Near Miss of the Day 117: Van driver tailgates cyclist - then overtakes on bend

craigstitt wrote:

Unfortunately there are too many drivers in the UK who have no regard for cyclists being on the road.

And the police have nothing but apathy for dealing with it.  You can give the police the full video of an incident, and more often than not they will come up with some lame excuse for not being "able" to do anything about it.

I have gone to the police on a few occasions with footage of close passes, dangerous overtakes and the police come up with a different reason for not being able to do anything.

One such excuse was when a car squeezed by me at a traffic island.  I had a handle bar mounted camera and was told "the camera doesn't show how close the car passed you so there is nothing that can be done, if your camera was on your helmet we could have done something" . 

Apparently being able to walk in with the measurements of the road, width of the car and width of my handlebars all of which showed the absolute maximum amount of clearance the car could have offered me was 40cm they still couldn't do anything.  In reality the actual clearance was about 10 cm as I wasn't riding in the gutter.

This is very similar to my experiences with reporting incidents to Cambridgeshire Police.

After reporting numerous close passes, along with video evidence, via their online reporting tool and not hearing anything, I was initially quite pleased to get a response from my most recent report, however it said they would not be taking any action because my footage did not have a speedometer in it.

When I questioned why this in any way effected how close the car had passed to me I was told “I do not agree that the vehicle has passed too close to you. The vehicle did not cause you to swerve and did not collide with you so there are no further actions that we can take at this time”

This from a Police Force from that apparently launched a close pass initiative only last month.

Sedis wrote:

craigstitt wrote:

Unfortunately there are too many drivers in the UK who have no regard for cyclists being on the road.

And the police have nothing but apathy for dealing with it.  You can give the police the full video of an incident, and more often than not they will come up with some lame excuse for not being "able" to do anything about it.

I have gone to the police on a few occasions with footage of close passes, dangerous overtakes and the police come up with a different reason for not being able to do anything.

One such excuse was when a car squeezed by me at a traffic island.  I had a handle bar mounted camera and was told "the camera doesn't show how close the car passed you so there is nothing that can be done, if your camera was on your helmet we could have done something" . 

Apparently being able to walk in with the measurements of the road, width of the car and width of my handlebars all of which showed the absolute maximum amount of clearance the car could have offered me was 40cm they still couldn't do anything.  In reality the actual clearance was about 10 cm as I wasn't riding in the gutter.

This is very similar to my experiences with reporting incidents to Cambridgeshire Police.

After reporting numerous close passes, along with video evidence, via their online reporting tool and not hearing anything, I was initially quite pleased to get a response from my most recent report, however it said they would not be taking any action because my footage did not have a speedometer in it.

When I questioned why this in any way effected how close the car had passed to me I was told “I do not agree that the vehicle has passed too close to you. The vehicle did not cause you to swerve and did not collide with you so there are no further actions that we can take at this time”

This from a Police Force from that apparently launched a close pass initiative only last month.

This is link to Cambridge Constabulary's press release re the close pass initiative

https://www.cambs.police.uk/information-and-services/Road-safety/Op-velo

It's called Operation VELO and I found it quite informative, but with the issue that nowhere does it explain how to report a 'close pass' to the police. How convenient, as it allows the police to look like they are doing something, but on their terms.

So I took the bull by the horns and contacted Cambridgeshire Constabulary in a painfully slow 'live chat'. I have established that the point of contact for Op.VELO is Sgt. Ian MANLEY who is based at their HQ at Huntingdon. However, the operator declined to give me a contact number or email address for the point of contact! So anyone with an issue about a close pass in Cambridgeshire, that's the person to contact. I can only suggest ringing 101 and when you eventually get through, ask for Sgt. MANLEY's extension. I am guessing that his email address is ian.manley (at) cambs.police.uk

zero_trooper wrote:

 

This is link to Cambridge Constabulary's press release re the close pass initiative

https://www.cambs.police.uk/information-and-services/Road-safety/Op-velo

It's called Operation VELO and I found it quite informative, but with the issue that nowhere does it explain how to report a 'close pass' to the police. How convenient, as it allows the police to look like they are doing something, but on their terms.

So I took the bull by the horns and contacted Cambridgeshire Constabulary in a painfully slow 'live chat'. I have established that the point of contact for Op.VELO is Sgt. Ian MANLEY who is based at their HQ at Huntingdon. However, the operator declined to give me a contact number or email address for the point of contact! So anyone with an issue about a close pass in Cambridgeshire, that's the person to contact. I can only suggest ringing 101 and when you eventually get through, ask for Sgt. MANLEY's extension. I am guessing that his email address is ian.manley (at) cambs.police.uk

The email address Cambridgeshire Police have told me to use is: ccie01 [at] cambs.pnn.police.uk

They do get these as very occasionally I get a reply.

They also now have an online reporting tool here: https://www.cambs.police.uk/report/Report-Shared/Report-anti-social-driving

Again I have had a very limited respose from reports made there, but since I have had one response, I have to assume it is because they chose not to acknowledge the reports and not due to technical issues.

burtthebike wrote:

Every regular cyclist has experienced this level of incompetence/indifference/arrogance of a driver who literally has to overtake, despite the 20mph limit and the clear danger to the cyclist.  The attempted overtake on a bend is absolutely typical of this kind of driver, who knows that if there is oncoming traffic all they have to do is move left and force the cyclist to do an emergency stop, with no risk of injury to the driver.

I don’t think they think that hard unfortunately. Most drivers are not even thinking about what might come the other way and are only reacting to what is in front of them. All they are thking is “must pass cyclist”.

John Smith wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

Every regular cyclist has experienced this level of incompetence/indifference/arrogance of a driver who literally has to overtake, despite the 20mph limit and the clear danger to the cyclist.  The attempted overtake on a bend is absolutely typical of this kind of driver, who knows that if there is oncoming traffic all they have to do is move left and force the cyclist to do an emergency stop, with no risk of injury to the driver.

I don’t think they think that hard unfortunately. Most drivers are not even thinking about what might come the other way and are only reacting to what is in front of them. All they are thking is “must pass cyclist”.

yep totally, I had one the other day where there was no more than a 2-3 car length gap ahead which included a box junction,and with a traffic light set to red  just a bit further along so the traffic beyond wasnt moving and there was no exit clear out of the box junction,  and of course they MGIF overtaked, and then realised they had to stop very quickly to avoid rear ending the stopped traffic, and end up stopped in the box junction then blocking the whole thing.

and you just think how did you not see any of that ahead or recognise any of that setup was likely to happen, its like as you say they just arent thinking beyond you on the bike, their focus is purely must pass,then deal with what happens next, its like driving purely on reactions all the time.

Awavey wrote:

... and you just think how did you not see any of that ahead or recognise any of that setup was likely to happen, its like as you say they just arent thinking beyond you on the bike, their focus is purely must pass,then deal with what happens next, its like driving purely on reactions all the time.

This.

Isn't there some quote about 'not attibuting to evil intent that which can be explained by simple/sheer incompetence'?

Basically, driving licences are handed out far too easily: too many people see unable to cope with the practice of safe driving, of looking two cars ahead to see what's happening as well as watching what the car directly in front of you is doing, as well as watching for kids/animals on the footpath, as well as watching for cyclists or other vulnerable road-users.

I'll be honest, I try to drive as little as I can: I don't enjoy it, and I don't really get the experience to be very good at it (I don't have a parking space at work, and haven't been a driver for a year now - I either cycle, get the bus, or if the whole family go out then I'm a passenger whilst my wife is driving).

burtthebike wrote:

Every regular cyclist has experienced this level of incompetence/indifference/arrogance of a driver who literally has to overtake, despite the 20mph limit and the clear danger to the cyclist. 

The likelihood of this happening increases exponentially with the proximity of the next forced stop, such as a set of traffic lights, queue of cars or busy give-way junction.  MGIF.