You may have noticed the retirement earlier this year of Jeremy Vine from the production of helmet cam videos. He has, he says, had enough of the online abuse and death threats, and you can’t blame him for that.
I found his videos captivating, at least visually. I couldn’t watch them with the sound turned up, because whenever I did that the sheer levels of abuse he got from a lot of drivers was rather triggering. It gave me the same shaky-handed, please-can-I-have-a-nice-cup-of-tea flight or fight rush I’ve experienced with similar experiences in the real world.
I’d just as soon avoid that, even if it means I have to live with being the sort of person who finds it easier to watch Jeremy Vine being hit by a van than listen to him being shouted at by the driver afterwards.
And only very occasionally did I disagree with his analysis of the situations. Even when I did, it would be marginal – and often as not when I went and checked the Highway Code I’d find he was right anyway.
I was also supportive of the project. Cyclists are, more often than we should be, the victims of aggression, lack of care and ignorance from other road users. It seemed logical that putting our side of the story out there, especially from someone who wasn’t primarily “a cyclist” was valuable.
People would watch his videos, I thought, and cry, “Oh my gosh! I did just that the other day, and that poor rider must have been terrified! As God is my witness, I will mend my ways. Thank you, Jeremy, for showing me my true self.” Everyone would understand the world from our point of view a little better, and we would all learn to rub along together.
This has not happened. I’m only exaggerating a little, but I really thought it would – there might be a minority of lunatics, but surely most people are broadly sympathetic to other people? Perhaps you have to expect a psychotic group of social media loons sitting in their underwear fomenting rage at more or less random targets, but surely that can be beaten back to the grotty basements where it belongs?
But the more you fight it, the angrier everyone on every side gets. It’s got nothing to do with logic, it’s that there’s a huge amount of unfocussed anger in the world, and like lightning it hits the first thing that it finds.
Even cyclists would attack Jeremy on some of his videos – “I’d never use a bike lane that narrow.” “You could tell that the driver of the Fiesta was thinking about turning left even if they weren’t indicating.” “Scaffolding lorries always do that.” Other riders would chime in to argue with the first group – and whether it was victim blaming, or whether Jeremy was genuinely trying to engineer unnecessary conflict would become a whole bubbling swamp of our own devising.
Ultimately, while I agreed with Jeremy from day to day and video to video, I’ve come to accept that his oeuvre wasn’t actually making the world a better place. You can’t win if the game doesn’t have any rational rules.
And anyway, my experience of cycling has always been calmer than Jeremy’s. It’s probably just that I do my riding in more peaceful places, but a measurable proportion of the stress I experience from the roads of the UK is actually experienced at second hand from Jeremy’s roads, in 4K resolution with stereo sound and snappy captions.
Above all, I’d hate for the whole argument to stop someone from taking up cycling. Cycling isn’t perfect, but it’s not nearly as bad as it sometimes looks.
