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news
Near Miss of the Day 620: Cyclist held up by Land Rover driver gets grief off ... another Land Rover driver for holding him up
The cyclist on the receiving end of this video in our Near Miss of the Day series tried to report it to police – but since it happened in Scotland, and he was back in Wales by the time he had the footage ready, that turned out to be impossible.
What’s more, despite the cyclist himself having to slow down on a narrow road due to a vehicle ahead of him, Matt – who was riding the North Coast 500 and will be sharing his ride on the road.cc podcast soon – found himself on the receiving end of a close pass and some abuse from another motorist who simply had to get in front of him.
“This happened near Torridon, on a long section of singletrack road with passing places,” Matt told us. “In total the section of road is approximately 15km.
“I was riding and despite being held up myself by a Land Rover Defender ahead (that you can see in the video), but the silver Discovery you can see was still absolutely determined to pass me. As he passed, he cut across me on purpose, pushing me to the very edge of the road.
“After he came by, around 100m later the cars in front stopped to allow a car to pass, so I had a word with the driver who simply swore at me and claimed I was the reason why they were going slowly,” Matt continued. “Ironically, 10km later I was still right behind the Defender ahead.
“After returning to Wales I tried to report the issue, but have not been able to.
“After calling 101 and speaking to the Highlands area Police Scotland they said that I am not able to give a statement as it would need to be taken by a local officer and said I would need to contact my local force.
“Then when speaking to Dyfed Powys Police, they have Operation Snap and all close pass issues would usually go through that, but because this was outside of the area covered, it would not be dealt with and if I wanted it reported, it would need to be Police Scotland.
“Upon calling 101 and speaking to Police Scotland they just reiterated the first situation, so I gave up,” he added.
> 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
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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32 comments
'Not our problem' seems to be the watchword of todays police forces. That and 'because of unprecended demand... blah blah long covid...we now have an excuse to do fk all, but we'll still go everywhere in pairs just incase someone swears and upsets us'.
If it’s the wild west, just bring your horse alongside his wagon and reassert the peace when his driver’s window is open by introducing some distance between his key and the ignition. A nice 5 mile walk will give him time to reflect.
It's the NC500. If you really have to ride it (and as a Scotsman I have zero interest in riding it because I know what it’s like at the best of times) then you just need to take all the shit that comes with it and forget about making complaints. It's a Gammon race track and a hired out campervan convoy, and the narrow single track Highland roads mean you're going to get continuously close passed but dicks.
For those of us unlucky enough not to live in Scotland, it's totally worth riding, though. Probably best to avoid long weekends and holidays.
But, anyway, the fact that it's busy is no excuse for dangerous driving. Most roads I cycle on down South and in London are way busier...
I'm beginning to wonder whether I have been wrong all along and there is another UK force as bad as Lancashire. The question is whether openly obstructing cyclist complaints by engineering a system which makes complaining impossible (Police Scotland) is worse than allowing reports and video to be submitted but covertly setting up the system so that no online report is looked at and allocated a log incident number until about 16 days after the report is submitted (Lancashire Constabulary)- of course, no worthwhile action is then possible. It's a difficult choice, but the Scotland system saves effort and thwarted hopes and involves less deception. How to decide?- I know that Lancashire has never prosecuted a driver for close passing. Does anyone know of an instance of a genuine such prosecution by Police Scotland? This could be a tie-breaker for the coveted most anti-cycling force in the UK title, so it's important.
Along with many contributors I am hacked off with the disgrace that is Police Scotlands attitude and approach to incidents such as these. As the impact on road safety deters cycling.
I wrote to Lorna Slater my Green list MSP to ask her views and action. I mistakenly thought the Green party would be interested. To date some weeks later, no response apart from auto reply. Disappointing to say the least with COP22 coming soon.
Thats disappointing. Hopefully Cycling UK will be able to put some pressure on the S. Greens to use their new Independence support to advance a climate change agenda that includes better cycling provision.
It's not disappointing, it's how it is now. Public servants across the board seem to no longer want to serve the public. We're all just a massive inconvenience between them and their gravy train.
Scotland is some kind of a cross between the wild west and the middle ages as far as reporting driving offences goes.
I had a similar experience in Perth, where I was up for a couple of days for my father's 70th birthday - took the Brompton up and cycled out to Glenfarg. Beautiful, and for the most part great experience - except for one guy who deliberately drove at me in the centre of Perth, swearing and hooting and yelling out the window.
On returning home, I sent front and rear video footage to Police Scotland - and got this repsonse:
I duly confirmed, and noted that I had not solely provided "information contained in an email", but front and rear video footage - and suggested that a telephone or video call would be the most straightforward way to provide my formal statement. I received a form response stating
That was on 16 July. You can guess whether this ever actually happened.
Coincidentally I was back up in Scotland for two weeks so at the end of the month, but the fact is, Police Scotland clearly have no interest whatsoever in pursuing these matters - and it would appear to me that certain drivers at least are well aware of this and know that they can merrily endanger & threaten cyclists with impunity.
Rg03 btg: owner of a random land rover and world's smallest cock
I don't know, there's some stiff competition there....
Flaccid competition I expect.
The whole system to report these incidents to Police Scotland is shambolic to say the least. They are incredibly reticent to create a portal as is the current government. The one main issue that is preventing people taking cycling is road safety. The one area that the authorities are dragging their feet to improve through infra and justice. I only hope that Cycling UK's recent lobbying for this to change is successful.
We are the spanish inquisition our chief weapon is surprise....and fear
Wasn't expecting that.....
no one does
"Cardinal Biggles, bring on the comfy chair."
Predictable -
jobsworthoverworked police find reasons not to do their jobs rather than simplifying the process so they can do it more efficiently and actually serve more victims of crime.Some drivers are just incapable of seeing past the vehicle in front.
In a situation like this, where it's not going to cost me too much time, I tend to just let them pass. I'd rather have the idiot ahead of me than chomping at my rear tyre.
The Scottish police seem to be well behind other forces in their process for accepting camera footage.
True. There are some drivers that you know you'd rather have in front of you.
Either because you think they're dangerous/incompetent (safer to have them in front of you, so you can rubberneck when they utterly mess something up) or because they are (cough cough) compensating for something and you can laugh and point when they get stuck in the queue of traffic that was right there ahead of you.
I like sarcastically waving them through and then overtaking them again when the immediatly catch-up with the traffic in front of them
I have no idea why police scotland insist on sending officers to take an in-person statement. It can't be very resource efficient for them, and it makes it much more arduous than it needs to be for people to report incidents like this.
There was a recent appeal for Police Scotland to make the process smoother, so it would be interesting to see if anything comes of that (nothing has so far...) https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/33-motoring-and-cycling-organisa...
Simple; it really cuts down on the number of complaints they are tasked with investigating/actioning.
They've already got the highest drug deaths in Europe, and a Government that doesn't care about anything other than Independence referendums and smearing Alex Salmond. Why would they make it easier for people to report crimes and make them look even worse?
Alex Salmond has done a pretty good job of smearing himself. My dad used to work with him and never had a good word to say about him.
I don't like the guy, but the way the Scottish Government have tried to frame him and destroy evidence to put him in prison is more akin to that of a corrupt Government, like Russia, than a modern Democracy.
If you think that was a framing, you have to also think that none of what he was accused of happened - in essence that the complaints were without merit. You may think that, but many others do not.
Both AS and the Scottish Government came out of that very badly indeed.
There is quite a disconnect between the performance of the Scottish Government and the electoral support the SNP gets. Repeated failures in policing, health, justice, education, drug use reduction, financial management of their own party etc isn't really making them vulnerable to defeat. This might be due to the lack of effective opposition politicians, voter ignorance / apathy, or that the independence debate dominates the conversation and drowns out all the real world stuff.
I'd suggest you take a look at what happened: The Scottish Government destroyed evidence concerning Nicola Sturgeon to help their case against Salmond, then lied to parliament and police, and they coached the "victims", fabricated evidence, and changed statements to put Salmond in prison. Nicola Sturgeon and her husband should be in prison for this crusade. Not to mention all the money and police time they wasted, and how they politicised the civil service to help their agenda.
While I wouldn't defend the Scottish Government's handling of the Salmond case you might have been watching too much GB News.
Even Salmond's defence lawyer stated his behaviour was unacceptable.
It wasn't found to be criminal though.
Not sure what you're disagreeing with. You didn't address any point i made, and just talked about Salmond's lawyer's defence. Even Panorama has covered this in depth, if you're interested.
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