may have been unintentional, but I am concerned it was not: the rider was wearing a reflective jacket and lights and would have been easy to see.

Elsewhere

A male cyclist had a bottle thrown at him by a passing car, at around 11.30am.

And

A BLACK man cycling on a road in Taunton was subjected to a volley of racist remarks and then attacked by a gang of young people, Taunton Crown Court heard.

A cyclist and black. Well that's just provoking people, innit? (Nobby Petrolhead, member of the Association of British Drivers and supporter of Safe Speed)