The comments from drivers are just as bad..how long before these people are educated?
nice click bait not sure I want to be in the know 😉
Not klickbait..
[url=
better[/url]
your link just takes you to a facebook group to join, may be different for you as you're already a member, but for anyone else it's click bait. Nope still click bait
Ah ok.yes im a member..apologies Im not internet-abled...I have other qualities..
Still baiting
I was baited in by that title. Probably some phishing scam so I'm not clicking on that link.
Is it a van over taking a cyclist.. Then deliberately turning in on him to push him onto a verge
Yes thats the one...
[url= https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1882114922032410&id=1527381920839047 ]this[/url]
getting some flak on their [url=
page[/url]
As some are commenting on their, forget reporting that driver to his company, it needs reporting to the police. The police then need to charge him with assault rather than simply dangerous driving.
Not surprising, since plenty of tradesmen are thick, aggressive and have little patience.
[i]Is it a van over taking a cyclist.. Then deliberately turning in on him to push him onto a verge[/i]
Spoiler. Don't need to watch now. Or read the comments of the Facebookk moron crowd
Seen this before. I'm sure there will be all kinds of comments about the cyclist's position in the road, and he may well have been partly doing it out of anger and frustration, but he was perfectly entitled to defend his position the way he did.
It's terrible that it even has to be argued though, in what is a blatant attempt at assault with a deadly weapon. Some people are calling for a ban on the driver. I think that is the very least that should happen. A prison sentence wouldn't be unwarranted. There is no excuse for driving like that, regardless of what they think the cyclist should be doing. Stuff like this needs to be dealt with properly. It's a miracle no one was hurt.
I've seen prison sentences for less bad examples of dangerous driving.
Good luck, I tried reporting something as bad to the police six weeks ago still no response.
I'm not sure we even have any police anymore, some ****s keep voting Tory and the budgets get cut.
[quote=thegreatape ]I've seen prison sentences for less bad examples of dangerous driving.
any that involved cyclists? (as the victim rather than the perpetrator)
No, although if that ^ was dealt with by our Sheriff I would expect that driver to get one as well. But he is particularly intolerant of behaviour like that.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this one. With a few of these you think that the driver was careless and got caught out. But this was incredible and as scary as it gets. Its an attack, nothing accidental.
They are also clearly media savvy as they have a twitter feed full of the usual platitudes but they are just fuelling the fire.
It's never going to happen, but part of me wishes the DSA would go through all those comments and suspend the licence of all those who blame the cyclist/defend the driver until they've had some sort of intensive empathy training.
wilburt - Member
Good luck, I tried reporting something as bad to the police six weeks ago still no response.
I reported something similar to my local police and had a response the same day but it said without camera footage or a police witness they could do nothing.
That incident plus being deliberately run off the road by a sainsbury's hgv (which luckily only resulted in a smashed mirror) made me buy a dashcam.
I take that back. They have now gone into full lock down mode and have closed their twitter and Facebook accounts. It's difficult to know if that works nowadays as what they have done is closed off their channels for responding sensibly.They are also clearly media savvy as they have a twitter feed full of the usual platitudes but they are just fuelling the fire.
It's not going to prevent the discussion or their name being used anywhere. Trial by internet isn't funny but is unavoidable at the moment. This stuff is good to watch in case a similar thing happens that you have to deal with at your company but I'm not convinced that trying to hide works.
I did message the company last night with a link to the video asking what it's all about. Their response was that the driver has been dealt with accordingly...whatever that means.
I really struggle to keep my calm when reading the comnents of the motorists saying things like ' "should of killed him ( the cyclist), I'd have run him over, death to cyclists, I'd have stopped the van and beaten the shit out of him....
It doesn't seem to matter how many times you try and explain the cyclists position on the road in the eyes of the MAJORITY of motorists we, as cyclists, are scum.
As said above, the police should go through every 'cyclist hate comment' and force a refresher course on the drivers.
The police need to investigate and prosecute this. The company will have just told him off. If they had done the right thing and suspended the worker before passing the matter on to the police they wouldn't have closed their Facebook and twitter accounts as they could have said something to that effect on twitter.
Any idea if anyone officially reported this to the police?
While typically, the victim is required to make a complaint to the police, am I right in thinking that if they choose to, the police can pursue something like this on their own?
If it happened where I, I'd imagine it would be drug and alcohol test, dismissed for gross misconduct and then information passed to the police.
It had been retweeted to a couple of police twitter accounts before their account was closed.Any idea if anyone officially reported this to the police?
edit: and I now see one reason why you shouldn't close regular channels. People have taken to the company Google review page to vent. I'm sure they can get that cleaned up in the end but it's going to be way more difficult that just deleting a bunch of posts once this has quietened down.
Why do so many people think it's ok to vent at the company in these situations ?
There are probably lots of other people who depend on that company for their livelihoods, ruining the company image due to actions of one person is rediculous.
Pass judgement on that individual by all means, but give the company chance to deal with it first before bad mouthing them all over the place.
that's awesome driving.
Not surprising, since plenty of tradesmen are thick, aggressive and have little patience.easy now, that's like saying all white collars are liberals.
you are right but the problem here is that the company have closed the standard ways of communicating so it is now spilling over. When driving a company van you are the company and the company has to respond. U don't think anyone thinks Its the companies fault or that they condone itPass judgement on that individual by all means, but give the company chance to deal with it first before bad mouthing them all over the place.
Pass judgement on that individual by all means, but give the company chance to deal with it first before bad mouthing them all over the place.
But all they've said is "we've dealt with it" and closed all their social media accounts.
If they said "he's been sacked and we reported it to the police" then that would be different.
had been retweeted to a couple of police twitter accounts before their account was closed.
Yep, with the Met saying it was a Sussex area and Sussex police saying it was in a Met area.
hile typically, the victim is required to make a complaint to the police, am I right in thinking that if they choose to, the police can pursue something like this on their own
I think so. Obviously a case is easier to prosecute with the support of the victim, but it's "the crown vs the alleged offender" not "the victim vs the offender"
I don't for one miute think a companies reputation should be bought down by the actions of one man. I don't think Vidette have done themselves any favours by not responding.
Seems like a knee jerk reaction from the company to close twitter etc, and interesting to see how people have moved to google in response to that.
I'm not surprised the company have not said what is being done - that is there business; and whatever they decided to do there would be someone that didn't think it was a strong enough response.
I've found that I'm experiencing more and more angry behavior from car drivers, and after seeing this, I'm going to invest in a camera system for the road bike.
[i]Pass judgement on that individual by all means, but give the company chance to deal with it first before bad mouthing them all over the place.[/i]
But so often one hears the anodyne 'Lessons have been learned'. This time one can hope that lessons really have been learned, and the storm has made its way to director level. Obviously I've no idea of the size of the company involved.
It worked for that taxi co, and the caravan place, didn't it. And I believe it worked in a way that polite complaint would never have.
[quote=LittleNose ]I'm not surprised the company have not said what is being done - that is there business; and whatever they decided to do there would be someone that didn't think it was a strong enough response.
Except that the [b]miniumum[/b] appropriate response in this situation would be to immediately suspend the driver. If they had done so and reported as such on social media that would calm most people. Saying something completely bland and meaningless and closing their accounts is just fuelling it - because the assumption is that the driver hasn't been appropriately disciplined. So there are two alternatives here - either they haven't taken it seriously enough (or even think the driver was justified), or they're completely incompetent at social media. Clearly being incompetent at social media isn't a good reason to attack a company, but until they clear it up plenty of people are going to assume it's actually the former.
Dear Lord 🙄
from the Indy comments about the article.
If you are going to "assert the road" then you should bloody well pay something towards the nuisance you cause. If cyclists had to have some sort of registration then this idiot could have been brought to book rather than getting away with deliberately provocative riding. This was obviously a setup by some lycra clad Nazi out to reinforce the point that all motorists are evil.
They've had to close their accounts or ignore it all as it has gone viral so imagine they can't deal with it as a small company.
You don't need the victim to report that to the police as there is clear CCTV for careless driving and no it is attempted murder like so many people want to think it is FFS!
Sad thing is people lose their jobs and small business end up closing down over something like this depending on how it is dealt with. Never acceptable but people make all kind of poor decisions when under pressures for whatever reason. It certainly doesn't justify a prison sentence!
Except that the miniumum appropriate response in this situation would be to immediately suspend the driver. If they had done so and reported as such on social media that would calm most people. Saying something completely bland and meaningless and closing their accounts is just fuelling it - because the assumption is that the driver hasn't been appropriately disciplined. So there are two alternatives here - either they haven't taken it seriously enough (or even think the driver was justified), or they're completely incompetent at social media. Clearly being incompetent at social media isn't a good reason to attack a company, but until they clear it up plenty of people are going to assume it's actually the former.
Most small/medium sized businesses are shit at social media.
Larger ones usually have some sort of round the clock monitoring from people who have a degree in Marketing so they're (usually) more savvy but social media is a strange tool and certainly Twitter puts the power very firmly in the hands of the complainant rather than the company.
Couple that with the fact that the tweeter is probably just one of the builders or maybe the girl on reception who books the jobs in and takes the phone calls and you can see how easily they'd get overwhelmed by this. Yes, it's a shit response and the driving is nothing short of assault but I'm willing to bet the company themselves didn't even have a social media policy in place.
They've just had time for a basic response to Tweet 1 before it's been retweeted 50 times, picked up by a newspaper, commented on by another several hundred people and then bang, it's national news! Helped of course by the fact that it's the newspapers favourite clickbait: cyclist vs driver, war on the roads. Guaranteed to bring every swivel-eyed loon who really shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised straight to their keyboard.
[quote=Munqe-chick ]You don't need the victim to report that to the police as there is clear CCTV for careless driving and no it is attempted murder like so many people want to think it is FFS!
Sad thing is people lose their jobs and small business end up closing down over something like this depending on how it is dealt with. Never acceptable but people make all kind of poor decisions when under pressures for whatever reason. It certainly doesn't justify a prison sentence!
It is certainly assault, for which you can get a prison sentence - I'm not sure why you think deliberately driving at somebody wouldn't justify that. Is it the driver you think made a poor decision under pressure? Because that was somewhat more than a poor decision.
As for the effect on the company, it's quite simple for them. Sack the driver, reopen their media channels and announce on those (and elsewhere) that they've sacked him. It's going still going to be a bit awkward for them on social media for a while, but they'll get support for doing the right thing and any negative effects will go away. That's the best solution for them, anything else will cause them pain. Given that doesn't appear to be the course they're taking, then either they're really bad at PR, the driver is high up in the company (or has something on the boss), or those high up in the company have similarly bad attitudes to driving.
edit: for crazy-legs' cross post - I'm sure you're right about the way they operate social media in normal times, but it's not terribly difficult - if those in charge don't know what to do with social media then they should find somebody who does (just pick anybody under 25) and follow the course I've outlined above. It's really not rocket surgery finding a way to respond to this - though it is of course dependent on them actually taking the driving incident seriously.
theres no excusing the drivers actions, but that video clip is suspiciously short. I wonder what happened before the final scene....
[img] 
:large[/img]
Getting the sack is a good start, now we just need a meaningful prosecution from the police, CPS and a court of law.
independent have published the incident
