Police and Crime Commissioner fails to address concerns over Cambridge police's position on close passes

Why have we even got these PCC's they are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Just like our own one in Wiltshire who just seems to go from campaign to campaign just for photo opportunites and tying up front line police officers to have their photo's taken with him.

Apparently Wiltshire Police and Macpherson launched Op Close Pass a few months ago, guess what nothing since. However they can expend time & money chasing motocross riders across Salisbury Plain (which the MoD could Police themsleves), chasing hare coursers or having photo opportunites with captured swans but bugger all that actually doing any policing on the roads of Wiltshire to make it a safer place for the majority of resident's who have to pay for their inactivity.

I disagree. I think most of a certain age will have lived with drink driving having been socially unacceptable for years, those that do it are the tiny percentage of immoral scum that think they're above the law. Over the last 30 years, those who were allowed to do it legally, way back when, have either opened their eyes, died off or you still have a few that have 'always done it' or 'drive better when they're pissed'. Similarly with seat belt laws.

It's not the same for cycling. As you say, most know there's little chance of being caught or punished. However, very few actually appreciate just how dangerous it is and how intimidating it is. Cars pass wing mirror to wing mirror with mm to spare dozens of times per journey, they don't care, they don't consider it a close pass, it's success. In fact it fuels their ego a bit that they've got great judgement. You must have been a passenger in a car and witnessed a friend or colleague do a pass you've found cringe worthy and they've not batted an eye lid.

This needs to change.

"but it is how it is"

So we should allow drink driving then, that was how it was.

I do slightly get your point on semantics thus maybe they could have looked to change close pass to slow pass. On a tight street if I was pooling at 15mph and someone waited for the opportunity and passed me at 1m at 20mph I'd accept that.

You think it makes no difference, I think it's as much about education as actually catching and punishing people. The long term implications can be massive or maybe one alive child...

Meanwhile, back in the real world.  If he's have said "unrealistic" rather than "impractical" it might have caused less of a rumpus.  Fact is, he's still right either way.  Anyone that thinks a Close Pass initiative is going to make more than a scintilla of lasting difference is having a laugh with themselves.  The simple fact is that the Police don't now have a fraction of the necessary resources to enforce any decent standard of driving behavior in almost any circumstances, and the vast majority of drivers either through incompetence or lack of will don't give a f*uck about cyclsists.  You only have to look at people passing horses (or ride abroad) to see that drivers CAN pass properly and safely (generally), or certainly know how to do the right thing,  and cyclists to see that they don't want to.  We can rant on all we like about how outragous it is, but it IS how it is.  If you want to eradicate close passes, you need to physically separate cycles from powered road users, or radically and fundamentally change how we police our roads and the resourcing allocated to so doing.  Currently, there is absolutely no political will do to that other than where there is a direct economic neeed/benefit.

Luckily in Cambridge the traffic is so bad that you can usually catch up with the offending driver and take the law into your own hands.

The police will be too busy saying what a great cycling city Cambridge is to be able to respond.

I now try to avoid Cambridge and spend my money elsewhere.

"It is better that people should think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".

Sound about right for the PCC

Here in NZ, a woman was killed a couple of years ago by a driver of a truck which was overtaking on the brow of a hill on a narrow road with no passing lines.  The local road safety constable, Tina Mitchell-Ellis, said in the coroners court that "it isn't realistic to expect a truck to have to slow down for cyclists". 

What does that even mean? 

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10246262/Truck-too-close-to-cyclists-say...

And in other news, Cambridge CID will stop investigating murders, as it is impractical to ask people to stop stabbing eachother in the neck with scissors. The Fraud Squad has been twiddling their thumbs in strange, arcane patterns in an attempt to summon Cthulu, and noone has been brave enough to ask the Drugs and Vice Squads what their take on things is. But I'm guessing the parties will be pretty f***ing wild.

Sarcasm aside... no, I got nothing. Sarcasm's all I got left.

Pity the guy was only elected last year, so presumably won't have to face voters for a few more years.
Given PCC elections tend to have derisory turnouts, hopefully all Cambridge cyclists will remember this when the next PCC election comes round (seems last time he got 80k votes, 10k over his nearest rival, and I can't find the turnout figures but the previous election before that it was only 14%). Trouble is, as its not for years, everyone will likely have forgotten by then.

Perhaps they should save the money they spend on their impotent CRO & that would find a close pass programme?

Cycling to work today on my usual route (London N10) had my usual extreme close passes: a speeding van and a 4x4 which actually clipped me. Obviously 30 seconds later I passed them in the long Q they were stuck in. Fat van driver was glugging from a supersize cup of something and Mrs 4x4 was texting. Oh well, as long as they got to their Q that bit sooner where's the harm, eh?

Cambridgeshire police should be held to account for not enforcing rules of the road and the law.
It is not their place to interpret the law and choose which to enforce. Interpretation of the law is done by solicitors.

They "may" have a point about the narrow roads in Cambridge city (still doesn't excuse the idiocy of the statement) but the last I checked there's another 3,340 square kilometers that makes up the county of Cambridgeshire. Surely there are plenty of roads that the Cambridgeshire Police Farce could run a close pass operation on.

Or have I missed something?

Might as well have said "it isn't practical to encourage safe overtakes of cyclists because I'm not one of them, they're really annoying and who gives two shits about them anyway"

Coming from anyone, what that person said is just plain dumb. Coming from the person tasked with ensuring the safety of cyclists on the road, it's beyond comical.

If they lack the brain cells to figure out that their sole reason for not doing something is in fact the key reason to do it, what on earth are they doing in that job?

I wonder if Jason Ablewhite gets dizzy from all that spinning?  He quite clearly has more regard for the convenience of drivers than the safety of cyclists, and as such, is clearly not fit to hold the position of Police and Crime Commissioner.  If he can't understand that safely overtaking a cyclist is a legal requirement, why did he stand for the job?

Perhaps all those cyclists, and the friends and relatives of cyclists, should give him a call, or an email or a letter perhaps, suggesting that if he doesn't like upholding the law, he shouldn't be in charge of enforcing it, and that resignation is always an option.

Cambridgeshire police do not give a fuck about the safety of cyclists.