Near Miss of the Day 806: Driver escapes punishment after reversing at cyclist and running over dog

Decent cycling-related plate that (MvdP)

Curious to reflect that he'll be in more do-do socials-wise for harming the dog than a person. 

JimM777 wrote:

It's highly unlikely that the car driver or the quad driver will do similar actions in the future. They have already received a karmic penalty. The car driver will likely begrudgingly concede that is not a good idea to get into an road argument in such a manner with a cyclist.

You do understand that that is utter horlicks?  The car driver and the quad driver will have settled their differences, and will have come to the conclusion that it was all the fault of that bl00dy cyclist...

So the next time the driver sees a cyclist, he is likely to repeat what he did the last time?

Perhaps he's learnt his lesson about reversing, but it doesn't mean that he's accepted the blame for the incident.

Worse, now it is a national story it is reasonable to expect that he has become aware of the police response, he can claim to his mates that the police agree with him that it is all the cyclist's fault and he did nothing wrong.

JimM777 wrote:

So the next time the driver sees a cyclist, he is likely to repeat what he did the last time?

Given how little self control he demonstrably has, I'll be a "yes" on that.

You seem very keen to minimise the driver's culpability here. So far in your contributions to this thread, it's been the fault of the quad biker, the cyclist, the road and maybe even the dog. Any reason why you cannot see the cause was the grossly dangerous actions of the driver?

PS Above, you miss out penalty points - 6 or (for careless driving) a max 9 would cause at least some insurance price pain and possible behaviour modification. So screw the driver's karma, anyone who would behave the way they did is highly likely to be dangerous to cyclists for the rest of their driving career anyway.

I feel bad for the dog but I suspect it may have prevented GBH or worse on the cyclist. Shame on North Yorks police for not prosecuting.

Really? So you cherry pick and ignore what I said in an earlier comment "Really strange and reckless behaviour by both the car driver and the quad driver".

You're entitled to disagree with my opinion that prosecuting other drivers who do dangerous close passes without any consequence would be a better use of prosecution resources, but there's no need to misrepresent me when you do so.

What did the quad biker do wrong, exactly?

JimM777 wrote:

I thought I might add a little bit here regarding prosecution in this case, emotions can sometimes lead one down the wrong path. It's highly unlikely that the car driver or the quad driver will do similar actions in the future. They have already received a karmic penalty. The car driver will likely begrudgingly concede that is not a good idea to get into an road argument in such a manner with a cyclist. But if he were prosecuted and fined, does that actually benefit anyone? Indeed, it would be likely to push him into being yet another vehement anti cyclist - is that really what we want?

So it's quite different to prosecuting a driver who does dangerous close passes and drives on without incurring any penalty, in such cases there is a much better argument for prosecution. That's where taxpayer's money should be directed.

Taxpayer's money is well spent on identifying and penalising poor driving behaviour. If he has understood the nature of his mistake (emotional response to other road users), then he'll accept the punishment and move on. If he hasn't understood what he did wrong, then it needs to be explained to him and the appropriate punishment given so that he won't just laugh it off and forget about it.

Also, if he subsequently gets into another argument with other road users, then his defence won't be able to use the "previously law abiding" excuse and dismiss it as a "momentary lapse".

There's also the issue of his insurance premiums - do we want other drivers to be subsidising bad driving or should that piece of bad driving incur increased premiums?

I'm not seeing any clear advantage to not prosecuting him and I think that dangerous driving does need to be clamped down on whilst people are still getting injured and dying on the streets unnecessarily. Ultimately, stopping dangerous drivers is worth every penny of taxpayers' money and will likely save healthcare/treatment spending in the long term.

Are you aware that last year, there were over 8000 drivers who got 12 points and yet were allowed to continue driving? Doesn't sound like points and fines are a sure way to prevent repeat offenders.

What point are you trying to make? Are you just in the game of winning an argument on the Internet? You do seem overly keen on dancing on a pinhead. Yes, not all prosecutions are worthwhile, but trying to argue this on a case where there was a frightening chase that had a cyclist fearing for their safety, a dog was killed and another road user left the road to avoid a collision probably isn't the context to make your case

I'm merely voicing an opinion. You don't like it, get over it.

You making a trolling fool of yourself but yes I'll get over it.  I wonder if Fido/ Bob/ Shep will? 

What you are doing, in the best-case scenario, is underestimating the ability of homo sapiens to rationalize. It is boundless. By now, the driver has almost certainly come up with a multitude of reasons that he did nothing wrong in any of this.

JimM777 wrote:

Are you aware that last year, there were over 8000 drivers who got 12 points and yet were allowed to continue driving? Doesn't sound like points and fines are a sure way to prevent repeat offenders.

Just because a system isn't perfect doesn't mean that it should be abandoned and replaced with "well we think he might have learned his lesson". Whether or not the points system is flawless has nothing to do with whether this driver should be prosecuted.

Humans voice now fitted to every car:  "I am sorry, Lee but your driver ID confirms you are disqualified from driving this type of vehicle."  *won't start*

Without a proper investigation, it might be that this driver is sitting on 11 points - driver might not even be licensed as he might not be the owner. The response from the police hints that as they've seen nothing wrong, they haven't checked to see if there is any intelligence associated with the car or owner. Without a NIP, the police haven't tried to establish who was driving.

Utter scrotum contents.

Karmic penalty my arse! The twat will be down the pub getting condolences for the terrible accident that he was involved in due to some bloody entitled cyclist who thinks he owns the road, followed by any number of anecdotes about how one time some cyclists did something to break some road law (that may or may not be an actual law, but who cares, they all go through red lights and have no insurance) or cause some unforgiveable inconvenience. Then they'll all be off home driving over the limit and holding a grudge for the next poor sod on a bicycle who triggers their rage.

Of course they should be prosecuted. How else will any other driver view such an incident where there is no prosecution ?

It's the whole raison d'etre of Inspector Kevin of another Yorkshire force to show drivers what happens when they commit these types of infraction against vulnerable road users.

Quad rider saved himself from being hit there by totally leaving the road. Having to swerve out of the way.

Driver wasn't looking at the rest of the road or for other road users, all he could see in his mirrors was the cyclist and I'm guessing he had violence in his mind.

Any karmic justice would have had him having the crap beaten out of him by the quad biker and owner of the dog.

Oh to be a fly on the wall around farmer robocop's tea table that evening as Mr. SUV & brother/cousin/son (or any combination thereof)  Quad driver traded recriminations about their lost and expensive sheepdog. I expect there'd only be one party to blame and he wouldn't have been on four wheels.

PS  Emmerdale storylines are looking a bit anaemic lately, maybe drop a line to their script department?

And that's the (so far) missing part of the jigsaw : the complaint from quad bike man to the police 

It was also an offence. They had no need to reverse, so they absolutely broke rule 203