Vigilante Cyclist

I never was an athletic type, but I enjoyed cycling. Having a road bike-like hybrid I conquered hilly, difficult roads and simple streets as well. Just before my wedding in 2013, I cycled 200 miles in two days around beautiful Szczecin Lagoon. Later in 2017, I cycled over 300 miles in 3 days and last year I wanted to cycle 500 miles in 5 days, but... my bike was stolen.

Despite the whole thing being recorded on CCTV, it took over 6 months for MET to collect the evidence and still there is no sign of the bike.

I decided to move on. Purchased road bike instead, properly insure it and then... I was a few times pushed out of my lane by bully drivers who think they own the road.

At that moment I had really enough. I started to record videos with people offending while driving. I reported so far over 8 drivers, 1 case (driving while using a phone) was dropped due to the bad quality of the video but 6 others were directed to the prosecution, one still pending.

What happened since is quite interesting. Well. I was already picked by YouTube trolls that see no fault in any driver and many faults in every cyclist (and interpret Highway Code differently for both). Also, I had a chance to talk with officers on duty and understand how they judge each situation. What I discovered so far is:

• close pass, specially recorded from the rear camera is 100% prosecution
• as above for changing lane without indicator
• for reporting the use of the phone you need to have a good recording so many evade fine in bad light conditions
• Range Rovers on school run is very likely to do close passes and senseless overtakes even if have enough space for proper overtaking
• small cars like minis and fiestas are more likely to block left side filtering because of no real reason (except being a tw*t)
• CS7 is very dangerous in Balham and Tooting mostly because people sticking out from the side roads, very often Priuses
• red light jumping cyclists are all ages and sizes, but all are idiots; some will even show off obscenely without using any proper gear

• lights on the wheels are dope
• if you're on cycle lane according to HC183 you have right of way against people turning left and HC72 has no use here - but better to give the right of way to the idiot than land under his wheel
• when you report a driver you need to include 2 minutes prior to the incident and 2 after, so better don't cycle like a w*nker