{"id":60779,"date":"2025-08-11T20:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/60779\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T20:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:04:13","slug":"vigilante-cyclists-bike-smashed-up-by-the-driver-of-a-fiat-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/60779\/","title":{"rendered":"Vigilante cyclist\u2019s bike smashed up by the driver of a Fiat 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

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. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cno entry\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe used his car as a weapon, I only wanted to stop him,\u201d van Erp wrote in the captions of the YouTube video he uploaded Sunday. <\/p>\n

The driver sped away from the scene on Paddenswick Road in Hammersmith and another attempted to travel through the no-entry zone immediately after. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cCar driving is a religion in this country,\u201d Vine told BBC Radio 4\u2019s World at One. \u201cIf you say anything that runs counter, that\u2019s what you get,\u201d he said, referring to the threats.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 reactions. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A video posted online by a passerby shows the moment Van Erp\u2019s bike was hit by the Fiat 500<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Park in central London. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you get a job instead of trying to self-police the world,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

Four weeks ago a driver complained to Van Erp that he\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s headcam include the film director Guy Ritchie<\/a> and the former boxer Chris Eubank, both of whom he reported to police. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"Cycling<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The tragedy serves as \u201cthat extra ounce of determination to cope with the hassle of admin of reporting drivers,\u201d Van Erp told The Guardian in 2022. <\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said in the interview. <\/p>\n

Van Erp now has 119,000 subscribers on YouTube, where his profile states: \u201cSomeone has to stand up against the endemic road crime on our public highways and try to change it for the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a driver too, I love cars, but I don\u2019t like dangerous driving and people taking risks with vulnerable road users.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u00a3165,700 in fines for breaking traffic laws.<\/p>\n

Van Erp has been contacted for comment. <\/p>\n

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said they were \u201caware of footage circulating on social media which appears to show an incident on Paddenswick Road, Hammersmith on Sunday, 10 August.\u201d <\/p>\n

They added that \u201cno arrests have been made at this stage \u2026 We urge victims of crime to contact the police by calling 101 or 999 in an emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cyclist well-known for his vigilante activism had his bike smashed in a collision with a car that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-60779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}