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What the police are REALLY doing - or not doing
On 4th July I received the first Lancashire Constabulary response about a close pass incident report. The close pass, by a lorry carrying portable toilets (photo coming soon!) occurred on 21st June, and was reported on 22nd June. You will note that the response comes 13 days after the incident- Hey Presto! Now too late to process!! Result for LC!!! The report file begins with: Alarming close passing of cyclist by lorry MV17 SVK carrying 3 portable toilets. The response was solely to 'advise' me to report the 'speeding incident' (to someone else, please, anyone else!) to a joke organisation I hadn't heard of before:
http://www.lancsroadsafety.co.uk/
The SpeedyLoo driver was undoubtedly speeding, but I am certainly not about to waste time reporting to an organisation even more dedicated to hopeless ineffectuality than LC, an organisation which will certainly be completely uninterested in 'alarming close passing'. The other thing the response wanted to tell me was that the un-named officer couldn't view the video. The LC online reporting site requires the public to compress files if they are above the 60 MB limit (this GoPro file was 300 MB), but they can't even read a standard HEVC codec .mp4 file. I have come across this before, and I have had to tell other LC officers how to view it- they even all have posh Samsung phones which can, of course, display HEVC videos.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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32 comments
Hijacking this thread:
The following incident happened to me a few weeks ago. I reported it to the police and have just been told that they will be taking no further action. Worth escalating? It's far from the most egregious case of bad driving I've encountered, but still disappointing that they don't even think it counts as careless/inconsiderate.
https://youtu.be/IUryHVr6SNg
The trouble is that the police/CPS have to make decisions based on the likelihood of getting a successful conviction if any sanction is challenged. You know and I know that that is a clear case of "Driving without reasonable consideration for other road users" but in court I can see the driver claiming they had started to turn before you entered the junction, you could see there was a line of cars turning so should've slowed down, they were distracted by the roadworks...none of these is a reasonable excuse but judging by my experience of magistrates I'd say 75/25 they would let him/her off.
What is the force, by the way – most don't have the courtesy to tell you they won't be taking further action!
It's Police Scotland
I'd get onto your PCC and lodge a complaint, especially regarding the wasted timescale which in effect nullified your case. If others do too it will highlight an obvious tactic used to get out of pursuing issues.
https://www.lancashire-pcc.gov.uk/
PCC complaint went in, about this and other issues, 8 months ago. They referred it straight back to the police to pursue their own 'investigation', who then spent 6 months wasting time and hoping I would forget about it. It's now back with the PCC, which is essentially an outlying office of the police, who take more months to say the police are very busy and did as well as can be expected. I am amassing evidence to take it further, and the police are helping! Today's dodge over that white line crossing BMW, is that the defence are demanding video without the GPS data. This is almost the stupidest thing yet in this case.
Went to an eco event at the w/e where there was a cycling stall. Interesting chat with the local cycling pressure group who had visited Essex Police traffic offence submissions team.
They were trying to get the team to be more receptive to the problems and also give more feedback. The killer question revolved around 9 very similar photos and asking them to identify which was the only one they took action on.
This is the similar offence 2 days before
Impressive data overlay. Please advise how you do that? Thanks.
Not sure if it's what wtjs uses but if you download Garmin's free VIRB software you can simply load in the GPX file from your head unit and your video file, they synchronise with eah other and then you can select from a plethora of information to overlay the screen in many different styles.
This is a great piece of software - I just did a test with a massive 10hr .fit file from my Lezyne gps and a 5 min pic from my Cycliq fly 12 - no garmin kit in sight, and the only difficulty I had was syncing the 2 files together - bit fiddly to get it right but probably easier with smaller files. Took me about 10 mins - very impressive. I wonder if you can include the garmin radar data? That would be awesome.
Impressive data overlay. Please advise how you do that? Thanks
I have no doubt Rendel is right, but I am using the Go Pro Quik soft ware with a Go Pro Hero 7 Black. The hardware is good but the PC software is dire because it hasn't been maintained for years. I think the camera is mainly for snowboarders with backwards peaked baseball caps who aren't interested in GPS- so the phone software is what they want. However, I need a PC for what I want to do. My software is working at the moment, but it refused to load about 10 days ago for a couple of days. It's probably something to do with Windows updates, and it may just stop completely at any time
More funny business from Lancashire Constabulary: it was several months after the offence of 29.2.20 that LC decided to prosecute this driver- photo below. I made the formal statements and I eventually found out that the charge was about crossing the unbroken WL- no mention was made of the extremely close passing and the obvious 50-60 mph in a 50 limit (another clue- vehicle manufacturer?) or the almost identical offence by the same driver 2 days previously. All videos and stills are immaculate. I became more and more suspicious about dodgy dealings in this case- I was informed that there was a hearing at Preston on 1.10.21 and the driver was apparently pleading Not Guilty to the UWL offence, even though he is as guilty as sin. I decided I should attend as 'a member of the public' just to see what was going on. I enquired of the Court Presentation Officer on 20th August about the court details, and received a reply today that 'the hearing details are under negotiation because the case may be moved out of area to be dealt with'. I think they're trying to prevent me attending- and all for a relatively trivial open-and-shut case about an offence which is routine at this bridge and which LC almost invariably ignores completely.
wtjs, you put so much time into reporting these offenders and it must be dishearting to keep being given 'reasons' for them not to pursue them - I personally am grateful for the effort you've put in to report these cases.
Is it that they just don't have the manpower and 'bigger' crimes must take priority? Maybe they don't really care about close passes and near misses, or does it cost more to investigate than it's worth? I'm puzzled...
Lancashire does not believe close passes where the cyclist is not killed or at least seriously injured exist, and does believe that cyclists in general and me in particular are whingeing softies who should just accept close passes and hits as part of life on the road. The hatred engendered in me as a result motivates me to hunt them down over dodgy dealings/ sabotaging their own prosecutions etc. This then leads them to foolish tricks like ' moving the case out of the area' to stop me finding out what they're doing. It's not likely to work. Lancashire Constabulary is as bent as a nine-bob note- translation for the under 60s: bent as a £19 note.
it must be disheartening to keep being given 'reasons' for them not to pursue them
Not at all, because Lancashire Constabulary never give any reasons; there's just no response. They think that the cases are forgotten, but they aren't- ruthless efficiency and close accounting is necessary in dealing with lying, always-dodging LC. There are several serious red-light offences from last year which went through all the witness statement, signing etc. procedure, which have never been heard of again. It's now almost a month since I sent the fully documented request for information about them to the LC Court Presentation Officers- there has been one buck-passing reply a couple of days ago and nothing else. I think these were pretend prosecutions which never went ahead on the grounds that 'he'll just forget about them'...Now they have to think up another story. I'll wait a couple of weeks and start the formal complaint if appropriate, and that will bring out lies upon lies. We'll see
This offence of later in the day on 23.6.21, and reported on the 24th, was only acknowledged on 8.7.21 and allocated an 8th July log incident reference- 15 days after the offence. It's obvious that they're just ensuring the case is 'too late to process' before they officially look at it.
This offence of 23.6.21 was acknowledged close to midnight on 7.7.21, and allocated a 7th July log incident reference- this is 14 days after the offence by VW Caddy van YE61 ZSY, which repeated the offence 2 minutes later
This is 2 minutes later
I am using this topic as a storage depot, even if nobody else is reading it. Lancashire Constabulary is intent on keeping down to standard- today I received word of allocation of a log incident number with today's date 6th July incorporated. As usual they don't link this properly to the online incident report reference, because they don't seem to know how to do that. I have to deduce that it's the offence below by Avid Brewery's VW Transporter AV10 BUS (the dirtiest vehicle on the roads, with a completely obscured rear window), dated 22.6.21- 14 days ago, reported on the 23rd. Once again, they claim the HEVC video 'doesn't work'. It does 'work'. It doesn't matter how often you tell them how to do it, they never learn and never pass on the information to other officers.
I'd be prepared to cut them some slack for not being able to handle HEVC as it's a "newer" standard - might be worth re-compressing into MP4 instead. I can recommend using Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr/) for changing compression/codecs etc. as it works on lots of platforms and is easy to use.
You might but I'm not! They restrict the file size, and require and advise users to compress to get under the limit. HEVC is only new in the sense that it's not stone age, and I can already easily compress using MPEG- but they only come under the limit if the resolution is brought down to about 10 x 10. If they wanted to read HEVC, they could.
it's the offence below by Avid Brewery's VW Transporter AV10 BUS (the dirtiest vehicle on the roads, with a completely obscured rear window)
The police tell me that this company received a warning letter. This looks to me like a standard non-penalty penalty: the company receives the letter, doesn't need to say who the driver is so deliberately 'doesn't know', and the same driver can do the same thing again without fear of a proper punishment
Where it's a company vehicle, it might be worth engaging with the firm directly. Either in private, or - perhaps if that doesn't work - in public (e.g. via social media). Not an alternative to legal action but another way to achieve behaviour change, which is the thing we ultimately want.
Prosecution is the only worthwhile aim- complaining to a 'company' is a waste of time. They don't have to say who the driver is, and if he did it again they would just like and say it was a different driver. The police lie as well, but at least there is a trail of evidence which can theoretically be followed.
Clearly a great place to overtake where someone is doing 39kph.
Slow only applies to cyclists who must get out of the way of important drivers.
Dammit! The toilets must get through!!
Promised photo
Well, that's taking the piss!
Wasting police time if you ask me
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