ARTICLE AD BOX
Jeremy Vine has announced he will no longer post footage of his tense cycling encounters with motorists because the trolling he’s experienced has “just got too bad”.
The BBC Radio 2 presenter, 59, has been sharing videos of his commute to work in London for years, using his platform to call out dangerous drivers and campaign for better road safety for cyclists.
Posting on social media at the weekend, he wrote: “The trolling just got too bad. [The videos] have had well over 100 million views but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me.
“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.
“I know I've sometimes got a little cross when a driver has, say, pulled out without looking, but I only ever uploaded the film to show the danger.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Monday (28 April), he elaborated: “I do have to deal with quite a lot of incoming, what you would have called flak in the olden days, but now they call it trolling.
“I shouldn't mind, but in the end I just thought I just want to now switch the narrative, I don't want to do this any more and in the end it did get to me.”
He called driving “a religion in this country”, claiming: “If you say anything that runs counter, that's what you get.”
One particularly cruel comment that Vine has received, which he read out on the radio, was: “Please only upload another cycling video if it's you getting run down and hospitalised.”
Writing on social media, he also said “a regular theme has been the desire to see me crushed by a truck”.
Vine has not held back in sharing his contempt for some motorists, saying on That Gaby Roslin Podcast last week that dangerous drivers “have small d*** energy” and behave that way because they are “not getting enough sex”.
When World at One presenter Sarah Montague asked whether his own behaviour could be viewed as a little too militant, Vine insisted he was “just a safety first kind of a guy”.
Vine’s decision to stop the videos came after his bike was stolen from his home.
His clips started garnering attention when, in 2017, a woman was jailed for shouting and making a gun sign at him as he cycled home from work. Vine’s video of the incident was viewed more than 15 million times.
The Channel 5 presenter has said that police are currently investigating “at least two” death threats against him.
Vine’s footage, taken from his 360-degree helmet camera, often provokes lively debate online between cyclists and motorists.
“I enjoy debates but not abuse,” said Vine in his social media post. “It’s strange that getting interested in road safety can actually endanger a person. I see other cyclists facing the same and wonder how they deal with it.”
English (US) ·