A cyclist well-known for his vigilante activism had his bike smashed in a collision with a car that rammed through a construction zone in London.
Michael van Erp, 53, better known as CyclingMikey on social media where he has over 100,000 followers, posted a video taken as he stepped in front of a driver ignoring “no entry” signs for roadworks. After backing up to let other cars through, the driver accelerated through the construction zone, narrowly missing Van Erp and sending his bike and belongings flying.
“He used his car as a weapon, I only wanted to stop him,” van Erp wrote in the captions of the YouTube video he uploaded Sunday.
The driver sped away from the scene on Paddenswick Road in Hammersmith and another attempted to travel through the no-entry zone immediately after.
Van Erp is one of a number of cyclists documenting with head cameras what they perceive as reckless driving from motorists. The BBC presenter Jeremy Vine posted similar footage for many years but stopped in April due to online abuse and threats against him, two cases of which had been investigated by police.
“Car driving is a religion in this country,” Vine told BBC Radio 4’s World at One. “If you say anything that runs counter, that’s what you get,” he said, referring to the threats.
Van Erp frequently uploads videos of cars nearly hitting cyclists, motorists using mobile phones while driving, and breaking other traffic laws. His videos capture the incident but also the enraged drivers’ reactions.
A video posted online by a passerby shows the moment Van Erp’s bike was hit by the Fiat 500
In one of his most popular videos an angry taxi passenger and a driver push Van Erp who stood in front of cars that entered the wrong lane to avoid sitting in traffic near Regent’s Park in central London.
“Why don’t you get a job instead of trying to self-police the world,” the taxi passenger said to the activist. The driver of a car sitting behind the taxi threatened to physically force Van Erp off the road, then drove his car onto the pavement to get past the bottleneck.
Four weeks ago a driver complained to Van Erp that he’d slowed him down by cycling in front of his car. The driver then yelled through his window at Van Erp as they rode next to each other, name calling the cyclist and claiming Van Erp had damaged his car.
Van Erp, a Dutchman, is also happy to report celebrities if he thinks their driving is dangerous. Famous faces who have fallen foul of the cycling activist’s headcam include the film director Guy Ritchie and the former boxer Chris Eubank, both of whom he reported to police.
Ritchie was banned from driving for six months after being caught texting while driving by Van Erp, and Eubank was handed three penalty points and a fine for driving past a red light.
Van Erp says he is on a personal mission following the death of his father after he was hit by a drunk driver while on his motorbike
PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
The road safety vigilante says his motivation is personal: his father was hit by a drunk driver while riding a motorbike in Harare, Zimbabwe, where the family lived at the time.
The tragedy serves as “that extra ounce of determination to cope with the hassle of admin of reporting drivers,” Van Erp told The Guardian in 2022.
“I had a pretty awesome upbringing and was close to my dad. He taught me to ride a bike, to fix punctures, to ride a motorcycle, and to drive a car,” he said in the interview.
Van Erp now has 119,000 subscribers on YouTube, where his profile states: “Someone has to stand up against the endemic road crime on our public highways and try to change it for the better.
“I’m a driver too, I love cars, but I don’t like dangerous driving and people taking risks with vulnerable road users.”
Van Erp has reported 2,280 drivers since 2019 and had 35 drivers disqualified, according to his X profile. He also claims to have led drivers to rack up 2,649 penalty points and £165,700 in fines for breaking traffic laws.
Van Erp has been contacted for comment.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said they were “aware of footage circulating on social media which appears to show an incident on Paddenswick Road, Hammersmith on Sunday, 10 August.”
They added that “no arrests have been made at this stage … We urge victims of crime to contact the police by calling 101 or 999 in an emergency”.