Bicycling vigilante Cycling Mikey waves purple card at rogue motorist

The cycling vigilante Cycling Mikey has struck again by waving a red card at a motorist who was driving on the wrong side of the road – causing a furious stand-off.

It is the latest stunt by Mike Van Erp, 52, who is better known by his YouTube brand Cycling Mikey, as he continues on his quest to rid London of rogue drivers.

The road safety warrior and his GoPro camera claim to have ratted on more than 2,000 offenders since first strapping on his ‘helmet-cam’ back in 2006 – with his motoring victims including Frank Lampard, Guy Ritchie and Chris Eubank.

But the latest video by Mr Van Erp – who works as a carer and roller-skating instructor – caused the rogue motorist to break out in an expletive-laden rant and label him an ‘ugly wasteman’.

The video begins with Mr Van Erp sitting down at a crossing near Regent’s Park when he notices a silver BMW driving on the wrong side of the road to skip the large queue that had formed.

Mr Van Erp quickly steps out in front of the car and says ‘are you mad?’ before brandishing a red card with the Cycling Mikey YouTube logo on it.

The rogue driver asks him to move out of the way because he is going to work but Mr Van Erp stands firm and continues to block his path.

The enraged motorist then gets out of his car and begins swearing at Mr Van Erp, telling him it is ‘none of his business’ and asking ‘is he the government or something?’.

In a foul-mouthed rant, the man then labels Mr Van Erp a ‘f****** wasteman’ and tells him to ‘go get a life’.

In a dramatic escalation the driver then moves his car forward in a threatening move but pulls just short of trampling over Mr Van Erp after his fellow lycra-clad cyclists intervene and warn the driver ‘to not do anything stupid’.

A peacemaker then arrives and speaks to the furious driver through his window, causing him to reverse his car and join the queue on the right side of the road.

But the angry driver is not finished with Mr Van Erp and winds down his window to give him some more abuse – calling him ‘ugly’ and taking pictures of him on his phone.

Mr Van Erp fires back by saying he is recording him for using his phone.

However the driver behind the silver BMW seems to appreciate Mr Van Erp’s efforts and gives him a smile and a thumbs up as he passes by.

It is not the first incident to happen at the junction by London’s Regent’s Park, which has been dubbed Gandalf Corner.

In September 2021 Mr Van Erp ended up on the car bonnet of celebrity talent agent Paul Lyon-Maris, who has represented Alan Rickman, Sir Ian McKellen and Warwick Davis, after he took an illegal right turn on his way to a physio appointment.

The agent was charged with dangerous driving and common assault for the incident, but was cleared by a jury in October 2022.

Mr Van Erp told Southwark Crown Court at the time how he first gained ‘notoriety’ after broadcaster Jeremy Vine retweeted one of his videos of him on the bonnet of a silver Mercedes. 

Another one of his most high profile scalps came in the summer of 2020 when he caught Guy Ritchie driving his Range Rover through Hyde Park. The film director was ultimately given six points, fined and banned from driving for six months.

Asked afterwards what motivated his crusade, he told MailOnline: ‘My dad was killed by a drink-driver when I was 19, I still remember him, so I feel very strongly about road safety. I first got my helmet camera in 2006 and realised its potential.’

In a separate interview, the Dutch national – who was born in Zimbabwe – recalled how he had arrived at the site to see his father’s body in the road, covered by a rug.

Mr Van Erp claimed to have caught more than 1,000 drivers in last three years alone, after it became easier for civilians to report crime via the internet. Over 600 were prosecuted.

In 2022, it emerged that former England footballer Frank Lampard had been caught on camera by Mr Van Erp holding a phone while at the wheel of his car. 

Lampard was filmed driving his £250,000 Mercedes G-wagon holding a cup of coffee and his mobile but escaped prosecution because the CPS said there was ‘insufficient evidence’.

The ex-Chelsea midfielder had employed the services of Nick Freeman — the lawyer known as ‘Mr Loophole’ due to his success at getting famous clientele off — to defend him. 

He’d denied a charge of ‘using a handheld mobile phone/device while driving a motor vehicle on a road’ and Mr Freeman successfully argued that it could not be proved that Lampard was interacting with his phone.

Others have not been so fortunate. In September 2021, former boxer Chris Eubank was given three points and fined for running a red light after trying to flee from Mike, who had challenged him for trying to connect to his hands-free phone system.

‘Apparently he said he was worried that I was a stalker,’ Mr van Erp reflected in an interview with the Daily Mail. ‘Although I can’t imagine Chris Eubank really being scared of anyone, can you?’

Having moved to the UK in 1998, aged 26, with his then-wife — they have since divorced — to work in IT, Mr Van Erp said he became acutely aware of dangerous motorists as he cycled to work.

‘I was commuting in from Kent to London and there would be at least one incident a day where my personal safety was at risk,’ he says. ‘People driving right up behind me or within a whisker of me.’ So, by 2006, when chat on cycle forums turned to the availability of helmet cameras, he decided to buy one.

Back then, reporting an offence was a laborious process. ‘You’d have to burn a DVD and go to the police station to fill out a long form, so you only did it for the really serious ones,’ he says. ‘For a long time, it was purely to try to stop people from driving recklessly around me.’

That changed in 2018 with the emergence of online reporting. ‘It made things much easier — you just edit footage and upload it with a few more details,’ he says. ‘I got a few of those to court and I thought ‘wow I can really make a difference’. That’s when I started focusing on people more generally.’