Cyclist hit 15 times with hammer by driver…for riding too slow up a hill

From my experience recently it seems like a greater spectrum of drivers are becoming less tolerant (as opposed to the stereotypical accusations levelled at gary boys and bmw/audi drivers)

Was part of an incident some months ago where a pensioner in a 4×4 deliberately tried to run us off the road (ended up in court).

Been a number of deaths round here (Bolton/Chorley/Preston) recently.

Gets to the point where we sometimes end up choosing MTB rides over road rides just because the earache from drivers just isnt worth the hassle.

Absolutely disgraceful. The cynt should have been banged up for attempted murder. Silly little chavy scumbag tw*t!

in these situations it normally only takes one person to break lines with the observers for others to also step in and help.

it is true the inaction of all those standing by persuades others it is the correct action. If one person intervenes others almost always will as well.
bearing in mind they have a hammer I would shout from a distance first and hope other folk joined it.

If this failed I would simply disarm them and use the hammer to subdue them some more or run away

From the sussex police web site.

Man charged after Worthing road rage incident
08 September 2011
A man arrested after an apparent road rage incident in Worthing has been charged with attemped grevious bodily harm

The incident happened in Gratwicke Road at about 4.14pm on Wednesday 7 September when a 60-year old local man cycling in the road was in collision with a Vauxhall Nova saloon. A dispute followed, during which the driver of the Nova allegedly went to the boot of hs car, took out a hammer and struck the cyclist on the head with it.

The assailant drove off and the cyclist was treated at Worthing Hospital for cuts to his head but was later discharged. A man was arrested on suspicion of the assault at 6.30pm on the same day

Samuel Brownson, 20, of Ambersham Crescent,[/u] East Preston, has been charged with attempting to cause grevious bodily harm to the cyclist and has been released on police bail to appear at Worthing Magistrates Court on Tuesday 20 September.

it is getting worse, I wasn’t going to mention this on here, but yesterday after a running argument for a few hundred yards a woman delibrately swerved into me. I avoided any contact, but as she’d already forced up the inside of me i was pretty close to oncoming traffic anyway. very scary.

for context, she believed I’d ‘stolen’ her space in a queue for a roundabout, after I rode up the outside of said queue. 10 yards after the roundabout traffic was at a crawl again. crazy

Samuel Brownson, 20, of Ambersham Crescent,

Anybody fancy a road trip?

If this failed I would simply disarm them and use the hammer to subdue them some more or run away

simply eh? I wouldn’t have a clue how to disarm someone with a weapon, could you share some tips? I’d hope to distract them long enough from a safe distance for the other guy to get away/help.

hmmm i might walk over to lidl car park tonight where the under 20’s sit in there shit little big exhaust metal boxes reving there engines at 12 oclock at night & smash the living shit out of em with a hammer. lets see what sort of report i get. i bet it will be a totally different story

Samuel Brownson, 20, of Ambersham Crescent, East Preston

Looks like a very nice street. Was expecting a lot worse.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Ambersham+Crescent,+East+Preston,&hl=en&ll=50.817758,-0.483098&spn=0.000027,0.019205&safe=active&gl=uk&t=m&z=16&vpsrc=0&layer=c&cbll=50.817881,-0.483132&panoid=tEWyEdszQdR_dq0cgV3IWQ&cbp=12,162.96,,0,17.77

*sniggers* That estate agent’s board says Butt */sniggers*

in these situations it normally only takes one person to break lines with the observers for others to also step in and help.

it is true the inaction of all those standing by persuades others it is the correct action. If one person intervenes others almost always will as well.
bearing in mind they have a hammer I would shout from a distance first and hope other folk joined it.

If this failed I would simply disarm them and use the hammer to subdue them some more or run away

It was probably all over very quickly though. I suspect by the time what’s happening has properly sunk in and people start to think about what they should do it’s pretty much all over in these situations.

How is hitting someone 15 times with a hammer “attempted grevious bodily harm”

because the victim wasn’t that badly injured.

GBH is far worse than ABH so they’re going with that to start with.

Gratwicke road is 1 way with ever so slight downhill to flat .. but in the ‘legal’ direction of travel would of been a funnel for the SW coastal gales the last few days. Tennyson northbound has a ever-so-slight uphill gradient (1 in 40 maybe)but if he was ‘climbing’ that he’d have had wind assistance for sure.

Driver was just looking for someone to vent anger on from previous something or over and found himself a punchbag on wheels.

As far as East Preston goes (there’s a gated community on the coastline) that street’s not that nice!

Something (other than the obvious), isn’t right here.

How can a twenty year old man hit an (unhelmeted) sixty year old with a hammer 15 times and only lightly injure him?

Is he like that bloke we saw a video of a month back who got out of his car and threw the wendiest punch ever at a cyclist?

Slightly related to this. Worthing council are currently pushing through a 20’s plenty campaign, a voluntary 20 mph limit on all non-arterial roads in the town to encourage walking & cycling.

“No cameras, no speed humps, just the people of Worthing agreeing to make their town a safer, more pleasant place for everyone.”

Nice idea, but it’s pie in the sky. Most drivers just don’t give a toss about other road users.

grahamb – [rant] I like the fact that one of (the only trial area I’ve noticed) is the Dome/Pier roundabout and 100 yards either side where you pretty much have to go 20 because you’re either slowing down for, speeding up from, or in traffic around the roundabout!

The signs are different from standard speed limit (standard red circle but set into a larger rectangular white background) signs and set so far back from the road they’r barely noticeable

How is that an in depth trial?
[/rant]

Imabigkidnow – lol, i hadn’t even noticed that. That’s a totally useless place for a 20 limit as far as cyclists are concerned. Most would be riding along the seafront path.

My Sister hit me round the head with a claw hammer when i was 6 .
Still, I put my Bro in hospital by pushing him down a flight of stone steps …..He was 6 at the time.

If my head was hard enough to take 15 hammer blows without serious injury, I wouldn’t bother wearing a helmet either!

Madness!

A couple of us got beeped on a country lane at 7.30 pm on a weds night by a Learner driver on a lesson. I do hope she wasn’t told to.

Hyasynth Bucket wasn’t in the passenger seat was she?

Wow… I would say I’m stunned by this article… however it appears there some crap like this being shoved in our face every day by the media.

I am surprised that this guy has been let out on bail… if attacking another human being with a hammer because he was in your way isn’t a good enough example of being a danger to society… I don’t know what is.

It just calls to the blood for a more old fashioned form of justice.

grahamb – and the pedestrian crossings within 20 yards either side of the roundabout also do a good job of controling speed .. you’re entirely correct about the riding along the prom .. that’s the way I pass it.

as for the other car horn comment from someone else
here’s the highway code:

The horn. Use only while your vehicle is moving and you need to warn other road users of your presence. Never sound your horn aggressively.

Problem is that it’s so predominantly used aggressively that when someone does it out of politeness it’s misinterpreted though maybe that learner driver just panicked and hit a horn while reaching for the indicator. So many people just panic when they reach something slower than themselves on single carriageways

It’s like flashing of lights.

The technical use for flashing of lights is to warn other drivers that you’re coming through.

The common useage is to ‘wave someone on’.

Be warned if your driving in Kuwait or The Lebanon as the common useage there is ‘I’m not stopping / I’m coming through’.

A couple of us got beeped on a country lane at 7.30 pm on a weds night by a Learner driver on a lesson. I do hope she wasn’t told to.

I was once coming round a completely blind corner on a singletrack country lane with high hedges on both sides, so I beeped to let any oncoming road users know I was there. There was a big group of cyclists round the corner who assumed I was beeping at them, then proceeded to give me the Vs and shout abuse at me.

Just goes to prove that poor road skills / lack of road awareness are not the preserve of car drivers.