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news
Near Miss of the Day 846Near Miss of the Day 846 (updated): Motorist escapes punishment for extreme close pass and deliberately reversing into cyclist
Update: West Midlands Police has told road.cc that a motorist, who committed an extremely close pass on a cyclist before slamming on his brakes and appearing to deliberately reverse into the rider, avoided punishment because the victim neglected to report the incident within the required 14-day time frame.
As part of our original Near Miss of the Day article (which can be found below), road.cc reader James told us that he submitted the clip to West Midlands Police’s ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’. After receiving no response for several months, he later contacted the force’s Traffic Investigation Unit, who asked him to resubmit the footage.
However, while James claimed that an officer from the Traffic Investigation Unit told him that there was no “clear video” of the collision, West Midlands Police has told road.cc that the driver was not prosecuted simply because the two-week window for issuing a Notice of Intended Prosecution had expired by that point, and that the cyclist was invited to “pursue an allegation of assault”.
“The video footage of an incident in July last year was submitted to us via our website in November,” a spokesperson for West Midlands Police told road.cc.
“Our traffic office contacted the cyclist within 48 hours to advise him that if he wanted to pursue an allegation of assault, he would need to report that to us via 101, but the timeframe for us to issue a Notification of Intended Prosecution (NIP) for a traffic offence had expired.”
> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling
Responding to the police’s statement, James said that the incident had been passed to the Traffic Investigation Unit “within 48 hours, well within the time limit”.
“The limit for a collision is also six months,” he said. “I contacted TIU before six months had passed and they informed me that the collision wasn’t on camera and they wouldn’t continue with a prosecution since it was several months ago.”
As we noted in our guide to reporting near misses or collisions to the police, any notice of intended prosecution must by law be issued to a registered keeper or owner of a motor vehicle within 14 days of the alleged offence. So, the earlier you submit your footage, the more time police have to investigate the incident, increasing the likelihood that dangerous drivers will face some sort of punishment for their actions.
Of course, as we saw with this incident in Coventry, even that may not be enough to secure a fair outcome…
You can read the original article below:
A motorist who committed an extreme close pass on a cyclist, missing him by a matter of inches, before slamming on his brakes and appearing to deliberately reverse into the rider, escaped punishment after West Midlands Police deemed that the collision was not captured clearly enough in the video.
road.cc reader James was cycling on Willenhall Lane in Coventry last July when the driver of an Audi – who, as James notes, appears to be holding a joint in his mouth in the clip – dangerously overtook him.
After James vocalised his disgruntlement with the driver’s too-close-for-comfort pass, the motorist slammed on the brakes. A staring and muttering match then ensued, before the hooded motorist appeared to have had enough.
However, before driving away he then decided to leave James with a parting gift by reversing back towards the cyclist (and over the white line into the next lane), appearing to ram him.
“After the incident I called 999 because the driver has what appears to be a joint hanging out of his mouth, although it has gone out,” James tells road.cc. “Unfortunately I gave the 999 operator the wrong registration.”
> Near Miss of the Day 845: Cyclist close passed... by driver with bike racks on their car
That proved only the start of James’ troubles while reporting the incident.
“I reported it to West Midlands Police via their online ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ and I was informed the video would be sent to the Traffic Investigation Unit,” he says.
“Several months later when I chased it up with TIU, they had no idea what incident I was referring to and asked me to send them the video via the Nextbase online reporting form.
“I did this and someone from TIU called me to say that the collision, which I thought was very clear, isn’t actually captured on video. They told me the bike shakes but there’s no clear video of the car actually hitting the bike so this isn't being treated as a collision.
“They thought that the suspect would claim that there was no collision and that I just shook the bike to make it look like there was.”
> Near Miss of the Day 844: Driver insists cyclists who film motorists are asking to be hit
He continued: “The time limit for sending a NIP for the close pass had also expired, so the driver got away with no consequences.
“I suspected at the time that reporting via the ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ was the wrong thing to do – it would take weeks or months for any action to be taken, by which time it would be too late.
“I should have reported via the Nextbase portal for the TIU to handle it. They might have just got back to me and told me to report via the ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ or they might have just processed it as a close pass. Regardless they wouldn’t have sat on it for weeks or months.
“Due to the collision not being clear – though I think it is and I was there to witness it as well – and due to the delay, the decision was made not to refer to the Crown Prosecution Service.”
> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling
“I was surprised at outcome of this deliberate collision,” James concludes. “No action of any kind.”
West Midlands Police has been contacted by road.cc for comment.
> 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.
> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling
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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54 comments
YF56NWZ is not a valid number plate. Obviously been taken from a scrapped vehicle for use as a pool vehicle for the local crims.
Funny how these cars freely move around without ever getting flagged by ANPR.
I've also had issues with WM Police. I had a van driver undertake me in the same lane as me—yes, they squeezed past on the left as the road widened up to a round about, passing in the same lane as me.
They clearly saw me, as they started hurling abuse very quickly. I didn't have my card-punch handy, otherwise my anti-cycling bingo card would've seen a lot of action, including the classic, "I'm a cyclist too" + "You give cyclists a bad name". After interacting, they proceeded to continue to pass, losing any "I didnt know you were there" excuse.
Anyway, WM Police said no action was going to be taken "as there is no offense to answer for". Some appeals to authority and mild victim-blaming thrown in too. The usual. Haven't heard back since, 10 days on.
It also took them weeks to reply, claiming they lost my initial Nextbase submission. Even when I gave them reference numbers.
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:
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
". I reckon average speed cameras have cracked the back of motorway excess speeds even where they aren't installed”
I disagree - whenever I'm on the motorway - at, or just below the limit -- at least half of the traffic is travelling much faster than me (as well has having virtually zero lane discipline)
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.
I've had both good & bad experiences with WM Police. The complete lack of ANY feedback is probably the worst - I do have contact details for the TIU now & have followed up on a few of what I thought were really bad passes, both as a solo rider & as a part of a group. The attempts to avoid doing anything are apparant - probably down to lack of resources which was what was inferred when I spoke to one of the officers on three submissions I sent towards the back end of last year. One which was right on the border between Staffordshire & WM was ignored but as I was not informed of this by WM Police, it was too late to submit to Staffordshire (4 * 4 with trailer, narrow lane, oncoming vehicle). Of the other two, one got sent a warning letter (solo - cose pass, no oncoming traffic) & one was NFA (group - high speed agressive close pass, no oncoming traffic). TBH it is just pot luck, maybe you get an investigator who appreciates the seriousness of the incident, maybe you don't. I've had better experience with Staffordshire & Warwickshire. Staffordshire don't use the Nextbase portal - good response & meaningful conversation with the investigator. The result was a warning letter which I thought was the correct response. Warwickshire, who do use the Nextbase portal, do always respond even if all they do is send a warning letter in my experience see NMotD 652).I've had two prosectuted by WM Police: one ended up with 3 points, £323 fine, the other took a fixed penalty. This is out of probably 30+ I've submitted but the most infuriating thing is always the lack of feedback - I mentioned this to the investigator at WM TIU & again 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.
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
That tech that you think is obsolete? this other tech was made obsolete by that.
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.
The time limit for sending a NIP for the close pass had also expired, so the driver got away with no consequences
Of course it had! That is on Page 1, or even Item 1, of the Police Dodging manual. If the worst comes to the worst, they just say they were too busy to look at reports. A combination of these dodges is what they will say about every incident that they do nothing about- like this one:
https://upride.cc/incident/kd10wer_porsche_mobilephone/
Regardless they wouldn’t have sat on it for weeks or months
A charming child-like faith! Oh, yes they would
due to the delay, the decision was made not to refer to the Crown Prosecution Service
That decision was made the instant they saw the cyclist hadn't been KSI'd. They have essentially shoe-horned it into a category where it doesn't fit very well: the only sort of evidence they like: insufficient evidence. There's quite enough evidence, and they really don't like that! I know this posh Porsche driving woman was on the phone at exactly (GPS time is within a second of network time) 12:36:59 17.1.23 and speaking at it. The evidence is there, but they don't want to do anything about it, so they simply don't respond.
Be interesting to see how the police would deal with the same behaviour towards a police motorcyclist.
I know this is last July, but surely the fact that DVLA has no record of this reg is also suspicious?
The plates on the car don't have any issuing details, either. Dodge.
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
No mention of the evidence from several nearby car drivers, all well placed to have seen any collision and easily traced via visible reg. plates. I'm sure the police exhausted all lines of enquiry.
I think what we are seeing is the same as rape victims, home burglaries, car theft and a swathe of other crimes.
Policing on the cheap, where the management pressure is to meet budget rather than solve crime. We have a focus on cycling crime where the offences are obvious and recorded - and often clearly not trivial - but this is replicated in all aspects of criminal behaviour.
The reality is that the police across are now fed thousands of criminal actions on video and their systems would collapse if they processed them all.
To instigate change you need to invest, and in the main we need to reverse the culture change where a growing proportion of society is comfortable with criminal behaviour because there are no consequences. I reckon average speed cameras have cracked the back of motorway excess speeds even where they aren't installed. I reckon that the police should recognise the low cost benefit of self-evidenced crime reporting and invest in the short term to getting very high levels of prosecution till the word gets around that it's not worth the risk of being aggressive, and the level of criminality will reduce. I mean how many ordinary people, as opposed to yobs like this scrote, seem to think a punishment pass is right behaviour?
Whoever dealt with this as West Midlands Police needs to be seriously retrained, or better still, sacked as they are clearly incompetent at their job.
Hopefully James made a claim for damage to his front wheel? He might not have the driver's details but accessing those from the Motor Insurance Bureau is straight forward and costs £10
https://www.mib.org.uk/check-insurance-details/check-a-vehicle-not-at-th...
If nothing else, do the decent thing by getting this reckless person's insurance premiums hiked so that the rest of us driver's don't have to pay.
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