Egg’d

[thirdcrank]

Even with decent camera footage including the vehicle reg there will be cases where the evidence is insufficient for a prosecution. The reg details should, but not always by any means, lead to the keeper, but the police can only require the keeper to identify the user for offences under traffic legislation. Bearing in mind that the reg keeper will often be the driver, it's an exception to the right to avoid self-incrimination. If a passenger commits an offence such as assault when leaning out of the vehicle, there is no power to require the driver to ID the passenger and to the extent that the driver might be regarded as an accomplice of the assailant, then their evidence would be weak.

Even with footage of the suspect grinning inanely into the camera, the ID might be open to challenge.

If you add to that the person allocated to investigate it might have other priorities, then a successful investigation ie leading to prosecution or other formal disposal might not always be possible.

But, there should be IMO a s59 notice served. The point then is that if there's no recurrence, that's it. But if there are further reports of more of the same with the same vehicle, it can eventually be seized. I fancy that if the idiots are using somebody else's vehicle eg mum and dad's car or a company vehicle, the service of a s 59 notice on the reg keeper might in some cases, lead to an end to it.

[hemo]

The weirdest thing thrown at me left me in profit on the ride to the tune of about £3.40 , the twats decide to throw some coins at me. Their aim was poor but my picking the coins up wasn't

[Charco123]

Guess I need to start wearing the black tracksuit combo with my hood up to become inconspicuous!

That gives me an idea. We've all heard the debate about whether what you wear affects how other road users behave towards you. We could do a quick and dirty, statistically-insignificant straw poll on this one. As mentioned above, I've never had anything thrown at me (and that's in 40+ years during which my bike has always been my main form of local transport.) I've always dressed in 'civvy' clothes - i.e. no helmet, and if I were to walk into a pub, nobody would think I'd been on a bike.

What about others? Is there a pattern?

Personally I think if kids have eggs and are driving round looking for a victim you could be walking cycling basically anything they can get away from is fair game! And I think if it does happen to you there will probably be 5 other poor sods to use up the remaining of the 6 pack lol. The pattern for me is it’s been at night between 8-10:30. And I do think a lot of young people are bored and have nothing better to do


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly bog brush using hovercraft full of eels

[Ben@Forest]

Personally I think if kids have eggs and are driving round looking for a victim you could be walking cycling basically anything they can get away from is fair game! And I think if it does happen to you there will probably be 5 other poor sods to use up the remaining of the 6 pack lol. The pattern for me is it’s been at night between 8-10:30. And I do think a lot of young people are bored and have nothing better to do

Though I'm disinclined to agree with the 'nothing better to do' bit l do think my single instance of being egged was by older youths/ young men. There were three of them, in a car, and l'm sure the lad in back seat threw the egg (makes sense as the front passenger would have to bring his arm virtually into the driver's face to allow a good throw). I don't think it was anti-cyclist per se - just amusement on their part, but if there hadn't been a grassy verge there l may have collided with any piece of hard road infrastructure.

The fact that they had a car meant they had the ability to travel and do things in other places, they must have had at least some money, even if the car wasn't theirs. It was a dropped handlebar bike, but beyond cycling shorts and gloves l wouldn't have been wearing any specialist cycling gear - it was toeclips and trainers then too.

[simonineaston]

I suppose the saving grace of all these sad tales of random and arbitrary minor violence, dished out by strangers, 'for a larf' is the inability of most of them to calculate correctly the trajectory required to compensate for the two moving vehicles involved...

[ossie]

Had a guy lean out the car window and 'pretend' to push me, I was doing about 20mph. I gave him the one finger salute only for the car to stop further up the lane and they both got out. I got off the bike put it between me and them and then ripped into them. For a moment I thought I was going to get a kicking but told them it was all on video (it wasn't),I had their registration and they would be getting a visit from the Police . The driver apologised they got in and disappeared.

The only other instance of note was a car slowing right down and the rear nearside passenger screamed abuse at me for no reason. They tore off but the driver behind stopped asked if I was okay then said he 'would sort them out' before screeching off after them.

Nothing thrown at me yet, either here or abroad.

[thirdcrank]

As I've written above, this is all hobby-horse stuff for me and I've hammered on about it plenty of times before.

One of the most illustrative incidents for me - and one I must have recounted before - concerns the sort of "Bluuurgh" noise which some car occupants shout at cyclists as they pass. Perhaps this is/was a local fashion. Anyway, as I was locking up my shopping bike in Queen Street - the pedestrianised main shopping street - Morley, a passing toddler made just that noise at me. Embarrassed mum told him off and he replied along the lines "That's what daddy does."

[lankysnapper]

I suppose the saving grace of all these sad tales of random and arbitrary minor violence, dished out by strangers, 'for a larf' is the inability of most of them to calculate correctly the trajectory required to compensate for the two moving vehicles involved...

Luckily this has so far been correct. Hopefully my posting this is not like uttering the "P" word. Scheduled to fix my first ever Schwalbe Marathon flat tomorrow though.

[Valbrona]

Having only come to this quite late ... get hit by an egg thrown by someone and you have been the victim of the crime of common assault.

[RodT]

Never been hit by eggs, coins or anything, but have had an altercation with a driver at a t-junction. His final insult before he drove off was ‘...and your bike’s the colour of baby puke.’
That hurt.

[Cyclewala]

I got egged on a late night commute once. One hit me on the leg and the other on the chainring and front derailleur.

Had about 4 miles of the commute remaining of which 1.5 was fast downhill. By the time I got home it had spread all over the drivetrain and dried. Took ages to clean the drivetrain.

[andrew_s]

I got egged at about 23:45 one winter's evening 10 or 12 years back, on the A417 coming into Gloucester.
At the time, I thought it was a snowball scraped off the car roof, and didn't realise it was an egg until I found the dried yolk on my jacket the next morning.

I can only suppose that they were carrying the eggs specifically for the purpose; they were going towards the shops, not away.

Another time I got blasted by a super soaker from an open top car. I caught them in the queue at the lights about 150 m further on, and gave a random passenger the remaining contents of my water bottle. The driver thought it was hilarious.

[VinceLedge]

On a slightly different note, a couple of years ago when I was cycling to work a bus cut really close to me, so I phoned the bus company with the number of the bus and the time. It must have got through as the next day the bus just about went off the opposite side of the road to overtake me!

[peetee]

[And I do think a lot of young people are bored and have nothing better to do

I know what you mean but that’s an unfortunate choose of words and to my mind only supports their actions. There’s a million things they could occupy their time with that wouldn’t involve assault, intimidation or damage. It’s no doubt amusing for them and it’s a sad fact that such behaviour usually brings more in the way of rewards among their peers than retribution from society.

[markjohnobrien]

[quote="Charco123"]Lol so a very odd subject for this forum [emoji23] not sure if it’s a first tho!!!! I have been riding 5 days a week, mainly nights for nearly 3 months now!!! And Iv been eggd by young lads in there cars twice now [emoji23][emoji1303] cheers lads!!! Is this something that I should start getting use to! Wanted to know what other people experiences have been and how often. <Swearing removed>

As I always have a pannier with a really heavy D lock in, I’d beat the crap out of the little buggers if they did that to me.

I’ve had different teenagers in two vans and cars (around Ruislip London) drive past very slowly and shout “Cyclist - what a ****” or “ You fat *******” but they never repeated, and drove off shocked, when I threatened them and gave even more robust Anglo-Saxon in response.

The shocked look of their faces was priceless.

Interestingly, I’ve lived all over the country - York, Oxfordshire, Bromley (Kent/Greater London), Nottinghamshire, Plaistow (East London), and I’ve never received abuse anywhere but Ruislip.