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news
Near Miss of the Day 844Near Miss of the Day 844: Driver insists cyclists who film motorists are asking to be hit
A driver who made a punishment pass on a cyclist in Norfolk insisted to the rider afterwards that people on bikes who use action cameras to film motorists are asking to be hit.
After beeping his horn twice as he made a close pass on the cyclist, the driver said to him: “You’re enticing people to hit you, aren’t you, you’ve got that little camera on there.”
Pointing inside his vehicle, the 71-year-old driver – who would receive a £100 fine for driving without reasonable consideration for others, and had his driving licence endorsed with three penalty points – added: “I’ve got a camera as well.”
Video of the incident, which happened in May last year on Mile Cross Road in Norwich, was posted to Twitter earlier last week by user That Guy on the Bike, who tweets as @TGontbike.
"Your enticing people to hit you, aren't you?"
Dear reader, I'm really not. I just want to get home alive.
Police issued the driver 71 year old driver 3pts and £100 fine.
Offence: Driving without reasonable consideration to others#BD64NWX pic.twitter.com/QHR2frBSGk— ThatGuyOnTheBike (@TGonthebike) January 8, 2023
I think quite a lot of bad drivers have dashcam because they are convinced they are excellent drivers. There have been quite a few convictions using drivers' own footage.
— ThatGuyOnTheBike (@TGonthebike) January 8, 2023
“This was a particularly unusual punishment pass in that, when I caught up with the driver not long after he was quite happy to explain why he did it, knowing full well that I was filming him,” That Guy on the Bike told us.
“Essentially, his argument was that I was too far out from the kerb and that I was enticing drivers to hit me so I could film them.
“He continued to ague his case but once his female passenger chipped in about insurance and road tax I took that as my cue to leave.
“I have to say that the Norfolk and Suffolk DashCam team have become excellent,” he added, “so I want to thank them for all their hard work and I’d recommend them to anyone.”
> 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.
> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision 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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42 comments
I would have been tempted to repeat through that open window "So you think that having a camera suggests you are asking to be hit and in the same sentence state you have a camera?. Happy to oblige...."
But pleased you took the right approach, though he should have got a higher fine.
His words and pathetic utterances are making me want to hit him. A 71 year old chip on shoulder. A quick slap should do it.
The face of gammon right there
Driver saw the cycle camera and was duly enticed, they just can't resist it. Maybe there's some sort of therapy to help them break the habit?
Counselling? electro shock? . . . . . or maybe cycling? I hear that's very therapeutic.
I heard that cycling turns you into an entitled tribal scofflaw Tour De France wannabe who thinks nothing of angrily yelling at other road users to get out of the way or even jumping red lights and running over pedestrians in their quest to prove themselves practicing their self-indulgent hobby?
Reading around it sounds like it's neither good for your own blood pressure ("looking for trouble" / "thirsty for controversy") nor those of others.
Oh and they're often vigilantes also as proved by the very existence of this video.
Like I said, very therapeutic! 🤣🤣🤣
Good point!
Hmm, I have a very similar footage from a taxi driver trying an even closer pass than that, inside a traffic island.
Except that he then caught up and drove alongside me for a stretch yelling out the window about x, y and z including that he had a camera. I advised him to save it for the police.
I bet he deleted it as soon as he pulled up though. Anyhow I sent front and rear footage to police who confirmed that he was prosecuted.
Probably long enough now that I could post the footage ...
ooh, go on!
Anyhow I sent front and rear footage to police who confirmed that he was prosecuted
I suggest that he wasn't prosecuted at all. They may have sent out a NIP, which is not anything like the same thing. They will usually back out and settle for nothing, words of advice or a warning letter
I'm not sure that's the case, when the Met send me notification of NIP they say:
If they send an advisory I get a different email, fairly sure that once an NIP is sent the only action will be course, fixed penalty or court. They don't inform one of the outcomes and I don't always bother to chase up, but I've never chased up an NIP and been told an advisory has been issued, it's always been one of those three.
Police forces, of course, differ and I don't know which one applies to the OP. You're in the Met area, and you know where I'm talking about. Their system is to set it up for court, and a few weeks before the hearing date they just abandon 'because there's no rear footage'. They had invented a Lancashire-only version of the unbroken white line law, in which it's not an offence to be on the wrong side of the line if you came down the right hand side of the road, and only cross the line right to left.
The OP could help us out by quoting this 'confirmation that he was prosecuted'. For light relief: this Audi driver pulled out on me from Garstang High School this morning changing gear with his left hand and holding that mobile in his right hand which was also vaguely holding the wheel. There will be no response from Lancashire Constabulary
OP here - I think you are just going to have to take my word for it.
It'd be a bit odd to make up the offence, outcome and and age just to peemptively protect the reputation of N&S police!
I wouldn't be so sure about that. When i sent them footage of a white van driver riding a foot from the back of our club chainy a couple of years back, then passing us on double white lines, into the face of oncming traffic, leaning on his hooter and screaming "F**KING C*NTS!!" at us out of his window as he close passed us with about 6 inches to spare in his untaxed, non-MOTd vehicle sporting an illegal plate, Lancs Police were quite quick to threaten me with prosecution for 'riding dangerously...'
Did you reply 'bring it on ' ?
I know for certain that that doesn't happen at Norfolk and Suffolk. If they say NIP it always sticks. (Unless the driver fails to identify themselves that is)
I got this email from West Midlands Police when a driver failed to identify themselves for a report I submitted.
A prosecution is being raised against the REGISTERED KEEPER of the vehicle VOLVO, reg no: KE06 JYA for the offence of:
Failing to inform police of driver details (Sec 172 RTA 1988),
This person failed to comply with two requests for the information, which is an offence in its’ own right.
If satisfied the court will ultimately prove in his absence if he continues to think that ignoring his legal obligation might make them go away.
Thank you for your commitment to helping the police improve road safety.
All they did was cut me up at a roundabout so not particularly serious but they still prosecuted so that makes me think they follow through on most of my reports which are usually worse than this. I got the impression the officer was pretty pissed. No idea of the outcome though so who knows?
https://upride.cc/incident/blind-volvo-driver-pulls-out-onto-roundabout/
I like the UpLoad thing.
Helpful map too.
Small fine and points turns into a lot more.
Not completing the s172 seems like a really silly way to get points. They may have just got a retraining course and no points at all.
Well done Norfolk and Suffolk DashCam team and long may your good work continue.
The driver seriously said that a cyclist using a camera is enticing people to hit them, after he'd deliberately driven dangerously close to the cyclist to prove his point, and he had a camera himself. It's good to know that irony remains stone cold dead, deader than a Norwegian Blue nailed to its perch.
It's a shame that idiocy is not grounds for removing someone's driving licence, although it could be argued that he is suffering dementia I suppose. But then, we've seen lots of examples of much younger drivers being equally idiotic.
Opinion differs how excellent the NS dashcam team are, I've had only 1 NIP from the last 8 submissions.
This driver got just a letter of advice, I don't even think that's officially a thing, at this point they're actually steering left towards me, to avoid hitting a keep left bollard,then brake checked me and on the day this happened the van wasn't even taxed.
Do get in touch, I would like to share experiences
Thatguyonthebikeagain at gmail
One thing about a letter from the Police is that it stays on Police files, helping them to build a picture of someones driving standards in a future situation, so if you get a warning letter it pays to drive with more caution in the future.
yes it has always felt a bit of a lottery, more so in recent years, when it absolutely shouldnt imo. This particular NMOTD clip came up in one of the live blogs discussion this week and I described it as borderline, because if youd just shown me the clip and not told me the outcome, I couldnt have said to you which way the police would have called it.
And whilst we are discussing the "excellence" of this traffic unit, lets not forget their own stats show only around 1/5th of submissions are prosecuted 1/5th get letters, remember Andy Cox says 2/3rds is the standard he gets,and that means that yes they discard 3/5ths as simply not meeting their criteria, which no doubt their 7 day time limit instead of the normal 14 plays a part in, and for the 2nd year running during the Christmas break couldnt guarantee submissions would be dealt with at all for operational reasons.
It would be a good thing if the standard proceedure allows for a fairly standard letter to be sent to everyone that is reported, even if it's NFA. This should basically say "your manner of driving has led someone to report it to us so we'll be looking out for you in the future"
Hopefully at least some would take heed.....
I should emphasise then that *recently* they have been excellent. Since about sept '22. You are right about Christmas though.
I'd love to swap notes - thatguyonthebikeagain at gmail
From about March to End of July 2022 pretty much everything I submitted to Norfolk and Suffolk was given a warning letter, but between end of July and November out of 42 submissions 41 of them were given NIP and only 1 a warning letter. The warning letter was for a submission from my car dash cam, pretty sure if it had been from the cyclists perspective it would have been a NIP as well.
Great work, well done. I wish WMP would give the same level of feedback.
“You’re enticing people to hit you, aren’t you, you’ve got that little camera on there ... I’ve got a camera as well.”
So, is he saying that he also is enticing people to hit him? Is he just stupid?
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