Emma Way was apparently annoyed by the happy bike riders in the road taking part in the 100-mile Boudicca Sportive event. But it wasn’t deliberate when she knocked one of them off his bike and into a hedge when her car’s wing mirror struck his handlebar.
Intuiting that the bicyclist, Toby Hockley, wasn’t hurt, she drove off. Later she tweeted:
Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier – I have right of way he doesn’t even pay road tax! #bloodycyclists
Nice victim blaming. That’ll teach him. Wonder if there’s anything you could learn, Ms Way?
The tweet was instantly flashed around the UK bike websites. The local Norfolk police, tweeted:
emmaway20 we have had tweets ref an RTC with a bike. We suggest you report it at a police station ASAP if not done already & then dm us
Since then Way has spoken with the police, been suspended from the company where she was a trainee accountant – a company well known as a cycling sponsor – and made matters worse with a ITV interview.
It’s sad for me
“I posted a stupid tweet,” she said in the interview. (Yes, that was indeed stupid in so many ways. From the point of view of legal self-protection, from the point of view of staying employed, and from the point of view of being a DECENT HUMAN BEING.)
The interviewer asked why she posted it. “Because it was a spur-of-the-moment stupid tweet,” she said. “The social network gets blown all out of proportion. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and you know, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it would ever escalate to this.” (Yes, if it weren’t for the CRAZY SOCIAL MEDIA she could rant on social media about knocking someone over without people MAKING A BIG THING about it.)
“I’m getting severely bad-named.” Nasty calls and messages. “Obviously my career is now – I have been suspended, and it’s now possibly – over.” Her attorney watched dolefully as she continued her ill-advised stream of self-pity.
He recapped the talking points. “As already indicated she apologises for the tweet and of course, as any one would be, she’s sorry if there’s been any discomfort caused to the cyclist. She’s not anti-cyclist. She’s a cyclist herself.”
If knocked off bike, proceed on foot.
The interviewer, fashioning a noose just Emma Way’s size and passing it to her, metaphorically speaking, asked what she would say if Toby Hockley were in the room. “If I did cause any damage to him, I would obviously apologise. But I didn’t feel him even touch my car – apart from his handlebar donked the wing mirror – and I would just want to obviously make him know that if I knew that he was hurt, I would never have driven off.” (That’s not how hitting someone works. You don’t get to decide without stopping if the other party’s okay.)
“I just want to say sorry for any discomfort caused to anybody and if I could take back doing that tweet I would.” (We believe you. What about taking back KNOCKING THE GUY OFF HIS BIKE?) “You know my whole career is at risk now, and — any damage caused to the cyclist, I don’t want any cyclist to think that I have hatred against them, because I’m a cyclist myself.” (Which is like saying “I have a Black friend.”)
One reason this story won’t die is because Way’s apologies are terrible, filled with minimizing (discomfort! donked!), and outweighed by her self-pity. She’s sorry because she didn’t realize it would escalate, she might not get her job back, and her career might be ruined. Not because she failed to stop after committing what her attorney terms a “careless driving offense.”
What was her attorney thinking? Why didn’t he advise her to say she’s sorry she knocked Hockley off his bike, sorry she didn’t stop, sorry she didn’t report it, sorry she tweeted blame to the victim?
Bloody cyclists not allowed on path to Beeston Regis, Norfolk.
ITV also interviewed Hockley, who said he was “very surprised” Way didn’t stop. He said he’d been relieved to be in one piece, happy to be able to finish the ride – and not inclined to pursue it because he worried that his girlfriend would make him stop riding.
When the tweet went viral Hockley, a freelance chef, came forward as the cyclist in question. He says the attitude Way displayed was silly, disrespectful, and dangerous in a driver.
“I’m sorry that she’s in trouble with her employers….I think it’s a shame for anyone to lose their job,” he said. “But if she hit me any harder, I’d have been out of work.”
Bloody bitch. I hope they throw the book at her, and a heavy one at that.
You seem to feel strongly, sir.
I do indeed. I have spent a lot of time riding a bike. I have never been hit, for which I am grateful. But I’ve had many close calls, with drivers who are either inattentive or openly hostile. Ms Way seems to be a bit of both. If she had hit me and then behaved as described above, I would be encouraging the police to pursue all applicable charges.
What the ………?! Um, HELLO, if you HIT SOMEONE, regardless of what country, wouldn’t you stop!?! From which Cracker Jack box did she take her driver’s license???? (Oh, wait. No Cracker Jacks in the UK. Still.)
And the point of his not paying road tax – ? she could get his financial and tax status — all of that from just clipping him as she drove past? What genius, then.
What a self-involved person! I guess this is the trait that all unapologetics have in common and why this column is so fascinating. I wonder if she will ever see the error of her ways?
I had a moment of thinking ‘she’s young and confused, maybe I should be nicer,’ but then I remembered, SHE HAS A DRIVER’S LICENSE.
Wow, this is one of the most pristine examples of karma I have ever come across. What an impossibly daft individual.
I’m surprised she hasn’t sued the cyclist for dinging her mirror.
I have been thinking about this. I think she’s easy to make fun of because she is so horrible, from the hit-and-run, to the tweet, to her non-apology in the media. However, from the number of hit-and-run accidents I have been seeing in the news lately, I wonder if people just don’t know how to behave if they are in an accident. I had driver’s ed a million years ago, and I don’t think this was covered. I just checked a bunch of websites, and most of them are from insurers whose main goal is to limit liability.
It seems like it would be a useful thing to know exactly what one’s responsibility is in a situation such as this, and how one should behave. It should be obvious, but it apparently it is not obvious to everyone.
This URL is not bad – I like how the first things are to not panic, pull over safely, and check for injuries, and all the insurance stuff comes after:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/12/heading-out-on-your-own-day-12-what-to-do-if-you-get-in-a-car-accident/
If I had a kid, I’d make them practice this for sure — and make sure they know that leaving the scene is a crime.
That’s a really good point. I don’t remember my driver’s ed class going into this. Yet it’s very important.
That URL’s useful in many ways, but I don’t like that it says never to admit fault or say you’re sorry. That advice is old-fashioned — in a bad way. I disagree that it’s a mistake to do so. It can defuse the anger of the other person and contribute to an atmosphere of settling things fairly, honestly, and in a non-adversarial manner.
I don’t think the scammers he describes are going to get any traction in court by saying “Of course it’s her fault! She said she was SORRY!”
Yeah, though pretty much all the advice says not to apologize — this one is exceptional in that it’s not the main point. I don’t know whether apologies get used or not — I’d be interested to know. If it did not, it would be great if insurers would stop telling people not to apologize — it probably would make the accident scene less fraught.
(I hit someone’s parked car recently. I did not take the insurer’s advice and was all I’M SUPER SORRY all over the place (on her car, note left at the building where car was parked, on the phone.) She actually was unbelievably charitable about the accident, and did not want any compensation or to call the police or involve insurers. And it was a nice car! No idea if apology helped or not, but I was just, you know, SUPER SORRY.)
An interesting question. Part of the problem in getting to the answer is that experts in many fields (e.g. medicine and the law) have traditionally advised against apologies on the ground that they could be used against you in court. Only recently have there been actual studies showing that apologies are helpful and result in fewer lawsuits, and many experts still stick to the Never Apologize rule.
So if you asked insurance experts, I suspect that many would reflexively say Never Apologize — but that doesn’t mean they’d be right.
I remember a recent study like the one you describe regarding doctors, though not about car accidents. It does seem to me that those are different situations — in a medical situation, I would think suing a doctor would be a choice one would have to make. In a car accident, liability automatically comes into play, and admitting fault means one’s insurance company has to pay up and one’s rates are going to go up. Not saying it’s right (obviously — the point of my personal story was that it’s not what I would do) just saying I would not expect anything to change soon.