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This is the father of the five-year-old boy whose video of him cycling along a road sparked a furious row between Jeremy Vine and Sajid Javid.
Ashley Zhang-Borges, 36, filmed his son as he cycled to school and capture the moment a car ‘squeezed’ past the lad – prompting viewers to hold their breath.
He posted the video on his Twitter feed and he has now been viewed almost two million times with more than 75 per cent of people in his favour.
Police have also sided with him but former Home Secretary and Chancellor Mr Javid backed the motorist – sparking an online row between him and broadcaster Jeremy.
The incident happened earlier this month as Ashley was taking his son to school in Kingston, south-west London, and he can be heard calling the driver of the blue Ford Focus involved an ‘idiot’.
Ashley Zhang-Borges, 36, filmed his son as he cycled to school and capture the moment a car ‘squeezed’ past the lad
THE VIDEO: Footage shows a boy cycling along a street in Kingston, south-west London. A car approaches from the other direction and passes without incident, but the parent filming his son from behind criticises the driver for not stopping or slowing
In the clip the little boy is seen cycling towards oncoming traffic and as a car approaches his father is heard to say to his son ‘Keep going, keep going.’ before shouting at the car: ‘Aren’t you going to stop?’
Jeremy – a well-known cycling advocate – highlighted the footage on his Channel 5 show and asked viewers who was in the wrong and the backbench MP said on social media: ‘The five-year-old’s father’.
The broadcaster, a well-known cycling advocate, slammed the motorist on Twitter for not going ‘dead slow’ while driving past the boy, and said anyone who disagreed should ‘cut up their driving licence and send the pieces back to the DVLA’.
On Jeremy’s chat show, Ashley, who stood as a Labour party councillor in local elections earlier his year and lost, said: ‘The facts are clear on this one, the driver was wrong, and my son has every right to ride in the road. That’s clear cut.’
He added: ‘You can see from the clip that they should have stopped way sooner than they did. They had plenty of distance to make that decision. We had lights on, reflective clothing, so much time to stop.
‘People will argue “Plenty of room, you could drive a bus through there”, well I’m sorry, that’s not actually factually correct even slightly. The facts are clear on this one, the driver was wrong, and my son has every right to ride in the road. That’s clear cut.’
He went on to tell Jeremy that the gap between his son and the car was ‘less than a metre’ and that the motorist was ‘legally and morally wrong’ adding: ‘Everyone knows that it was too close.’
The debate was raised by avid cyclist Jeremy Vine during his show on Channel 5, pictured
On Jeremy’s chat show, Ashley (pictured) said: ‘The facts are clear on this one, the driver was wrong, and my son has every right to ride in the road. That’s clear cut.’
Sajid Javid (pictured) clashed with Jeremy Vine over a controversial video showing a car passing ‘too close’ to a five-year-old cyclist
Mr Vine – who is an avid cyclist – was among those defending the father for allowing his boy to cycle along the road
While in an interview with Cycling Weekly, Ashley slammed the now backbench MP and said: ‘I thought there was no way that he, the former chancellor, was wasting his time with this. Also I was shocked that he was coming out and so obviously blaming me, not the poor driving in the video.’
The Highway Code was updated in January to allow cyclists to take the centre of lanes at times, having previously been ordered to hug the kerb.
The updated guidance reads: ‘Cyclists should make themselves as visible as possible by riding in the centre of lanes on quiet roads, in slower-moving traffic and at the approach to junctions.
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‘They should also keep at least 0.5m from the kerb side on busy roads and should leave 1m when passing a parked car.’
In a Tweet Surrey Road Police also backed Ashley and his son and said: ‘If you look ahead there is a pinch point with priority to traffic travelling the same direction as the riders. Had there been a car travelling towards the driver, the driver would have had to of pulled over in the gap behind the parked cars.
‘The Highway Code was recently updated creating a hierarchy of road users. The driver should have slowed/stopped to give the rider room to pass safely. The hierarchy does not remove the need for everyone o behave responsibly in this case we believe the riders did nothing wrong.’
Mr Vine, a well-known cycling advocate, took to Twitter to slam the motorist, but Sajid Javid responded claiming the boy’s father was at fault
Mr Vine tweeted ‘I mustn’t respond’ in frustration following Mr Javid’s tweet
Keen cyclist Mr Vine took to social media last month to berate another motorist whom he accused of driving dangerously in Kensington.
Posting footage on Twitter of the tense interaction with a supercar driver in the heart of London, Mr Vine branded the motorist the ‘Ronnie Pickering of Kensington’ after the driver declared him ‘a d**k’.
The video showed the television presenter on his bike with a £200,000 Bentley beeping its horn behind him.
After the luxury supercar undertakes Mr Vine, the motor then approaches two other cyclists who are in the road.
When the traffic lights turn red, Mr Vine trundles to his driver-side window to confront him about his manoeuvres.
The Eggheads and Radio 2 host exclaims: ‘Oooooh, you’re quite a dangerous driver, mate.’
But the motorist does not back down and instead tells him: ‘You’re in the wrong lane, why aren’t you in that lane?’
He then points to the curbside left hand side of the road, to which Vine edits dramatic low piano notes over the footage and adds text bemoaning the lack of a cycle lane.
Mr Vine is then heard quizzing him: ‘Why do you think you’ve got a right to go ahead of me just because you’re in a car?’
The motorist tells him: ‘Because you deliberately went in front of me and in the wrong lane. Get in the bloody cycle lane. I drive how I want. You don’t own the road, believe it or not.’
The driver seemed nonplussed by meeting Mr Vine and told him ‘My name’s Paul and you’re a d**k’
In August, Mr Vine also shamed a moped driver for speeding through a zebra crossing between two pedestrians.
Mr Vine wrote on Twitter: ‘Does this matter? Are zebra crossing incursions worth reporting? From my ride this morning.’
In the footage, Mr Vine zoomed along the road in the cycle lane and then stopped for the pedestrians on the crossing.
He drew red circles around the multiple pedestrians who were walking across.
