Baxter Dury has revealed that Jeremy Vine caused him to lose his driving licence, and the BBC star has sent the musician a message following the incident.
Baxter Dury – who is a musician and the son of punk rock pioneer Ian Dury – shared the update during a new interview with Huw Stephens on BBC 6 Music. He shared that he had been caught looking at his phone while in a traffic jam by Jeremy Vine.
In the interview, Dury shared that he was on his way to producer Paul Epworth‘s studio to continue work on his new album ‘Allbarone’, when the BBC star recorded him looking at his phone.
“Do you know what? This is a tragic story, but I drove there for the first half (of making the record) and then lost my license,” he told Stephens. “I got caught in a traffic jam, and Jeremy Vine took a film of me looking at Instagram, which he deserves to, I’m not arguing about [it].”
He then realised that Vine also works for the BBC and may catch him again, joking: “Shouldn’t probably say that publicly, he’s probably in the other room, isn’t he?”
Vine has made a habit of recording and sharing footage of London drivers on social media in recent years, in a bid to raise awareness for the circumstances that cyclists have to face every day.
When drivers sound their horns because they’re just furious at the world. pic.twitter.com/CtonC97ROm
— Jeremy Vine | Here, on Tiktok, Insta & Facebook (@theJeremyVine) April 22, 2025
Speaking to the Mail after discovering that he caused the artist to lose his license, Vine defended the decision to record him and said: ‘This is very unfortunate. I would like Baxter to know that I love his dad’s music.”
‘I’m afraid mobile phone use in cars in London, particularly the posher parts, is an absolute curse. So I am quite tunnel-visioned about it,” he added. “We have 1,700 road deaths a year. Sorry to be serious about it. Best wishes to Baxter.”
The videos shared by Vine over the years have accumulated millions of views, however, backlash recently got so widespread that the television presenter decided to call it quits.
“I’m stopping my cycling videos. The trolling just got too bad,” he shared on X/Twitter. “They have had well over 100 million views but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me.”
“Some of the biggest videos were actually about the smallest incidents, like someone turning left in front of me,” he continued. “People are happy to discuss it and I actually think that we’d all be safer if we all understood each other. People are going to drive 4x4s in Kensington and whatnot but they need to have a bit of care for me on a bicycle.”
As for other Baxter Dury news, earlier this month the artist spoke to NME about his upcoming album ‘Allbarone’, which is due for release on September 12 via Heavenly Recordings. It marks the indie veteran’s ninth LP, and the first album he’s worked on in over five years.
Speaking about his time working with Epworth for the record, Dury told NME: “Paul took away the way of me controlling something. We all build up these unknown formulas, and it takes someone a bit bigger than you to challenge that. He stripped all that away. He wrote music and I responded to it.”
“We wrote it all in a month and a half,” he added. “It was all made up on the spot, and it really benefits from that. It’s a really interesting time and a fun record to make in a posh and palatial studio.
“The good thing about Paul is that he doesn’t really question much – whereas I’m in a sort of ballet of self-doubt. He doesn’t listen back to what you did yesterday to see if it was better, he just moves forward. That was the attitude and it really worked. I learned quite a lot.”
