[imagesource: YouTube / Ady Short]

In South Africa, and especially in Cape Town, motorists express their road rage against cyclists all the time.

I’ve even seen some cars making a statement with their stance on the matter with stickers on the boot that are pro- and anti-cyclists.

People can make their choices, but pulling a cyclist into your car from the window to give him a few punches is most certainly a low blow.

That’s what happened in Swindon recently when a driver, impatient with a couple of cyclists riding two abreast, took his road rage to the extreme.

Footage shows him grabbing one of the cyclists from his car window to punch him, which makes the car drive into another cyclist in front, knocking him to the ground.

Per the Swindon Advertiser, the incident happened to Ady Short, his wife Mandi, and a group of fellow Swindon Wheelers riding along the winding roads between Swindon and Cricklade.

The whole incident was caught on a camera attached to Mandi’s bikes as she cycled ahead:

Ady was left with a black eye and Mandi sustained a cut on her knee.

Here’s Ady:

“We get people who are anti-cyclist and receive a bit of abuse, sometimes they pass us too close and too fast as a sort of punishment for us holding them up, but no-one’s assaulted us before, it’s an exceptional case.

…“It’s a strange situation to be in, seeing people so irate. I was trying to keep the peace with him because we try to de-escalate these situations and not react to the abuse, say sorry for the inconvenience and explain why we’re going two abreast. But before I could say much, he pulled me inside the car and hit me, then he couldn’t see where he was going.

He said that this kind of irritation with cyclists might have something to do with a lack of understanding about the Highway Code.

He explained that riding in single file condenses the group, which can make it easier for motorists to overtake but isn’t all that safe for a cyclist, especially around tight corners:

“He wouldn’t have been able to pass us on those twisty sections even if we had been single-file, we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

The group called the police to make a statement about the assault and shared the video with law enforcement.

The driver admitted fault and expressed remorse and was let off with just a warning.

[source:swindonadvertiser]