E mail to transport company after punishment pass

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Location
Hampshire
Any comments on this before I send it?

Good afternoon,

I am contacting you to make a complaint about the driving and attitude of one of your drivers.

At 9.08am today I was cycling along Leigh road, Eastleigh between the town centre and the crossroads with Passfield & Woodside avenues, heading towards Chandlers Ford. Despite there being a clear road ahead one of your lorries passed very close to me when overtaking barely moving over at all despite there being ample room to do so, there are a number of potholes on that stretch of road and had I hit one as he was passing could easily have ended up under the rear wheels.

Your driver stopped at the lights in the right hand lane at the crossroads and I stopped just in front of him on the left. I looked up at him and indicated that I thought he’d passed me too closely by holding my hand up with finger and thumb close together and my other hand in a palm up gesture in a pretty obvious ‘questioning’ way. His response was to point to the shared path on the other side of the road and indicate that he thought I should have been on there, he seemed to find this exchange very amusing with a big grin on his face. When I questioned whether he had deliberately close passed me because I was not on the shared path his response was to shrug his shoulders in an exaggerated way and have a good chuckle to himself. He responded in the same way when I indicated that I would be contacting his company.
I am experienced cyclist (and driver) and am registered with the DoT as a qualified cycling instructor, I don’t go around looking for conflict with other road users and am perfectly aware that we all make mistakes. Had your driver acknowledged that he had made a poor overtake on this occasion I would just given him a nod and forgotten it.

I’m not looking to have anyone dragged over the coals but I would be grateful if you could remind your employee of his responsibilities as a professional driver of large vehicles and suggest he acquaints himself with rules 61, 163 & 212 of the Highway Code.

Thank you for your attention.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
You do realise that the gesture you used is an insulting one - you were indicating to the driver that he had a small winky.
 

Milkfloat

An Peanut
Location
Midlands
Did you get the registration or fleet number? If it is anything other than a small company they will have no way to identify the driver. I would also remind them that their drivers actions reflect on the whole company.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
Pointless without the vehicle reg.
 

BurningLegs

Veteran
I’m familiar with that stretch of road. It’s straight and wide. The path is ridiculous- tree lined which creates lots of pinch points and visibility issues.

Glad you’re not injured and do hope you post any reply that you receive from the company concerned.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
I'd have made mention that you had considered contacting the transport commisioner but that you feel in this first instance that the company should be given the opportunity to respond appropriately. Other than that looks good to me :okay:
I would suggest cc’ing VOSA/Traffic commissioner/Police in too, as the Company will likely fob you off, they don’t want the attention of this lot at all, will guarantee a warning for the driver.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
Also consider that some national companies sub contract the transport out to another company, so while the truck may be stickered up as belonging to a large firm, it could well be another company running the truck and employing the driver, also the driver may not be from that particular depot, could be running from one depot to another, then a return load back to base.
 

hatler

Guru
That's a very deliberate attempt to scare the crap out of you by driving a large vehicle dangerously close, risking the possibility of killing you at the possible expense of damaging the van's paintwork. That is utterly unacceptable.

I would not be so conciliatory.

That's behaviour becoming a psychopath, and if the company have any sense of 'right' he should be given a written warning at the very least, with a clear indication that if they get so much as a peep out of anyone else about his attitude he is sacked. (This should at least keep him on the straight and narrow whilst he remains with this employer. That would be a better outcome than him being sacked and then being employed by someone else with no such threat hanging over him.)
 
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