Near Miss of the Day 624: Drivers overtaking cyclist nearly hit oncoming rider

Today I got a long call from a very sympathetic bod on traffic policing, and he explained quite a lot on the first question, but wouldn't comment on the second, other than he's seen similar when riding and understands the concern.

I'll try to summarise what I remember from the call.

Regarding the process... It's not the fault of Police Scotland. The Procurator Fiscal Service / Crown Office (Scottish equivalent of the CPS in Eng & Wal) have rules that say that the evidential trail MUST go camera - card - usb stick - DVD. Any deviation makes the video inadmissible, and Top Lawyers (not that one, I don't think he has a practising certificate for Scotland) will get the case thrown out. The requirement to have a Police Scotland officer take a statement in person is statutory, and there's a link to the right of the accused to see the accuser stand up in court and repeat the allegation.

I said that it seems that the whole system is rigged to make it difficult to improve road safety, and he didn't disagree though he did point out that being able to compel the keeper of a vehicle to reveal who was driving has no parallel in the rest of criminal law.

So no portal for now - it needs Parliament to get involved. I'm going to try to take this further, if I can find the time. I have a lawyer friend (yes, some lawyers have non-learned friends) who may be able to help with the terminology and other details so that I can write a good letter to my MSPs.

jambo73 wrote:

Anecdotally I am seeing this happen more and more often. The oncoming driver is so fixated on giving the cyclist on their side the right amount of room they ignore anything coming the other way - bikes - even cars.

I guess this is some sort of progress in better behaviour but I’m not really sure TBH

at least the cyclist coming the other way can see them coming and dive into the verge (unless there are two cyclists riding single file like good obedient underlings)

As I said above, there's a small change in behaviour but no change in attitude - 'I'm not having my journey interrupted by a cyclist.'

Forgive me if I'm suspicious of the "didn't see you" defense. It's non-falsifiable - you can't possibly prove they did see you, to 'disprove' their claim. The fact that the police seem to accept it is shocking. Just say you didn't see them, and you're no longer responsible?

Glad no-one was injured though, it did look close

I take it at face value, and so should the courts. They did not see the cyclist. In clear daylight.

Given that, by their own admission, their eyesight is so seriously compromised that they are a demonstrable danger to themselves and others on the road, that is reason to suspend their licence. But only until they can undertake medical tests to discover the cause and remedy of their troubling eyesight condition.

Once the problem is diagnosed and fixed, then the driver can retake their driving test in a bid to have their licence restored.

However, if the medical tests are inconclusive or are unable to diagnose the latent defect then unfortunately the driver should have their licence revoked, until such time as medical science is able to answer their mystery condition.

It's harsh, but we can't have people driving if they say they can not see.

Velo-drone wrote:

Police Scotland yet again with the "but what could we possibly do?" stance.

I mean this is clear as day that they have an unstated policy to not take action on any dangerous driving affecting cyclists unless it actually causes physical injury.

I took it that the rozzers flat refused to take any other action, and that Keiran was unsure what else he could do.
Agree with your post though

Yep, average driver tends to struggle to see more than one hazard. Relatively easy to become hazard fixated on the cyclist being overtaken then not look properly at the road ahead.

Tailgating reduces view ahead, blue car driver likely never even registered the oncoming cyclist. Same thing happens with a standard overtake. If all the driver is looking at is the numberplate ahead then that's all they will see...