A taxi driver was sounding his horn continuously in Whitehall. I stopped to video him. As the riders in front of him left he drove straight at me and hit my back wheel side on before I had time to move. The rest of the ride had departed and I was alone. The driver made rude gestures at me and I swore at him then he drive off. Because I was unaware that my thumb slipped at the moment of impact I wasn't able to record any further. Such rammings are fairly common on Critical Mass rides.

The problem with my back wheel wasn't apparent at first, in the confusion of the ride. It felt like I was pedalling uphill. I stopped to check and the tyre wasn't rubbing anywhere but I decided not to chance it further and quit the ride and headed for the nearest railway station.

Shortly after my ramming, a friend of mine on the ride was also rammed. Since the police stopped accompanying us the rammings seem to be happening more frequently. On large rides drivers have to wait longer for the 'procession' to pass and grow even more impatient than usual. Most of the time little or no damage is done to the bike or rider but ramming is a potentially hazardous act and it would only take a driver's foot to slip to make it very serious indeed. Do we have to wait until someone is killed or injured for the police to do something about it?

Doug.

***********************************************************

Hi Doug sorry to hear that, I thought it was the first incident free CM I had been on !!!!! I was with the front quarter of the mass with the bicology sound system (great job lads) and apart from another late start I thought everything went well moving at a steady pace, waiting and massing up at regular intervals and when we stopped at "protest points" I thought the timing was good long enough to make a point and not too long to get boring.

I guess like I have said before a lot of the "problems" stem from being too sucsessful as even on a cold November night the mass had a great turn out.

Maybe we need to learn from this and make sure nobody is left alone at the back there is always safety in numbers, I hope you upload your video so we can all see the driver and who knows maybe we'll come across him again !!!!!

Steven

***********************************************************