"It takes one lunatic to do you real harm": Cyclists raise safety concerns about filming drivers; Spectator column labels cargo bikes as "dangerous"; Evenepoel's helmet strap tan; Cycling in the rain, London edition + more on the live blog

A video posted by the anonymous Twitter user called 'Cars on camera', which frequently shares footage of dangerous drivers, has sparked a debate: To what lengths do you go to film and report such behaviour, and when should you prioritise your own safety?

The latest video filmed in Harrow shows a Volvo driver on the phone passing the cyclist. Oh, and the car had tinted front side windows, which if you didn't know, are illegal in the UK.

Serious crimes need serious action from police forces@MetCC haven’t responded to this submission despite…
-Use of mobile phone
-Illegal tints
-Hit and run
-Due care and attention
-Red light jump

…and what’s in the @Lidl bag?@MPSHarrow @MPSHarrowHill

Filmed in Harrow pic.twitter.com/QTclTDaSrE

— Cameras are everywhere 📸 (@CarsOnCamera) August 17, 2023

At the next traffic light, the cyclist draws up to the driver and peers close to the raised windows, and voila, "Phone's still on his lap," says the cyclist out loud.

What follows seems out of a movie, or a video game — like one of the cutscenes. A hasty tap on the window to shoo the cyclist from the bewildered, agitated driver, who reacts as if he's got something very important to hide (mind you, in his Lidl bag).

He steps on the pedal, veers to his left and intends to zoom past, jumping the red light. But another car shows up on his left, and he drives into the side of that vehicle, before reversing and then going past the cyclist and the other drivers from the right-hand side.

> Near Miss of the Day 844: Driver insists cyclists who film motorists are asking to be hit

The incident has left cyclists concerned, with many warning the cyclist to maintain caution, especially when the drivers start reacting in a defensive way and even try to make a run for it.

When I watched this clip back, the first
thing that struck me, was how much danger you were potentially in.

Please be careful, it just takes one lunatic like that to do you some real harm.

Your life is more important than catching drivers on their phones.

Be careful.

— 20means20 (@CitizenUddin) August 17, 2023

Good job, but please be careful. Some of those guys can become very aggressive.

— PhoneKills (@phonekills) August 17, 2023

One person said that they have even stopped filming because of aggression from the drivers, including verbal abuse and close passes.

However, Mike van Erp, or Cycling Mikey, who has made a name for himself by reporting drivers on their phone or committing other traffic offences, seemed to disagree. He said: "I'm not sure that's the right approach. Doing that will only mean more of this behaviour."

I'm not sure that's the right approach. Doing that will only mean more of this behaviour.

— CyclingMikey the Unspeakable (@MikeyCycling) August 17, 2023

Mikey, to many cyclists, you are a role model.
However, I think you should be highlighting the dangers that cyclists could face as well as the positives from filming drivers using their phones.

I think we both know it is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.

— 20means20 (@CitizenUddin) August 17, 2023

While others suggested to continue reporting but not engage with the drivers, regardless of the situation. "You never know what type of person you might encounter. Just keep quiet, don’t gesture , calm down and carry on," wrote one user.

So should cyclists continue filming and reporting offences, or take more caution and reduce interactions? What do you think is the best course of action in such scenarios? What would you do? Let us know in the comments...

Some simple, basic cycling infrastrcture in use can be a joy to see. So here's some Sheffield stands, thankfully bolted on securely to the ground.

The humble Sheffield stand is the easiest to use and most secure form of public bicycle parking there is. Anything else is over-engineered, expensive nonsense. The evidence: pic.twitter.com/iBPfXDRO37

— thenewlove (@thenewlove) August 14, 2023

A council has once again shared news of joint patrols with a police force to stop and fine cyclists who ride through a town centre.

The council officers have previously been accused of targeting the "old and slow" and cyclists "they can get away with"...

> More cyclists fined for riding bikes through town centre – months on from rider ordered to pay £1,100

This post hasn't got anything to do with cycling, but just a shoutout to two great filmmakers standing next to one of the landmark pieces of cinema history — the poster of Vittorio De Sica's 1949 Italian movie Bicycle Thieves.

Steven Spielberg and Spike Lee with the poster of Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. pic.twitter.com/GA6UUFTPIJ

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) August 15, 2023

It's a Friday, go watch it this evening!

Thomas, Ganna, and Bernal? That's a strong team!

"That’s what motivates you as well, knowing that all the best guys are going to be there, so the goal is to go and do your best and hopefully come out on top; but it’s certainly going to be tough," said Geraint Thomas.

Add Roglič, who's bossing it at the Vuelta a Burgos and is in the lead of the GC, Jonas Vingegaard, Juan Ayuso, and last year's winner and newly crowned TT champion Remco Evenepoel, it's taking shape to be a cracking field up and down the peloton!

#LaVuelta23 is just around the corner! 🔜

Meet your Grenadiers for the Spanish Grand Tour 🇪🇸🤝 pic.twitter.com/z0hWu6C6eY

— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) August 18, 2023

Remco Evenepoel, fresh from his victory at the Time Trial World Championships in Stirling, sat down for a long interview with Patrick Broe and Benji Naesen of the Lanterne Rouge. And while the podcast itself is a good listen, I couldn't help but ignore that helmet strap tan along Evenepoel's temple.

Let me quickly check the odds for Remco winning at Vuelta...

"Adrian, you’re wrong!"

Mind you, not my words, but those of Chris Dixon, co-founder and director of training at the cargo bike logistics company Pedal Me, who we spoke to for the road.cc podcast, after Adrian Chiles, writer and presenter, noteworthy for his genius of having a 'urinal in his flat', or his distaste of 'Cheddar and stout on hot cross buns', wrote a column for The Guardian back in March, complaining about the cost of cargo bikes.

"You've got a bike that handles like a normal bike and carries an awful lot of stuff, that isn't a supplementary to your car. It's a replacement for it," said Dixon.

> "The man who never misses has officially missed": Adrian Chiles claims expensive cargo bikes are a "new kind of class politics"

Chiles had written in the column: "...most of them, probably just as expensive, are ridden by the decidedly unaffluent, slogging around being paid peanuts to supply the affluent with takeaways and assorted other essentials of modern life."

Big words from the man who owns a BMW 520d, costing £46,000, only slightly more than the four-grand mark he decided all cargo bikes cost. So here's a recap of a few things that cost around the same as the potentially lifelong, and in some cases car-replacing, investment that is a cargo bike...

• You could buy seven and a half of the cargo bikes Chiles took issue with for the price of... his motor, the BMW 520d...
• Or one 'mini' Dior bag

• 2,000 copies of the Guardian featuring Chiles' column
• A couple of steaks seasoned by a questionable social media influencer

• Half a day represented by Mr Loophole (according to the Express) 
• Seven of the 360-degree cameras Jeremy Vine never leaves the house without

I was honestly having a difficulty picking the lead quote from this Spectator column, there are so many of them to choose from!

It's titled "The dangers of cargo bikes", asking readers to "just look at the way they’re designed", and followed by a picture of an elegant, practical, and clean mode of transport. I don't see any danger? Oh, right, but they make the roads "hell" for motorists.

Written by Jake Wallis Simons, the article starts off by describing a cargo bike as a "monumental pain in the arse", and occupying that "infuriating twilight zone between bicycle and motor vehicle", but going no faster than 8mph.

According to Simons, cargo bikes either piloted by "smug yet very stressed parents" or "hipsters with ironic facial hair, retro clothing, flexible sexuality and a heavily-worn social conscience".

"This means hell for motorists," he goes on to write. But just a couple words later, drops the innocent fallacy most writers of such columns make: "as a cyclist myself..."

Ah well, there we go. The piece continues to delve into more motorist victim-playing, essentially veiled as anti-cycling jugulars: "Must they now accommodate bicycles that take up the space of a car?"

Finally, we get to the point of the article: Remember, the dangers of cargo bikes? But before we get to that, Wallis admits to have written a piece for Sunday Telegraph (yep) back in 2012, about using tricycles and cargo bikes for the school run.

In the piece, the apparent dangers only receive a passing mention. And now in the latest Spectator column, the writer confesses there was an incident that didn't make it into the previous feature: an incident where he got carried away with the speed of the cargo bike (I thought they didn't go faster than 8mph?), hit a bump and saw four children stuffed in the convoy box jump "two feet" in the air and then land into the box again.

That seems a pretty huge anecdote to skip out of the article about you testing cargo bikes?

When you guide the contraption gondola-like into the traffic, the box with the children inside noses out first. Surely it would be very easy for a stressed-out motorist with limited visibility to shear it off one Monday morning. The words ‘accident’ and ‘waiting to happen’ come to mind."

So are cargo bikes "accidents waiting to happen" because they are designed poorly and are an inherent safety risk, or is it the drivers who the writer assumes is skilled enough to drive safely?

Pick any issue that counts and you can absolutely rely on the Spectator to have the wrong view on it https://t.co/WfLMHF4lpx

— Justin McGuirk (@justinmcguirk) August 18, 2023

I knew it was going to be pitiful horseshit once I'd read the line "as a cyclist".

I'd have been embarrassed to publish it.

— Andrew Carver (@drew_carver) August 18, 2023