Britain's most hated cyclist!

Cycling vigilante secures 70 motoring convictions. 

A London Bus Driver by the name of Dave Sherry (pictured above) has become known as the most hated cyclist in Britain, probably. As a bus driver he should be every cyclist's worst enemy but away from his job or, more to the point, on the way to and from his job, he has become the scourge of every errant motorist that haplessly crosses his path.

Sherry has secured more than 70 convictions and has a record of making 20 reports in one day on the 40-mile route he cycles everyday between his home in Harlow Essex and the London Bus depot where he works.

Equipped with three cameras and a 120dB double trumpet lorry horn on his bicycle, he collects footage of motorists breaking the law which he then hands over to the Police. Dave says he has absolutely zero-tolerance for motorists using their mobile phones whilst driving, a fact that caused one bus driver to actually lose his job after Sherry ratted on him.

"It's like a minor war zone out there," says Sherry, who drives buses in London and says his call to arms came three years ago. "Some idiot drove into the back of my bike. I was late for work and I got penalised for that. I called the 'old Bill' but at the end of the day it was my word against his. To make it fair, I started putting cameras on my bike and helmet. Riding a bike on the road is a right and cyclists are not second class citizens. I'm not doing it for the money or for my ego. I've got people who despise me, I've had people stalking me."

Sherry hands most of the footage over to the Police but sometimes will also resort to posting it on Facebook, which he describes as a form of punishment much akin to the public stocks of medieval Briton.

Sherry is unperturbed that he is acting as a Judge, Jury and Executioner. "Drive courteously and you won't end up on YouTube. I do what I believe is true and just. If I save one person from an accident or encourage bad drivers to respect other road users then it is worth it," he maintains.

He has become so notorious along his commute to work that he claims that he has been stalked and has been driven off the road twice, leading to two convictions for assault and one taxi driver being convicted of driving the wrong way around a roundabout.

“If they want to call me a vigilante then so be it. You have to play the bad guy sometimes but I don’t commit offences, I just record them.”

Sherry is not the only highway vigilante active in the UK as budget cutbacks have allegedly reduced the number of Police Highway Patrols. Matt Stockdale (pictured below) set up www.policewitness.com after he was involved in a near fatal crash with a lorry. Stockdale posts examples of bad driving on his site and of course forwards the worst examples to the Police. He also claims to have helped secure dozens of convictions. 

"The police and their budgets and the austerity measures are not going away," he said. "We can all sit about and moan and say the police do nothing or we can do our civic duty and help the police. The police cannot do things unless they have the evidence.”

images: bbc.com