Jeremy Vine has said he will no longer post videos of his encounters with motorists while cycling because of the level of online abuse he receives – saying “it did get to me”.
The TV and radio presenter has for years been posting clips of his London commute, and making the case that some motorists in his videos are driving dangerously and greater consideration needs to be given to cyclists.
He spoke to BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Monday about his decision, after announcing on social media on Sunday that he would stop uploading the videos.
“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,” he said.
“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,” the BBC Radio 2 presenter added.
“Car driving is a religion in this country,” he said, adding “if you say anything that runs counter, that’s what you get.”
He read out examples of the comments he had received online, in which people said they wanted to see him injured on the road, or made personal comments about his family.
“Please only upload another cycling video if it’s you getting run down and hospitalised,” was among the comments Vine read out.
Many of Vine’s posts spark debate online over both the driver’s actions and his own, while some language used by Vine when talking about motorists has been divisive.
Last week he told broadcaster Gaby Roslin’s podcast “all the people who are not getting enough sex lock themselves in small metal boxes and drive around London” when describing his experiences in the capital.
“That’s fundamentally what’s going on in our society,” he added.
Challenged by World at One presenter Sarah Montague over whether his own behaviour had been militant, Vine said he was “just a safety first kind of a guy”.
“If you drive and you’re wanting your kids to be safe on the back you’re just a sensible person,” he added.
“If you cycle and you’d really rather not have your head crushed by the wheel of a bus you’re described as militant or radical.”
Vine also mentioned his bike recently being stolen from his home as among the reasons why he plans to stop posting the clips.
Writing on social media, he said: “The trolling just got too bad. They 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.”
In 2018, Vine told the London Assembly transport committee that he filmed up to 40 driving offences every day cycling from Chiswick in West London to the BBC offices in Oxford Circus.
The year before, a woman was jailed for shouting and making a gun sign at him as he cycled home from work.
