Camera cyclist submits footage of drivers on the phone and parking illegally to Irish police… and gets fined for riding through a red light

A cyclist who submitted helmet camera footage of drivers using their phones and parking illegally was issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice by an Irish police officer after finding that the footage also showed the cyclist riding through a red light. However, the cyclist’s complaints of other drivers also doing the same were ignored by the Garda, for which they were investigated and found to be in “breach of disciplinary regulations” of neglecting duty.

The news comes courtesy of the 2023 Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) annual report, in which the case is mentioned under ‘Investigations on the Foot of Complaints’ as a case study.

The initial complaint was made by a cyclist who alleged that they frequently witnessed drivers using their phones and parking illegally and had reported many such incidents to the Garda traffic watch phone line. The rider said that they had given an officer a statement and shared the video footage captured by their helmet camera of one such incident.

However, the cyclist was then told by the Garda that the footage showed him riding through a red light, and that they were to be issued with a fixed penalty notice.

The cyclist asked the police if the other drivers that appear to be committing traffic offences in the same video will be prosecuted or not, but was instead asked to submit their questions in writing. Despite doing so, the police failed to provide a response or acknowledgement.

> Police apologise as charges against “dangerous” cyclist accused of “riding on the wrong side of the road” while filming phone driver dropped on eve of trial

The failure to do so by the officer was seemingly noted by the police team, which led to an investigation. The report states: “An unsupervised Garda disciplinary investigation was commenced under s94(1) of the Act.

“The investigation found that the member was in breach of disciplinary regulations (neglect of duty) for failure to respond to correspondence without sufficient cause. A sanction of advice was applied.”

However, the officer appealed this finding to a Garda Chief Superintendent, who eventually quashed the finding, “ruling it disproportionate”.

The incident has led to accusations that a due process was not followed by the Garda, with one person claiming that the sanction delivered to the officer was “only quashed by the Superintendent because he hates cyclists”.

Another person commented on social media: “Typical Gardai behaviour. I had footage of taxi driver breaking red light & almost hitting me & another cyclist. Because I said 'f**ks sake' on the footage, an obnoxious sergeant in Pearse St station told me he’d seek a prosecution against me for disorderly conduct in public.”

Similar incidents have happened in the UK as well. Dave Clifton was cycling on Pont Street in Belgravia, London in August last year when he came across a driver at the wheel of a Range Rover in momentarily stationary traffic using his mobile phone and turned around to capture footage of the man caught in the act.

> Third-party reporting of drivers discussed on Channel 5, with CyclingMikey urging more cyclists to do it and the police claiming it’s “making roads safer”

However in February, instead of issuing a penalty for holding a cellular device to the driver, the Met police instead proceeded to claim that the cyclist had been riding on the wrong side of the road, and suggested that he “could pose a danger to other road users”.

Natasha Springford, a Met police staff member in the traffic division, said that the cyclist was “in the middle of the road” and was then “very close to the Range Rover on the opposite side of the road whilst a motorcyclist was oncoming with a passenger”.

She added: “You can see the cyclist cycling towards the oncoming motorbike that is filtering between traffic,” and then suggested the motorbike has to “ride in between the cyclist that is very close and the Range Rover”.

Then in March, the Met Police ended up apologising for any “stress and inconvenience” caused as it dropped its much-criticised attempt to prosecute Clifton — just one day before the cyclist was due to face trial for cycling without due care and attention.

In a letter sent to the cyclist yesterday explaining the U-turn, a senior manager at the Met said that while responses to footage of road traffic violations submitted to the police were “subjective” and based on the opinion of the officer reviewing the footage, the offence of cycling without due care was not met in this instance, and that the footage of the incident is now being used by the force for internal training purposes.