Police sent more footage of dangerous driving than ever before – as officers warn “goal is to make roads safer, not target drivers”

Avon and Somerset Police says the local community is “speaking really loudly” about dangerous behaviour on the roads, as video submissions of alleged driving offences to the Operation SNAP third-party reporting portal continue to rise.

In 2024, Avon and Somerset Police received 8,595 video reports from both cyclists and motorists of alleged road safety incidents, such as close passes, phone driving, and road rage, just over 300 more than the previous year.

2,539 of those resulted in notices of intended prosecution being sent to the drivers responsible, while 5,158 were dealt with through warning letters, meaning almost 90 per cent of all submissions led to “some form of action” being taken.

As we reported in October, Avon and Somerset receives more third-party video reports of dangerous driving than any other police force in England and Wales. Between 2021 and 2024, the force was sent just shy of 20,000 submissions (19,949 in total), with 12,154 of those (61 per cent) coming from cyclists.

4,662 of those led to a Notice of Intended Prosecution being served, with 85 per cent of the reports made by cyclists leading to action being taken, compared to the quarter of submissions from motorists that were dismissed. Almost a third of the force’s reports came from Bristol.

> "Road safety is everyone's business": 90% increase in video footage of dangerous driving reported to police with almost 20,000 reports from Avon & Somerset over 3 years

And speaking to the BBC this week, Avon and Somerset’s chief inspector Rob Cheeseman said the force is being sent more footage from cyclists and motorists than ever before.

“I think that’s due to just how more popular certain camera use is, particularly with dashcams in vehicles,” Cheeseman said.

“So more potential offences are being identified by other road users, which are then being submitted to us.”

However, due to the ever-increasing volume of clips being submitted through Operation SNAP, Avon and Somerset Police has admitted that it is forced to focus on the “most urgent cases first” – while noting that the third-party reporting tool is not a means to “target drivers unnecessary”.

“It’s certainly something which we’ve had to adapt to,” Cheeseman said of the recent rise in third-party video reporting.

“It’s certainly a more relatively new version of reporting crime to the police. The community is speaking really loudly that these are dangers on the road.

“The goal is not to be targeting drivers unnecessarily – the ultimate goal is making the roads safer for everyone in Avon and Somerset.”

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While Avon and Somerset Police has received around 20,000 video submissions of driving offences over the past five years, one local camera cyclist – Guy Buckland – has been responsible for 1,300 of them.

“People have to realise the impact that bad driving has on peoples’ lives and communities,” Buckland, who says 90 per cent of his submissions have resulted in warning letters, fixed penalties, and court action, told the BBC.

The cyclist says some close passes he’s submitted to the portal involved drivers overtaking with six inches of him, although he noted this was quite rare.

“More typical are people pulling out without looking, people overtaking in the face of oncoming cars, the sort of general close passes, and occasionally mobile phone use,” he said.

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As noted above, research undertaken by Accident Claims Advice last year suggested that video reports of alleged road offences to police were up 90 per cent in 2023/24, compared with two years earlier in 2021/22.

The research saw data from 30 police forces collected, showing that 201,630 Operation SNAP cases were logged between January 2021 and April 2024.

 A combined 44,791 were logged in 2021/22, followed by 66,515 in 2022/23, the number rising again to 85,114 in 2023/24, with Avon and Somerset topping the table with 19,949 submissions. Of the 30 forces, all saw an increase in the number of reports over the three-year period, while just two (Norfolk and Suffolk’s police forces) saw a decrease between 2022/23 and 2023/24.

> "A close pass isn't an offence and a lot of cyclists don't realise that": Police chief's "odd" claim that cyclists need education on driving offences highlighted as evidence of UK's current road safety "mess"

However, despite the clear popularity of third-party reporting, some parts of the UK, such as Scotland, are still lagging behind when it comes to introducing an online portal for submissions.

Meanwhile, even forces who have implemented the system have come in for criticism for a perceived lack of action – often blamed on the large volume of clips submitted and a lack of resources – or their definition of what constitutes a road safety ‘offence’.

In September, we reported that Gloucestershire Police would be joining in the adoption of Operation SNAP, although the force’s non-crime unit head attracted criticism by claiming “a close pass isn’t an offence and a lot of cyclists don’t realise that”.

We were also contacted last year by a reader who told us Thames Valley Police had instructed her to stop reporting close passes unless there is evidence of careless driving, creating some confusion about whether the act of close passing a cyclist itself is not actually sufficient evidence of careless or dangerous driving.

The Metropolitan Police have, in recent times, issued advice to road users submitting footage, the latest comments suggesting the force is “unable to deal” with motorists driving in bike lanes or the wrong way down one-way streets.

It was also revealed last year that from almost 4,000 submissions of alleged driving offences to Surrey Police, just 10 led to prosecutions.

Likewise, West Midlands Police, it emerged, had prosecuted just one driver from 286 close pass reports, the force admitting it needed to review how reports are managed. Last February, we reported that the force was now taking action of some kind in 97 per cent of cyclist submissions.

Thames Valley Police recently admitted, too, that there are “very valid concerns” about its handling of cyclists’ reports, the force recruiting to fill a “shortage in resources” and staff that has meant “Notice of Intended Prosecutions are not able to be sent to the offending driver within the legal timeframe of 14 days”.

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Of course, the rise in third-party reporting in the UK has also coincided with growing criticism of camera cyclists, especially well-known social media figures such as Cycling Mikey.

In October, after covering the rapid growth in third-party road safety reporting in a news article and in a BBC Breakfast segment, the BBC was criticised by cyclists for referring to both Cycling Mikey (real name Mike van Erp) and fellow social media camera cyclist Tim on Two Wheels as “vigilantes”, with Van Erp arguing that cyclists who submit footage to the police are, in fact, the “opposite of vigilantes”.

Following a number of complaints, including from Tim himself, who described the “vigilante” reference as “disappointing”, the broadcaster admitted to road.cc that the initial language used in their story, later amended, was “inappropriate”.