Sajid Javid clashed with Jeremy Vine today over a controversial video showing a car passing ‘too close’ to a five-year-old cyclist.
The footage shows a boy cycling along a street in Kingston, south-west London. A car approaches from the other direction and passes without incident, but the parent filming his son from behind criticises the driver for not stopping or slowing.
Vine, a well-known cycling advocate, took to Twitter to slam the motorist for not going ‘dead slow’ and said anyone who disagreed should ‘cut up their driving licence’.
After this sparked a social media row, the journalist tweeted again on Tuesday: ‘Take a look at this video of a five-year-old cycling to school. He’s being recorded by his dad behind. Look at how close this car approaches the child. Who is in the wrong? Is it the five-year old, or is it the driver of the Ford?’
‘The 5-year old’s father,’ Mr Javid, the MP for Bromsgrove and a former Home Secretary, responded today.
A clearly frustrated Vine then tweeted: ‘I mustn’t respond. I mustn’t respond. I mustn’t respond.’
The footage shows a boy cycling along a street in Kingston, south-west London. A car approaches from the other direction and passes without incident, but the parent filming his son from behind criticises the driver for not stopping or slowing
Vine, a well-known cycling advocate, took to Twitter to slam the motorist, but Javid responded claiming the boy’s father was at fault
Vine tweeted ‘I mustn’t respond’ in frustration amid Javid’s tweet
Sajid Javid (pictured) clashed with Jeremy Vine over a controversial video showing a car passing ‘too close’ to a five-year-old cyclist
Jeremy Vine leaves the BBC Radio 2 studios on his bike
WHAT THE NEW HIGHWAY CODE RULES SAY
The highway code changed in January 2022 to include the following guidelines:
CYCLING
– Cyclists should ride in the centre of their lane on quiet roads, in slower-moving traffic and at the approach to junctions or road narrowings
– Groups of cyclists can ride 2 abreast
– Cyclists should be aware of people driving behind them and allow them to overtake (for example, by moving into single file or stopping)
PEDESTRIANS
– When people are crossing or waiting to cross at a junction, other traffic should give way
– if people have started crossing and traffic wants to turn into the road, the people crossing have priority and the traffic should give way
– People driving, riding a motorcycle or cycling must give way to people on a zebra crossing and people walking and cycling on a parallel crossing
The father, a Twitter user with the profile name ‘AZB’ gave his own comment on the incident last week.
‘How can we expect parents to let their kids ride to school if this is how their neighbours drive towards them?’ he wrote November 4.
‘He’s five by the way and this is 100m from his home. This is what happens when you don’t provide safe cycling infrastructure around schools or on the way to schools.
‘Today it was my child but it could easily have been yours or anyone else.’
This prompted a flood of responses, with some saying they ‘couldn’t see a problem’ with what happened and others suggesting a five-year-old shouldn’t be on the road.
Keen cyclist Vine took to social media last month to berate another motorist whom he accused of driving dangerously in Kensington.
Posting footage on Twitter of the tense interaction with a supercar driver in the heart of London, Vine branded the motorist the ‘Ronnie Pickering of Kensington’ after the driver declared him ‘a d**k’.
The video showed the television presenter on his bike with a £200,000 Bentley beeping its horn behind him.
After the luxury supercar undertakes Vine, the motor then approaches two other cyclists who are in the road.
When the traffic lights turn red, Vine trundles to his driver-side window to confront him about his manoeuvres.
The Eggheads and Radio 2 host exclaims: ‘Oooooh, you’re quite a dangerous driver, mate.’
But the motorist does not back down and instead tells him: ‘You’re in the wrong lane, why aren’t you in that lane?’
The driver seemed nonplussed by meeting Vine and told him ‘My name’s Paul and you’re a d**k’
He then points to the curbside left hand side of the road, to which Vine edits dramatic low piano notes over the footage and adds text bemoaning the lack of a cycle lane.
Vine is then heard quizzing him: ‘Why do you think you’ve got a right to go ahead of me just because you’re in a car?’
The motorist tells him ‘Because you deliberately went in front of me and in the wrong lane. Get in the bloody cycle lane. I drive how I want. You don’t own the road, believe it or not.’
In August, Vine also shamed a moped driver for speeding through a zebra crossing between two pedestrians.
Vine wrote on Twitter: ‘Does this matter? Are zebra crossing incursions worth reporting? From my ride this morning.’
In the footage, Vine zoomed along the road in the cycle lane and then stopped for the pedestrians on the crossing.
He drew red circles around the multiple pedestrians who were walking across.
Then he wrote ‘Really?’ on the footage as the moped was seen waiting for a small gap and then going through while people were still walking on the crossing.
Rounding off the clip, he added: ‘He’s googling: what are those black-and-white stripes in the road for?’
Vine in August shamed a moped driver for also speeding through a crossing. In footage taken on another London bike ride he circled the pedestrians that he had stopped for
Then he wrote ‘Really?’ on the footage as the moped was seen waiting for a small gap and then going through while people were still walking on the crossing
Vine sparked controversy earlier this month when he gushed over meeting climate activist Greta Thunberg (pictured)
Vine was at the centre of another controversy earlier this month when he shared a photo of himself with Great Thunberg, saying he was ‘honoured’ to meet her.
The Radio 2 lunchtime presenter told his 785,000 followers on Twitter that he was shocked at how angry the response to the photo – which was taken following an interview with Thunberg, 19, on his radio.
Vine told his followers: ‘Why has this tweet made some people so angry? And some of them even sending disgraceful messages to Greta Thunberg.’
The question sparked dozens of messages, many in support of the Swedish activist, while others took umbrage with the fact that Vine, 57, had used the word ‘honoured’ when describing the meeting with the teenager.
One user, @rhderryman, wrote: ‘Because she talks at us like we have never heard of climate change. We know and most people are doing something. And people like the King would wipe the floor with her patronising rants.’
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmRhaWx5bWFpbC5jby51ay9uZXdzL2FydGljbGUtMTE0MTMzNjUvU2FqaWQtSmF2aWQtSmVyZW15LVZpbmUtY2xhc2gtdmlkZW8tY2FyLXBhc3NpbmctYm95LWN5Y2xpc3QuaHRtbNIBAA?oc=5
