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news
Near Miss of the Day 691: Close pass lorry driver not prosecuted due to foreign plates
Today in our Near Miss of the Day series, we have a very close pass on a pair of cyclists involving an HGV – but police said that they were unable to take action, because the lorry driver is foreign.
The road.cc reader who sent the clip in told us that the incident took place on 22 September just outside Rugby in Warwickshire.
“I did submit the video evidence to Police but was informed that because it was a foreign driver, they had no means of tracing them,” she said.
“This is a dreadful excuse and imagine if someone is killed or injured by a foreign driver?
“This lorry passed my friend and I (who were riding single file) so close, I felt the heat from the lorry as the trailer passed me.”
It does strike us a strange approach from police – certainly we are aware of a number of court cases down the years in which the fact the driver is not a British national, or the vehicle being driven is on foreign plates, has not made a difference to a successful prosecution?
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
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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37 comments
Whoosh! Well that vid cut to the chase. Pretty frightening.
Did the OP get a registration number? I'm watching this on a mobile phone, so can't tell. I would have thought that if it was worthy of prosecution (and I think it is, due to the sheer speed), then there must be a mechanism where an enquiry can be made at all ports to find out when the vehicle entered the country and if it hadn't already left, a marker put on the system for the driver to be interviewed prior to leaving the country. But, that's a bit of work.
FFS... it's getting a bit predictable on here that anything and everything can be turned into a brexit argument. This, as others have pointed out, is simply a case of 'can't be arsed' from the Police. Nothing new here, same as it ever was, foriegn plates/drivers = more paperwork/time/translation/hassle. Insurers will chase but often with limited results, frankly some of our continental driving friends and the businesses they work for tend not to answer letters of co-operation or simply dissapear if they get chased for a misdemeanour.
Bloody Remoaners....
Careful now
That is true.
"Overseas HGV driver endangered cyclists" ≠ "Brexit bad, m'kay"
However...
Overseas HGV driver endangered cyclists. Also, Brexit stinks.
Many moons ago, I had a foreign registered truck reverse into my car anc cause several hundred pounds worth of damage.
My insurance paid out, but was unable to obtain a settlement from the foreign insurer meaning I lost my No Claims bonus and suffered a huge increase in my premiums all as a result of damage caused in an incident that happened while I wasn't even in the car.
And all because it a vehicle from another country ... looks like some things never change.
You would have thought that your insurers have claimed from the "uninsured drivers" fund in those circumstances...?
There's such a shortage of HGV drivers after Brexit, they don't want to lose another; unlike cyclists, who are expendable. [😡]
There's a shortage in the EU too, because of Brexit? No. Move on FFS.
It is not a new thing. Loads of stories about similar things in the past where drivers have got away with bad driving here and on the continent because they were from a different country. However I do expect it would be even harder now to try to trace things even if they wanted to.
I would think the same. In the early days of the EU the Dutch used to complain that the Germans would visit their seaside resorts and park illegally because they could drive back to Germany and could not be traced. Over time I believe that this changed with better cooperation between member states. Now we are out?
Its not an EU thing. They are 1-1 agreements between different countries. The UK regfused to cooperate with all European countries before brexit anyway, and so many European countries refused to provide driver details back to the UK.
The legal process is now of course much weaker.
Nothing to see here, move along.
This doesn't surprise me. It's so much harder for the police to deal with a foreign driver, they would only pursue them if it was a very serious charge. A traffic offence like this would not be enough to prevent the driver leaving the country to evade justice. Still stinks though.
The police can't prosecute for the simple reason they don't want to prosecute. There's always a dodge to hand for the police. Their usual means of 'dealing' with cases like this- either nothing or words of advice- remained possible, but they couldn't be bothered so resorted to the standard issue 'foreign driver' dodge
It does make you wonder ... no one can be above the law, so if the police are saying that the law can't touch foreign drivers, how can they be allowed into the country? Or, just maybe, the police are in dereliction of their duty.
Exactly - classic 'can't be arsed' attitude.
It's always boiled my piss that UK drivers get chased for speeding and RLJ infractions when back in the UK, but EU drivers can get away with just about anything if they come here as our lot can't be bothered.
Ha! The one place you are 100% guaranteed to get your number plate scanned, logged and read is at a ferry port or the Chunnel. How hard can it be to have the vehicle refused passage until the driver has reported to a police station in Warwickshire for interview?
That assumes they haven't already left the country by the time the incident had been reported and processed, which it seems quite likely they had, given the nature of their work.
The offence is comitted by the driver and not the vehicle. And so if the same reg re-enters Britian you cannot assume it is the original perp.
True, but if the UK insurers contact the insurers of the foreign registered vehicle and those insurance refuse to pay out, then the vehice is essentially not insured to be driven on UK roads. And therefore it would be valid to refuse subsequent entry.
But couldn't they plead exceptional hardship affecting the owner of the items in the lorry, who through no fault of their own etc. etc.?
What we need is some top lawyer then to bring forward a change in the law so that these drivers have to wear a tabard with a unique identifying number on it. (After all many delivery people already wear hi-vis). That'll have 'em bang to rights!
Thank God we took control of our borders and voted for Brexit.
I think you'll find it's all the fault of the EU - for not joining the UK when we moved into the sunlit uplands and took control of our laws.
Even with the current customs restrictions, export of unicorns to the EU is up 100000000000000%. At least.
Correct. That's why the majority did, and why an even bigger majority now favour staying out.
Democracy, eh? I know that you hate it when the little people don't do what the clever people like you tell them that they should do.
Guess you're just going to have to suck it up.
Happy New Year.
Ah - but the majority where? The "little people" in Scotland - where I stay - did not...
Anyway everyone is now "sucking it up", same as when we joined! The question is - can we get the folks in Westminster (or indeed Holyrood) to do things in our favour any more effectively than those in Brussels?
Deltapoll October 2021: 45% of Britons would vote to remain if there was another referendum, 36% would vote leave.
https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-a-second-eu-referendum-were-hel...
Statista December 2021: 49% of Britons think it was wrong to leave the EU, 38% think it was right.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/
YouGov December 20 2021: Was the UK right or wrong to leave the EU: 49% wrong, 39% right.
https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-...
Savanta November 2021: 10% of people who voted leave now favour rejoining, 53% overall want to rejoin, 47% stay out.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-rejoin-eu-shortage...
Savanta January 1st 2022: What would you vote if a new referendum was held: 51% rejoin, 49% stay out.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-poll-boris-johnson...
Why are you lying?
Not to mention that many of the costs and burdens have yet to come into force. A lot of the border checks and customs requirements start coming in this year.
Mobile roaming charges coming back in from end Jan.
What an utter shambles. So many morons in this country.
Seems a bit patronising and belittling of the 51% of those that voted to leave to describe them as somehow lesser. Certainly, not something that I would suggest.
Actually I was quite open to the idea of Brexit until the arguments for it turned in to a racist shit show rather than discussing econonomic & political advantages. I would still be encouraged if Brexit meant increasing standards or that global corporations, Google, Amazon Starbucks etc were made to pay their way or even if we used an independant taxation system to transform the country to becoming greener - eg the higher taxation of fast fashion. Alas no, keeping the foreigners out still seems to be the main agenda.
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