I was out on the road bike yesterday with my partner and almost got hit by an oncoming taxi minibus.

They were passing parked cars on their side of the road and doing about 30mph with no intention of giving way, they passed me close enough to be able to hit the van with my hand as it passed and forced my partner to ride into food water.
Phoned the taxi company immediately to complain, apparently the vehicle was off duty.
Just phoned the police to report it, they’re basically unwilling to do anything as I didn’t get the registration and the area isn’t covered by CCTV. And if there is CCTV it’s up to me to obtain the footage!
I told them the taxi company said they’ve got dash cams, but because I’ve phoned them they’re unwilling to do so.

Is there anything I can do?

If the taxi was off duty, it sounds like you have some identification for the vehicle.

If there are two of you, and you can corroborate each other’s stories, then they can be prosecuted on that basis.

If the police won’t comply, escalate it until you get to PCC (if you are determined to get something done).

they probably think it was your fault anyway.

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/73-of-drivers-want-cyclists-forced-to-wear-hi-vis-says-poll/022454

Which force?

Thanks Phil, have just tweeted the ipcc to see if there’s anything they can do…

Bez, it’s Devon and Cornwall police

I didn’t get the registration and the area isn’t covered by CCTV

Maybe you could do an artists impression….here’s an easy guide how to do it.

Bez, it’s Devon and Cornwall police

Ah 😉

There’s one DCP guy who posts* on Twitter and largely gets this stuff, so it may be worth tweeting him and asking what your best course of action is. Problem is, I can’t remember his name or his account and can’t find it from a few searches. If I manage to get hold of it I’ll let you know. (Along the way I did find a couple of other DCP officers who cycle, plus the DCP cycling club, so if nothing else gets you anywhere they might be worth a punt.)

* certainly used to, I’ve not looked for ages

A friend of mine has just tweeted me to say he’s got an email address of an officer who helped him out when he had a road rage incident.

Thanks for your help.

Do you mean Harry Tangye?

No advice as such (I’d literally be pursuing multiple drivers like this every week if I had the same tenacity for justice that they seem have for endangering other road-user’s lives) – but glad your partner escaped injury or worse.

Jam bo posted a link to a survey.

Cox told the Daily Mail: “Our supporters] believe cyclists should be making some financial contribution to roads and increasing cycle lanes they currently benefit from.*

“They also want to see the compulsory use of helmets, cyclists to be road insured, wear fluorescent clothing, pass a road proficiency test and more prosecutions for the increasing episodes of dangerous cycling.”

My blood pressure is rising. I can feel my hackles crackling. Surely half of the country are not such tribalistic simian simpletons? Not so easily lead by the nose by the popular press slimy journos hacks who start, grow and feed hatred of minorities? Who drip-feed the spiteful little pleasure-glands of such hateful simpletons? Who do this simply to line the pockets of whichever monkey on their back it was that ate their soul?

Surely that many Daily Mail readers fellow citizens wouldn’t be quite as stupid and as shallow as that?

40 percent of the survey’s respondents blamed road congestion not on the increase on the number of cars but on potholes.

Oh. That’s a bit shit. When you wake and realise that you are either:

1. Surrounded by idiots. Completely surrounded.

Or

2. Mad. As in ‘it’s not you perverse pea-brained peasants marching out of step with me that makes me crazy, it’s actually my soul trying to save itself from suicide – by denying your existence and railing as if beset by demons’

*You mean pay emissions tax? Or did you mean simply to shit out that ploppy,cowardly little lie that ‘cyclists don’t pay tax like the rest of us’. Get ****. You ****. **** hell. Imagine the press mis-using another minority in a similar the same fashion? (Not that they dont already)

Our supporters simply believe that The Jews/blacks/gays/Poles/Muslims should make financial contributions to the roads that they currently benefit from.

Get **** Daily Mail. Get **** Howard Cox. You dishonest bags of worthless shit. You

Do you mean Harry Tangye?

No. I know he’s a prominent DCP tweeter but he’s not the specific chap I was thinking of.

My blood pressure is rising. I can feel my hackles crackling.

Well, if you will read PR pieces about surveys engineered to carry the payload of carefully phrased soundbites that strongly imply things which are factually incorrect without quite making factually incorrect statements…

Personally I’ve tried to cut that out of my life and file it under “HGH”, at least temporarily, although I appreciate that it means I’m lounging in a pit of shameful apathy.

The local authority licensing body will have a ‘code of good conduct’ or something similar – could be worth speaking to them as well? If I remember correctly, the vehicle in the eyes of the licensing officer, is ‘always a taxi’ whether it is picking up passengers or not.

Oh, I see it’s the Fair Fuel UK one. That’s the Fair Fuel UK that’s essentially bankrolled by the haulage industry. The agenda is pretty clear: a weakly astroturfed bit of public agitation to keep costs down. Fuel costs have for some time been a key focus of the haulage industry but now that autonomous goods vehicles are on the way there’s a much more pressing goal with a much larger associated cost saving*.

All quite straightforward, really: bicycles are a problem for robots, and the problem is mitigated by reducing numbers, increasing reflectivity, and legislating for motor supremacy. So it make sense to adopt a well proven strategy and use an established platform like Fair Fuel UK to put some propaganda out to help build support for those aims. I think someone wrote something about it a while back 😉

The Law Will Be Fixed

* see the linked post: distributing just two national newspapers carries something like a £10m per annum cost in drivers. Multiply that by all the goods in the economy.

If the taxi had a camera on and it captured you, you might have a right to a copy of it. A friend was close passed by a bus and requested a copy of the recording, after some initial resistance she cited the Information Commissioner’s Office (see https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/cctv) guidelines and was sent the video.
You’re unlikely to get the police to do more than send a letter though, in part because they’re all massively under resourced, but also because the police would need to demonstrate to the Crown Prosecution Service that prosecution is in the public interest and is considered necessary given the scale of the incident.
Good luck!

The CPS needn’t be involved for action to be taken. Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 can be used. First time is a warning, second time is seizure of the vehicle. No prosecution required. Any uniformed Pc can warn or seize, so there’s little resource involved, it’s largely just a matter of whether they want to do it or not.