Interesting (alarming) police view on incidents

[MrHappyCyclist]

We now have in Greater Manchester a Road Policing Unit that is actively trying to address issues of poor and anti-social driving and its relation to road safety. They have been very keen to receive and follow up on incidents reported by cyclists with video evidence, and I have been in contact for a while with the sergeant who is doing most of the work on this. Cliffjumper24 put me onto this, and has been actively involved. It is extremely encouraging that they are not only accepting video reports, but actively encouraging them.

I just finished a discussion on the phone with the Sergeant about some reports that I submitted just before Christmas. He expressed some valid concerns around the issue of entering into discussions with drivers on the road immediately after incidents; particularly a concern that there is a risk of diluting the effectiveness of the video evidence should a case come to court. I agree with this, and also mentioned that as the police become more effective in dealing with incidents, the likelihood is that cyclists like myself will feel less need to try to educate drivers ourselves.

We went on to discuss how they make decisions regarding whether to follow up on a report, and in that discussion used some of my own examples. I was quite perturbed to hear just how far apart their view is from my own on this. As an example, we looked at this video:

View: http://youtu.be/8kD-e886DKU

I consider this driving to be quite a bad case but, after consulting with a colleague, the police view seems to be that this was not considered to be sufficiently bad driving to warrant action of any kind. I asked whether the fact that I spoke to the driver was a factor, but he was clear that this was purely about the overtake itself. I did express my surprise at hearing that view, but I didn't want to push too far for fear of alienating the people who are at least trying to do something about the problems.

Now, I am aware that some people on here seem to be of the view that a pass leaving anything more than about 3 inches clearance at 30mph is no cause for concern, but I was surprised that the police should take the view they have. The lack of follow up could reinforce this driver's belief that (a) his overtake was perfectly acceptable, and (b) a cyclist should indeed be riding in the gutter. (He stated that 3 feet from the kerb is too far out.)

It is clear that the deliberation of the police is not so much about what they themselves think, but more about whether they would be able to convince the magistrates in court of the seriousness of the incident. It makes me realize that, whilst we may be seeing the start of a change here, we have a long, long road ahead of us before we will get anywhere near the kind of culture change that is really needed on our roads. Perhaps the hard-line segregationists have a point.

 

[campbellab]

I think its difficult for non cyclists and even people not use to head cams to judge the distance. Gaz's video is a really good example - the front view looks like its within arms reach (not great but not enough to cause a car driver major alarm), but the rear view shows just how close it gets to his leg.

 

[Sandra6]

I may well go against the grain here -and it could just be the way the video is shot not showing the distance from car to bike clearly - but to my mind that was just a close pass. Not a "almost hit me" close pass, just a "ooh, too close mate" pass.
I also think the fact that you put yourself in front of him after squeezing through traffic to do so was a little antagonistic -although I may well have done the same out of badness.
I don't think the police should follow up every close pass of this sort - they'd be round my house every week if they did.
There has to be a cut off point of seriousness somewhere.

 

[jonny jeez]

I agree with the police, I also disagree and think that much of their consideration *is* about "what they themselves think". If I were a copper reviewing that footage I would say it was a non event. I think once a copper considers something serious enough to warrant examination...then...they will start to consider the likely success of a pursuit through he courts versus a quick visit to the offenders house.

They don't look at every incident and immediately consider their success rate in court, some things are clearly wrong and the offender needs a visit but the copper will know that little more will come of it and hopes that a visit will be enough to curtail future behaviour of the sort. Its edjukashun innit.

well done for opening such a discussion with the local Plod I'm really impressed with that.Best of luck with that.

 

[Matthew_T]

When I made my statement today, I also mentioned that it might be a lack of understanding on the drivers part. I explained to the inspector and licensing enforcement officer that "it is taught in bikeability training, which is government approved, for cyclists to use the whole lane when necessary". I then explained why it was necessary for me to take primary over bridges and where there was a one way system. Neither of them disputed that fact.

 

[simon.r]

It is clear that the deliberation of the police is not so much about what they themselves think, but more about whether they would be able to convince the magistrates in court of the seriousness of the incident.

I lost a lot of faith in magistrates when a colleague (sitting as a magistrate) told me about a case he'd had where a nurse coming home from a night shift had been prosecuted because she'd driven her car off the road into a lamp-post. His opinion was that she must have been tired and she was a really nice person - so she was found not guilty of whatever driving offence she'd been accused of.

He looked genuinely shocked when I asked him to consider what his actions would have been had it been a baby in a pushchair she'd hit rather than a lamp-post.

 

[campbellab]

Add perspective:

http://postimage.org/image/es20j4kvn/full/

Handlebars are 769 pixels wide, assuming handlebars are 46cm wide thats 1cm per 16 pixels

Red line is 174 pixels - 11cm.

I'm not an expert at working out pictures but as the line is from the handlebars to the bottom of the car so I think the distance would be a bit greater due to the difference in height of handlebars/bottom of car. Double it? 22cm? Too close for me! Big blocky car probably pushing a bit of a bow wave of air as well.

I assume wing mirror flashing by closer would also be quite unnerving. And its not like they're travelling slowly either.

 

[MontyVeda]

When I made my statement today, I also mentioned that it might be a lack of understanding on the drivers part. I explained to the inspector and licensing enforcement officer that "it is taught in bikeability training, which is government approved, for cyclists to use the whole lane when necessary". I then explained why it was necessary for me to take primary over bridges and where there was a one way system. Neither of them disputed that fact.

This is why i believe all drivers, not just truck and bus drivers should have to take a refresher course of some sort (ie, DCPC) in order to keep their licence. By the looks of the bloke in the OP, cyclists would have known their place when he learnt to drive, and that WAS in the gutter. Things change but most people don't realise.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I'd agree that it was poor driving and too close, but I'd also agree this is not serious enough to merit police attention. What I can't understand is why, after the guy has done a close pass, you'd want to be in front of him rather than behind him?

 

[gaz]

It takes time to make a system like this work, and something that can really make a difference is the officer who is looking at them and who he reports to.

Roadsafe London started off as webform to report minor issues on the roads. We soon jumped on board and started using it to report various things that we recorded. At first pretty much all that would happen is people would get letters about their poor driving. It got to the point where we were getting no feedback at all from them and I was noticing people loosing confidence in them.

There has however been a turn around recently after I got in touch with someone I know who worked with roadsafe and runs the cycle task force. And they put a dedicated traffic officer (also a cyclist) to work with the reports. Know the feedback i'm seeing is a massive turn around, we are seeing more responses from them and they are willing to put forward prosecutions and much more (don't want to ruin a fantastic result that I will be writing about shortly).

Just keep working with them and hopefully you can help turn things around

 

[Cubist]

Just playing Devil's advocate here: We need to realise that to the non-cyclist "nearly hit me" is actually "didn't hit me." So, it was a near miss; frightening, but actually a non-event. Nothing happened. In the world of stretched resources, if the police were to respond to every event that "nearly happened" they would be unlikely to be able to get to those that actually did.

I once had a long and involved case where a perfectly respectable and intelligent man was furious that we were investigating a criminal damage rather than an attempted murder. He threatened legal action against me and my team, and wrote direct to the IPCC. The circumstances were that his mother lived in a house that backed onto a school field. Kids used to nip over her fence at break times to go to the shops. She was Hindu, and used to shout furiously at the kids using the shortcut who were predominantly Muslim. They ignored her but one evening after she had reported them to the school she had a brick thrown through the lounge window. We treated it as criminal damage and arrived within an hour of her making the call. We treated it very seriously, not least because she was a vulnerable woman possibly being targeted because of her race. Her son however insisted that we treat it as an attempted murder, because earlier that day his brother's 6 month old baby had been playing on the rug the brick landed on. Even after it was shown that the baby had been on the rug four hours before the brick was thrown he refused to accept that we were taking the matter seriously.

The moral of this story is perhaps to accept that many drivers will pass too close for comfort, but few actually knock us off. If we can persuade the local police to contact the drivers to educate them, then that would be a bonus. It will also be extremely rare.

 

[CopperCyclist]

As has already been said, perhaps the pass was closer in real life than it appeared on the video, because on the video evidence I'd agree with the police reaction that this one didn't warrant anything further.

Ironically, for this vid I'd have changed my mind when hearing the discussion between you and the driver, as him not understanding that you being "three feet out" is not only acceptable but recommended could mean some advice was welcome!

 

[campbellab]

As has already been said, perhaps the pass was closer in real life than it appeared on the video, because on the video evidence I'd agree with the police reaction that this one didn't warrant anything further.

Ironically, for this vid I'd have changed my mind when hearing the discussion between you and the driver, as him not understanding that you being "three feet out" is not only acceptable but recommended could mean some advice was welcome!

If you are going to set up a road safe scheme then poor driving should at least follow up with a letter 'We received video evidence of your driving on date x y z where you did stuff. As per highway code x you should do blah.' And if you want people to keep using the scheme you need to give victims some feedback (quick email?) like Gaz says. A letter from the police would get under most people's skin and make them rethink their actions even if nothing else can be done.

 

[2Loose]

A close pass, but not the worst I have either seen or experienced.
Maintaining a good two way relationship with sympathetic police officers is an excellent way to help educate some of the more unaware (ignorant?) drivers out there. Word of mouth will spread the message that considerate passing is 'the done thing' and hopefully in a few years time this will really stand out as unusual, rather than just one of those things.

(Lots of optimism for 2013 )

 

[400bhp]

There's much worse things in life that would be better to spend time on.

I'd rather someone's time was spent working with a charity than with some of this follow up of events.