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news
Sussex Police responds to allegation that close pass videos submitted to it are not properly investigated
Sussex Police insist that videos of close passes and similar examples of poor driving does get investigated properly, saying that “When the public take the time to provide footage to us, we take the time to review the footage.” This is following our story earlier this month about a local cyclist who submitted five videos to it under Operation Crackdown, but wondered whether the footage had been viewed before warning letters were sent to the registered keepers of the vehicles involved.
In particular, the cyclist was concerned that according to her YouTube statistics, the videos, which she had uploaded unlisted, did not appear to have received any views.
We contacted Sussex Police’s press office ahead of publishing that story, and were told that all of those videos “were each properly reviewed and assessed,” and subsequently the force’s partnerships manager, Oliver Senior, who has responsibility for Operation Crackdown, has contacted us to seek to provide further reassurance to people submitting videos under the initiative.
He told road.cc: “Sussex Police are committed to ensuring the Operation Crackdown site continues to facilitate modern methods of reporting and to ensure we address road safety concerns in a timely and effective manner.
“When the public take the time to provide footage to us, we take the time to review the footage,” he said.
“In the case of these five clips sent to us by means of a private YouTube link, our most experienced administrator viewed all of them in the first instance and reached a decision to send a warning letter to each registered keeper. That decision was backed up by a Police Constable who also viewed each of the films.
“The safety of cyclists is very important to us,” Senior continued. “We encourage all road users to remember that they have shared use of the road space and thus should recognise the more vulnerable users – such as pedestrians, cyclists and horses.
“Where we receive complaints about the close passing of cycles we will always takes a considered approach based on the evidence we have,” he added.
Leaving aside the issue of whether a warning letter was appropriate in all those cases – the cyclist who sent the force the videos believed that in some, stronger action was appropriate – what remains unclear is why the videos were not shown as being viewed on YouTube at the time the cyclist checked the status of her submissions on the Operation Crackdown portal.
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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40 comments
the most depressing thing about all this is that when there is a fatality on the roads the police appeal for all information about what led to that, but one of the significant factors that have contributed to every road death, is that dangerous driving and near misses on the roads are tolerated by the police until something happens.
Crack down on dangerous driving and road deaths will fall, it really is that simple. This is understood in all health and safety studies. Stop the dangerous behaviours and near misses and the inuries and deaths will fall as a result. Except on the roads it seems where shit unsafe driving is expected to the point that senior police officers feel comfortable admitting that the roads are not safe for cycling.
With that being the case, isn't it their remit to adress that problem?
well-said
Sussex Police decided that a warning letter was the appropriate action for a driver who turned right, into my lane, driving into me head on. It flipped me over his bonnet, wrote off my bike and made a large dent in his windscreen with my helmet. (Not today's debate but without a helmet that day I'd have had serious head injuries or worse).
I'd be curious to know how many drivers in Sussex are prosecuted following "collisions" with cyclists each year. I'm guessing the answer is close to zero. That would be a good FOI request road.cc.
A driver can receive any number of warning letters, there's no totting up procedure. It's obviously much quicker for the police to deal with it that way, and the courts don't want contested "minor" traffic offences clogging up the broken justice system.
This sounds crazy but I'm glad you're ok. Were you usng a camera at the time?
No camera, no. The driver admitted fault and said he hadn't seen me in full daylight. If that's not careless driving at least I don't know what is.
A driver can receive any number of warning letters
Even I, a well-known pathological police-hater, am not convinced about this- or Lancashire would not have come up with the recent dodge of sending 'educational material from the Highway Code' to offenders with no mention of any warning letter. If your statement was true, what is the 'warning letter' warning about? That after a few more offences and packets of worthless educational material they might receive a letter containing 'harsh language'? (yes, that was lifted from 'Aliens'!)
What I mean that there is no legal framework around a warning letter. The police are not bound to ramp it up second time round. I don't have any figures but I am aware of one driver receiving 2 such warning letters from Sussex Police. They made reference to the first warning, so they were aware, just chose not to escalate it.
What I mean that there is no legal framework around a warning letter
One type of legal framework is called a law. The police don't bother much about those either- I have repeatedly bored people on here with impeccable photos of Range Rovers, heavy lorries etc. crashing through red lights at 50+ mph, vehicles crossing unbroken white lines etc. but Lancashire Constabulary don't even respond about those because they're so common round here- they're so common because LC don't view them as real offences until a proper meaty accident occurs. So, as far as the police are concerned, there no legal framework around anything unless they say there is. They wish to decide everything themselves with no reference to the law, precedent, rationality or anything else that they don't control completely. Our job is to stop them getting away with it. That's why I keep going
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record. Living in Scotland whether the polis take any action on submitted videos is a mute point as Polis Scotland don't let you submit them in the first place. I suppose at least they're up front about their stinking attitude to protecting vulnerable road users.
You can submit a video but only by very old fashioned methods (phone 101, they come and visit you, take a statement, copy your file to a memory stick). This can consume quite a lot of the time limit for action, and is no use if the complainer is a tourist and no longer in Scotland. I have no idea what they do if you're on holiday in Caithness from the Mull of Galloway...
If this is to change, we need legislation, so please contact all your MSPs (constituency and list) and get them on side.
I once challenged a young driver about a close pass, his reply was "I didn't see you" to which I replied "should you be driving if your eyesite is that bad" He still didn't see the point
PS Can we have a "bullshit repellant icon piease
I'm going to buck the trend here and state that I think letters and education courses are often appropriate results for close-passes and most of the time I'm happy with those results (not that A&S tell me which option they're pursuing). Obviously if there's other circumstances such as blatant speeding or phone use, then prosecution should be on the cards, but if there's an incident that hasn't actually caused harm, then a warning should get the driver to pay more attention in future.
Agree - for a first incident. Not sure if warning letters are recorded / noted so that a second incident is treated differently, but would hope so.
I'd assumed that the police would record warning letters - there's no reason not to.
I agree that a lot of incidents could be dealt with by warning letters or education courses.
I am however concerned that the outcome of a submission has more to do with availability of resources and the attitude of the police force or the individual officer than the seriousness of the incident.
Lack of communication and lack of transparency is also an issue which greatly undermines any confidence that the correct decisions are being made.
only if warning letters really are warning letters, and a record is kept and subsequent infractions are prosecuted. i.e "you've done this wrong, we know you have, we are telling you not to do it again and next time we will prosecute". Otherwise it's pretty pointless. "you've been a naughty boy, we'd like you to consider not driving like that in future if it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for you"
driver detentioneducation courses can be good as the driver will not want to waste the time again even if the course itself has little impact.Yes I just want to see some evidence that warning letters have an effect,but I've rarely seen (I think the Met claimed it cuts reoffending but didnt publish any stats to back it up) a police force offer that information.
And even the passes that only warrant a letter do still impact you, I wont ride my bike without a video camera recording the ride, I dont walk round with a body cam, I dont drive with a dash cam,but I wont ride my bike without it, that's how much it impacts me.
First off I would like to say a massive thank you to road.cc for following this up. Only continued pressure and publicity will help to change things in the future which, I hope, is what we all want. As individuals we can make very little difference but with road.cc and bodies such as Cycling UK getting involved we have a much better chance of success.
WTJS seems to be the exception of course. I admire his? perseverence and wish him every success.
My personal opinion is that letters, visits or "strong words of advice" are reasonable outcomes but only if records are kept by the forces concerned and if action is taken for repeat offences. I suspect that the difficulty of prosecuting close passes due to the fact that most jurors will see such driving as not below that expected of a careful and competent driver is one of the factors that need to be taken into account. The changes in the highway code may have an effect in the future but I suspect that a change in the law will be required such as the one that nearly got through in Ireland but was diluted at the last minute.
Anyway. Thank you to road.cc once again. A step in the right direction. At least Sussex now know that they are being kept an eye on.
When I've attempted to 'educate/advise' drivers face to face on what theyve done in a close pass,and I dont bother now because I've given up, I'm always met with denial, incredulity that anything they did was wrong and blame shifting onto me, they only nearly collided with me because I was riding in their view a daft position or its perfectly ok to drive head on at you whilst they overtake parked cars even though there was a gap they could stop in because youre supposed to ride on your side of the road...never did get the driver to understand their logic there
So my issue with just using letters to deal with this, is what effect do they have ? Does the driver react differently because the letter comes from the police than speaking to me directly ? Do they even recall the incident ? Will they as a result drive more carefully around cyclists fearing further follow up because now they know some of us carry cameras and do call the police ? Or do they just go b****y cyclists,road tax,red lights & bin the letter and just carry on as before ?
If there was just a single case the police could demonstrate as proof this system works, and so makes us safer on the roads, that this motorist was first sent a letter, a month later caught on camera with a similar pass so we prosecuted, I'd be happier to accept it.
Until then for me the letters achieve nothing and have no impact on road safety for cyclists.
I gave up trying to educate drivers a while ago now, I just submit the footage. What I submit has changed though. After many "no further action"s I no longer submit close passes, I only submit ones where I am forced to brake or swerve to avoid being hit. This is as a result of some honest feedback from Gloucestershire Constabulary. What I have started doing, however, is riding at least 1m from the kerb and often more. This means that drivers tend to slow down before overtaking but if they don't I have more room to move in when close passed. As an older rider on a sit up and beg dutch style bike I sometimes throw in a wobble if I hear a car approaching fast from behind. I have found this particularly effective so far. You just have to get used to occasional abuse but that's water off a duck's back for me now. I have decided that if the police can't (or won't) protect me I'll do it myself. I believe this is called "defensive" cycling.
As for letters etc. I hope you are wrong but I would not be surprised if you are right. It just seems to me that the way the law stands at present that is the best the police can do.
My personal opinion is that letters, visits or "strong words of advice" are reasonable outcomes but only if records are kept by the forces concerned and if action is taken for repeat offences
I have no confidence, verging on certainty that they won't, that Lancashire Constabulary would 'notice' that an offender had committed the same offence previously. Therefore, the repeat offence is only going to be detected by the same cyclist. This BMW driver (need we say more) committed almost the same offence 2 days later at the same location while overtaking the same cyclist. The police are refusing to include the evidence of this offence in the prosecution. Only 2 days ago (bearing in mind the offence took place 18 months ago and the witness statements etc. a year ago) I received from the officer concerned requests for 'the original video without the GPS data' and 'rear facing camera views'. I immediately stated these did not exist. The driver is pleading 'Not Guilty' to the white line crossing offence!
From my experience of Sussex police dealing with a serious cycling accident they were utterly incompetent and anti cyclist biased.
Neighbouring Hampshire Constabulary are worse than that; worse than useless.
I concur - they're absolutely useless. This one merited a letter - clearly not close enough for a prosecution!
https://twitter.com/HootsyJT/status/1062728312873738248
All my 50+ reports to Sussex Police have never resulted in more than a "letter", even close passes within a foot.
https://youtu.be/fbOkaQeYUOI
In the case above the driver only got a warning letter which I think is an absuloute piss take, carrying out 3 offences within a matter of seconds and get away with it!
https://ssrp.shinyapps.io/dataportal/
Website above shows annoymised Op Crackdown Data. As you can see 45% have no action, 45% have a letter, 9.999% the report is incorrect in some mannor, 0.001% actual action is taken.
On the otherhand, in Lincolnshire Police I have about a 7% success rate of them getting penlities, although they don't actually tell me who or what the penlities are.
Brilliant, thanks for the link. I personally reckon 0.001% is woeful, imagine a lot of people on here would agree, particularly as I imagine there are a lot of minor incidents people don't bother reporting.
Interesting to see "No Offence" as a code too - so case closed (the most common outcome) is supposedly a reasonable response even if there was an offence committed?
Okay this is about Sussex, but Derbyshire have never responded to any of my footage and I only send in what I consider really bad driving. I did manage to get a response when I questioned this and was told that it was a new system and so they were not setup yet to respond. Well all they really need is 3 stock responses:
a) We have inspected the footage and will not be taking any action against the driver.
b) We have inspected the footage and will be sending an advisory letter to the driver.
c) We have inspected the footage and intend to prosecute the driver, we will contact you if we require you as a witness and will keep you updated on this.
Thanks - your intervention seems to have done the job. I had my first response from Derbyshire police yesterday, and that's exactly what it said, with the box ticked for 'advisory letter'.
Many members of my Sussex-based cycling club have submitted videos to Sussex Police showing careless and dangerous driving including deliberate close passes and forcing oncoming traffic onto the verge. Probably around 100 videos over the last few years.
Not a single one of our reports has ever generated more than a letter.
Has anyone ever had a prosecution or FPN for a video submitted through Op Crackdown?
Has anyone ever had a prosecution or FPN for a video submitted through Op Crackdown?
I keep asking this as well. Lancashire has never prosecuted anyone for close passing- my case was to be the first, went through the statements etc. He appeared in court and offered to take the joke driving course, an offer which was made to him 18 months before but which he failed to take up when you had at least to turn up in person. The court accepted the offer and the course is now online and even more of a joke. We keep hearing rumours, but there has been no proper punishment of any of the cases we have heard about on here- the problem is that the police don't view it as a real offence. Please, anyone, give us information about points, fines!!
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