Cycling club repeatedly harassed by same driver frustrated over lack of police action, saying incidents are "intimidating and causing stress and alarm to members"

Mini Clubman. 18 seconds in. As described in the article.

john_smith wrote:

Which was the close pass in the video? All three passes looked fairly normal to me.

In the top picture below, the group is being passed by a Honda Civic-R, which as you can see fills the entire lane as it passes. This model of car is 189 cm wide, so we can see that the lanes must be approximately 200 cm wide. In the bottom picture the Mini is passing with at least a third of its width in the same lane as the cyclists. This model is 179 cm wide, so 60 cm of it is in said lane. That leaves the cyclists 140 cm. The second wheel cyclist in blue is at least 50 cm out from the verge (as recommended in the Highway Code) and we can assume will be at least 50 cm wide. That means that the Mini is passing the cyclists within 40 cm, or 110 cm (75%) less than the recommended passing distance. Hope that helps.

But but the cyclist is "in the middle of the road" !!  What's a person with limited time / places to go to do?

That might be, but I wouldn't have given that pass a second thought. The road looks OK, wind seems normal, cyclists look experienced, car's speed was moderate, space between car and rider "in the middle of the road" was adequate. I wonder if there wasn't more to this than meets the eye. It's hard to see how many riders there are behind the two who are clearly visible or how close the car got to them.

Thank the Lord I'm an experienced cyclist - it will be a great comfort to my wife and family when some nutter knocks me off my bike. Especially if it's a normal wind day.

It's far too close, and unnecessarily so given how much room the other 2 drivers were able to give. The police seem to agree, as the article states that the driver is to be offered the choice of attending an awareness course. 

Sadly, depending on where you are, prosecutions are generally reserved for more serious events such as actual collisions. Here in Kent the officer in charge of actioning online submissions admitted in a phone call that they get around 300 such submissions a month (mostly from drivers) and simply don't have the resources to properly deal with them. 

john_smith wrote:

The road looks OK, wind seems normal, cyclists look experienced, car's speed was moderate, space between car and rider "in the middle of the road" was adequate.

The first three of those make no difference to the offence, no idea how fast the car's going (though certainly fast enough to kill someone it hits) and, as I have pointed out above, the passing distance to the second wheel rider in blue is approximately 40cms, so almost four times closer than the Highway Code requires - that is not "adequate".

It's standard. I reported a driver to Cambridgeshire police for harassing my 11 year old son & threatening to run either of us down if they ever saw us again. The first words from the operator: "you know we won't do anything about this?"

It will be recorded but what can the police do about it? Driver will deny all knowledge of it, so unless there's evidence & independent witnesses they can't prosecute.

In times of yore a local beat copper would have known the likely miscreants and had a word to sort them out.

But presumably the number plate would/could be kept on file, and if that vehicle was ever involved in an 'incident' involving a cyclist then the driver has demonstrated how they dislike cyclists and it could be used by the prosecution?

brooksby wrote:

But presumably the number plate would/could be kept on file, and if that vehicle was ever involved in an 'incident' involving a cyclist then the driver has demonstrated how they dislike cyclists and it could be used by the prosecution?

This is where our otherwise authoritarian system of actually requiring drivers to be licensed, vehicles to be uniquely identifiable AND registered to a keeper etc falls flat when the person the police contact says "I have no memory of that" or the necessity of proving who was in the driver's seat at the time * rears its head.

* In at least one case in Scotland even that would appear to be insufficient!

prosecution for what though ? it demonstrates a driver of the same vehicle has had another 'incident' with a cyclist, which maybe totally within the expected norms if its a village with a small population, youre bound to run into the same people alot, who do the same things, again a local bobby might have resolved the issue way back, but we dont do that kind of preventative policing anymore.

So it will be recorded again, until such time theres something concrete to pin on the driver, you cant charge people with stuff just on one persons word against the other, as the lawyers will just argue among themselves, get paid alot and get it kicked out

A s59 warning does not require the same degree of evidence: if a constable in uniform has reaosnable grounds for believing that it is going on, a warning can be given. Subsequently, the vehicle can be seized.

Applies to the car and the driver - different driver in the same car, or same driver in a different car... car gets seized.

Interesting!  I guess the discussion would be over the warning requirement and exemptions - presumably there's plenty of get-outs there for places like Lancs which don't want to get drawn into this kind of policing (starting with police discretion to address something or not...)?

Does exist in Wiltshire though:

https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/wiltshire/2022/1...

Yes - you still need a force to be willing to uphold the law against a particular type of illegal behaviour. the prevailing accounts here tend to suggest that places like Lancs don't enjoy that level of support and protection for cyclists.

Perhaps those with new MPs representing the area might wish to discuss the issue with the Home Office to address the focus on policing roads. 9 out of 15 Lancs constituency seats are Labour gains this time, 2 held (excluding the Speaker). If they want to make a mark, here is something that a group of local people might work towards.

9 out of 15 Lancs constituency seats are Labour gains this time, 2 held (excluding the Speaker). If they want to make a mark, here is something that a group of local people might work towards

Not as easy as it sounds. I tried with the previous Tory PCC, and I'm about to confront the Labour retread PCC with evidence. However the mass of OPCC staff aren't interested in evidence (just like the police) and are  'we can't interfere with the operational decisions of the police' types- even when the operational decisions of the police consist of taking action against offenders only when they're people the police don't like. So when the PCC doesn't do anything, it'll have to be the MP- that is also difficult as I've met her, and was introduced as someone who delivered election material for her. Fortunately, she won't know my name

Quite right that the Commissioner doesn't interfere with operational matters, but strategic matters are very much the interest of the PCC.

A few cases are operational; a litany is a structural/strategic policy.

Approaching the MP, use your contacts within the campaign team to get closer to her constituency team (if they differ). Keep up the offer to support campaigning. Maintain the low-level chatter about the poor state of driving and lack of policing. And when you do speak to her, your path to doing so may be better received than without warming things up.

It seems very strange to me that they can't take action without "sufficient" video evidence

It hardly matters how sufficient the evidence truly is when our main enemy, the police, refuse to take action from 'anti-cyclist and pro-driver' motives. There's not much problem with this evidence, but no action was taken, and there was no reply from Amazon

https://upride.cc/incident/ld71uom_amazonprime_handheldmobilephone/

I reported WT16 ATX months ago for failed MOT, but it's still seen regularly around Garstang

On first viewing yeah it looked pretty standard to me too, but noticed the focus is on the first rider.

Rewatch again with the rider 2nd in line, blue arm warmers, and note how close the Mini is to them.

Hirsute wrote:

My wife has demanded a camera after too many close passes and then a bloke stopping to shout abuse at her that he was such a bad driver that he couldn't overtake her safely.

FTFY 😁

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Thanks.