Interesting (alarming) police view on incidents

[davefb]

3 inches at 30mph ?


I'll give that a whirl on the next policeman I see then...

 

[BentMikey]

I'm not quite sure how this chap didn't get hit:

 

[Matthew_T]

I'm not quite sure how this chap didn't get hit:

If I had as many close passes as Mr Litigant here then I would just stop cycling. Where he lives, he nearly gets knocked off everyday.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I'm not quite sure how this chap didn't get hit

Wow, that is indeed as close as anyone could possibly get without contact. The driver looks drunk too.

 

[Paul99]

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.

This is indeed an interesting (alarming) police view on the incident.

Or perhaps the kids were being lazy, naughty little shoots rather than rascist thugs? or do you get bonus points for making a hate crime arrest so you got there pdq just in case.

Would you have been there within the hour if all the people had been white? If so why mention the race at all?

 

[Cubist]

This is indeed an interesting (alarming) police view on the incident.

Or perhaps the kids were being lazy, naughty little s***s rather than rascist thugs? or do you get bonus points for making a hate crime arrest so you got there pdq just in case.

Would you have been there within the hour if all the people had been white? If so why mention the race at all?

What part of she was elderly and vulnerable aren't you getting? I'm paid to ensure my team respond appropriately to all incidents. I therefore will include all factors in my decision making. If you want to challenge it, go ahead. Do you want me to include data from the Contest and Prevent strategies surrounding the school? It features very highly on many vulnerability indexes, but I doubt it will make much of a difference to your indignant spluttering.

Bonus points? Manufactured hate crime arrests? Hypothetical positive discrimination question with thinly veiled criticism of a perfectly reasonable response?

Spare us please.

 

[gaz]

How did you conclude that and how would you prove it?

The trick to judging overtaking distances in a video is to look at where the front wheels of the passing vehicle are when the rear of the vehicle is next to the cyclist. Then look at where the front wheel of where the bicycle is going to head and you can roughly see how close the overtake is.
In this case, the overtake is close.

 

[SportMonkey]

On the video evidence alone the pass is close but not to close, but like others I think the drivers ignorance is more concerning. The question in my mind is at what point do the police consider a pass to be close enough to warrant action?

According to GMP being hit by a wing mirror is still not close enough. (I had this happen when a police officer was watching).

[Edit]

It was a serious question, a couple of weeks before Xmas I had a pass that close that the driver knackered their mirror on my elbow, if I could have got the cars number and reported it how seriously would the police have taken it?

It was a BMW X5 smacking my shoulder, but almost identical.

That said, GMP were called out to a road rager hitting me on purpose, as I wasn't injured it wasn't worth them looking in to. They had CCTV footage available.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

The responses are interesting to see and have made me start to change my view on some things.

Regarding the distance, Radchenister's diagram is interesting and well done, but even the slightest error in the lines will be amplified greatly in the extrapolation outside the frame, and the angles out there on the right are unreliable anyway due to the distortion caused by the wide angle lens. The following image gives a direct indication of the distance without any need for projection:

I thought about actually going and measuring it on the road, but that might be a little on the obsessive side. From this image, I doubt the body of the car was even a foot from my elbow, but whatever the distance it was too damn close.

In my view, contrary to what the police officer suggested, and what has also been suggested by some here, the definition of a close pass is, as Mikey pointed out, clearly defined by the highway code. If anyone thinks they could fit a car between the Range Rover and the kerb there, with suitable clearance either side, they are deluded. Whilst rule 163 does not directly express a legal requirement, it does define what should reasonably be expected of a competent and careful driver in these circumstances. The Road Traffic Act states that: "A person is to be regarded as driving without due care and attention if (and only if) the way he drives falls below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver." This is all very clear.

I consider that this driver's behaviour fell far below the standard expressed in the highway code, but as suggested by dave r, my real concern is what is betrayed by the discussion afterwords. I don't expect a case like this to go to court, but a driver like this does need at least a talking to and, if he still doesn't change his mind, then he should be given a warning under section 59 of the Police Reform Act.

This kind of experience is bringing my view much closer to that of the CEGB, that segregation may be the only way; not because I think it is right, but because I think it will be virtually impossible to change the disgraceful road culture in this country to make cycling attractive to large numbers of people. If not only the police, but even other cyclists think driving like this is acceptable (if not ideal), then there really is no hope for the road sharing approach.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

According to GMP being hit by a wing mirror is still not close enough. (I had this happen when a police officer was watching).
It was a BMW X5 smacking my shoulder, but almost identical.
That said, GMP were called out to a road rager hitting me on purpose, as I wasn't injured it wasn't worth them looking in to. They had CCTV footage available.

To be fair, based on my recent experience of working with them, I am certain that the Road Policing Unit would take up both of these cases if they happened now; especially with video evidence. They are indeed taking up another of my videos in which a van driver tried to move from the 2nd lane to the inside lane approaching a red light, forcing me over towards the kerb. There was no contact, but it is almost certainly going to result in a PRA Section 59 notice to the driver. They have already issued one of these to a driver I reported a couple of months ago. So they certainly are getting a lot better, which is why I have tended to try to work with them rather than arguing when I disagree with them.

 

[SportMonkey]

To be fair, based on my recent experience of working with them, I am certain that the Road Policing Unit would take up both of these cases if they happened now; especially with video evidence. They are indeed taking up another of my videos in which a van driver tried to move from the 2nd lane to the inside lane approaching a red light, forcing me over towards the kerb. There was no contact, but it is almost certainly going to result in a PRA Section 59 notice to the driver. They have already issued one of these to a driver I reported a couple of months ago. So they certainly are getting a lot better, which is why I have tended to try to work with them rather than arguing when I disagree with them.

This was on the A56, opposite the BMW dealership last August (I think). The officers had been attending a large RTA and were busy chatting biscuits. The road rage was June last year. The unit had CCTV footage. The two times a car hit me and wrecked my bike they weren't interested either, this is all in the last two years.

I had a camera, but it bought out the worst in me, so I won't use one now.

If you have good contact with them I'd suggest raising that the public view of them is awful. I honestly do not believe they would prosecute a driver unless I died, and even then they'd not be fussed about it.

 

[400bhp]

The responses are interesting to see and have made me start to change my view on some things.

Regarding the distance, Radchenister's diagram is interesting and well done, but even the slightest error in the lines will be amplified greatly in the extrapolation outside the frame, and the angles out there on the right are unreliable anyway due to the distortion caused by the wide angle lens. The following image gives a direct indication of the distance without any need for projection:
View attachment 17118
I thought about actually going and measuring it on the road, but that might be a little on the obsessive side. From this image, I doubt the body of the car was even a foot from my elbow, but whatever the distance it was too damn close.

In my view, contrary to what the police officer suggested, and what has also been suggested by some here, the definition of a close pass is, as Mikey pointed out, clearly defined by the highway code. If anyone thinks they could fit a car between the Range Rover and the kerb there, with suitable clearance either side, they are deluded. Whilst rule 163 does not directly express a legal requirement, it does define what should reasonably be expected of a competent and careful driver in these circumstances. The Road Traffic Act states that: "A person is to be regarded as driving without due care and attention if (and only if) the way he drives falls below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver." This is all very clear.

I consider that this driver's behaviour fell far below the standard expressed in the highway code, but as suggested by dave r, my real concern is what is betrayed by the discussion afterwords. I don't expect a case like this to go to court, but a driver like this does need at least a talking to and, if he still doesn't change his mind, then he should be given a warning under section 59 of the Police Reform Act.

This kind of experience is bringing my view much closer to that of the CEGB, that segregation may be the only way; not because I think it is right, but because I think it will be virtually impossible to change the disgraceful road culture in this country to make cycling attractive to large numbers of people. If not only the police, but even other cyclists think driving like this is acceptable (if not ideal), then there really is no hope for the road sharing approach.

In the interests of fairness (and we've been here before) I don't interpret the meaning in the Highway code as giving a full car width as a pass. It isn't realistic and makes no sense (otherwise there would be very very few opportunities to pass on a single carriageway-indeed, cars travel closer than this side by side on DC's/motorways).

I interpret it to mean, give a cyclist as much room as you would do if you were passing a car (the distance between 2 cars).

Why not just get on with cycling rather than worrying about innocuous incidents.

 

[glenn forger]

I don't interpret the meaning in the Highway code as giving a full car width as a pass. It isn't realistic and makes no sense (otherwise there would be very very few opportunities to pass on a single carriageway-indeed, cars travel closer than this side by side on DC's/motorways).

This is nonsense, a car driver isn't placed at risk by a car passing closely, a cyclist is, for obvious reasons.

 

[CopperBrompton]

In my view, contrary to what the police officer suggested, and what has also been suggested by some here, the definition of a close pass is, as Mikey pointed out, clearly defined by the highway code.

No, Rule 163 doesn't define a close pass, it provides guidance on best practice. It doesn't mean anything less than that is illegal, and indeed there are very few roads in London where that would even be possible other than 5am on Sunday.

Nobody is arguing about the fact that the pass was close. It was. Nobody is suggesting it was acceptable driving. It wasn't. All that is being said here is that on the very long list of demands on police and court time, this one isn't going to top the list. That's not ideal, but in the real world worse things happened that day that make bigger calls on police resources.

 

[400bhp]

Define close pass. I haven't, therefore you are reading things in my post that aren't there.