“Foul!” yells Lewis Dediare from his bicycle before brandishing a red card in the face of a dumbfounded delivery driver.
The scene is not a soccer field, rather the middle of a London street, where Dediare, alias the “Traffic Droid,” is busy pointing out the law to motorists.
The 49-year-old is one of dozens of British cyclists who have found a new raison d’etre: to travel the land recording reckless drivers with helmet-mounted cameras and passing the evidence on to police.
Photo: AFP
The authorities were at first wary of the carriageway vigilantes, but every case is now treated on its merits.
Equipped with Klaxon horns and a “Selfie cam” comprising torches and no less than eight cameras, Dediare is a one-man sound and light show, as likely to amuse as to intimidate.
“Some people say I look like a flying saucer,” he joked.
In addition to his red card, Dediare carries a tape measure to make sure motorists keep the regulated 1m distance from cyclists.
The spur for action was a 2009 bicycle accident in which he nearly died. Every day since getting back on his bike, he has documented his two-hour ride to his job in telecommunications, filming “idiots” before exposing them on YouTube.
Whether it is cutting people off, running red lights or using mobile phones, there is nothing that escapes his gaze.
“I’m scanning the road all the time, it’s like a video game,” he said.
Dediare reports an average of four drivers to the police every day. Some will be fined and might even lose their license.
His efforts inevitably irritate some road users.
“How about cyclists then? They are far worse. They don’t look at the traffic lights,” said a disgruntled truck driver, while casting a wary eye over the “Droid.” Others accuse him of being a “snitch,” an informer in a country already riddled with surveillance cameras.
“I’ve been attacked a few times,” Dediare said, but insisted he was just being a “concerned citizen.”
About 15 cyclists are killed in London each year on average, a toll that also spurred cyclist Dave Sherry to start filming his bike trips into the capital.
“Too many cyclists have died,” said Sherry, a 37-year-old bus driver. “It’s a jungle out there.”
Both Sherry and Dediare complain that budget cuts mean there are no longer enough police officers to protect cyclists. There are now 3,600 fewer officers in London than three years ago, according to Metropolitan Police figures.
Sherry claims to have notched up 60 convictions in the past two years. And last year, one of his videos even led to the dismissal of a fellow bus driver for texting while driving.
He admits to some resentment among his coworkers, but says: “I don’t care what people think. If I can save one cyclist’s life, that’s a good thing in my book.”
The father-of-five identified “mothers on the school run, van drivers, black cab drivers and people in high-end sports cars” as habitual offenders.
The crusaders often hand their evidence to Police Witness, a private company that offers to review the footage and pass it to the police for free, as long as cameras are purchased through them.
“We can sometimes receive tens, if not hundreds, of incidents each week,” chief executive Matt Stockdale said, adding that videos are only passed on where “we know the police can and will act.”
The British Association of Chief Police Officers, which helps develop guidance for police forces, said it encourages members of the public to bring any evidence of an offense to the authorities.
“With motoring offenses, videos filmed from dashboard mounted cameras or head cams are admissible as evidence, and assuming that the quality is good and the evidence can be corroborated the police will record, report and consider the circumstances of each case on its merits,” a spokesman said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS