Police use close pass footage to highlight dangerous driving... but insisted "no offence was committed" when incident was reported

There's a straightforward offence of inconsiderate driving i.e. 'driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road or place'. 
It comes under Sec. 3 of the Road Traffic Act, the same act and section that gives us 'careless driving'.

So Wilmslow police have shot themselves in the (Twitter) foot really.

However, as the overtake is 'driving inappropriately close to another vehicle' I think that this is actually 'careless driving' and that's from the CPS guidelines 

He gives the cyclist a fair bit of room during the actual passing, it is the driver and occupants of the oncoming car who are given almost no room.

Observe how the standards change to suit the maker of the standards when those standards become inconvenient to their position.  Thus ".......overtaking them in an unsafe manner"  and "........ how NOT to overtake a cyclist" and "......explaining how to overtake safely" morph into "inconsiderate" when challenged. 

Howver, the use of the word 'safe' supports Cheshire Police's mission, which is "Delivering Even Safer Communities for the Whole of Cheshire' and, in doing so, we must put 'victims first' and protect vulnerable people".

Integrity is a necessary part of delivering a public service and such equivocation in the face of such an explicit mission is duplicitous.  Shameful.

<facepalm>

Ah, Schroedinger's Motoring Offence.

"no offence was committed, it did however provided (sic) us with an opportunity to highlight some of the inconsiderate driving that cyclists have to put up with.”

So driving in Wilmslow must be considerate to other road users (because inconsiderate driving is an offence, under section 3 of the Road Traffic Act), but where it is inconsiderate to cyclists it doesn't count.

Seems a bit odd to me, as in their list of how driving might be careless or inconsiderate the CPS put "driving too close to another vehicle" in second place.

Makes me wonder how we're supposed to expect road safety to improve.  Might be that my choice to carry a metal water bottle will open up new opportunities for "restorative justice" when close-passed

I still think the bravest people are UK cyclist. Its like motiorst can just go around doing anything they want, and think of some crazy excusse to get away with it. The sun was in my eyes, I had to get to work on time, my car to big for this small road, are all valid reason to kill a cycilist in the UK . And the courts still blame the cyclist because they were not wearing a helemt or hi viz over a drunk driver.

If these close pass situations aren't an offence then the law needs to change. The police cannot be given an easy out. Your passing a vulnerable road user, show some respect for that life and their family.

Cheshire police were generally very poor in taking action. I used to regulary submit footage to them, but eventually gave up. Have to be fair though, when I got footage of a van running a red light, they picked that up immediately and took it on. Easy pickings I suppose.

On a slightly different note. In the dim and distance past when doing my teacher training course one thing we told not to do was give an example of how not to do something as someone wouldn't be listening and think that is how it's done. I do know there is a link there showing how to pass a cyclist that is what they should be showing.

They could really do with getting their act together sharpish - my wife is Cycling and Walking Champion on Cheshire East Council (Wilmslow and Macclesfield are both in Cheshire East) and has worked extensively last year in trialling a close pass operation which is being rolled out on the spring.

It does not fill me with confidence if cyclists are going to have to be hit before Cheshire Police consider an offence has been committed....

I will be drawing my wife's attention to this and asking her to follow it up with the Superintendent who she liases with.

PP

So driving in an "unsafe manner" is not an offence? Says it all, really.

So the close pass wasn't an offence - but overtaking in to path of on comming traffic is.

Not that one should trump the over, but I've noticed that the Police are far more likely to take action when there is another driver of a motorised vehicle inconvienced.

"We are receiving more and more complaints from cyclists..."

What they really mean to say is:

"Cyclists, please stop bothering us with your close pass videos. Look, even one as bad as this will result in no action from us, go away."

WTAF?!  It's dangerous, so they use it to illustrate dangerous overtaking, but it's not an offence?  How can you use something that is dangerous but refuse to prosecute the driver?

I'm going to lie down for a bit; my brain hurts.