Scottish cyclist tells of how driver tried to ram him and friend off road

Scottish police require the crime to have been witnessed by 12 men of good standing before they can remotely consider acting on it

In England, they go the extra mile! They require offences against cyclists to be witnessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope independently in separate vehicles. You can imagine the trouble I'm going to have getting Lancashire Constabulary to do anything about a Lancashire CC Highways vehicle ignoring a red light! They start with 'he didn't see it', move onto 'he didn't mean to do it', and finish off with 'it's too late to process'.

That's horrible. Hope you're okay and back on your bike

Yes, still rolling thx.

Same thing happened on a club ride a few years back, a vehicle deliberately, dangerously close passed us and several of us got the reg.  When I reported it to the police it was a false plate; no further action.

Why is car crime such a low priority?  People who commit one kind of crime are likely to commit others, so if the police prioritised crime committed by drivers, they'd probably clear up a lot of other stuff too.

Nah, probably not worth the effort. I had a horrifyingly close pass by a tractor pulling a trailer last year, 3 of us riding and prepared to make statements but the D&C police said they would not investigate without an independent witness or video. We each wasted 30 mins submitting online reports and were left wishing we hadn't bothered.

Interesting - "independent" witnesses? Independent of what? If you are no longer the victim, indeed there is none, then logically you must be an independent witness, else what is the dependency upon if not the victim, which does not exist apparently?

To be honest, it left me puzzled. I was the only one close passed (stuck in a 40cm gap with a 6ft tractor wheel one side and a bramble hedge the other, drop bars just skimming both) and my 2 co-riders behind, both being decent and credible citizens. I don't want to hijack the thread but once again it seems to point to a disjointed police service offering a postcode lottery justice system.

That there is the problem. 

If someone grabbed your bag, or phone, and ran away with no one else around, there is no way the police would simply dismiss it because there were no witnesses. 

Sure they might not (be able to) do very much, but they would at the very least have acknowledged there was an issue and/or a crime committed. The fact that they are not prepared to even do that speaks volumes. 

looking at the online newspaper report, there is a still image of the car in question, presumably from a video camera, so it looks like it was all recorded.

The one on the kerbside should put himself forward as the witness to the crime against the victim.