Near Miss of the Day 701: Speeding bus driver “very lucky” to avoid prosecution for close pass (includes swearing)

grOg wrote:

I get passed this close numerous times every day I commute; police would just ignore me if I reported every motorist that did a half lane pass like this.

The offence is compounded by speeding and anyway so what if it happens every day on your commute? It does on mine too but that doesn't mean they're not breaking the law. Are you suggesting we just accept illegally fast close passes as the norm because everybody does it?

I report about 5-10 a week on Nextbase. West Midlands Police just stick them in the bin. To this date i've got near 170 of these incidents on youtube and i've been contacted ZERO times by the police. This includes the ones where drivers have actually collided with me.

If the police did their job, then maybe the number of close passes would reduce.
Do you live in Adelaide?
https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-18-january-2022-289579

Has anyone had any success reporting bus close passes to the police though ? I get very little feedback from the operators when I complain,but have never been convinced the police would do any more with them.

Highly trained, professional, tested and licensed drivers...

Well 10 days before the Highway code changes and I was close passed within 1.5metres by a learner driver under instruction yesterday, not the worst pass ever but still why do we expect professionals to be any better if we can't even teach the learners properly.

Learners making mistakes is inevitable - that's how learning goes. You don't know what, if any, 'words of advice' they were offered by the instructor as a result, and how likely they are to do it again as a result.

The behaviour of those who are no longer learners is a much better (and more dispiriting) guide to the standard of training.

Learners can make mistakes of course,but I know when I learnt to drive my instructor would have been offering words of advice before I'd let the mistake develop too far. Certainly not let me complete an overtake like that before interjecting.

Without the car plastered in driving school stickers i wouldn't have noted it as anything other than an average impatient driver pass,triggered by me riding in prime through some pinch points.

I had similar on the 4th Jan. But then that was on the same day I was close- passed by two drivers who couldn't even be arsed to move out of the same lane as me on an empty urban dual carriageway. 

A handful on here but mostly not.

Don't think I have had a bus incident.

This was the most recent one, it gave no room because there was an oncoming van in the way. Not as close as the one where I felt the air displacement from the door mirror who then left hooked on me as well.

This was the most recent one, it gave no room because there was an oncoming van 

Yes, that's the standard bus offence- I have very similar and worse by Stagecoach. It's never worth telling the companies because you can't believe what they say, which is always 'we take this very seriously and have spoken to the driver'. Lancashire Constabulary have never responded to any of them, but I haven't experienced a bus close pass since OpSnap Lancs began 6 weeks or so ago. They have more difficulty in just ignoring offence reports now, so they have resorted to the non-penalty penalty: you get an ambiguously worded letter stating that action will be taken and they have requested driver details, but the actions include 'nothing' and 'words of advice'. Read the police 'action' letter carefully!

stonojnr wrote:

Has anyone had any success reporting bus close passes to the police though ? I get very little feedback from the operators when I complain,but have never been convinced the police would do any more with them.

I've had feedback from the bus company 3 times, but never anything from the police.

It is recommended larger vehicles give more room at faster speeds. It is because the air pressure differentials actually suck items towards the sides of larger vehicle. It is why you have safety markings on platforms and warning about moving back when non stop trains come through. 

And of course, although Police can't take those informational signs as evidence, (even though they always seem about right when I go passed them) there was potential speeding but a very close to 30mph difference between the bus and the cyclist. Also, I'm surprised at that speed as there was a bus stop just in front of the cyclist and certain anal gapers state drivers cannot see in front of cyclists so someone could easily have been waiting for the bus just to see it either sail past or stop suddenly and send it's passengers flying A la Police Story. 

Good Police Story reference.

Well it is a classic scene. (fun fact, the stuntmen were supposed to land on the car to "break their fall", but the distances were misjudged so they landed on the road.)

However not so fun. I saw a dashcam footage recently where a car stopped at a red light at a pelican crossing. Single decker bus is seen travelling towards the crossing and is not stopping just as the little girl (who had been waiting with her mother who was pushing a pram) walks out. Bus driver slams on his brakes and stops in time as scared girl jumps back. There is obviously fully justified verbals at the driver from the mother (heard faintly) and then about 10 seconds later someone stands up next to the driver. It took me a second or two to realise it was obviously a passenger who had flown down the bus aisle when the brakes had been slammed. Still I'm sure certain people on here would be the girl didn't get hurt and bus stopped at line so Police shouldn't be involved. 

So do you think this standard of driving around a vulnerable road user is acceptable?

Yes, this is a real legal issue. An NIP has to be issued within 14 days to allow a prosecution.

Methinks that GMP should be revising their Covid protocols.

Runtilyoudrop wrote:

Why is there a time limit to a crime? Is this a real legal issue or something to excuse their indolence?

I'm sure that Grant Shapps will be all over this loophole, once he's finished with protecting statues and slightly reducing the number of announcements on trains.

I dont see it as a loophole as such, its reasonable to place a time limit on people reporting incidents & informing those involved theyll be prosecuted for something, not least as part of me often wonders when drivers receive close pass NIPs if they can even recall the incident within 2 weeks.

But it shouldn't be used as an excuse by the police not to prosecute someone, 14 or even 7 days as some forces seem to incorrectly apply imo, should be plenty of time to review 5mins of footage & a statement,check some details & decide what action to take.

The police dont take 14 days when out on patrol to decide what to do if they see something prosecutable in progress, they act immediately.

So if the issue is not enough resource or priority within the force on these things, that needs to be flagged,not treat the 14 days as a simple get out way of doing nothing.

Because I suspect that's the issue at heart, its priority & resourcing and simply extending it to say 28 days actually wouldnt solve that problem.

Awavey wrote:

So if the issue is not enough resource or priority within the force on these things, that needs to be flagged,not treat the 14 days as a simple get out way of doing nothing. Because I suspect that's the issue at heart, its priority & resourcing and simply extending it to say 28 days actually wouldnt solve that problem.

Yes, whether the time limit is 7 days, 14 dys, 28 days or even 6 months, if more cases arrive for processing each day than can be processed there will be a pile of cases awaiting processing and every day all the ones passing the cut off date will be removed from the "to do" list and placed on the "we didn't action this in time list"

So if a force is routinely not reviewing reports in time, perhas the approach is to complain to the police commissionner that the police are not giving sufficient priority to traffic enforcement.

I can get behind a time limit on people reporting incidents - that makes total sense and 7 days should be sufficient unless the victim is unable to act within that time (e.g. unconscious or in a coma).

As you say, the problem is with the police not acting quickly enough and if they hit the 14 day limit, then they can even avoid doing the work at all. What would make more sense is to have a time limit for the police to act (maybe extend it to 28 days if that's appropriate), but if they go over that limit, the incident is immediately escalated to a full complaint and requires personal attention and a full statement by the head of the force in question.

I did try to look up when this limit was introduced but couldn't find anything. I assumed it was when Speed Cameras came in (handheld or road placed) as before then, most people were stopped when driving badly at the time.

Yes I believe it was introduced in the Road traffic offenders act 1988, which is the year the first red light cameras were introduced, its this section https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/section/1

Awavey wrote:

.. not least as part of me often wonders when drivers receive close pass NIPs if they can even recall the incident within 2 weeks.
.

I would question if they even considered their behaviour to be wrong. Also, they probably do it so often, that they wouldn't be able to distinguish the event, in question, from the countless others that they've committed since then

Bloody statues - it's their own fault if they don't move out of the way. It's not like we don't put up expensive dedicated statue paths (plinths) - and do they use them? They'd rather get in the way of protestorsboats.

Runtilyoudrop wrote:

Why is there a time limit to a crime? Is this a real legal issue or something to excuse their indolence?

I think there is not a time limit to crime, most cases can be charged after any amount of time, but driving offences require the registered keeper to identify the driver, the keeper must be notified within 14 days.

Presumably, the limit was introduced around discussion along the lines of "how can a vehicle owner be expected to remember who was driving the vehicle at a particular time 6 months ago?"

Of course if drivers had to fix their own idividual numbered driving tabards to their cars before using them this could be done away with. It would be a real benefit if drivers of vehicles could be easily identified in the event of wrongdoing.

I was going to jokingly say make it mandatory to have an app to keep a record of the driver. But then I recalled my friend uses an app on his phone for his mileage claims which is linked to location and works out his trips.

So maybe not that far fetched to introduce a log system.