A recent post in the London and UK Couriers group on FB featured a video of motorcyclist expressing his feelings about a van driver’s attempt to bully him off of the road by giving him a couple of solid punches in the face.

The general consensus was that the rider was 100% in the right; it was no more than any of us had done in our younger days on the road; although older, wiser heads suggested that it might have been more sensible to have backed off and sent the video to the police and left it to them to ensure that he understood the error of his ways.

Personally, as someone who’s still very much in touch with my various younger selves, from adolescence to the courier years and beyond, I was pretty certain that my reaction wouldn’t have been dissimilar forty years ago. Don’t get me wrong though, even as teenager I was never really a fan of violence and I’ve always been contemptuous of the idea that ‘might is right’; but there are occasions when a solid smack in the face feels like the only reasonable reaction.

I don’t say that lightly because in all the years and thousands of miles that I was on the road, there were only a handful of times that I actually came to blows with miscreant drivers. Let’s face it if you took time out to give a good hiding to every driver who came close to killing you, you’d never get any work done. If someone cut me up and I hooted my horn and the driver raised a hand in apology, I was satisfied and happy to go about my business with no more than perhaps pointing at their mirror as I rode off.

On the other hand, if they gave me the finger or wound their window down and shouted a load of verbal, I’d pull in front of them and invite them to step out of their motor, which invariably resulted in them locking the doors, winding the window up, and staring straight ahead, which would earn them a wanker sign as I rode off and got back to business. However there were occasions when their initial offence, compounded by their subsequent attitude, demanded an act of violence and whether it was the driver or the vehicle that was on the receiving end depended on whether or not you could get to him; sometimes you had to be satisfied with ripping a wing mirror off, kicking a headlight out, or putting a boot in a panel.

There were only three occasions when I actually hit anyone – like I say, when it comes down to it, I’ve always been a lover rather than a fighter – and it was only the first one where I did any serious damage. But then he didn’t so much ask for a good kicking, as downright demand it.

I was running around Grafton Street doing regular in-town work, when a Mercedes squealed away from the lefthand curb right in front of me, causing me to slam by brakes on. No panic, no real dramas, just fucking ignorant and dangerous, especially if I‘d been a less experienced rider who might have locked it up and hit the deck. I accelerated after him with my left thumb on the horn and rather than a simple brake-check, he stamped on them, skidding to a halt. Once again stopping was no biggie, but when he stuck his hand out of his window and raised his middle finger my need to cause him some serious bodily rocketed off the top of the scale.

However rather than surrendering to a red mist and doing something stupid that was likely to get me hurt, I grinned to myself at the thought of him kidding himself that he was going to get away from me in Mayfair traffic in a fucking car. I followed him up New Bond Street and around into Stafford Street, where I pulled alongside him as he sat stationary by Albemarle Street. I jumped off the bike and shouted the odds through his now firmly shut window while he stared straight ahead like his soundproofing was so fucking good that he didn’t even know I was there. I banged on his window a few times with the side of my fist, but he continued to pointedly ignore me.

I turned as if to walk away, before stopping and burying my heel in his door solidly enough to have the satisfaction of feeling it crumple. And that was it; he leapt out of his motor obviously intent on confronting me, but I had my left hand around his throat before he was even properly on his feet, and flicking my visor down with my right I pinned a solid nut in the middle of his face, which produced an equally satisfying crunching sound. He went down and I was treating him to some leather (pointy cowboy boots rather than cappers, like I said, first and foremost I was a lover rather than a fighter) when a traffic warden – the old type with a yellow band around his hat – came over, and was standing at a safe distance saying “Whoa, whoa!”

And just like that my anger evaporated. I turned to the warden and said in the calmest of voices “It’s OK, I was just making a point.” He asked what had happened and I told him that the cunt with blood all over his face had pulled out right in front of me without looking – or as the rest of his manner suggested, even giving a shit – and then slammed his brakes on. The warden asked him what he had to say and he replied that he was insured. I could feel my anger rising when I said “That takes care of the bike, what about me?” He actually laughed when he said “The NHS is free.”

Which is when I punched him again; and again; I was about to hit him a third time when the warden started talking into his broach asking for police assistance. Matey jumped back in his motor and quickly drove off into the clear space that had opened up ahead of us. I suggested to the warden that as I didn’t want to make a complaint to the Old Bill and clearly that cunt hadn’t either, perhaps his time would be best served by forgetting anything had occurred and getting on with issuing parking tickets; and I guess he must have agreed because he told his controller to scrub around the last call.

The second one was nowhere near as violent, in fact it would barely have merited a mention if it wasn’t for the circumstances. I was heading northbound on Park Lane on my way back to base (in Maida Vale) on Friday night, when up ahead a bus pulled away from the stop on the left just after Brook Gate. I moved over to the right lane to allow him into the middle lane but he kept on coming. My bike was fitted with twin Fiamms and I gave them a serious blast but he ignored me, so I kept my finger on the button and held my line. We were inches apart by the time we both came to a halt and he opened the door to his cab and started shouting abuse about bloody couriers acting like they own the bloody road! Didn’t I see his bloody indicator? I pointed out that his bloody indicator wasn’t on and he reached down and turned it on.

That was when I lost it on that occasion; he was way up in his cab on a double decker and I was still sitting astride the bike and reaching across with my right, so my ‘punch’ to his leg was so feeble that it barely amounted to a poke. But the driver said right that’s it, it’s London Transport policy to report all assaults on staff and he got on his radio. Fortunately while he was reporting his violent assault, a Jag pulled up ahead of us and the driver – a very respectable looking chap in a whistle – came back and gave me his business card saying he’d been behind me and he’d seen everything and the bus driver had behaved outrageously.

Consequently I wasn’t in the slightest bit concerned and made no attempt to flee the scene. I took my lid off, lit a fag, sat on the bike and smiled sweetly at the pissed off commuters sitting on the number 2 that was blocking the second and third lanes, forcing the rush hour traffic to squeeze past in the remaining space. My controller was answering calls about ‘square wheels’ on Park Lane northbound, by informing the fleet that ’23 had got in a punch up with a bus driver. I couldn’t hear the riders’ responses, but judging by the ones who managed to weave their way through the traffic and were beeping and waving their fists encouragingly as they rode past, I didn’t get the impression that they were judging me too harshly.

I was chilled, in spite of the daggers I was getting from most of the passengers stuck on the bus; in fact I was feeling a bit of a vibe between me and the pretty redhead a couple of seats back from the cab where the driver was sitting, glowering at me with undisguised hatred that seemed way out of whack with the actuality of my ‘assault’. I noticed a police Rover on the southbound carriageway with its blues & twos going, but I was expecting the plod to eventually turn up on foot so until they swung around at Grosvenor Gate, it never occurred to me that they might be anything to do with me. I had plenty of time to shit myself as they picked their way through the jam I’d created, but it was much too late to think about jumping on the bike and escaping to W9, so I stayed where I was and did my best not to show the concern that was beginning to gnaw at my stomach.

The two TD coppers put their hats on as they stepped out of their car and walked towards me. The driver climbed down from his cab for the first time and he was fucking massive, at least 6’ 2” and 20 stone – albeit much of it blubber by the look of it – and approached the officers saying that I had hit him and London Transport had a zero tolerance policy on assaults on their staff. He was asked what had happened and he said that he had pulled away from the bus stop and was indicating as he moved across to the outside lane, when I came tearing towards him speeding recklessly. I cut across him to say that a) I wasn’t speeding (which wasn’t entirely true, but barely considering that northbound carries a 40mph limit anyway) and b) he hadn’t been indicating…

Before I could add that I had an independent witness who I was confident would back me up, the driver cut across me stating assertively that he was indicating, a fact that he was sure the drivers in the two buses stuck in the jam behind us would verify. I raised my eyebrows at the cops and said “Yeah and I’m sure I can produce half a dozen despatch riders who would swear on a stack of bibles that they were right behind me and he hadn’t!” I was relieved to see both coppers suppressing a laugh.

I handed them my witness’s card saying he had given it to me because he thought the bus driver had been bang out of order and the cop who’d done all of the talking so far asked the driver if he had any cuts or bruises? When he admitted that he didn’t, the cop asked him what he wanted to do and he repeated that it was LT policy to prosecute all assaults. “OK”, the cop said, reaching for his note book, “just as long as you understand that on the basis of what you have told us and in the absence of any injuries, it only amounted to common assault; but if his witness” he pointed at me and waved the card “backs up his version of events, you could find yourself being charged with reckless driving; driving without due consideration for other road users; and, quite possibly, given the massive difference in size and his vulnerability, attempted murder.”

Fattie backpedaled so quickly he almost tripped over himself. “Well I suppose that under the circumstances…” The nice ossifer suggested that it might be best if we just shook hands, agreed that we would put the whole thing down to experience and get on with our days. I had the biggest shit-eating grin as I thrust my hand at the giant across from me and wasn’t unduly surprised to discover that he had a pathetically limp handshake. I thanked the police for their wonderful common sense approach to the situation and their expressions seemed to say “What else could we do with a whinging wanker like that!” as they waved me on my way.

I strode back to the bike and winked at the pretty ginge before pulling my lid and gloves on and riding off into the clear road ahead, knowing I was likely to be treated to a drink or two on the strength of my very public performance when we all headed over to The Alfred later.

My third example was almost as innocuous as my ‘assault’ on the bus driver, but it very nearly put a stop to my escape from the courier business and all the high stress situations that necessarily involved. It was past 6pm on a Friday night in December that was supposed to be my last day on the road before I started a brand new job at Barnardos on Monday.

It had been pissing down all day so I was dressed head to toe in the white Helly Hensons (which I’d bought in the yachting shop on the Fulham Palace Road – why there was a yachting shop in Hammersmith I never figured? – to replace the old orange ones that had done such a sterling job of keeping me dry earlier in my career). I was crawling along D’Arblay Street in nose to tail traffic. I attempted to slide past an Escort van on the right, but the driver moved over to prevent me. I waited until he edged forward before trying again on his inside, but he moved back across, blocking me again. I feinted right, then left, and slid my GT550 down his near side before he could do anything about it. Moving forward alongside him I edged across his front and he drove into my pannier, so I pulled forward, kicked the stand down and walked back wearily to have a word.

He opened his window defiantly and I asked if he got any satisfaction out of acting like such a cunt? He looked me up and down before snarling that it was better than looking like one. I cuffed him through the open window with the back of my left hand and turned to walk back to the bike. Next thing I knew he was out of the car and flying at me, shouting what he was going to do to me and I was suddenly acutely aware that I was due to rejoin the respectable world after the weekend, so this really wasn’t a good time to be rolling in a gutter in Soho, knocking lumps out of a spiteful, ill-tempered driver. So I grabbed him using moves I’d learned in my previous bouts of residential work and restrained him across the bonnet of his van so there was nothing he could do but scream what he was going to do to me as soon as I let go of him.

So I said “Fuck it, you can stay there then” and laughed at his mounting fury and frustration. A couple of fellas got out of the builders van that was stuck behind us and said “Come on mate, it’s Friday night and we need to get home!” I pointed out that I’d been all set to ride off before the wanker went for me and I wasn’t about to let him go while he was threatening to do me grievous bodily. They agreed that they’d stand between me us to allow me to go and when I let him up he was still shouting the odds, but made no serious attempt to get past the builders who were both pretty solidly built.

The purple faced driver demanded that I gave him my details so he could report me to the police and I said “Yeah righteo”, hopped on the GT and rode off into the night without giving him another thought beyond laughing at the fact that he was lucky he hadn’t gone for me when I didn’t have a pressing reason not to give him the pasting he so thoroughly deserved.

I started my new job Monday afternoon, expecting a full induction before I began normal duties, only to be greeted by my friend Martin who was deputy manager (he’d pointed me at the job having worked with me previously) and asked me if I knew where Walthamstow nick was? When I said “Yes, on Forest Road”, he handed me some car keys and told me he needed me to go and be an ‘appropriate adult’ for the interviews of a couple of residents.

The interviews, back in the pre-recording days when the police typed statements – invariably slowly and painfully with one or two fingers – went on forever because the two lads were both pretty thick and the sergeant conducting the interviews wasn’t a whole lot brighter, so he had to ask every question at least three times before he got the answer he was looking for. “How did you get to Stratford?” “By bus.” “What bus?” “A red one” “What number?” and so it went on for hours. The boys weren’t even being intentionally obtuse, they were simply taking the queries at face value and as a result that errand to E17 accounted for most of my first day’s work.

Shortly after I arrived at work the following day, my wife phoned to say that a police officer had turned up at our front door and asked her if I rode a Kawasaki GT550 registration number… and how she’d gone weak at the knees thinking he’d come to tell her that I’d been wiped out on the A2. Consequently, in spite of the implication, she was relieved when he told her that I needed to turn myself in to the police station in Saville Row to answer to a charge of ABH.

So it was that I walked into West End Central a couple of days later worried that I had blown my new job before I’d even started. Having – minor indiscretions and traffic regulations apart – been a largely law abiding citizen up until that point, I was shocked when I was charged, photographed, finger-printed, and asked to provide a DNA swab before I was locked in a cell. When I was interviewed they presented the drivers’ statement and photographs of injuries to his face. I knew I couldn’t have caused them with the sole backhander I’d given him with my heavily padded winter glove and told the officer as much, saying that he’d either been mashing his face against a wall or he’d got a friend to give him a few serious whacks, but they definitely weren’t down to me.

The officer told me that it would be up to the magistrate in Gt Marlborough Street court to decide and I was bailed to appear there a few days later. As a sole worker with a wife and a couple of kids who wasn’t earning a fortune, I was entitled to legal aid and my brief advised me that he should seek a binding over on my behalf, which would be the easiest way of resolving the situation without any danger of ending up with a criminal record, if it turned out that the beak had a dodgy Masonic attitude to trouble making motorcyclists. So I did and it was all pretty painless; I was bound over to keep the peace for 12 months and I didn’t even have to pay a fine. When the magistrate asked if I had anything to say, I replied that with this sole exception, which had been provoked by the plaintiff’s appalling attitude, I had managed to keep the peace for the previous 32 years so I was confident I could keep my nose clean for one more.

And that, in spite of nearly four decades of ongoing fuckry from other road users, was the last time I ever struck anyone. However, I have never stopped taking time out to point out that it was neither nice nor polite to use a vehicle as a weapon to bully a bike out of a section of road that I am entitled to be on. I realise that as a 70 year old, I don’t present the sort of inherent threat that I did in my younger years, looming over their window in a helmet and riding kit; nonetheless they’re usually so shocked to be confronted by someone so ancient that they usually either mutter an apology or fall back on the old staring straight ahead approach, but to date, they have never offered to get out and settle it mano a mano.