Jeremy Vine has announced he will no longer post videos online of the abuse he receives from motorists while cycling. While the TV and radio presenter’s accounts of abuse are shocking, his most recent move only helps the case of cyclists in London – and everywhere else.
In a thread on X, the TV and radio presenter said: “The trolling just got too bad. They have had well over 100 million views but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me.”
He added: “A regular theme has been the desire to see me crushed by a truck. Any cyclist knows this is a very real danger… My aim was only to get all of us who drive to think about the dangers of trying to move around cities on a pushbike.”
The abuse Vine has been a victim of is truly horrible. He said in his thread that there are at least two death threats against him currently being investigated by the police. In 2017, a driver was found guilty of using threatening behaviour towards Vine and was jailed for nine months. The video of the incident has been viewed more than 15 million times on social media.
Vine is one of the highest-profile cycling safety advocates, if not the highest, in the UK. Alongside posting his videos online, in 2017 he told the London Assembly transport committee that he typically filmed up to 40 driving offences every day while cycling from Chiswick in West London to the BBC Studios near Oxford Circus.
Vine has done a great deal to support the cycling cause. And as someone who was involved in a traffic collision that saw me somersault over the bonnet of a car, and is now – despite my job – quite anxious about cycling, I am keen that we do a lot more to improve cycling safety.
Yet, when it comes down to it, I’m glad Vine has stopped making his videos – and not just for his own sake.
‘Making’ is the operative word here. Vine didn’t just post GoPro footage online: the videos were edited, used graphics, had voiceovers and, in one of his final videos, included a comedy song about a driver losing their s***. Is this the kind of debate we should be fostering around cycling safety? In my eyes, it’s not.
It ultimately makes me question the end goal with any campaigning. Yes, of course, Vine wants to raise awareness of bad driving and cycling safety – his videos have shone a light on some terrible driving, and terrible abuse. However, as with anyone campaigning for, or highlighting the importance of, the safety of cyclists, it should be done in a way that aids any debate and furthers the cause.
If you don’t agree with me, how about the fact that earlier this month, on Gaby Roslin’s podcast, Vine said that angry drivers have “small dick energy"? Remarks like this don’t help anyone, and I’d hate to meet a driver on the road riled up by such a comment.
Crucially, I don’t want to downplay the risks cyclists face, nor am I doing so.
There is an imbalance between the danger drivers pose compared to cyclists, which is why people are sceptical of the recent proposals to bring sentencing for cyclists in line with that for drivers. Between 2019 and 2023, most pedal cycle fatalities occurred in two-vehicle collisions: 242 out of 530 involved a single car and the highest proportion of fatalities involved a heavy goods vehicle, according to the Department for Transport.
There is already simmering tension between cyclists and drivers, and I fear meeting the kind of anti-cyclist sentiment we see in mainstream newspapers (look at The Telegraph’s persistently negative coverage of cycling, for instance) with anti-driver sentiment turns that tension into unending confrontation.
I also wonder how engaged people really are in this activity. I’m tired of the vitriol that characterises online discourse like this, and I doubt I’m alone. It’s 2025 and social media is run by billionaires, populated by people trying to get a rise and full of low-brow debate.
When it comes to issues in the real world, maybe it’s time to log out and ask, where are our efforts better placed?
