Community Resolution - another "justice" dodge?

Is there anything we can do about this? I feel aggrieved that I share the road with someone who is demonstrably this unsafe behind the wheel. Police services must have a legal responsibility to act, surely?

If I was the cyclist, I would certainly be forwarding the video of the destruction of the bike to the insurers as part of the discussion. I would hope that any reasonable insurer would immediately cancel their insurance, which could then work out to be very expensive for the driver seeking replacement - unless they lie about "have you ever had your insurance cancelled?" question.

Good points, your last sentence I think is particularly pertinent; I would be very interested to hear from the victim as to how things were explained to him by the police. The police are (and I don't entirely blame them for this, given the enormous cutbacks they have suffered over the last 10 years or so) generally extremely keen to cut down on the amount of prosecutions and associated paperwork wherever possible. I can imagine a scenario whereby they would explain to the cyclist yes, we could arrest him, with the backlog in the courts it will take months or maybe even years before it came to trial, insurance companies won't pay out until cases have been settled and guilt proven, if you accept community resolution you'll get the money for a new bike straight away and you won't have to go through all the stress of going to court...

Of course it's a dodge! I don't know why the police need to go to the trouble of inventing a new one, though, because there's such a comprehensive list of non-penalty penalties available to them already. Having a word with', a warning letter and the comedy course online are all worthless to the victim because there is no deterrent effect. One could argue that the victim does, at least, know what happens to the offender with the CR dodge; however, he also knows what happens when the police gives him a list of outcomes but declares that he won't be told which one applies- that means the least of the outcomes on the list. In the case of Lancashire's carefully worded list, that equals 'no penalty at all'

It will be interesting to see what happens if a cyclist deliberately damages a car.

It certainly seems to me like the CR is a very light outcome given the crime - we don't know what led up to the incident but it's hard to imagine anything that justifies the driver's actions.

However:

Other than a vague sense of "justice" (if that), a victim doesn't get anything out of a court prosecution - in fact in can be a massive pain. The driver admitting fault and agreeing to compensation means the victim can move on with their life much faster.

Although the CR isn't legally binding per se, if the offender does not comply then the door is still open for a formal prosecution - and indeed agreeing to the CR means admitting the offence, so any formal prosecution should have no significant barriers. 

My observation is that we don't know what led up to the incident, so it might be that the cyclist was being a bell end and this influenced the police.

However, I reserve the right to be a bit of a dick about something and not be run over, and that cyclist was so nearly under the wheels of that car.

Also, were they influenced by the CyclingMickey case where the courts caved in to the deliberate pushing of CM with a car?

Definitely in the public interest to prosecute.