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NMotD 752“This is not policing, this is intimidation”: Alliance of British Drivers takes on Sheffield police over close pass conviction
The Alliance of British Drivers has described a court’s decision to convict a motorist for careless driving as “idiotic” and “pathetic sucking up the cycling lobby”.
The pro-motoring pressure group was responding to footage of a close pass posted on Twitter by the Sheffield North West Neighbourhood Policing Team – and featured earlier this week on our Near Miss of the Day series – which resulted in the driver receiving a £417 fine and their licence endorsed with five penalty points.
If the motorist is caught driving in a careless or anti-social manner in the twelve months following the incident, their vehicle will also be seized by police.
> “If anyone thinks this is an acceptable manner of driving, let this be your warning,” say police
The footage posted online shows the moment the approaching driver passes a group of cyclists too closely, at what the officers described as “excessive speed”. The police also added that “if anyone thinks this is an acceptable manner of driving, let this be your warning”.
COURT RESULT: CARELESS DRIVING. The driver of this vehicle decided to pass a group of cyclists at excessive speed and far too closely. Fined £417 in total, licence endorsed with 5 points. If anyone thinks this is an acceptable manner of driving, let this be your warning. pic.twitter.com/zInKYa84cc
— Sheffield North West NPT (@SheffNW_NPT) April 21, 2022
However, the clip was greeted with complaints from motorists who criticised the behaviour of the cyclists, with some arguing that they should have stopped to let the driver pass as they approached the poorly parked car on the left-hand side of the road.
The Alliance of British Drivers, a pro-motoring lobby group known for its anti-cycling stance, launched a prolonged online attack on the court’s decision, retweeting the footage with the caption “If your [sic] weren’t already convinced that the police are out to get you…”
The Alliance of British Drivers @theABD is - unsurprisingly - defending illegal driving, and arguing with Sheffield's police @SheffNW_NPT, describing the police's actions as "pathetic", "intimidation", "idiotic" and "fool(ish)" pic.twitter.com/5PmPdMhHN2
— ABDBlocked (People blocked by the ABD) (@ABDBlocked) April 22, 2022
The alliance’s account described the fine and penalty points issued to the driver as an “idiotic decision that undermines the credibility of the courts and the police.
“We all know there are fanatics who want drivers to stop and bow down before every cyclist. If the police foolishly choose to side with them it will damage the relationship with the public,” the account argued.
Idiotic decision that undermines the credibility of the courts and the police.
We all know there are fanatics who want drivers to stop and bow down before every cyclist. If the police foolishly choose to side with them it will damage the relationship with the public.— 𝗔𝗕𝗗 (@TheABD) April 22, 2022
The alliance claimed that the prosecution was “just pathetic sucking up to the cycling lobby”, and described the police’s publicising of the incident as “vile threats” which “make it abundantly clear whose side you are on”.
“This is not policing, this is intimidation,” the account wrote.
The group also criticised the use of the term “victims” to describe those on the receiving end of close passes, labelling it a “joke”.
The Sheffield North West officers, on the other hand, were keen to dismiss what they described as anti-cycling “whataboutery”, pointing out that if the offending motorist “had simply driven to the conditions at a less dangerous speed and stayed on his own side of the road he wouldn’t have been prosecuted.”
After another Twitter user claimed that it was “strange that we never hear about how many cyclists you prosecute”, the officers replied: “Exactly how many car drivers were killed by cyclists last year David? There’s your reason. We prosecute those whose behaviour is most dangerous.”
Last week, the Alliance of British Drivers’ director Duncan White claimed in an interview with GB News that the recent revisions to the Highway Code “created a false sense of winners and losers” and “entirely failed in creating a sense of shared responsibility for the safety of all road users”.
White also said that the changes, introduced in January to protect vulnerable road users, have resulted in “very provocative behaviour” and even “deliberate” acts of obstruction by cyclists.
The alliance’s Twitter account is known for its provocative and often volatile pro-car outbursts. This morning, the account tweeted that Rod King, the director of road safety campaign 20’s Plenty For Us, “needs to be deported to a third world country before he turns Britain into one”.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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66 comments
You would have through the Alliance of Bad Drivers (ABD) would recognise bad driving when shown to them.
Please don't confuse ABD with a competent road safety organisation such as Institute of Advanced Motoring or Brake. Simple test: what are the requirements for membership...
Brake? a competent road safety organisation? That organisation that promotes helmets as "the answer" to cyclists being killed by drivers? That one? Honestly?
Fair point, relatively competent and well intentioned then, which distinguishes them from ABD.
Clearly there is no silver bullet though driving with due care and attention would be a good start.
If only that was a statutory and contractual requirement (insurance) of every driver that was enforced..
There is no silver bullet to keeping humans from injuring each other and themselves, apart from not having humans in the first place. However the well known hierarchy of controls points the way: 1) remove the hazard, 2) replace the hazard, 3) isolate people from the hazard etc. So no cars - no threat from them and no car crashes. For example a bike path totally removed from vehicles with no possibility of a car ploughing into it. Ban lorries from urban areas and make the cars go much slower - harm reduction by replacing the hazard. Segregated infra alongside roads / proper junction design - isolate people from the hazard.
What we see in this case is that what appears to be 3) (because there are separate lanes for different directions) is in fact the lower level 4) Administrative controls at best. So we're relying on people to follow some rules. That's one step above 5) PPE - high-vis and helmets. Not much benefit to be had there.
Note that in best practice physically separating vehicles (including motor vehicles from each other) in terms of both mass and direction is advised. So don't mix lots of cars and cycles but also no overtaking where that would put you at risk of a head-on collision. That should be ensured by a physical barrier, not just paint.
Is this the association that constantly tells us it doesn't have any vendetta against cyclists and is very reasonable but the Cycling Associations don't sit down and "talk" how roads can be shared? Also didn't the "leader" moan about "lycra loons" posting his home address online when he did just that on his own website?
Yeah, but you'll note that they never actually define what they mean by "share the road".... I don't imagine it's the same definition that we would use.
Does the ABD understand just how utterly stupid a twitter exchange like this makes them look? Not terribly professional (or even grown up), is it...?
Does the ABD understand just how utterly stupid a twitter exchange like this makes them look?
No, because they're extremely thick, and therefore avid readers of the hyper-junk press
“this is intimidation” . . . . That's exactly what I first thought when I saw this video. Maybe if The Alliance of British Drivers members spent a few days on a bike they'd see what real intimidation is?
I am in the unusual position of being obliged to support the police against this bunch of driving deadbeats, the Association of British Pillocks. Admittedly, I'm supporting the Good Police (Sheffield NW NPT with lots of actual prosecutions of close passing motorists to its credit) and not the Bad Cops-The Preston Connection (Lancashire Constabulary with NO prosecutions of close passing motorists ever, which has now abandoned its OpSnapLancs with no responses since early April to offences like the one below). This is Honda Civic OW53 RFZ
Just for future reference. Since this last update to the highway code - do we as cyclists still have to follow the same rules as cars on the road? Like the one where cars have to give way to oncoming traffic if there is an obstruction they need to pass? Or does the pecking order come into play and cars give way to bikes no matter what and bikes give way to pedestrians no matter what?
What is it about this incident that has made you ask that question? The cyclists were fully in the lane in which they had right of way, while the offending driver was on the wrong side of the road.
Just for future reference. What about this article made you as a cyclist post your very first comment to this website?
I suspect that it may not have been his first post; just his first post using that name.
Just for future reference: as a cyclist how do you feel about V8 engines?
Pretty sure he means the reverb from a carbon frame of Version 8 of the manufacturers bike he has.
Wait - you can get an upgrade on Bosch Performance line / Shimano Steps?
Welcome to Road.cc: we'll try and be friendly before you go back to Pistonheads
This particular incident, well, your comment isn't really relevant, is it? The cyclists are in their lane... it's that speeding oncoming car which has left its lane, isn't it?
When I checked the piston heads thread yesterday, good majority were against the driver.
Really? Good to know
Loads of new comments.
This sums up the majority:
"
Anyone acting as an apologist for this sort of substandard driving needs to take a long, hard look at themselves, their attitude, and the manner of their own driving, with a view to booking themselves in for some remedial training."
Weirdly the answers to my questions smell quite badly of yellowbullet.
Err, why are you replying to me? I have not made a reply to your comment.
I have no idea what your sentence means or what you are trying to achieve on a cycling site (although you are doing a good job of appearing to be a troll).
Now its hit the mainstream press coverage, over 2800 comments already in the Telegraph, 3200 comments in the Daily Mail a mere 356 in the Daily Express, now I havent read them all... but the ones I did see werent much on the cyclist side of things and theres more chance of meeting a reader of these newspapers on the road than there is a member of pistonheads forum.
"We as cyclists"
Just for future reference, the Highway Code hasn't changed in terms of it being illegal to drive in the oncoming traffic lane when there's oncoming traffic.
What i wanted to know is if there is the same obstruction on both sides of the road does the pecking order come into play? Some of the answers to my question seem like they are just coming into puberty.
Sorry, want to try reformatting that into a sentence that makes sense? If you're saying some of the "respondents" it would make a little more sense...
there wasn't an obstruction on the drivers side, and the "obstruction" (car dumped on oublic property) wasn't sufficient to cause the cyclists to move out of their lane. So why do you think the "pecking order" has any relevance? All the driver had to do was NOT drive like a prick. Hardly difficult.
No you didn't, you were trolling with an implication that the cyclists should have stopped. Don't try some nonsense revisionism just because you've been unanimously told to jog on back to Petrolheads.
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