Monday 26 October 2009

‘a terrifying bike rage attack in Cambridge’

"She was going to turn left but had to stop to give way to other cars when she heard a loud bang. A cyclist had deliberately rammed his bike into her car causing damage. She looked in her mirror and saw the cyclist speed off back along Garlic Row. He was angry because he had to stop and cycle around her car."

Or was the cyclist angry because he’d been cut up by a driver who overtook, turned left in front of him, then braked? Was the collision deliberate? To me it’s not credible that anyone on a bicycle would deliberately ram a vehicle, for the obvious reason that the cyclist is likely to come off worst. An inflated bicycle tyre is not exactly the weapon of choice against a ton of reinforced steel.

It sounds to me like a classic instance of the sort of bad driving which cyclists have to put up with all the time. The cyclist crashed into the car through no fault of his own, the car suffered a small dent and a scratch, and the cyclist didn't bother to hang around to engage in a pointless argument with an aggrieved motorist.

And now

police will take to the city streets to crack down on anti-social cyclists.

anti-social cyclists flouting the law will get a £30 fine

Last year, hundreds of fines were issued.

Joining officers on Wednesday night, will be a film crew from ITV1's Tonight show who are shooting a documentary on bike rage.

Isn’t that marvellous. Prime time telly watched by millions, with innocent motorists sobbing their little hearts out at the terrifying experiences they’ve suffered at the hands of those vicious, brutal, dangerously out of control cyclists.