Thursday 18 November 2010

Reflections on the dropping of a fire extinguisher

A man claiming to be a territorial support group officer told the BBC how the metal object narrowly missed him: "It landed right behind me – literally no more than six inches," he said. "I think somebody would have been visiting my wife and children and saying I was either dead or very seriously injured, the height that it was dropped from."

I’m sure any cyclist can relate to that – a moment of sheer visceral terror as a lethal metal object passes by at speed, very very close.

The problem, of course, is that even if you have footage of a driver doing that to you neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service could give a toss. And even when aggressive driving is accompanied by threats to kill the matter gets brushed aside.

The driver in this video was not prosecuted.