'It's not a political thing': Jeremy Vine on bike safety - and that helmet camera

Cycling along a busy one-way street in central London, followed by a black Mercedes and a line of other cars, Jeremy Vine ponders the best way to stay safe: get a little closer to the side, leaving room for a potentially close overtake, or stay in the center of the lane?

"It's a bit of a enigma,” he admits. “Let's take the main position and see if we get any argy-bargy. Consider it an experience. »

As we pedal, the driver of the Mercedes stays a few meters behind, making no effort to sneak up or even close. "That guy behind us is adorable," smiled Vine. “We shouldn't always portray cycling as dangerous. The most dangerous thing you can do is always be on your couch, eating Pringles. Television program on Channel 5. But if you follow the presenter on Twitter, you could be forgiven for thinking that his main work is, in fact, the journeys he makes between them.

While many cyclists post clips from bike camcorders to highlight unsafe riding, over the past two years Vine has taken this concept forward in a number of ways.

To start with, it doesn't just post plain clips. Vine's contributions are micro-documentaries, adding explanatory graphics, music and rewind footage to show different angles, which is possible thanks to the high-tech 360-degree camera he uses, perched on his helmet.

While many videos show instances of misbehaviour - Vine passed around 15 of the most egregious examples to the police - it also posts vignettes of uplifting interactions with drivers and other cyclists, and once sent a case of beer to a trucker who had been particularly considerate. His most recent video showed he didn't see any pedestrians trying to use a zebra crossing as he walked past.

"People say: "Why are you filming?", and the answer is, sometimes I want to look back and see what I did wrong. When I approached a crossroads and felt unsafe, was I in the wrong place?" he explains.

Vine, 57, says he started cycling after he got "bigger and sadder" in his mid-40s, and that he realized that the gym wasn't the answer when he visited once a year for membership - to use the hot tub.< /p>

He now walks 15 miles every weekday to commute, since and between jobs, and is slim and obvious again, in vigorous good health." That's all what you need to stay in shape,” he says. brilliantly put it, the bike is a muffin-powered flying machine. There is just the risk of sudden death. And that's what started to make me more assertive about safety. eventually concluded that he needed to start using a video camera. “I thought I had to try hard to understand what was putting me at risk and take all possible measures. For me, it was the execution. I think bad drivers ultimately react to law enforcement.

This aspect of his cycling came to prominence in 2017 when a driver who honked his horn and shouted profanity at Vine was convicted of threatening behavior and a driving offence. A video of the incident he posted on Facebook has been viewed over 15 million times.

I'm joining Vine for the last leg of a weekday ride , from the BBC radio studios in central London, heading west towards his house. An easily recognizable figure in his bright yellow gloves and camera helmet, Vine is often spotted by other bikers, and increasingly, he says, by drivers. "I have a taxi driver who says to me, 'I'm not going near you, because I know who you are.' I thought maybe that was good."

Our experience with the courteously driven Mercedes comes just beyond the BBC studios, on a stretch of one-way street where, Vine says, he regularly faced danger, pointing out his well-established belief that the only way to improve cycling safety is to create better road infrastructure.