Forum Topic

Jeremy Vine Papped Running Red Light on Bike

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11801717/jeremy-vine-run-red-light-bike/I think he can be forgiven - it's not as if he has a record of dobbing people in when he films them apparently breaking the law!

Felicity Caborn ● 2340d34 Comments

Yep, he another self opinionated self  Dominic Cummings. One law for them and one for the rest of us.

Steve Taylor ● 2340d

It would be very interesting to have your justification for forgiving him when he has broken the law.

J. F. Bingham ● 2340d

I think Felicity was being sarcastic

Georgina Flint ● 2340d

Indeed. Vine is just  a hypocrite. He advocates safe cycling and then openly breaks the law. And then he whinges when cyclists riding irresponsibility are injured.

Steve Taylor ● 2340d

In which case I apologise.

J. F. Bingham ● 2340d

Openly breaks the law? You might want to check again. In one Jeremy's behind the stop line at Albion Gate, and in the second he's already crossed Bayswater Road. No picture in between. Maybe they're holding it back for some reason. The wording is a little opaque, "appears to run a red light".I reckon the pap is laughing all the way to the bank. The Sun pays well!

Tom Pike ● 2340d

It isn't opaque. The article states, "Vine was seen defying a red light to cross four lanes of traffic in west London." He has a camera on his helmet so would be entitled to a payout if they had made it up as he would have solid evidence of his innocence. One thing that speaks in his favour is that they didn't ask him for a comment.

Felicity Caborn ● 2340d

“Vine was seen defying a red light to cross four lanes of traffic in west London." Not in any of the photos they published. It would indeed be a good outcome if a deserving charity had an unexpected donation as a result.

Tom Pike ● 2340d

Its a traffic offence and treated as such, like speeding. Why the witch hunt over cyclists when cars commit millions more offences? Oh yes because you have an irrational hatred of anyone who dares to ride a bike in London. There, I answered my own question.

Tony Mansell ● 2339d

"Why the witch hunt over cyclists when cars commit millions more offences?"No you didn't answer your own question -you are just being silly or you are thick.1./ You obviously haven't read the OP which clearly states that he has a history of dobbing people who (in his view) break the law when he films them on his helmut camera.2./ It isn't a witch hunt 'over cyclists' - it's the fact that he is an outspoken speaker on child safety and cycling and segregated cycle lanes etc etc and then he alegedly rides dangerously and allegedly breaks the law himself.  Another Dominic Cummins who believes he is above the law??

Steve Taylor ● 2339d

I wasn't engaged in a witch hunt against cyclists. Jeremy Vine may be completely innocent in which case the villains here are the pap who lied about the photos he took and the Sun for printing them. However the lack of rebuttal doesn't support the case that the red light running never happened.If it did this has less to do with cycling and more to do with double standards. Jeremy Vine takes videos of his journeys to work and regularly reports people for bad driving. At least one person has gone to jail as a result. It may be the Met are reluctant to take action against him because it would look like payback for the video he made in support of the nurse who had her bike stolen. To be fair this was a very worthwhile use of his platform and may be it is karma if he escaped a fine because of it.

Felicity Caborn ● 2338d

It may be the Met are reluctant to take action against him because it would look like payback for the video he made in support of the nurse who had her bike stolenWhy that's some wild speculation, might be a stretch.

Matthew Swain ● 2338d

I did say maybe.You have to admit it wouldn't be a great look for the police to be knocking on his door a couple of days after he has made them look incompetent and lazy.

Felicity Caborn ● 2338d

The Met would not have taken action if after looking carefully at the photos they saw he was on one side of the crossing in the first, and the other side in the second. I hope we could all rely on such a decision!

Tom Pike ● 2338d

I'm not sure what point you are making but, if you are saying that the pictures show that the allegation was fabricated, he seems strangely silent about what would be an outrageous lie. The simplist explanation seems, as ever, to be the most likely.

Felicity Caborn ● 2338d

Not fabricated. If you look carefully you will see the photos just don’t show Jeremy running a red light. The police unsurprisingly do not prosecute without evidence. Up to Jeremy to decide whether to take it further, but it would be strange for anyone to decide his guilt on that basis in the absence of evidence of any wrong-doing.

Tom Pike ● 2338d

It's the absence of any denial which makes me think that, on balance he probably did it. I'd be more than happy to take him at his word if he says it was a set up. Do you regard that as strange?

Felicity Caborn ● 2336d

I'm not sure why you continue to ignore the fact the two photos show Jeremy 1. behind the stop line for the crossing,2. going into Hyde Park beyond Bayswater Road.Certainly it's not immediately obvious that Jeremy is already across the road when the second photo was taken, but anyone considering prosecution would have soon worked out he was and therefore there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.You don't need to take anyone's word for this, just take the time to examine the photos. Nevertheless, I do think it's strange that you insist that someone has to deny something to demonstrate their innocence. Well, maybe not so strange but more reminiscent of HUAC, Salem or the Spanish Inquisition than what might be expected from the Met.

Tom Pike ● 2336d

The photos are in reverse order. In the second one you see him at the red light with two people in the distance. In the first one you see him a few seconds later having apparently gone through the red light with one of the people obscured but the other one visible . Basically he is bang to rights.If this was a fit up with the images manipulated to make him look like he had done something he didn't then he would have said 'this is a fit up, the images have been made to look like I did something I didn't.'

Dan Evans ● 2335d

On neither photo is Jeremy on the crossing,: there's no evidence he is on the road when the light is red.You are assuming the two photos are "a few seconds" apart, and he cycled across when the light remained red, but that's quite an assumption. You could take a couple of photos of a good number of people using that crossing and get them "bang to rights" on that basis! If you look more closely you will see that In those "few seconds" the guy on his phone has disappeared from shot, a cyclist has appeared right in front of Jeremy, and the women standing with the dog has jumped sideways. It is of course quite possible the light changed green and then back to red as well.

Tom Pike ● 2335d

These Sun photos are so foreshortened by being right on the end of a telephoto lens or greatly enlarged that it's difficult to work out where Vine is in relation to the various traffic lights and kerbs. If they were taken by a professional you'd expect them to have their camera on video or repeat so they'd get all the intermediate images, which would settle the case. But maybe they don't. Could be these two images show Vine waiting at succesive red lights, between which he'd crossed part of the road when the lights were green. Or maybe not, and the Sun is keeping the other frames up their sleeve to see what Vine's response is.

Peter Evans ● 2335d

Yes, it’s not immediately obvious as you can’t see the far side of the road due to the camber. He’s already riding up the slope to Albion Gate in the second photo. Most likely the pap got lucky with a lazy picture editor. And the quotation marks and language (‘seen’, ‘apparent’, ‘defy’) gives room to slither. They know their readers prejudices and that most will have assumed this was evidence rather than looked more closely.  The Met would have been rather more careful.

Tom Pike ● 2335d

Okay, as it seems to be under dispute I had another look at the photos.The 'before' picture is shown second. You seem Jeremy this side of the lights with a man and a woman in the background. The after picture is shown first. The woman is still there so this shows it was taken a few seconds afterwards. You can't see the man but it looks like he is obscured by Jeremy.This is pretty clear cut and it is wrong to suggest the Sun are equivocating. The language used would offer no defence if the suggestion of running a red light was not proven.You have to ask yourself why an agency pap would be hanging around Hyde Park at this time in the morning. They are usually paid per photo so he or she must have been there in the expectation of getting one. The only explanation I can think of is that Jeremy had run a red light here before and had tipped off the Sun who then told the agency there might be a good picture opportunity.

Felicity Caborn ● 2334d

You’re missing all the details I’ve mentioned above - I won’t repeat them as you ignored them first time round. What’s clear cut is there’s precisely no evidence of Jeremy running a red light. The rest is just your speculation.

Tom Pike ● 2334d

Sorry Tom, maybe I am being dim but I did try and follow your explanation of what you thought had happened but the photos seem to tell a very different story. It defies belief that the photographer would fabricate his report and then  Jeremy Vine would not protest.

Felicity Caborn ● 2333d

It’s their ego and arrogance that makes them feel they’re better than anyone else and Chiswick is bees nest for many celebrities and powerful people. These people should set an example, he can do it, so can I attitude springs to mind.

c james ● 2333d

The photos appear to not have been taken too far apart (in time) if the lady who's in both pictures is anything to go by. It doesn't look as if Jeremy has either of his feet on the ground in the earlier shot which suggests he might have been in motion on his bike when the photo was taken.There's nothing in the photos that suggests to me that Jeremy definitely didn't cross the stop line when the signal was red, however the photos don't prove he went through a red light either. Looking at the photos I think it's likely that he did transgress, but it's possible he was coming to a stop when the earlier photo was taken, waited for the light to go green, and set off when it went green, and the photographer waited until the light was red again before taking the second photo. Seems unlikely to me that the light would go green and back to red so quickly, which is why I think he did transgress, but the two photos just by themselves don't prove this.

Andrew Jones ● 2333d

Short of traffic lights being accommodatingly phased to allow cyclists ‘off the line first’ my view as a motorist is that I’d prefer cyclists to be away and off out of potential danger. When I was I cyclist yonks ago I regularly ‘jumped lights’ by hopping off my bike, running across the road and would hop on again and be away in front of any lights changing from or to any colour. There's far too much anti-cyclist nonsense blaring from 'the motorist community'.

Bobbie Carnegie ● 2333d

Jeremy doesn’t have his feet on the ground simply because he’s cycling in both photos. In the first he hadn’t reached the stop line. In the second he’s across the road. These photos are turning out more like a Rorschach inkblot test, saying more about the observer than the images.

Tom Pike ● 2333d

If I am ever up in front of a judge at the Old Bailey I want Tom Pike to defend me!I'm too much of a conformist as a cyclist to ever jump red lights but am quite happy when driving to see them move ahead and therefore less likely to delay me when the light goes green. As long as they do it carefully and present zero risk to pedestrians then why not?

Andrew OSullivan ● 2332d

"As long as they do it carefully and present zero risk to pedestrians then why not?"For the same reason that motorists can't break the law just because they 'think' they are breaking the law 'carefully'.You seem to be condoning anarchy.

Steve Taylor ● 2332d

Enforcement of the law already ignores less serious breaches for instance in the leeway given to speeding motorists who aren't prosecuted if they are less than 10% over the limit. If you like you could insist on a cyclist must have their foot on the ground while proceeding through a red light which would arguably make them a pedestrian and therefore not committing any offence.

Andrew OSullivan ● 2331d

My point about Jeremy’s feet were simply intended to suggest that Jeremy was probably in motion when the earlier photo was taken I.e. he wasn’t stationary waiting for the red light to change. It’s entirely possible he subsequently came to a stop without going across the stop line and I think I said that before. It’s not easy to know for certain but to me it looks like he is quite close to the stop line in the earlier photo (sad to admit, but I looked the location up on streetview in google maps to be able to interpret what the pictures were showing).I’m quite pro cyclists, I drive a car, and I don’t have a bee in my bonnet about cyclists going Slowly through the occasional red light - I don’t think they should, but if I got get up every time I saw one my blood pressure would be very high. As it would if I got het up every time I saw a car going through an Amber light. It winds me up far more when I see those small group of cyclists who speed through red lights especially at crossings with regard only to not losing momentum and sod everyone else.The other thing that I seem to remember from years back is that technically, even if you are wheeling a cycle across a pedestrian crossing, you are still considered to be a cyclist and not a pedestrian in the eyes of the law.

Andrew Jones ● 2331d

"even if you are wheeling a cycle across a pedestrian crossing, you are still considered to be a cyclist and not a pedestrian in the eyes of the law."I didn't know that but I am aware that it is illegal to cycle across a pedestrian crossing. Some arrogant or moronic cyclists seem to think that vehicles have to stop for them if they are cycling across a pedestrian crossing. They don't!

Steve Taylor ● 2331d