Words by

Iryna Zubenko

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Screenshot from video

A driver was seen hitting a cyclist with a car near Spöngin in Reykjavík yesterday, reports Vísir.

The video, recorded by Pétur Jóhannesson, who was driving in the area around 16:00 on October 29 when the incident took place, is spreading through social media. You can watch it on Vísir.

“The irritated driver started by forcing him toward the curb, drove right up alongside him, and was absolutely furious that he was cycling on the road,” Pétur, who told Vísir.

The bicycle got stuck under the car, making it difficult for the cyclist to remove it. A confrontation then broke out between the cyclist and the driver.

“Then the altercation happened, and it ended with the car following him toward the Spöngin area. They went off somewhere, but I didn’t follow them,” says Pétur, adding, “I was really shocked and appalled by the driver’s behaviour — getting angry at a cyclist who was just innocently riding along.”

Car owner responds

The car belongs to Rúnar Þór Vilhjálmsson, a taxi driver, but, according to Rúnar, his wife was driving when the incident occurred.

“She was driving behind him, and he was kind of dawdling in the middle of the road, going very slowly. She honked at him, and he flipped her off. She then managed to drive past him and stop at a roundabout,” Rúnar told Vísir.

According to Rúnar, the cyclist then rode up to the car, squeezing into a narrow space between the car and the curb. His wife rolled down the window, and they exchanged words.

“When he came up to the car, he started kicking and hitting it,” Rúnar adds. His wife then told him she was going to call the police, and he allegedly reached into the car to try to grab her phone.

“It’s only when she drove off in panic that she came so close to him — she was simply terrified,” says Rúnar, referring to the moment shown in the video. The driver herself refused to comment on the incident.

Rúnar insists that the bicycle did not go under the car but got stuck between the car’s running board and a snowbank.

“He managed to get the bike out and rode away. The bike wasn’t damaged.” By that point, his wife had already called the police, but the cyclist had disappeared. Rúnar claims that the car, however, was significantly damaged.

He adds that the police later contacted his wife and asked if she wanted to press charges against the cyclist. She has not yet made a decision.

Rúnar says he feels the situation is being blown out of proportion, though he admits the video looks bad.

“It makes her look like some kind of road rage driver. But that’s not true. She just panicked — he had reached into her car, trying to pull the phone from her hands as she was calling the police,” he says. “It was a terrifying experience for her.”