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news
Near Miss of the Day 784: Another close pass driver refuses awareness course... only to get £1,152 fine and four points in court
If you've been caught on camera in the wrong, it's probably best to cut your losses, take your medicine and accept your place on a driver awareness course...
Today's Near Miss of the Day has shades of Sunday's now-famous edition — Near Miss of the Day 783 where an aggressive close pass driver was offered a speed awareness course, declined, and ended up with a £2,460 fine and six points after losing two appeals.
No effing and blinding in today's, and a slightly lesser punishment in court, but another motorist who should probably have just taken their £85 slap on the wrist and run.
road.cc reader Dave was riding near Bridgend in Wales last September when he was close passed by the driver of the Audi Q8 in the video above.
As with Sunday's Near Miss, Dave sent this one in via Operation SNAP, prompting the police to offer the driver a place on an awareness course. Instead, they turned it down, taking it to court and ended up with a rather hefty bill.
A fine of £1,152, surcharge of £115, £620 court costs, and 4 points on his licence. That awareness course is looking quite appealing now, isn't it?
"From all of my correspondence with South Wales Police they have been great with dealing with close pass videos," Dave told us. "They have provided good feedback on most the videos and are quick to respond if they need more information."
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- mark1a 3 hours 10 min ago
Don't open at Edinburgh Fringe with that one.
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Is that the South Downs or the Wessex Downs?
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My 1984 Record Sprint (501 frame, 6 speed, made in Nottingham) cost £180 from the LBS, which would now be £575. I expected it to be more than that...
- David9694 6 hours 51 min ago
Imagine writing such a pathetic, victim-ey article in a national newspaper.
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I got something that'll beat you all .....
- chrisonabike 13 hours 10 min ago
Aggrieved motorists?...
- wtjs 15 hours 7 min ago
The fact that such self driving cars don't BMW/Audi drivers do exist is proof - as if it were needed - that Gods don't exist
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Wouldn't generalisations about generations be, I don't know, "generationalisations"?
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No chance of that ever being a human being.
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66 comments
More importantly, and an issue with the way the highway code is written, is that it promotes the wrong attitude, It should not be how little space can I give another road user but how much space can I give them.
On the road in this incident, any overtaking vehicle should be aiming to be on the other side of the white line down the middle of the road because there's no (correct) reason not to be there on that road whilst overtaking.
Rule 163 of the new version of the highway code still has the same picture as the old version demonstrating how to overtake a cyclist and that's in the other lane (Http://t.ly/7imV) (the left hand side wheels of the car are on the white line in the picture but stressing that is quibbling). In words it's just "Give vulnerable road users at least as much space as you would a car" which is ambiguous and partly why the minimum distances were added.
Cycling Scotland has come up with an alternative wording, which is
"Always give at least 1.5 metres of space when driving at speeds of up to 30mph – this will usually mean crossing into the other lane."
And a Scottish Police advisory video says, "We'd expect you to go all the way over the centre line markings"
https://youtu.be/C7ma6psvZm8?t=57
I like that it was filmed in Hole Y Cow
I was particularly pleased a few years ago - when riding from London to Middlesbrough - to turn into a road called Brown Cow Road in Selby and for there to be a brown cow in the field next to it. The cow marked this by laying down a massive pat.
Better that than 90 miles NE, in Lickey End...
The other costs are potentially they hired a solicitor (if so, what was that solicitor thinking) and the hassle of proving income as fines are income related,aren't they, with a default?
Be interested to hear from the submitter about the court experience.
If I was the solicitor I'd be thinking "might as well make some money off this bell-end and charge by the hour!"
You just fill out a means form. Not crazy difficult
It turns out they are self-employed (or that's how I interpret 77 year old businessman), so they probably would need to get their accountant involved.
So he spent £2,500 on a solicitor according to the Sun, and spent time fanning about measuring roads and getting irate about being fined all because he couldn't wait 10 seconds for the conditions to be safe to pass.
He didn't even need to wait, just use his brain and move over to leave enough room when overtaking.
Exactly - as evidenced by both the driver in front and behind him.
That's good to see. Here in Hampshire the authorities seem to take no interest. I have reported two close passes, provided links to Youtube links (unlisted), the viewing counters remained at zero, meaning the evidence had not even been examined.
Chapeau South Wales Police then for taking action. In fact they have their own Youtube where they show some of the worse cases they have prosecuted.
This particular one from them cost the driver nine points and a hefty fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwKbbEPdQ9A
Should have been banned and made to resit the driving test as they clearly aren't compentent to drive.
There are strict rules on evidence submission and I don't think the police will accept a YouTube clip as evidence, I could be wrong but that is my understanding. It's still poor that they haven't looked at it though.
As far as I understand it (I've only submitted videos to the Met who take direct uploads) some forces request - or have done so before Operation Snap - that you upload your video to a private YouTube post, unavailable to the public, and send them a link to it.
I've had some success in Hants. I recently put a note asking them to contact me if they *cannot* take action so that I know I can publish the video, and twice they replied saying they can't say exactly what happened but it was *one of* either a warning/course/fixed penalty/court, so they weren't binned. One time I was close-passed and got verbal abuse, and an officer phoned me (on a Sunday) and took the details for a separate offence of public order, although obviously that was NFAd, I didn't seriously expect anything.
Wow...call that a close pass? I think I should get myself a camera and start getting drivers fined on some of my rides!
Bear in mind this isnt a contest where the only the closest of the close passes gets fined. Have a close look at the angles in the video. It looks like the cyclist was close to being in primary and the Q8 which is a massive barge of a car at the best of times barely starts crossing the white line before he's alongside.
I'm just genuinely surprised that this pass attracted a fine....
Bear in mind that it didn't initially, it was only because Mr.Bellend decided to contest it that he got fined, he could have taken his awareness course. It is at the outer limit of what I would expect to get action from the police (or at least my force, the Met), but it is at speed, unnecessary (as the other cars show it was possible to leave much more room) and well within a metre. Of course we've all seen much worse not sanctioned, but that's because the decision not to sanction them was wrong, not because the decision to sanction this one was.
🤣🤣 what a result! Both 783 and 784 have made my day. Hit them in the wallet. Amazing.
Yep I agree. I think too many people have been listening to Mr Loophole, thinking that if they just appeal a FPN that they will be guaranteed to succeed in their appeal as it's not worth the time of the police and CPS to take it to court.
It is perfect response by the judges to slap a higher penalty than they would have if they had just accepted the FPN and hopefully after a few results like this the message will make its way to all motorists
I just had a Google at Pepipoo to see what sort of advice was being handed out, and I was pleasantly surprised at the evenhandedness of it, even with a backdrop of niggling.
For example: try this one.
http://forums.pepipoo.com/lofiversion/index.php/t140220.html
I post on both (mostly private parking) pepipoo and here, and indeed it's pretty even there.
Well that's cheered me up!
Heol-y-cyw, batman!
Large amounts of Schadenfreude from bad drivers thinking they should get away when caught for their bad driving, only to end up with a massive fine and points on their licence
Whether the bad drivers learn from this experience is an entirely different matter.
Great result. It just goes to show that close pass prosecutions can succeed in court.
I know it's hassle for the police and courts when drivers contest a course or FPN, but if people start to realise the punishment will be harsher at court and they're unlikely to win, then they'll stop challenging them and pay up!
The fear of getting an FPN or driver awareness course will then start to have a moderating effect on driver behaviour.
Can completely understand why that driver will have asked for his day in court... can also completely understand why they lost...
Lot of traffic for such a poor road.
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