Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2006 22:10:56 GMT
On the 31st July, I was involved in a road accident that was followed up by a road rage incident that I am still recovering from.
I was riding from Blackfriars Road (at the Elephant & Castle) and into St Georges Circus when a driver of a Silver Peugeot 206 started shouting and swearing at me for reasons I still cannot fully work out. Coming off the roundabout, I managed to get past this vehicle. So as I began pedalling up London Road, the driver come up quickly on right hand side and then purposely veered in front of me, nearly knocking me into the kerb. I managed to not fall over, but clipped his wing mirror with my front handle bar as went past. Nothing was broken, the mirror still worked. I even reset it to the normal position and tried to apologise. However, the driver continued shouting abusively and I knew I needed to get out of there - quickly. Because there were railings on the pavement, I could not get out of the road without putting myself in harm’s way again.
So, after I slipped passed the vehicle, I tried to pedal as hard as I could to get to a point where I could get out of the road and into a safe position, but I was never going to outrun a car. So the car again comes up on my right side quickly. Again the car swerves sharply into me and I crash into his car, this time my handle bar tore off his wing mirror. I then fall to the ground in a heap in front of the car. The driver gets out of the car takes my bike and slams my bike in the road a few times before starting to jump on it. He then threw it back at me as I getting over the fence on the pavement. He hurdled the fence and starting trying to punch and kick me. I parried his assaults with the bike before I fell down because I was in slippery cycling shoes. When I was down on the ground he kicked me a few times before he reached over and tore my helmet off. He then started flailing it at me because I was still using the bike to parry him off from the ground.
Finally, I got angry and realised I better get off the ground before he really does something serious. Somehow I was able to regain my feet and manage to leverage him against the building, before grabbing him by the throat and using my front bike wheel as a negotiation tool pinned between his legs, but not pinching - much. At this point he began to back off.
Eventually the police came.
They took statements, which all corroborated the story above. The driver admitted assaulting me, but they did not arrest him because he claimed that I sprayed water onto his car and his ramming me was his reaction. I asked who has time to spray water on a car while riding their bike through the Elephant & Castle?
Anyway the police told me if I pressed assault charges, he would press counter assault charges for spraying water on his car and for taking his wing mirror off and they’d arrest me too. I am sure they recognised that I was in shock and not thinking clearly so they police threatened me with this so they would not have to make an arrest because they were lazy, or trying to avoid paper-work. On top of that, the driver had a baby in the car and they told me the baby was ‘disturbed’.
The result of this is there is another driver out there who thinks it is okay to turn his car into a lethal weapon destroy other people’s property (in this case a £1500 bike) and injure someone enough to put them out of work for a week and get away with. After seeking legal advice there is absolutely nothing I can do to recover the money for the bike or the wages because the police did not even file a report. Nor am I able to press assault charges again because the police did not even file a report.
I am very angry. I am furious in fact. I no longer feel safe to ride my bike to work, I have been in pain for a fortnight and I have had to buy a new bicycle. So what I intend to do is write to the mayor the Mayor, Transport for London and Metropolitan Police to ask what they are actually doing to protect vulnerable road users using my case above as an example. Additionally I plan to contact BBC London, the Evening Standard and the various cycling organisations to see how much publicity can be generated to exert pressure on the government to protect cyclists.
However one voice can be easily ignored, so I also will be circulating a sign up that I hope everyone in the club would be willing to not only sign but circulate to other cyclists so that together we make difference for all our road safety.
Email me at andy@broadberry.demon.co.uk if you are interested in helping out.
Also – if some of you don’t recognise the name, I am the large-ish (okay fat) American who used to ride a Celeste Bianchi. The Bianchi is silver and I hope to be to show it off next week or the week after, depending on when I am able to ride again.
I was riding from Blackfriars Road (at the Elephant & Castle) and into St Georges Circus when a driver of a Silver Peugeot 206 started shouting and swearing at me for reasons I still cannot fully work out. Coming off the roundabout, I managed to get past this vehicle. So as I began pedalling up London Road, the driver come up quickly on right hand side and then purposely veered in front of me, nearly knocking me into the kerb. I managed to not fall over, but clipped his wing mirror with my front handle bar as went past. Nothing was broken, the mirror still worked. I even reset it to the normal position and tried to apologise. However, the driver continued shouting abusively and I knew I needed to get out of there - quickly. Because there were railings on the pavement, I could not get out of the road without putting myself in harm’s way again.
So, after I slipped passed the vehicle, I tried to pedal as hard as I could to get to a point where I could get out of the road and into a safe position, but I was never going to outrun a car. So the car again comes up on my right side quickly. Again the car swerves sharply into me and I crash into his car, this time my handle bar tore off his wing mirror. I then fall to the ground in a heap in front of the car. The driver gets out of the car takes my bike and slams my bike in the road a few times before starting to jump on it. He then threw it back at me as I getting over the fence on the pavement. He hurdled the fence and starting trying to punch and kick me. I parried his assaults with the bike before I fell down because I was in slippery cycling shoes. When I was down on the ground he kicked me a few times before he reached over and tore my helmet off. He then started flailing it at me because I was still using the bike to parry him off from the ground.
Finally, I got angry and realised I better get off the ground before he really does something serious. Somehow I was able to regain my feet and manage to leverage him against the building, before grabbing him by the throat and using my front bike wheel as a negotiation tool pinned between his legs, but not pinching - much. At this point he began to back off.
Eventually the police came.
They took statements, which all corroborated the story above. The driver admitted assaulting me, but they did not arrest him because he claimed that I sprayed water onto his car and his ramming me was his reaction. I asked who has time to spray water on a car while riding their bike through the Elephant & Castle?
Anyway the police told me if I pressed assault charges, he would press counter assault charges for spraying water on his car and for taking his wing mirror off and they’d arrest me too. I am sure they recognised that I was in shock and not thinking clearly so they police threatened me with this so they would not have to make an arrest because they were lazy, or trying to avoid paper-work. On top of that, the driver had a baby in the car and they told me the baby was ‘disturbed’.
The result of this is there is another driver out there who thinks it is okay to turn his car into a lethal weapon destroy other people’s property (in this case a £1500 bike) and injure someone enough to put them out of work for a week and get away with. After seeking legal advice there is absolutely nothing I can do to recover the money for the bike or the wages because the police did not even file a report. Nor am I able to press assault charges again because the police did not even file a report.
I am very angry. I am furious in fact. I no longer feel safe to ride my bike to work, I have been in pain for a fortnight and I have had to buy a new bicycle. So what I intend to do is write to the mayor the Mayor, Transport for London and Metropolitan Police to ask what they are actually doing to protect vulnerable road users using my case above as an example. Additionally I plan to contact BBC London, the Evening Standard and the various cycling organisations to see how much publicity can be generated to exert pressure on the government to protect cyclists.
However one voice can be easily ignored, so I also will be circulating a sign up that I hope everyone in the club would be willing to not only sign but circulate to other cyclists so that together we make difference for all our road safety.
Email me at andy@broadberry.demon.co.uk if you are interested in helping out.
Also – if some of you don’t recognise the name, I am the large-ish (okay fat) American who used to ride a Celeste Bianchi. The Bianchi is silver and I hope to be to show it off next week or the week after, depending on when I am able to ride again.
