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Cyclist submits 25 videos of poor driving to police – but only one motorist receives a warning letter

Pompey Cyclist expresses frustration at Derbyshire Constabuary not acting on footage

A road.cc reader has expressed his frustration with Derbyshire Constabulary after submitting 25 videos of poor driving to them with only one resulting in a motorist receiving a warning letter.

The reader, Pompey Cyclist, has submitted footage to police forces including Hampshire and Thames Valley for a number of years, “sporadically reporting the very worst of incidents,” and now rides mainly in Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

“At the beginning of 2019 I was already disheartened by the lack of action taken by police,” he said. “I decided at this time that I'd start reporting everything I deemed to be warning letter worthy. 

“There's roughly a 50/50 spread between my reports this year to Staffordshire and Derbyshire. I reported everything with video.” 

After raising several complaints with Staffordshire Police, in August he met a sergeant “and they've completely changed their process due to all my whining.”

No prosecutions resulted, but he said that “they always send a warning letter now,” although with most of his riding in Derbyshire, he has submitted perhaps four reports to Staffordshire Police since then.

He told us that with Derbyshire Constabulary, uploading videos and filling in supporting information is time-consuming and once completed an email is sent from a no-reply address “with no reference number, no names of cops, no contact details.”

Beyond that email acknowledging the submission, he said, “You don't hear anything from them.” Emailing the general address on particularly bad incidents got no response, while calling the non-emergency number 101 proved fruitless because reference numbers could not be reconciled.

After making “a lot of noise” he was phoned by an officer who “was unable to give me specifics as to why certain incidents aren't good enough for prosecution.”

He complained, asking for “specifics as to why these incidents weren't prosecutable,” and “a list of all my reports with the outcomes next to them.”

He was told – as he had been by the original officer – that the footage did not “meet the threshold for prosecution,” and that he reported too many incidents.

Eventually, earlier this month and after “lots of back and forth arguing via email,” he received the list, with 19 of the 25 entries marked for no further action and only six requiring investigation.

The outcomes of the six videos that police investigated, according to the inspector who dealt with the complaint and with extra detail from Pompey Cyclist was:

1 – Inches away from that oncoming car, and a foot from me. Says that the driver denied this was dangerous and the footage doesn't provide footage to support a realistic chance of prosecution.

2 – Insanely close.  My wheels and legs were below his mirror. Closed but no update.

3 - Insufficient evidence to prosecute.​

5 – Driver says he was verbally abused by me. I filtered past him so I didn't have to breathe in his exhaust for a minute. I swore at him after he literally used his car as a weapon. He was given a verbal warning. For a clearly deliberate attack with his car. He even screams at me in the video and tells me I'm not allowed to filter. I've cut this bit out. So clearly deliberate.

6 – Close, and poor conditions, but really tame compared with other incidents. This is the one single warning letter that they've sent out in a year. If you had to choose which incident of all of my reports required a warning letter, you wouldn't guess this one, in a thousand guesses. 

“The strange thing is, there are far, far more dangerous ones that I've reported than some of these six,” Pompey Cyclist added. You can find a selection of those videos at the end of this article.

“I know some of them don't look bad enough to be Near Miss of the Day but the police should definitely be dealing with them.

“My issue here is that the police think they're not even dangerous enough to require a warning letter, that the complaints I've raised have been closed with no explanation, and that they're excusing this driving with no punishment at all, in all cases but one, which wasn't even that bad in comparison, where they just sent a letter.”

His experience appears to confirm something we’ve long been aware of through our Near Miss of the Day series, which now runs to more than 300 videos – that there is a definite postcode lottery going on in terms of how police treat such footage, depending on the force responsible for the location the incident happened in.

Pompey Cyclist didn’t hold back on his criticism of Derbyshire Constabuary, maintaining that “the amount of time and energy [they] are putting into simply avoiding doing their job is astounding.

“For six months I’ve been arguing with them that they should be acting on at least some of these but they’re adamant that they’re right.

“This, despite me telling them that I had the same issue with Staffordshire Police who accepted they were wrong and completely changed their process.

“I even recommended they speak to the Metropolitan Police or Surrey Police or West Midlands Police, but they refused. They said they won’t be doing that.”

In conclusion, he said: “So yeah, I know other forces are bad, but I’ve not heard of any who have spent this much time avoiding doing their jobs.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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19 comments

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TriTaxMan | 4 years ago
0 likes

Definitely not just Derbyshire.

Submitted footage of an incident to Police Scotland where I was struck by a car as I was waiting to turn at a junction and the driver cut the corner into my stationary bike at 6.30am.  I had a 250 lumen front light on, was wearing a fully reflective jacket and I could see the driver approaching me for 5 seconds before they cut the corner and clipped me and my bike with their car.  No injury or damage to car or bike.

But even with this footage ...... no response from them in 2 months.  Not even a warning letter sent to the driver.  No facility to report online so had to go in person with memory stick and give a statement...... officer taking the statement said they needed to pass the footage to their sergeant for review and they have been silent ever since

 

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50kcommute | 4 years ago
1 like

In other news, police overworked and under resourced, shock!

So much verbal about the police here, but it's the lack of resource, not the police perse.. A bit like saying the NHS doctors are letting people die...clearly not.

Resource the police, increase penalties for repeat offenders, save the world.. Move to space.. Too much to ask?

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danhopgood | 4 years ago
1 like

I can't help but think this is about a lack of resources.  Faced with road policing along with domestic violence, drug offences, knife crime and the rest,  something's got to give with current police numbers.  I know it's politicising the situation but even the current government has acknowledged police resources have been cut too far and are trying to backtrack.

Society gets the policing it's willing to pay for......

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djpalmer32 | 4 years ago
1 like

Pompey Cyclist needs to make a direct complaint to the Police Complaints Authority.

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alansmurphy | 4 years ago
4 likes

The Cat and Fiddle is NOT a dangerous road, it is a road with many dangerous drivers on it!

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CXR94Di2 | 4 years ago
1 like

Most were drivers wanting to continue withour slowing down for you. 

Ride further out to create a rolling road block.  Once you've got one vehicle to slow down they all have to. 

Stops these inattentive passes.

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brooksby replied to CXR94Di2 | 4 years ago
2 likes

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Most were drivers wanting to continue withour slowing down for you. 

Ride further out to create a rolling road block.  Once you've got one vehicle to slow down they all have to. 

Stops these inattentive passes.

I agree with you that they're down to motorists not wanting to have to slow down, but I disagree that they are inattentive.  The inattentive passes are the ones where the cyclist gets knocked off / run down - these drivers know exactly what they're doing, IMO 

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the little onion | 4 years ago
3 likes

Institutional racism is defined (McPherson report) as "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin"

 

Institutional anti-cyclism "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their choice of mode of transport"

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Christopher TR1 | 4 years ago
2 likes

It's fcuking dangerous out there and the police need to take action when evidence of poor driving is handed to them on a plate. Even more worrying though, is that they do not act when somebody is using a car as a weapon - really this has nothing to do with traffic or the highway code and it needs to be dealt with in the same way as a knife wielding maniac would be.

Disgraceful!

BTW, it's not just a national problem, it is similar here in Germany and, I suspect, everywhere where people drive cars.

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Hirsute | 4 years ago
0 likes

It was the way the rear flicked in at the last moment. A small misjudgement and it's goodnight Vienna.

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Argus Tuft | 4 years ago
2 likes

Do what you must-just don't become identifiable on the road as the local "Cycling Activist".All the hate and ignorance focuses on you.I often think of Cameron Frewer and his three children.The damage to the car that hit him suggests he was deliberately targeted.There are people prepared to go to jail to prove their demented point.

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therealsmallboy | 4 years ago
2 likes

A general lack of awareness in most of those vids. In my experience (commuting by car and bike, but also training and racing) many people driving cars pass other vehicles closely and take a bit of a risk wth their wing mirror- generally missing narrowly, but they simply don't appreciate that we're just people on bikes and at much more risk, so pass us in the same manner. It's a very bad national habit.

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CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
4 likes

This tells you all you need to know about the ineptitude and backward thinking of the police in the UK and in fact elsewhere.

If you crack down on this then it's more likely to reduce people being killed or seriously injured, which means not just fewer families being ripped apart but massively lower costs for the bill on those lower KSIs. And if people feel safer to cycle on the roads then massively lowered NHS costs- by tens of billions a year at the very least.

More people cycling, healthier, more kids cycling in safety to school all becomes part of a bigger picture of a happier society, jesus it could change the landscape of the country in so many ways.

And yet that's a pipedream because the police/government/CPS/judges are directly complicit in the way motorists do what they want and have no jeopardy, the fall out from that is massive, more than the plebs in blue can ever comprehend but they don't even need to, they should just do what they were employed to do and swear an oath to do!

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Hirsute | 4 years ago
2 likes

A mixed bag. That flat bed was awful though and the one at the road works.

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Awavey replied to Hirsute | 4 years ago
2 likes

hirsute wrote:

A mixed bag. That flat bed was awful though and the one at the road works.

but thats the weird thing the flat bed out of all those videos probably bothered me the least, its rubbish driving for sure, it would be nice if all rides didnt include stuff like that, but its not one Id have considered worth reporting myself,though Id never dismiss the impact these things have on the people that have reported them. But it just shows how subjective this whole thing is,also maybe how prevalent rubbish driving is as a whole and that we become inured to it, but I digress.

it would be nice sometimes to have a better feel of what the police consider worthy of following up for them, rather than what it often seems like a punt into the dark of a postcode lottery,

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TheBillder | 4 years ago
1 like

That'll be the same Derbyshire Constabulary which has been the subject of a number of inspection reports over many years, detailing its abject failure. No comfort to know that keeping roads safe isn't the only thing they are not at all good at. There are probably many people trying to do their best, but as an institution it's failing. See https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/derbyshire-... and a many Private Eye issues.

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sapperadam replied to TheBillder | 4 years ago
1 like

TheBillder wrote:

That'll be the same Derbyshire Constabulary which has been the subject of a number of inspection reports over many years, detailing its abject failure. No comfort to know that keeping roads safe isn't the only thing they are not at all good at. There are probably many people trying to do their best, but as an institution it's failing. See https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/derbyshire-... and a many Private Eye issues.

What's really scary about this is the fact that some of the  most dangerous roads in Britain are in Derbyshire (Snake Pass, Cat & Fiddle), so to think that Derbyshire Police aren't dealing with road safety properly is worrying.

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ktache | 4 years ago
3 likes

Please keep it up Pompey Cyclist, it must be incredibly frustrating but your persistance may eventually get things done.

These are examples of truely awful and dangerous driving.

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burtthebike | 4 years ago
3 likes

Very depressing that so many examples of bad driving get no response from the people who's job it is to keep us safe.  Has Pompey Cyclist tried the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner?  https://www.derbyshire-pcc.gov.uk/Home.aspx

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