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‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’: CyclingMikey vs. dangerous drivers

126 points by mellosouls 5y ago

TomVDB 5y ago
Yeah, if I’m standing completely still in a traffic jam, I’ll be glancing at my phone every once in a while, and nobody is going to convince me that this guy is doing a public service.
- bambax 5y ago
  Maybe fines will convince you. If not, suspension. If not, jail time.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Jail time for texting at a red light? That won't fly in a world where people often don't get jail time for crimes with a victim. I don't condone it but some people are gonna text while driving. All else being equal it seems moronically counterproductive to target enforcement at the ones who are doing it while stopped.
    - bambax 5y ago
      Texting while driving should result in a license suspension (temporary, at first). Then if you drive without a license that should result in jail time, yes (and I believe it does in many places).
    - soneil 5y ago
      Realistic considering it's third in a list. If you're texting at the lights with a suspended licence, yes jail time is next on the list.
    - Freak_NL 5y ago
      > I don't condone it but some people are gonna text while driving. People used to rail against wearing a seat belt too, and even now many people see driving with a couple of beers below the belt as totally fine when [insert excuse]. This is a behavioural issue that will be sorted in due time. Media attention like this helps. There is just no excuse for texting or otherwise fooling around with a smartphone when you are behind the wheel. If you need to do something with it, you pull over in a (legal) safe place.
  - TomVDB 5y ago
    Maybe hyperbole.
- donkarma 5y ago
  like he says, most people who use their phone in a traffic jam are probably not gonna stop there
- airza 5y ago
  The traffic jam is almost certainly exacerbated by hundreds of drivers doing the same thing....
  - praxulus 5y ago
    By my ethics at least, making traffic worse is a far lesser offense than putting people's lives at risk.
- pugworthy 5y ago
  Yea full non-moving traffic jam? Maybe. Waiting for a red light? No. Also per the article... "...because using a handheld phone is only deemed illegal if there is proof of interactive communication, such as sending messages, talking, or commenting on social media..."
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Then you are an asshole and a danger. Stop doing that. Pay attention to the road. Just because you are currently at a stop does not mean that your attention is no longer needed. You will need to be aware of the situation around you when you start moving, and you will not be aware of it if you have been looking at your phone.
  - TomVDB 5y ago
    You’re right of course. When I’m at a full stop in a never ending traffic jam on I-80, I’m totally a danger for not paying attention to the brake lights of the car in front also not moving.
    - erinaceousjones 5y ago
      Context matters. This entire article is about inner-city suburban streets in Britain, especially London with its high population density, in which pedestrians (i.e. gaggles of school kids, mums with pushchairs, people with dogs, independent cats, foxes) share the pavements and roads with cyclists, cars, sometimes even the occasional horse and carriage (even still today, yep). We're NOT talking about stop-start commuter traffic on an American interstate. There are a LOT more moving not-car objects which do not and will not follow the motorist's rules of the road, on these leafy suburban streets. Phone use when idle at stop lights means you might not spot something until it's too late. Hell, even when you open your door when parked up you have to check your mirrors so you don't accidentally clothes-line a passing cyclist - that's a point that's drilled into us by good driving instructors. As the people operating the industrial machinery, we have a duty of care to always treat it as such, and keep the others around us safe. Sorry, but your boredom is of little or no concern in relation to the safety of others. Just keep off the damn phone. Arguably even handsfree kits are a bit of a bad idea wrt concentration span and task switching - but they exist, so if you need to use your phone as a phone, you can do so without taking your eyes off the road. But otherwise, leave the damn rest until you're at home!!! The rest of your apps can wait.
- clort 5y ago
  Actually, it does mention in the article (referring to UK law, and the man is based in the UK) that the prosecutors want to see evidence of interactive phone use. That means that 'glancing at your phone every once in a while' is likely not enough to warrant their attention.
akmarinov 5y ago
That's a kinder version of the russian clips where a bunch of sambo black belts do the same thing to drivers.
newaccount2021 5y ago
standardUser 5y ago
I wish more people took road safety seriously. I was driving around California a lot over the holidays and was appalled (as usual) by how few drivers bother to use turn signals on the freeway. It's such a mind-bogglingly simple thing to do that any person who can't manage it should probably be denied a license.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Denying a license won't prevent people from driving. The whole driver license thing is honestly a joke due to the entire country's survival being 100% reliant on cars. Fines/jail time is needed instead.
  - jjnoakes 5y ago
    Wouldn't that naturally happen once you make mistakes without a license?
    - recursive 5y ago
      Yes. But a mistake implies a likelihood of some damage. Better to do it earlier if practical. I'm not sure if it is though. (practical)
    - zip1234 5y ago
      No--society is ridiculously lenient towards any driving offense.
- president 5y ago
  Because enforcement and deterrence is too light
- jamespullar 5y ago
  I have been laughed at by passengers in my car before for using my turn signals when no other cars were around. That really blew my mind the first time. Why anyone would try shaming someone else for adhering to safe driving practices is beyond me. If you just use them all the time, you don't have to remember to use them in the right situation. That was a concept more than one person I know couldn't understand. This was in California with other licensed drivers.
thatguy0900 5y ago
"When he returns, a grinning Van Erp tells me the man reacted badly to the realisation he was being caught on camera. Why the fury? The driver was using his phone as he waited for the traffic to move – and Van Erp recorded him doing it. In the coming months the man will most likely face a fine and six points on his driving licence, in turn triggering a significant jump in his insurance premium" ... Is this guy supposed to be a hero? Lol. What an obnoxious thing to do. He was at a red light. I was expecting it to be drunk driving or almost hitting him, and this is the first example they used? Edit since people don't read the article, it says the driver was there for a minute before noticing being recorded. So the driver was waiting in stopped traffic long enough to start using his phone, then the bike guy rode up on him, then over a minute later the driver noticed, then the bike guy left after a conversation. So this guy was in completely dead stopped traffic for what sounds like 4 or 5 minutes and im supposed to care if he's on his phone?
- criddell 5y ago
  How do you know it was a red light?
  - loeg 5y ago
    > He edges along the stationary vehicles until he is parallel to a car. It is well over a minute before the driver looks up and spots him – and the camera strapped to his baseball cap. Traffic wasn't moving at the time.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Which happens for many reasons besides red lights, especially in a country like the UK where traffic circles are more common.
      - loeg 5y ago
        Why does it matter if traffic was stopped for a full minute because of a red light, or for some other reason?
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Wait, how is a civilian made film enough evidence for a conviction or a fine? Does this mean I can build my next "fine your nemesis" as a service by using deep fake ?
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Filing a false police report is a crime. Building a tool to facilitate that would certainly open you up to civil and possibily criminal penalties. I don't see how "civilian made" has any bearing on the applicability of video evidence.
- b3morales 5y ago
  How would you expect it to work? The police are not everywhere at all times. If there's a report of something, they have to investigate and try to interview witnesses. If one of the witnesses has a video, why wouldn't that be evidence?
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    In my country (France), there are very specific conditions for videos to be accepted as court evidences. One of them is that if you are a private party, the video recording must have been advertised to the person on film prior to the begining of it, and must be declared to a special authority (CNIL), to avoid abuses.
    - eertami 5y ago
      EU countries in general are much more privacy focused compared to the UK. UK law & culture is that you have no expectation of privacy in public, and people can take pictures/take video of you anytime you are in public, for any reason.
    - tripa 5y ago
      Got a source for that? My cursory reading of https://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/chronique/reflexions-sur-l-usage-et-place-de-video-dans-proces-penal-en-france https://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/chronique/reflexions-sur-l-u... seems to only limit it for accusation by public authorities.
Trasmatta 5y ago
On the other side, I live in NYC, and as a pedestrian I've actually had way more bad experiences with cyclists than drivers. Especially now with the advent of e-bikes. They move so fast, and most ignore all lights and traffic laws. I've nearly been barreled over by cyclists probably a dozen times, and feel like getting hit eventually is almost inevitable.
- bliker 5y ago
  It might feel dangerous but actual fatalities are very rare. So keep your eyes on the cars! https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestria...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Trasmatta 5y ago
    I'm not concerned about being killed by a cyclist, just getting knocked over. Which could range from being an annoyance to mild or moderate physical injury.
- analog31 5y ago
  I've seen videos of traffic in NYC. Pretty much, everybody is breaking every conceivable law -- drivers, cyclists, pedestrians -- constrained only by the laws of physics and human / machine performance. Naturally this is coming from a non resident, so I can't speak from experience whether there are local customs involved that keep people safe. It's not qualitatively different in my town, just less crowding so that people have less of a reason to break the rules. But still, for each modality, the rules broken are based solely on opportunity, convenience, and in some cases self preservation. For instance, cars can exceed the speed limit but bikes can't. Bikes can blow through stop signs because they can. Getting out of intersections quickly reduces the chances of getting hit. Pedestrians walk in the bike and traffic lanes when convenient to do so. Enforcement is triggered by enough people complaining, or a preponderance of accidents.
darod 5y ago
this guy is very brave. people get into fist fights for asking them to put on a mask in the US and I can't imagine what'd happen if he was standing in front of someone's car on a street out here.
- frakkingcylons 5y ago
  In many parts of the US, he likely would be threatened with a gun after enough encounters.
  - teetertater 5y ago
    Stop a Douchebag (стоп Хам) on youtube is great and shows what happens in Russia when you try to get drivers to comply with laws: guns, fights, you name it
gadders 5y ago
Reminds me of this Daily Mash classic: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/helmet-camera-cyclist-thinks-hes-judge-dredd-20160218106352 https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/helmet-camera-cy...
bryanlarsen 5y ago
> Most people are really quite careful towards others. But cars do blunt that a little bit. There’s something about being in a car that takes the kind edge off us. As captured so eloquently by the oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off
- mjklin 5y ago
  They made the same point in the documentary “The Face” with John Cleese. Pedestrians can see each others’ expressions and realize no harm was meant, not so in cars (so the documentary claimed).
mdorazio 5y ago
Alright, I'm going to say it - this guy is just a dick and not helping. The majority of the videos on his channel are of him rolling up on stationary cars and giving himself a justice boner because he caught a driver using their phone. The equivalent to me as a frequent pedestrian would be to stand at a stop sign in the neighborhood and claim victory when I catch a cyclist failing to completely stop at the stop sign, or (frequently) failing to yield to pedestrians. I'm all for cyclists recording video for actual safety issues since it's demonstrably a big problem, but this kind of behavior just makes cyclists look bad.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  I’m a cyclist and a pedestrian. I have been nearly killed by drivers using their phones several times. I have never had my life endangered by a cyclist rolling through a stop sign. They are not the same.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    I've been hit by a cyclist failing to yield in a crosswalk. I've been hit by zero stationary cars. How are they different?
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    A cyclist slammed into an 8 year old kid at my neighborhood (through a stop sign no less!) and the kid had to go to the hospital. So......
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      Right, and see how you remember that? He had to go to the hospital. In the car situation, the kid is dead.
      - vangelis 5y ago
      - 5y ago
lnsru 5y ago
This guy is just another stalker. There is absolutely no heroic actions cycling through traffic jams and filming bored drivers in cars playing with their phones. I even more hate governments outsourcing law enforcement to the self made sheriffs. Make a fine for not using turn signals 100€, let few masked cop cars work a week or two in a city and voila, bad driving culture is suddenly fixed. Why does it not happen!? Edit: would you like another stalker filming you in your house? Maybe you do drugs or beat your wife? You know, filming is very important to prevent the crime. Powerless person just wants to help the police.
- Earw0rm 5y ago
  A house is a private place - you own (or rent) the land and the dwelling, and with that comes the right and expectation of privacy. A car is a way of moving through public space. There's no automatic expectation or legal right of privacy there, any more so than in public buildings, parks, on transit etc where people are walking around.
zwieback 5y ago
I'm a year-round bike commuter so see my share of bad behavior. However, this guy just seems like a vigilante, in aggregate not helpful.
- zip1234 5y ago
  If there was any enforcement of traffic laws in the US I might agree but it is so laughable in its current state that I don't mind this.
caditinpiscinam 5y ago
I used to take a peter pan bus in and out of Boston frequently. Riding on those buses you get a good view of other cars. Any given day at rush-hour, on the highway, at least 25% of drivers had a phone in their hand, glancing back and forth between it and the road. I wonder how many of those drivers are the same people I hear decrying the unvaccinated as selfish?
- elmomle 5y ago
  What do driving practices have to do with vaccinations? Do you actually have any reason to think that the pro-vax population is more prone to unsafe driving practices? Or is your point that "in a large population, I bet I can find many people whose actions don't perfectly align with the principles they identify with"? Such a statement would be inane--it's been known for thousands of years that virtually nobody passes the test of totally consistent principled behavior (see Diogenes, who was "looking for a [truly principled / reasoning] man", and could find none).
  - dahart 5y ago
    > What do driving practices have to do with vaccinations? Mandatory rules. Yours is a good question, but the parent’s suggestion might be totally fair. People in the US, and in other countries too, clearly have a problem with mandatory things, a lot of people are so determined to defy rules imposed on them, they will break the rules even when it’s in their interest to abide.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      I have family members who, to this day, won't wear their seatbelt in their car because "the government has no business tellin' me what to do!" They know it is safer but won't do it out of petty spite. Orthodox Individualism is America's national religion.
- pbuzbee 5y ago
  While I'm driving on the freeway, my spouse sometimes counts to see how many other drivers are on their phone. It's crazy what a large fraction of people (probably about 25%, I'd agree) are splitting their attention when moving at 75mph. Like what are so many people doing on their phone while driving? Surely they can't all be texting someone that often...?
adam_arthur 5y ago
I don't understand cyclists. Unless there's a dedicated lane, you're putting your life in the hands of others... much moreso than being in a vehicle. I can appreciate the ideal of safe cycling on a road shared with cars, but it's not a reality. There should just be separate lanes/carve out for bikes. Or, in a world of fully automated cars, cyclists can trust that they're safe. It's good to push for safety, but not realistic to expect it to happen fully in practice. Personally I would love to cycle, but not a risk worth taking for me.
- hirundo 5y ago
  > There should just be separate lanes/carve out for bikes. This is highly controversial, and at best, overly simplistic. See for instance https://www.enotrans.org/article/cycling-philosophies-collide-furth-versus-forrester/ https://www.enotrans.org/article/cycling-philosophies-collid... "the vehicular cycling principle" – "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist)
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Forrester's "share the road" vehicular cycling view from the 1960s clearly fails in every wealthy country in which it remains the default option.
    - hirundo 5y ago
      Here's a good HN debate on that topic, with several current commuter cyclists participating. The result is a lot more nuanced than "clearly fails". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634987&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634987&p=2 E.g. ahoy: I don't know a single cyclist who agrees with that (Forrester) statement. btrettel: I've been a transportation cyclist for roughly a decade and I agree with everything he said. Many cyclists do, particularly more experienced ones. Bike lanes can be helpful, but they are not the panacea many people make them out to be. I think the main benefit bike lanes have is increasing the number of cyclists which leads to the "safety in numbers" effect. I think far too many bike lanes are made poorly, however, and these ones seem to be less safe than if there was no bike lane.
Beldin 5y ago
There's quite a few comments disagreeing with his actions. Since his actions consist of recording breaking the law to have the law enforced, I'm curious if those commenters will argue that the law is bad, or whether enforcing the law is bad. (The option "both options good but him doing it bad" is indeed absent)
- darkwater 5y ago
  I think that laws are at a certain degree "elastic" and texting while completely stuck in a jam is not the same as texting while you are moving. So, snitching on that it's closer to being a "vigilante" than filming drivers who are actually being dangerous to cyclists, which it's something I would totally justify and even do (the filming, I mean).
  - teachrdan 5y ago
    It's akin to a red light camera being used to spot drivers making an illegal right turn on a red light versus drivers who recklessly run through a red light. The latter is known to cause serious accidents, the former not so much.
    - darkwater 5y ago
      A right turn on red light could still run over a pedestrian quite easily. Texting while in a jam will just add delay when the jam unlocks. If you keep texting after, then it's a different story (and you are moving).
  - TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
    It depends on the state. Using your phone while stopped is not legal in some states.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
TacticalCoder 5y ago
As much as I hate assholes on the road I do not think that regular people snitching on others is the solution to anything. Where do you draw the line? Do you know how many laws people do not respect on a daily basis? What's next, filming your neighbor jaywalking on an empty street and reporting it to the police? And everybody cheering? Common people...
- halpert 5y ago
  Laws that are commonly broken shouldn’t be laws.
  - detaro 5y ago
    What's a useful threshold for "commonly"?
  - kazinator 5y ago
    Women are commonly raped, particularly in some parts of the world. Now what?
    - halpert 5y ago
      From jaywalking to horrific rapes in other countries. Talk about a slippery slope.
      - kazinator 5y ago
        Firstly, it may be more common in your country than you think. Secondly, I cannot agree with "laws that are commonly broken shouldn't be laws" even if we replace laws with municipal bylaws. People commonly smoke where they shouldn't, don't clean up their dog's poop, park their cars wherever they want, litter and improperly dispose of items and whatever not. So, hey, let's get rid of the rules? If we are going to clean the system of laws that should not exist, we arguably should prioritize those that are commonly broken, but that can't be the sufficient condition. If we don't prioritize those that are broken, we may waste time repealing weird laws covering situations that hardly occur, so the work will have no practical impact. Whether a law should be repealed must be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, not based on considerations like whether people are breaking it like it's going out of style.
tpoacher 5y ago
Am I the only person who sees this guy as a menace, safety risk, and generally an A-hole? And I say this as a cyclist.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  You are probably in the minority. The two largest groups that together seem to form the vast majority are those who abhor this behaviour and don't do it themselves, and those who know that they shouldn't do this, welcome people being fined for it, know that it is a cause of a lot of unnecessary hardship, enjoy watching this guy's Youtube channel, and yet can't actually resist grabbing their smartphone when it plings despite being in the driver's seat. It's a global dopamine addiction.
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    I'm not asking "is looking at your phone while stationary in traffic bad". I'm asking "the whole cycling through traffic with a headcam, actively not looking in front of you while doing so, fishing for people on their phones in order to aggravate them then doxx them ... isn't this a dick move and a safety concern in itself?" As for the guy with the phone, if I was stationary for a whole minute, and had checked google maps for a traffic report in that time, I'd be pretty pissed off if some vigilante was trying to paint crap out of context to cause trouble for the purpose of ad revenue on youtube. Especially when they were being a public hazard while doing so.
ortusdux 5y ago
Maybe it's just me, but the fact that he refuses to wear a helmet kind of undercuts his argument a bit...
- mariusor 5y ago
  How so? Wearing a helmet is for one's safety, not others'. Endangering other members of traffic by not paying attention is not the same thing as endangering yourself by not wearing one.
bdcs 5y ago
Does anyone have any resources on how to do this in California or the USA in general? I've been meaning to dashcam my bike for a while, and considered making an raspi-based dash cam system for automatic video processing and automating paperwork. If the alleged traffic violators retaliate against me, my efforts won't be in vain. I'm tired of being hit by cars on my bike.
bdcs 5y ago
Ugh, why no helmet? They reduce a multitude of bicycle head injuries by 2-3x [0] [0] https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/1/278/2617198 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/1/278/2617198
- b3morales 5y ago
  Roughly speaking they help non-collision injuries (wheel failure, thrown by a pothole, slipped on an icy turn), but don't do much if the cyclist is struck by a car.
2-718-281-828 5y ago
for all you German bikers: check out weg.li. it's a website facilitating reporting of cars parked on bike lanes. (https://imgur.com/a/XgeuGb7 https://imgur.com/a/XgeuGb7)

126 points by mellosouls 5y ago

Yeah, if I’m standing completely still in a traffic jam, I’ll be glancing at my phone every once in a while, and nobody is going to convince me that this guy is doing a public service.

bambax 5y ago
Maybe fines will convince you. If not, suspension. If not, jail time.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Jail time for texting at a red light? That won't fly in a world where people often don't get jail time for crimes with a victim. I don't condone it but some people are gonna text while driving. All else being equal it seems moronically counterproductive to target enforcement at the ones who are doing it while stopped.
  - bambax 5y ago
    Texting while driving should result in a license suspension (temporary, at first). Then if you drive without a license that should result in jail time, yes (and I believe it does in many places).
  - soneil 5y ago
    Realistic considering it's third in a list. If you're texting at the lights with a suspended licence, yes jail time is next on the list.
  - Freak_NL 5y ago
    > I don't condone it but some people are gonna text while driving. People used to rail against wearing a seat belt too, and even now many people see driving with a couple of beers below the belt as totally fine when [insert excuse]. This is a behavioural issue that will be sorted in due time. Media attention like this helps. There is just no excuse for texting or otherwise fooling around with a smartphone when you are behind the wheel. If you need to do something with it, you pull over in a (legal) safe place.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  Maybe hyperbole.
donkarma 5y ago
like he says, most people who use their phone in a traffic jam are probably not gonna stop there
airza 5y ago
The traffic jam is almost certainly exacerbated by hundreds of drivers doing the same thing....
- praxulus 5y ago
  By my ethics at least, making traffic worse is a far lesser offense than putting people's lives at risk.
pugworthy 5y ago
Yea full non-moving traffic jam? Maybe. Waiting for a red light? No. Also per the article... "...because using a handheld phone is only deemed illegal if there is proof of interactive communication, such as sending messages, talking, or commenting on social media..."
user-the-name 5y ago
Then you are an asshole and a danger. Stop doing that. Pay attention to the road. Just because you are currently at a stop does not mean that your attention is no longer needed. You will need to be aware of the situation around you when you start moving, and you will not be aware of it if you have been looking at your phone.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  You’re right of course. When I’m at a full stop in a never ending traffic jam on I-80, I’m totally a danger for not paying attention to the brake lights of the car in front also not moving.
  - erinaceousjones 5y ago
    Context matters. This entire article is about inner-city suburban streets in Britain, especially London with its high population density, in which pedestrians (i.e. gaggles of school kids, mums with pushchairs, people with dogs, independent cats, foxes) share the pavements and roads with cyclists, cars, sometimes even the occasional horse and carriage (even still today, yep). We're NOT talking about stop-start commuter traffic on an American interstate. There are a LOT more moving not-car objects which do not and will not follow the motorist's rules of the road, on these leafy suburban streets. Phone use when idle at stop lights means you might not spot something until it's too late. Hell, even when you open your door when parked up you have to check your mirrors so you don't accidentally clothes-line a passing cyclist - that's a point that's drilled into us by good driving instructors. As the people operating the industrial machinery, we have a duty of care to always treat it as such, and keep the others around us safe. Sorry, but your boredom is of little or no concern in relation to the safety of others. Just keep off the damn phone. Arguably even handsfree kits are a bit of a bad idea wrt concentration span and task switching - but they exist, so if you need to use your phone as a phone, you can do so without taking your eyes off the road. But otherwise, leave the damn rest until you're at home!!! The rest of your apps can wait.
clort 5y ago
Actually, it does mention in the article (referring to UK law, and the man is based in the UK) that the prosecutors want to see evidence of interactive phone use. That means that 'glancing at your phone every once in a while' is likely not enough to warrant their attention.

akmarinov 5y ago

That's a kinder version of the russian clips where a bunch of sambo black belts do the same thing to drivers.

newaccount2021 5y ago

standardUser 5y ago

I wish more people took road safety seriously. I was driving around California a lot over the holidays and was appalled (as usual) by how few drivers bother to use turn signals on the freeway. It's such a mind-bogglingly simple thing to do that any person who can't manage it should probably be denied a license.

tenebrisalietum 5y ago
Denying a license won't prevent people from driving. The whole driver license thing is honestly a joke due to the entire country's survival being 100% reliant on cars. Fines/jail time is needed instead.
- jjnoakes 5y ago
  Wouldn't that naturally happen once you make mistakes without a license?
  - recursive 5y ago
    Yes. But a mistake implies a likelihood of some damage. Better to do it earlier if practical. I'm not sure if it is though. (practical)
  - zip1234 5y ago
    No--society is ridiculously lenient towards any driving offense.
president 5y ago
Because enforcement and deterrence is too light
jamespullar 5y ago
I have been laughed at by passengers in my car before for using my turn signals when no other cars were around. That really blew my mind the first time. Why anyone would try shaming someone else for adhering to safe driving practices is beyond me. If you just use them all the time, you don't have to remember to use them in the right situation. That was a concept more than one person I know couldn't understand. This was in California with other licensed drivers.

thatguy0900 5y ago

"When he returns, a grinning Van Erp tells me the man reacted badly to the realisation he was being caught on camera. Why the fury? The driver was using his phone as he waited for the traffic to move – and Van Erp recorded him doing it. In the coming months the man will most likely face a fine and six points on his driving licence, in turn triggering a significant jump in his insurance premium" ... Is this guy supposed to be a hero? Lol. What an obnoxious thing to do. He was at a red light. I was expecting it to be drunk driving or almost hitting him, and this is the first example they used? Edit since people don't read the article, it says the driver was there for a minute before noticing being recorded. So the driver was waiting in stopped traffic long enough to start using his phone, then the bike guy rode up on him, then over a minute later the driver noticed, then the bike guy left after a conversation. So this guy was in completely dead stopped traffic for what sounds like 4 or 5 minutes and im supposed to care if he's on his phone?

criddell 5y ago
How do you know it was a red light?
- loeg 5y ago
  > He edges along the stationary vehicles until he is parallel to a car. It is well over a minute before the driver looks up and spots him – and the camera strapped to his baseball cap. Traffic wasn't moving at the time.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Which happens for many reasons besides red lights, especially in a country like the UK where traffic circles are more common.
    - loeg 5y ago
      Why does it matter if traffic was stopped for a full minute because of a red light, or for some other reason?

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

Wait, how is a civilian made film enough evidence for a conviction or a fine? Does this mean I can build my next "fine your nemesis" as a service by using deep fake ?

shkkmo 5y ago
Filing a false police report is a crime. Building a tool to facilitate that would certainly open you up to civil and possibily criminal penalties. I don't see how "civilian made" has any bearing on the applicability of video evidence.
b3morales 5y ago
How would you expect it to work? The police are not everywhere at all times. If there's a report of something, they have to investigate and try to interview witnesses. If one of the witnesses has a video, why wouldn't that be evidence?
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  In my country (France), there are very specific conditions for videos to be accepted as court evidences. One of them is that if you are a private party, the video recording must have been advertised to the person on film prior to the begining of it, and must be declared to a special authority (CNIL), to avoid abuses.
  - eertami 5y ago
    EU countries in general are much more privacy focused compared to the UK. UK law & culture is that you have no expectation of privacy in public, and people can take pictures/take video of you anytime you are in public, for any reason.
  - tripa 5y ago
    Got a source for that? My cursory reading of https://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/chronique/reflexions-sur-l-usage-et-place-de-video-dans-proces-penal-en-france https://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/chronique/reflexions-sur-l-u... seems to only limit it for accusation by public authorities.

Trasmatta 5y ago

On the other side, I live in NYC, and as a pedestrian I've actually had way more bad experiences with cyclists than drivers. Especially now with the advent of e-bikes. They move so fast, and most ignore all lights and traffic laws. I've nearly been barreled over by cyclists probably a dozen times, and feel like getting hit eventually is almost inevitable.

bliker 5y ago
It might feel dangerous but actual fatalities are very rare. So keep your eyes on the cars! https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestria...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  I'm not concerned about being killed by a cyclist, just getting knocked over. Which could range from being an annoyance to mild or moderate physical injury.
analog31 5y ago
I've seen videos of traffic in NYC. Pretty much, everybody is breaking every conceivable law -- drivers, cyclists, pedestrians -- constrained only by the laws of physics and human / machine performance. Naturally this is coming from a non resident, so I can't speak from experience whether there are local customs involved that keep people safe. It's not qualitatively different in my town, just less crowding so that people have less of a reason to break the rules. But still, for each modality, the rules broken are based solely on opportunity, convenience, and in some cases self preservation. For instance, cars can exceed the speed limit but bikes can't. Bikes can blow through stop signs because they can. Getting out of intersections quickly reduces the chances of getting hit. Pedestrians walk in the bike and traffic lanes when convenient to do so. Enforcement is triggered by enough people complaining, or a preponderance of accidents.

darod 5y ago

this guy is very brave. people get into fist fights for asking them to put on a mask in the US and I can't imagine what'd happen if he was standing in front of someone's car on a street out here.

frakkingcylons 5y ago
In many parts of the US, he likely would be threatened with a gun after enough encounters.
- teetertater 5y ago
  Stop a Douchebag (стоп Хам) on youtube is great and shows what happens in Russia when you try to get drivers to comply with laws: guns, fights, you name it

gadders 5y ago

Reminds me of this Daily Mash classic: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/helmet-camera-cyclist-thinks-hes-judge-dredd-20160218106352 https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/helmet-camera-cy...

bryanlarsen 5y ago

> Most people are really quite careful towards others. But cars do blunt that a little bit. There’s something about being in a car that takes the kind edge off us. As captured so eloquently by the oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off

mjklin 5y ago
They made the same point in the documentary “The Face” with John Cleese. Pedestrians can see each others’ expressions and realize no harm was meant, not so in cars (so the documentary claimed).

mdorazio 5y ago

Alright, I'm going to say it - this guy is just a dick and not helping. The majority of the videos on his channel are of him rolling up on stationary cars and giving himself a justice boner because he caught a driver using their phone. The equivalent to me as a frequent pedestrian would be to stand at a stop sign in the neighborhood and claim victory when I catch a cyclist failing to completely stop at the stop sign, or (frequently) failing to yield to pedestrians. I'm all for cyclists recording video for actual safety issues since it's demonstrably a big problem, but this kind of behavior just makes cyclists look bad.

xadhominemx 5y ago
I’m a cyclist and a pedestrian. I have been nearly killed by drivers using their phones several times. I have never had my life endangered by a cyclist rolling through a stop sign. They are not the same.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  I've been hit by a cyclist failing to yield in a crosswalk. I've been hit by zero stationary cars. How are they different?
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  A cyclist slammed into an 8 year old kid at my neighborhood (through a stop sign no less!) and the kid had to go to the hospital. So......
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Right, and see how you remember that? He had to go to the hospital. In the car situation, the kid is dead.
    - vangelis 5y ago
    - 5y ago

lnsru 5y ago

This guy is just another stalker. There is absolutely no heroic actions cycling through traffic jams and filming bored drivers in cars playing with their phones. I even more hate governments outsourcing law enforcement to the self made sheriffs. Make a fine for not using turn signals 100€, let few masked cop cars work a week or two in a city and voila, bad driving culture is suddenly fixed. Why does it not happen!? Edit: would you like another stalker filming you in your house? Maybe you do drugs or beat your wife? You know, filming is very important to prevent the crime. Powerless person just wants to help the police.

Earw0rm 5y ago
A house is a private place - you own (or rent) the land and the dwelling, and with that comes the right and expectation of privacy. A car is a way of moving through public space. There's no automatic expectation or legal right of privacy there, any more so than in public buildings, parks, on transit etc where people are walking around.

zwieback 5y ago

I'm a year-round bike commuter so see my share of bad behavior. However, this guy just seems like a vigilante, in aggregate not helpful.

zip1234 5y ago
If there was any enforcement of traffic laws in the US I might agree but it is so laughable in its current state that I don't mind this.

caditinpiscinam 5y ago

I used to take a peter pan bus in and out of Boston frequently. Riding on those buses you get a good view of other cars. Any given day at rush-hour, on the highway, at least 25% of drivers had a phone in their hand, glancing back and forth between it and the road. I wonder how many of those drivers are the same people I hear decrying the unvaccinated as selfish?

elmomle 5y ago
What do driving practices have to do with vaccinations? Do you actually have any reason to think that the pro-vax population is more prone to unsafe driving practices? Or is your point that "in a large population, I bet I can find many people whose actions don't perfectly align with the principles they identify with"? Such a statement would be inane--it's been known for thousands of years that virtually nobody passes the test of totally consistent principled behavior (see Diogenes, who was "looking for a [truly principled / reasoning] man", and could find none).
- dahart 5y ago
  > What do driving practices have to do with vaccinations? Mandatory rules. Yours is a good question, but the parent’s suggestion might be totally fair. People in the US, and in other countries too, clearly have a problem with mandatory things, a lot of people are so determined to defy rules imposed on them, they will break the rules even when it’s in their interest to abide.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    I have family members who, to this day, won't wear their seatbelt in their car because "the government has no business tellin' me what to do!" They know it is safer but won't do it out of petty spite. Orthodox Individualism is America's national religion.
pbuzbee 5y ago
While I'm driving on the freeway, my spouse sometimes counts to see how many other drivers are on their phone. It's crazy what a large fraction of people (probably about 25%, I'd agree) are splitting their attention when moving at 75mph. Like what are so many people doing on their phone while driving? Surely they can't all be texting someone that often...?

adam_arthur 5y ago

I don't understand cyclists. Unless there's a dedicated lane, you're putting your life in the hands of others... much moreso than being in a vehicle. I can appreciate the ideal of safe cycling on a road shared with cars, but it's not a reality. There should just be separate lanes/carve out for bikes. Or, in a world of fully automated cars, cyclists can trust that they're safe. It's good to push for safety, but not realistic to expect it to happen fully in practice. Personally I would love to cycle, but not a risk worth taking for me.

hirundo 5y ago
> There should just be separate lanes/carve out for bikes. This is highly controversial, and at best, overly simplistic. See for instance https://www.enotrans.org/article/cycling-philosophies-collide-furth-versus-forrester/ https://www.enotrans.org/article/cycling-philosophies-collid... "the vehicular cycling principle" – "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist)
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Forrester's "share the road" vehicular cycling view from the 1960s clearly fails in every wealthy country in which it remains the default option.
  - hirundo 5y ago
    Here's a good HN debate on that topic, with several current commuter cyclists participating. The result is a lot more nuanced than "clearly fails". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634987&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634987&p=2 E.g. ahoy: I don't know a single cyclist who agrees with that (Forrester) statement. btrettel: I've been a transportation cyclist for roughly a decade and I agree with everything he said. Many cyclists do, particularly more experienced ones. Bike lanes can be helpful, but they are not the panacea many people make them out to be. I think the main benefit bike lanes have is increasing the number of cyclists which leads to the "safety in numbers" effect. I think far too many bike lanes are made poorly, however, and these ones seem to be less safe than if there was no bike lane.

Beldin 5y ago

There's quite a few comments disagreeing with his actions. Since his actions consist of recording breaking the law to have the law enforced, I'm curious if those commenters will argue that the law is bad, or whether enforcing the law is bad. (The option "both options good but him doing it bad" is indeed absent)

darkwater 5y ago
I think that laws are at a certain degree "elastic" and texting while completely stuck in a jam is not the same as texting while you are moving. So, snitching on that it's closer to being a "vigilante" than filming drivers who are actually being dangerous to cyclists, which it's something I would totally justify and even do (the filming, I mean).
- teachrdan 5y ago
  It's akin to a red light camera being used to spot drivers making an illegal right turn on a red light versus drivers who recklessly run through a red light. The latter is known to cause serious accidents, the former not so much.
  - darkwater 5y ago
    A right turn on red light could still run over a pedestrian quite easily. Texting while in a jam will just add delay when the jam unlocks. If you keep texting after, then it's a different story (and you are moving).
- TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
  It depends on the state. Using your phone while stopped is not legal in some states.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

TacticalCoder 5y ago

As much as I hate assholes on the road I do not think that regular people snitching on others is the solution to anything. Where do you draw the line? Do you know how many laws people do not respect on a daily basis? What's next, filming your neighbor jaywalking on an empty street and reporting it to the police? And everybody cheering? Common people...

halpert 5y ago
Laws that are commonly broken shouldn’t be laws.
- detaro 5y ago
  What's a useful threshold for "commonly"?
- kazinator 5y ago
  Women are commonly raped, particularly in some parts of the world. Now what?
  - halpert 5y ago
    From jaywalking to horrific rapes in other countries. Talk about a slippery slope.
    - kazinator 5y ago
      Firstly, it may be more common in your country than you think. Secondly, I cannot agree with "laws that are commonly broken shouldn't be laws" even if we replace laws with municipal bylaws. People commonly smoke where they shouldn't, don't clean up their dog's poop, park their cars wherever they want, litter and improperly dispose of items and whatever not. So, hey, let's get rid of the rules? If we are going to clean the system of laws that should not exist, we arguably should prioritize those that are commonly broken, but that can't be the sufficient condition. If we don't prioritize those that are broken, we may waste time repealing weird laws covering situations that hardly occur, so the work will have no practical impact. Whether a law should be repealed must be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, not based on considerations like whether people are breaking it like it's going out of style.

tpoacher 5y ago

Am I the only person who sees this guy as a menace, safety risk, and generally an A-hole? And I say this as a cyclist.

Freak_NL 5y ago
You are probably in the minority. The two largest groups that together seem to form the vast majority are those who abhor this behaviour and don't do it themselves, and those who know that they shouldn't do this, welcome people being fined for it, know that it is a cause of a lot of unnecessary hardship, enjoy watching this guy's Youtube channel, and yet can't actually resist grabbing their smartphone when it plings despite being in the driver's seat. It's a global dopamine addiction.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  I'm not asking "is looking at your phone while stationary in traffic bad". I'm asking "the whole cycling through traffic with a headcam, actively not looking in front of you while doing so, fishing for people on their phones in order to aggravate them then doxx them ... isn't this a dick move and a safety concern in itself?" As for the guy with the phone, if I was stationary for a whole minute, and had checked google maps for a traffic report in that time, I'd be pretty pissed off if some vigilante was trying to paint crap out of context to cause trouble for the purpose of ad revenue on youtube. Especially when they were being a public hazard while doing so.

ortusdux 5y ago

Maybe it's just me, but the fact that he refuses to wear a helmet kind of undercuts his argument a bit...

mariusor 5y ago
How so? Wearing a helmet is for one's safety, not others'. Endangering other members of traffic by not paying attention is not the same thing as endangering yourself by not wearing one.

bdcs 5y ago

Does anyone have any resources on how to do this in California or the USA in general? I've been meaning to dashcam my bike for a while, and considered making an raspi-based dash cam system for automatic video processing and automating paperwork. If the alleged traffic violators retaliate against me, my efforts won't be in vain. I'm tired of being hit by cars on my bike.

bdcs 5y ago

Ugh, why no helmet? They reduce a multitude of bicycle head injuries by 2-3x [0] [0] https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/1/278/2617198 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/1/278/2617198

b3morales 5y ago
Roughly speaking they help non-collision injuries (wheel failure, thrown by a pothole, slipped on an icy turn), but don't do much if the cyclist is struck by a car.

2-718-281-828 5y ago

for all you German bikers: check out weg.li. it's a website facilitating reporting of cars parked on bike lanes. (https://imgur.com/a/XgeuGb7 https://imgur.com/a/XgeuGb7)