Near Miss of the Day 846 (updated): Motorist escapes punishment for extreme close pass and deliberately reversing into cyclist

It'd be interesting to see the video if you've shared it anywhere. Interesting response in terms of grammar ("based off of his training") and the claim that a police officer is an expert in what will or won't fly in court; however experienced they might be, it's surely for the trained lawyers of the CPS to make that decision, not a copper who considers themselves a legal expert?

@Rendel I hadn't uploaded, because Police say (pretend) that having it publicly available affects their ability to investigate. But, I guess there's no chance they're doing anything now, about 10 weeks on. So, I've uploaded to YouTube:

• https://youtu.be/wnooeHZpxOk

This is an unlisted video. Please don't share it.

I must admit, I'd have been in the middle of the lane, not to the extreme right.

eburtthebike wrote:

I must admit, I'd have been in the middle of the lane, not to the extreme right.

I'm not sure I would, because of the presence of the second lane I want to be more sure of preventing a left hook than a centre of the lane position.

Cyclist is clearly in the left lane and not the right lane so no reason to expect they are turning right. 

eburtthebike wrote:

I must admit, I'd have been in the middle of the lane, not to the extreme right.

Indeed, and I do often ride in the middle—about 50cm over to the left of where I was. I quite often get overtaken around the roundabout by drivers going straight on, which is pretty dangerous. That large silver car had just overtaken fairly close to the roundabout. Their overtake was fine but, as I'm sure you know, many drivers seem to have the mindset "if it was safe for the driver in front, surely it's safe for me too". I wasn't comfortable with the idea of another vehicle's overtaken. Hence, I took up a position dead in the centre of the lane. I then stay in the centre of the lane, before sliding over to the left when it splits into two. Maybe I should've been a bit further over—not that I was in the wrong, of course, just thinking what prevents dangerous maneuvers. I wasn't expecting an undertake!

The driver's tirade included, "I didn't know which lane you were in." Apparently, "undertake" is the correct response to not knowing where someone is. Moreover, of course, the driver shouldn't undertake even if I were in the right-hand lane and turning right—not that I was doing, or had indicated that I was doing, either.

Well, that's actually worse than I expected from your description even. How can the police say that the van driver was justified in thinking you were turning right when they began their undertake prior to the stop line whilst you were still within the left-hand lane markings? Additionally we can see from your shadow that you made no indication that you were intending to turn right, and the van driver persisted in pushing through even when it must have become perfectly clear from your positioning and gesticulating (and I presume shouting, there doesn't appear to be audio on the video) that you were going straight on. It's absolutely staggering that the police believe there's no case to answer here.

It's absolutely staggering that the police believe there's no case to answer here

It doesn't stagger me, because it's just a dodge. The police simply make up laws that suit them. I have just uploaded 2 videos to UpRide from February 2020, where the nutter BMW driver on personalised plate J111 KDW committed almost the same offence (illegal crossing of the unbroken white line while obviously exceeding the 30 limit +/- close pass) at exactly the same location on 2 occasions 2 days apart. It was scheduled for court after more than a year when a couple of weeks before the hearing, Lancashire Constabulary suddenly abandoned the prosecution because there is no rear-facing footage. They had just discovered this. They claimed that they couldn't prove the driver had actually crossed the UWL until he crossed back over it to avoid colliding with an oncoming vehicle- apparently, it's not an offence if you just come steaming down the wrong side of the road!

Rendel Harris wrote:

... (and I presume shouting, there doesn't appear to be audio on the video) ...

I removed the audio to make it family-friendly 😛

I mentioned in another reply that the driver's tiradic response included, "I didn't know which lane you were in." Apparently, "undertake" is the correct response to not knowing where someone is. The driver shouldn't undertake even if I were in the right-hand lane and turning right—not that I was doing, or had indicated that I was doing, either, as you ocorrectly observe.

It looks like one of those roundabouts because of the way its shaped wherever you position, theres just too much space to defend & block a pass if a driver decides cyclist = slow, must get ahead now.

Even if you think sod it hug the kerb let them do their inevitable thing, you open yourself to people not looking at you as they then join from the left, because they focus only on the inner lane,not outer. I suspect alot of drivers straight line it or pinch space if you are in the RH lane.

Even on the exit i mean that Jeep isnt exactly covering itself in glory either.

Awavey wrote:

It looks like one of those roundabouts because of the way its shaped wherever you position, theres just too much space to defend & block a pass if a driver decides cyclist = slow, must get ahead now.

Indeed. This rapid widening into two lanes isn't great. I often have people overtake me by straight-lining the roundabout. Hence, these days, I tend to err on the right-hand side of the left-hand lane, discouraging anyone from trying to straight-line overtake. I wasn't expecting an enormous van to undertake—not turning left either, I might add, so shouldn't be undertaking even if I were turning right!

Yes, a generalisation, but drive the M1 from Nottingham to Leeds, or the M25 and compare behaviour now to 10 years ago. Cars approaching 100mph are a lot rarer now than they were and I drive quite often between Oxford and Birmingham and for most of the way being passed travelling at 70mph is rare until things go a bit loopy after Gaydon (nothing to do with JLR I'm sure, ahem).

I used to drive Slough to Oxford before the M40 was built, and there was a short section of 3 lane just before Oxford where you could believe there was a 100mph minimum speed limit.

New cameras going in along the M42 from M40 to M5.

But the essential point is persuading motorists their offences are likely to be caught - if they believe there is no consequence, a significant proportion will offend. Example, temporary speed limits on motorways without yellow camera posts.

resource is the issue. Even Mark Hodson (instigator of the close pass initiative at WM Police) was unable to get any progress on resolving this

I'm afraid this sounds like Basil Fawlty's 'this is how Nazi Germany started!', but this is how you organise it when you want to set up the various police 'video portals' and OpSnaps where the main aim is to eject reports safely into the bin with as little interaction as possible, and no action except 'advice letters' at most. You 'limit resources' so that they can always claim that they were too busy to look at the report in question and now it's too late to do anything. They are prepared to put much more effort into not doing anything about incidents and just blustering any complaints away, than they would have had to expend in punishing the villains straight away

https://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/

In the 80s the French government attempted to keep out Japanese VCRs (what came before DVD/ HDD recorders, for the younger reader) by establishing a bottleneck: all non-European VCRs had to be inspected by only 2 customs officers at a depot in Poitiers. The police here initially tried a comparable dodge by demanding long videos, which they had no intention of viewing, but limiting file size and then complaining the video quality wasn't good enough- they now seem to have settled uniformly on the dodge above

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/the-crazy-fight-in-france-over-the-domestic-vcr-market-in-1982-1.5349064

wtjs wrote:

... VCRs (what came before DVD/ HDD recorders, for the younger reader)

That tech that you think is obsolete? this other tech was made obsolete by that.

eburtthebike wrote:

I was idly watching parliament the other day, and a committee was interviewing a top policeman, who said that the police were demoralised and had had a real terms pay cut of 20% in the last twelve years, and that although the government were now allowing more recruitment, it didn't make up for the numbers that had been cut, and they couldn't replace the experience of long term cops.

So, yet again, like firemen, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, train drivers etc, and it all started 12 years ago.  Hmmmm.

Good lord!  Do you think there might be some sort of common factor?  I think we need to convene a committee to investigate.

Hmmm.

Like the nurses and the doctors, he's probably using the RPI numbers to add 10-12% extra to the reality, rather than CPIH.

Why shouldn't they?  CPIH is in part a scam used to force lower wage settlements.

Whether it started then is arguable but most of the public sector experienced a multi-year pay freeze starting in 2010/11 followed by years of below inflation pay settlements so of course it makes a good base point for comparisons. As someone with two jobs, one public sector and one private sector, I see the comparison very starkly. In 2010 my hourly rate for the two jobs was almost identical. Now there is almost £4 an hour difference with the private sector role paying more. Fortunately my public sector role, which I really enjoy, is only for an average of a few hours a week as if it were a lot more then I would have to give it up and focus on earning money. It isn't as if there are 100s waiting to replace me either, nationally there is a around a 25% and increasing vacancy rate for the role and the service is often badly affected.

surely the fact that DVLA has no record of this reg is also suspicious? 

Yes, but it's also a way into another dodge for the police! No way to contact the driver, squire- nothing we can do! Large expensive German cars with illegal plates designed to deceive are common in Lancashire, because they know the police won't touch them