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news
Cyclist films phone using driver in queue of traffic (supplied)Police warn camera cyclist about “leaning into lone female drivers’ windows” to capture phone use evidence – but later apologise for “inaccurate recollection” of incident
A cyclist who has submitted hundreds of videos to the Metropolitan Police showing evidence of illegal driving has accused the Met of “failing to tackle road crime”, after the force responded to two clips of motorists using their phones at the wheel by issuing the cyclist with warning letters – one for “leaning in towards drivers’ windows, especially lone female drivers”, and another for “riding down the middle of the road towards an oncoming bus”.
Criticising the warning letters – the first of which was later detracted by the police, who apologised for their “inaccurate recollection” of events – the cyclist claimed that the Met have “let off many drivers for actual dangerous situations” and said he reports motorists so “my wife isn’t in constant fear when my kids go out to the shops”.
The cyclist, who wishes to remain anonymous, received their first warning letter from the Metropolitan Police in May, when they submitted footage of a driver on their phone while in traffic on the Headstone Road in Harrow.
During the incident, seen in the below video and which took place on 7 May, the cyclist spotted the female driver apparently texting at the wheel, before turning around in the road to capture clearer footage of the misdemeanour.
“It’s definitely an iPhone,” the cyclist can be heard saying in the video, as he rides back towards the car. “She’s put it on the left seat.”
A week later, in correspondence seen by road.cc, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the phone-using driver was issued a Fixed Penalty Notice based on his submission.
However, while noting that they “appreciate the time you have taken in bringing this incident to our attention”, the officer from the Met’s Traffic Processing Services said that “after reviewing the footage, we deem it necessary to bring to your attention the manner of your behaviour and approach to obtain evidence on the date in question”.
The letter continued: “We consider that the standard of your own behaviour fell below what would be expected of a careful and competent rider in that you are seen leaning in towards drivers’ windows to obtain further evidence, especially lone female drivers.
“The Metropolitan Police Service will be taking no action against you on this occasion, but would take this opportunity to remind you of your obligation to show due care and consideration to other road users at all times.”
After receiving the letter, the cyclist launched a formal complaint against what he described as the officer’s “highly defamatory” comments and “baseless allegations”, which he said “caused me a great deal of alarm and distress”.
In response, the officer told the cyclist: “After reviewing the document and incident further, I can see that the wording was not an accurate recollection of the incident and would like to apologise for any distress this may have caused.
“I would like to inform you that no official report has been raised against you and the warning letter has been removed. The prosecution process against the offender is still active for the offence they committed.”
Speaking to road.cc, the cyclist said the original warning letter criticising the rider for “leaning in” to capture footage of phone-using drivers “honestly seemed like it was written by the trolls on Twitter”.
“I’ve reported hundreds of cases to the Met, probably 90 per cent of which are male drivers,” he says. “The prosecutions team probably recognise my name. They know that I do not discriminate on who I report.
“They made this defamatory statement, which they did apologise for, but it should have never happened in the first place.”
And last month, the cyclist was issued with another warning letter by the Met for careless cycling, again as he attempted to capture footage of a motorist using their phone while sat at traffic lights on Harrow’s Peterborough Road.
According to the Met, as the cyclist filtered on the outside of the queue of stationary vehicles, he forced an oncoming bus driver, faced with parked police vans at the side of the road, to stop.
“We consider that the standard of your own riding fell below what would be expected of a careful and competent driver, in that when overtaking stationary vehicles, you rode down the middle of a road towards an oncoming bus which forced the bus to come to a stop,” the letter said.
Responding to this criticism of his cycling, the cyclist told road.cc that their filtering was “well within the law”.
“Yet they let off many drivers for actual dangerous situations,” he continued. “The prosecutions team has got far worse over the past 12 months, and that is a pretty common consensus amongst a few who regularly report to the police.
“Overall, the Met is failing to tackle road crime. It has zero enforcement across the borough, whenever you ask the Met about it, it’s always the usual answer of ‘not enough resource’ or ‘more urgent crimes like assaults or stabbings’.
“Because of the zero proactive enforcement approach, it means the laws in place are almost worthless, drivers know there’s an extremely low chance of being caught.
“Road crime is real crime, lives are at stake, and there are consequences, these consequences are paid for usually by those outside of the vehicle, the ones without airbags, without crumple zones. These are not victimless crimes.
“I want safe roads, so that my wife isn’t in constant fear when my kids go out to the shops or school walking or cycling. That’s why I report these drivers.”
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time this year that the Met has come in for criticism for its approach towards camera cyclists challenging phone-using drivers.
In March, the force apologised for any “stress and inconvenience” caused as it dropped a much-criticised attempt to prosecute a cyclist accused of “posing a danger to other road users” as he attempted to film a phone-using motorist – just one day before the cyclist was due to face trial for cycling without due care and attention.
56-year-old Dave Clifton was cycling on Pont Street in Belgravia, London on 22 August 2023 when he spotted a Range Rover using his mobile phone while driving in traffic in the opposite direction, before turning around to capture footage of the motorist’s phone use with his helmet camera.
However, after submitting the footage to the Met, Clifton was told by a member of the force’s traffic division that the police intended to criminally prosecute him for allegedly committing the offence of ‘riding a cycle on a road without due care and attention’ while attempting to film the Range Rover driver.
But in a letter sent seven months later, 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.
road.cc has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment, with a spokesperson confirming that they are currently looking into both incidents.
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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39 comments
...."56-year-old Dave Clifton was cycling on Pont Street in Belgravia, London on 22 August 2023 when he spotted a Range Rover using his mobile phone...."
Clever Range Rover!!
Re: filming women drivers using their phones:
My advice is to only approach a vehicle if you are 100% certain the driver is using their phone. Never do any speculative filming of drivers if there's a chance they are vaping or eating a sandwich.
A while ago, I had an informal conversation with a female traffic officer who voiced concerns that some women felt scared, even threatened, when I filmed them using their phones while they were driving. My response was "but they are using their phone while driving", which is a threat to all other road users. The traffic officer nodded in agreement, but suggested awareness on my part. The police have a difficult balance to maintain and sometimes get it wrong.
So, how are you supposed to be 100% certain until you get closer to them?
Traffic officers do have a difficult balance to maintain - trying to protect car drivers even when they're clearly endangering cyclists and coming up with lots of excuses as to why law-breaking motorists shouldn't be prosecuted.
From a distance, I can see with my eyes that a driver is using their phone. However, cameras are not as good as eyes, so I need to get nearer to the vehicle to obtain video footage that is of the required standard for the police to use in prosecution. The only thing I am uncertain of is whether or not the driver will still be using their phone by the time I get close to them.
We are only at the beginning of the culture shift regarding bad driving in the UK, and there is a lot of work to be done to change the thinking and behaviours of people who still believe that cars have priority everywhere. Traffic officers are just people like everyone else and some of them make mistakes, or some might be stuck in institutional car-centric ways of thinking. Most large institutiions, such as the police, mainstream media, local councils and the legal profession, suffer from groupthink like this. We need to bring people in authority around in order to effect lasting change. Video submissions are one of the many ways of doing this and we must keep submitting evidence, even in the face of groupthink.
Presumably these drivers said this after they had been charged with phone driving? If so that casts some doubt as to whether they genuinely felt threatened or whether they thought this might garner them some sympathy from the officer charging. You may have seen the case raised on the forum here by the little onion, where a driver lodged a complaint about his language after being questioned by the police for their driving; there was a case on Twitter a couple of years back where a woman claimed she only had her phone in her hand to call the police because she was scared of the cyclist who was filming her. IIRC the police were pretty good in that case, looking at her call record and showing that she had in fact been on the line with a friend for some minutes before the cyclist got anywhere near her, and she got a decent fine and points.
I don't know. I haven't yet been called to court because all the drivers have accepted points and fines.... so far.
Although, there was one phone driver who threw her coat at me. Luckily the passenger side window where I was standing was shut so the coat just rebounded and landed on the passenger seat. She then proceeded to video me with her phone. She clearly had no idea that she was doing anything wrong and had therefore decided I was being some kind of letch.
Some drivers really are their own worst enemies: last year I caught up at some lights with a chap who had close passed me in order to tell him I wasn't happy about it, he whipped out his phone and started filming me (I did warn him that as he had his engine running he was going to commit an offence). Net result, instead of the three points and £100 fine he might have got (and more likely a course or even just a warning letter) he got £200 and six points.
She clearly had no idea that she was doing anything wrong and had therefore decided I was being some kind of letch
She knew exactly what she was doing wrong because she hasn't been living under a stone in a cave in Afghanistan for decades. Any other interpretation, such as 'I am a woman on my own and I fear cyclists when I'm in a traffic queue surrounded by other people's is just a con. I would have no compunction in filming said woman, in the same way as I don't stop filming along a certain offence-prone section of road at 15:10 because of a tidal wave of children, as I would be overjoyed at a LancsFilth attempt to prosecute me for doing it. However, they wouldn't dare.
My advice is to only approach a vehicle if you are 100% certain the driver is using their phone
My advice is to pay no attention to advice obviously intended as yet another weapon in the overstocked armoury of excuses designed to get drivers off offences- We already have the police only too keen to give out driver-forgiving advice like that. We don't have any traffic queues around here, so I don't get the chance to catch the b******s stationary, but it's possible to nail approaching phone drivers with the sun to my left and when they have the window down. These conditions do not apply very often, but I still film a few by rapid detection and head turning. I say 'nail', but the police here never take action over what they consider to be 'not a real driving offence'- just like no MOT or blatant RLJ.
You don't have to take my advice, after all it's only advice. But it's advice in the context of filming lone women drivers who feel vulnerable, which is the important part.
However, if I'm certain they're using their phone, then they waive any right to my empathy. I will get the best footage I can so the police can prosecute.
I live in a city so there are often opportunities to catch up with the offending driver in a traffic queue to obtain the required footage.
It would appear that some officers are cyclist-hating petrolheads. Well, they are still human beings with human prejudices, and I'm very glad that the absurd warnings were rescinded, but it is an indication of how deep motonormativity runs in our society.
BTW that's "retracted" not "detracted: "Criticising the warning letters – the first of which was later detracted by the police..."
I sometimes wonder if this sort of resoonse is because someone in the Police feels this person is bombarding them with too many videos and they are saying, albeit badly "dial it back a bit mate"
If that were true, there are only two alternatives: either the police have got fed up with the cyclist submitting too many non-offences (no evidence of that here) and so made up a potential offence by the cyclist to try to intimidate him into not submitting videos, in which case the officer who made that decision should be investigated for misconduct, or the police don't want to do the job they're there for and so made up an offence by the cyclist to try to intimidate him into not submitting videos, in which case the officer who made that decision should be investigated for misconduct. It's disgraceful conduct by the police whichever way you look at it and although apologising for it is a welcome first step they should be taking further action towards at the very least retraining the officer responsible to ensure it doesn't happen again.
The irony of the met being concerned about intimidating women..
“We consider that the standard of your own riding fell below what would be expected of a careful and competent driver, in that when overtaking stationary vehicles, you rode down the middle of a road towards an oncoming bus which forced the bus to come to a stop,” the letter said.
There would be a whole load of letters generated by drivers passing parked cars, in the face of oncoming traffic(including buses) along my local roads.
That does, of course, assume that there's a police officer around to see them, or the drivers involved post footage from their dash cams - so I won't hold my breath
Contrary view here.
This guy has now been warned twice for riding like a bellend, substantiated IMO by the videos.
Maybe he should stop risking his life just for a better camera shot. I doubt his relatives will thank him if his careless riding puts him in hospital.
Cylists aren't always in the right.
The bus incident is arguable, certainly. This more recent one I would say isn't, he's pulled into a completely empty oncoming traffic lane, captured the video and moved away again before any traffic appeared. Even the Met, who are not renowned for admitting they are wrong, withdrew their allegations on that one. However, even if one believes that both incidents show the cyclist "riding like a bellend", that in no way justifies the warning against "leaning in towards drivers’ windows to obtain further evidence, especially lone female drivers" which in fact seems to be the only justification for telling him that his behaviour "fell below the standard expected of a careful and competent rider". Okay, they've withdrawn it now, but that is a very worrying statement which demonstrates that there is somebody responsible for assessing these videos who has a clear "camera cyclists are all snoops and possibly nonces" attitude so prevalent amongst the Twitter commentariat. Whoever thought that was an appropriate letter to send in the first place certainly shouldn't be in a position to decide on the validity or otherwise of camera submissions.
Knowing the roads, the bus was stopped by the vehicle, just in frame, on double yellows, not the cyclist.
if it went to court how do you think the magistrates would react to that specific example ?
he's deliberately gone out of his way to u-turn,just to film and zoom in to that woman in the car, when he could have just turned his head/body around. Then theres no interaction with the driver in any way that she may have felt was threatening,and Im sure the Met would have been alot happier with it.
you have to remember the data protection laws around videoing in public for crime prevention, which is the bit which allows us to use cycling dash cams in this way, is its necessary and proportionate and I think the exact wording cites it must be relevant and limited to only what is necessary to capture.
we're not an extension of the police when carrying a camera on a bike, theyre for our own safety and protection, and we dont get to police the roads like this.
We most definitely are an extension of the police in terms of detecting and reporting crime, or rather the police are a specialised extension of the public that are dedicated just to opposing crime.
If a driver is using a mobile phone then we should be capturing evidence and reporting them even if they're not directly endangering us.
You did read the bit where the Met admitted they were in the wrong in their criticism of the cyclist and were going ahead with sanctioning the driver?
So in the view of the police, having reviewed it, the cyclist has done nothing wrong.
If you see someone committing the crime (it is a crime, don't forget) of using their phone whilst driving it absolutely is proportionate to move to a position where one can get a clear view that proves the culprit is using the device. It is entirely relevant and necessary to get footage of the device being used or no sanction will be considered.
Every citizen has a right to record evidence of a crime being committed and submit it to the police as they deem fit. The police actually encourage the public to assist them in policing the roads by providing dedicated portals for such submissions and acting on them. Anyone who wants to take the time and trouble does, in fact, "get to police the roads like this"; you may not like the fact but it is perfectly legal and when footage of offences on which they then act is submitted to the police they respond (I quote directly from the last email I received from the Met traffic team): "We would like to thank you for taking the time to report this matter and assisting us in our efforts to improve road safety." Their approval couldn't really be much clearer, could it?
You can't just turn your head around; the footage has to be very clear to have even a tiny chance of the police doing something about it.
the footage has to be very clear to have even a tiny chance of the police doing something about it.
It's a source of pride for Lancashire Constabulary, as I have shown here too often, that it doesn't matter how clear the video, they're not doing anything if a cyclist submitted it.
Perhaps you could be more explicit in the exact law to which you are referring. The GDPR and the DPA 2018 state that the provisions contained within them do not apply to personal and household use. i.e. only for business so unless the cyclist is riding as part of their job, those laws do not apply.
Which "Data Protection Laws" do you mean?
The GDPR and the DPA 2018 state that the provisions contained within them do not apply to personal and household use. i.e. only for business so unless the cyclist is riding as part of their job, those laws do not apply
Unfortunately, Lancashire Constabulary doesn't accept laws it doesn't agree with, as you can see on their OpSnap Lancs page.
https://unitedkingdom1cpp-portal.digital-policing.co.uk/lancashire/appeal/public-dashcam-submission
Press 'Respond to this appeal' and read near the bottom
I don't think that's right. ICO for example has guidance on use of home CCTV which is potentially subject to data protection laws. It's not as simple as "data protection laws do not apply to personal or household use".
Id agree with you, and theres really no need to go hunting for footage like that, he's riding and checking every driver instead of paying attention to the road, and theres more than enough phone users out there that youll catch on camera simply by concentrating on getting to your destination
And many cars also have cameras, so I'm not sure starting this war is worth it.
Someone texting in a stationary vehicle? I wouldn't mind. Same for a cyclist or a pedestrian running a red light in an empty street. When no one is in immediate danger, I'm not paid to enforce the law, so NOT my business!
It's up to the individual as to what law-breaking behaviour they wish to do more about, but drivers texting in a stationary vehicle can be very problematic if they're in a queue of traffic. When people move their eyes and focus away from a phone screen to resume driving, it takes a surprising amount of time for people to get fully clued in as to what's going on around them (IIRC something like about 20 seconds). There's also the problem of those drivers that just see movement out of the corner of their eye and think that because the car in front is moving, that it's safe for them to move too.
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