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news
Near Miss of the Day 919Near Miss of the Day 919: Driver makes shockingly pointless close pass on cyclist... and is found not guilty in court
A cyclist who submitted footage of a close pass to the police has been left disappointed after the driver responsible was found not guilty in court.
The video [below] shows the moment the cyclist was overtaken by the driver of a people carrier on Bath Road in Bristol, the motorist impatiently squeezing past the rider, apparently in a hurry to get stopped in traffic a couple of seconds sooner.
At the time of the incident the driver would have passed a vehicle waiting to turn right across the left-hand lane. The overtake risked pushing the cyclist towards a parked car at the side of the road, and a collision was only just averted.
road.cc reader Tom reported the footage to Avon & Somerset Police and the case was taken to court, the driver pleading not guilty to alleged offences of driving without due care and attention, as well as failing to give information relating to the identification of the driver.
At Bath Magistrates' Court last week, the driver was found not guilty, Tom telling us he "can only really speculate as to why" but guessing "because they couldn't prove [the driver] was behind the wheel".
By the time the driver was found not guilty it was the afternoon and Tom had gone home, the case originally scheduled for 10am but delayed for multiple hours as the defendant was late.
We've contacted the court to confirm the details. Avon & Somerset Police chose not to comment for this article.
Figures revealed late last year show that there have been more than 200,000 video submissions of dangerous driving and other incidents on the roads of England and Wales that have been made through Operation SNAP's online reporting portal since the start of 2021.
Avon & Somerset was the top region for reports, with 19,949 across the three years and slightly ahead of West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.
> 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
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- No Reply 11 min 1 sec ago
That's irrelevant. Why should the customer be forced to pay for all the sports that they dont watch? Why have to pay for football when I don't want...
- Sredlums 11 min 30 sec ago
I only do cafe stops on century rides. And I don't have time for them all to often, so I'll manage.
- brooksby 43 min 6 sec ago
Neither is sapphire ...
- chrisonabike 1 hour 16 min ago
A tragedy - sounds like one of those robotaxis though, are they allowed here? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3le1z892vo
- Rich_M 1 hour 18 min ago
Great, thanks for your reply - much appreciated!
- ErnieC 2 hours 46 min ago
No no no. Not unkind at all. Victim blaming perhaps (along with Tom_77) but certainly not unkind.
- ktache 3 hours 55 min ago
How's about, if you use active transport funding to fix a road it straightaway becomes default 20mph so everyone can use it in relative safety?
- ktache 4 hours 5 min ago
We have a new BKRY here in Cvrshm.
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Tried to like this and got 'threaded ' comments instead.
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Wouldn't they just charge your credit card rather than insist on a direct debit? And the cardholder's address is not shared with the merchant by...
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21 comments
Magistrates don't ride bikes.
The one time I've been to court over a close pass the prosecution got the driver to admit it was too close but she was still found not guilty because I didn't brake or swerve! Her passenger was the only other witness and talked complete cobblers like "the cyclist should have been on the pavement as it is nice and wide there" etc. and the Magistrates seemed to swallow the lot. She also defended herself which I thought was unwise but it obviously worked for her.
I have heard - and from knowledgeable people - that the magistrates court can be even more of a wild lottery than crown court. Volunteer amateurs, see - some take this incredibly seriously and attempt to get abreast of both the laws and the spirit of legal process, some not so much (or are less able to leave "I know what I know") at the door ...
But perhaps a measure of "how it seems in the eyes of pillars of the community" is ... the point? (That and picking up a lot of slack in the system).
Chose not to? Isn't the appropriate prhase there "refused to comment.''
For it to be going to court for the offence in the video, they already know who the driver was. If the driver had not already been identified, the offence would have been committed by the registered keeper for failing to declare the driver.
Far more likely is that the driver
held off attending as long as possible, while his lawyer said he was delayed because of reasons, hoping that the witness would not be able to stay indefinitely,was unfortunately delayed for reasons utterly beyond his control [on the day he absolutely knew he had to be in court by a certain time] and, when the witness had to go, he maintained his Not Guilty plea, against which there was nobody to stand up and vouch for the video evidence that clearly showed what happened.<hyperbole> Death would be too merciful for him. </hyperbole>
Where is this site's favourite
roguelawyer? Surely this would be a slam-dunk for his tabard idea - but for drivers?Looking at it from the other perspective few would be satisfied with "we have identified the Engwe M20 that ran you over! Nobody can remember who was riding it at the time though so the case ends here".
That's terrible. If the driver isn't identified then surely the person who the vehicle is registered to should take the penalty. If it's a company vehicle, then the MD/CEO should be made to take the hit.
A quick google brought up this
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/172
(4)A person shall not be guilty of an offence by virtue of paragraph (a) of subsection (2) above if he shows that he did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained who the driver of the vehicle was.
It seems "reasonable diligence" is the key here.
Presumably if you have actual employees - "I asked at a morning meeting, and nobody said they knew anything".
If you're a delivery firm with definitely-not-employees, no sir - I imagine you could just send out a notification on the app and you've more than covered yourself.
If they fail the reasonable diligence test then do them for running an un-insured vehicle.
There should be no loopholes for this. Its perfectly reasonable to expect anyone to be able to keep track of a set of car keys. Hefty fine or seize the vehicle.
Bit surprised by the outcome, I wonder if there was something wrong with the NIP - late or incorrect details?
Numberplate cloning is another possibility although I think that's quite rare.
Unfortunately when it comes to road traffic criminal offences, there's no "vicarious liability" for employers.
One thing that doesn't seem to add up to me is that this made it as far as court for both the driving offence itself and failure to identify, which suggests both the police and the CPS believed there was a reasonable prospect of conviction. This implies that the police were satisfied they knew who was driving (and it was one and the same person as the registered keeper). If it was a company vehicle with several potential drivers, then I'm suprised the driving offence made it that far (given the keeper evidently failed to identify the driver).
Assuming it's a company vehicle, the company may have nominated a driver who is claiming it wasn't him. This can happen, for example, with contractors where there might be 3 drivers in the cab that could drive the vehicle. Eg Joe might have popped off site to grab a widget but it's a long time ago so we don't remember. Of course there should be a detailed record of the drivers but this might not be a police matter, it might be an HSE or DVLA thing. I presume that the company could be fined but it won't be a driving offense, unfortunately.
I wonder if the same thing would apply if the vehicle was used in an armed robbery?
"Don't know who was driving that day, probably Bob or Joe, but Bob's on a round the world holiday at the moment so we can't ask him"
Why isn't he being done for failure to identify ? Looks like it's a taxi /minibus .Garentee they claimed everyone drives it .Be the owner of the firm that's found not guilty and he wouldn't say who it was driving .I gave up with cameras years ago 20+ reports and 0 actions taken .
After a close pass on a blind corner on a solid white line at 40kph ,the copper asked " what's wrong with that " I stopped that day after getting frustrated after that comment I was threatened with being arrested .
The potential response to "whats wrong with that?" is ask if that level of driving was dangerous enough to fail a test ...
If the owner can't identify who was driving their vehicle, impound it for a month and see what happens. I bet they figure it out real quick
the contrast with how this close pass was dealt with by the magistrates, and the story from the live blog about how 5 close passes were dealt with by West Yorkshire Police couldnt be more clearer as to why dealing with this stuff is turning into a complete lottery and a joke.
Not guilty eh? Must've been one of those self-driving cars. With the sun in its eyes.
"The case originally scheduled for 10am but delayed for multiple hours as the defendant was late."
Being late is normally a no show
Yes...thought I'd heard that our courts are overstretched beyond belief. How come this character gets a pass? If he had turned up late for an operation would the surgeon, anaesthetist and theatre nurses all be twiddling their thumbs until he deigned to hoist his carcass onto the table?