Anyone who rides a bike on the road should read this from WM Police.

DezB, keep calm & send in any more if you have any (hopefully not mate). At least Whitchurch is relatively low traffic volumes.

That letter basically says “We know driving without due care and attention is an offence but we’re not going to enforce it.” 😡

Over and over (usually after someone’s been killed or seriously injured after a driver makes an error of judgement) we’re told that the punishment reflects the actions and not the consequences – yet this directly contradicts this: “We’ll only take action if someone gets hurt first.” or “Prevention. Que?” To serve and protect?

DezB, keep calm & send in any more if you have any (hopefully not mate). At least Whitchurch is relatively low traffic volumes.

Eh?

Very good.

Will all WMP traffic officers be pulling people they see not giving the recommended clearance?

Seems an interesting and well thought out approach from WMP. This, although an aside is quite an interesting take on the ‘bloody cyclists run red lights and ride on the pavement so that gives me the right to run them over’ argument:

Cyclists don’t cause us, as an organisation, problems, that’s because they aren’t causing our communities problems, they aren’t killing nearly 100 people on our regions roads as mechanically propelled vehicles currently do. Yes we do get complaints of the “nuisance” variety, pavement cycling, some anti-social behaviour (usually yobs on bikes rather than “cyclists”), red light running etc. but you get the idea, most peoples interpretation of “1st world problems” or the “modern day blues”, nothing that’s a priority for a force like our own in a modern day society. Bad cycling is an “irritant” to the wider community rather than a danger, and maybe an improvement in infrastructure and policing may alieve many of the reasons that cause a very small minority of cyclists to be an “irritant”

I await the backlash with interest.

I’ve read the blog post a few times now, and I’m still struggling to believe it was actually written by a police force.

Proof of the pudding, and all that, but I do think it’s a massive step forward for a force to publicly express this approach.

I live in the WMP area and am consistently disappointed with how they treat people on bikes. That’s the fault of the “accident process unit” (or something like that) who I think are civilian case workers rather than the dedicated traffic officers of CPMG, who seem genuinely good on cycling issues. I just hope this acts as a prompt for the force as a whole to treat bad driving around cycling a seriously as CPMG do.

The Blog is excellent, and I just hope some good comes of their actions. I hope other forces also take note and try a similar campaign. I hope it works. I have recently decided to never knowingly go for a road ride again, as quite frankly I don’t find near death experiences and inflamed egos forcing me into a ditch a relaxing pastime.

Looks like a good initiative from wm police. Defining a close pass as <1.5m sounds right for higher speed rural overtakes but IMHO heavy handed for lower speed urban situations.
The backlash could be in the form of critisim of cycles passing with little clearance when filtering past queues of vehicles.

I hope that this scheme is carried out, and shows results. It’s the most positive pro cycling thing I’ve read in years. I’m sending it round everyone I know.

Easy to be cynical given poor Police and judicial enforcement in the past. We need to watch and support this policy, not bitch about . mistakes in the past.

That blog was an excellent read and hopefully their crackdown works. Huddersfield could really do with something like that being implemented

That Hampshire letter has really boiled my P155
“Nah we’ll wait until someone dies and then we may think about doing something on that individual case”

Defining a close pass as <1.5m sounds right for higher speed rural overtakes but IMHO heavy handed for lower speed urban situations.

I’d rather it was standardised to 1.5m in all situations and not allow motorists to apply their ‘judgement’. Whilst some drivers coul safely pass at under that distance, many many others can’t and don’t even at crawling pace.

Think of a 20mph zone at a school. Some drivers could get through at 40mph, but do you really want them to risk it?

The WMP blog includes a panel for comments at the bottom. I’ve posted a message supporting the policy

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to post the letter from Hampshire police should be posted there 🙂

Perhaps Hampshire cops would spend less of their valuable time dealing with collisions and fatalities if they put a little effort into preventing those fatalities.

Brilliant initiative, as an occasional commuter who’s had plenty of too close passes over the years (clue, if i can bang on your roof as you squeeze past, you’re too close)

Cyclists don’t cause us, as an organisation, problems, that’s because they aren’t causing our communities problems, they aren’t killing nearly 100 people on our regions roads as mechanically propelled vehicles currently do. Yes we do get complaints of the “nuisance” variety, pavement cycling, some anti-social behaviour (usually yobs on bikes rather than “cyclists”), red light running etc. but you get the idea, most peoples interpretation of “1st world problems” or the “modern day blues”, nothing that’s a priority for a force like our own in a modern day society. Bad cycling is an “irritant” to the wider community rather than a danger, and maybe an improvement in infrastructure and policing may alieve many of the reasons that cause a very small minority of cyclists to be an “irritant”

I can see the motoring lobby backlash already; ‘Ah, but if they break the law they deserve what they get!’

Balls. I’ll accept that only if the reverse is permissible and i can take a large hammer to the knees of anyone i see breaking a law in a car.

In summary:

Our time and effort, we have quickly realised, is better spent enforcing the law and prosecuting,

No sh*t sherlock! 🙂

Well if drivers expect to be prosecuted for committing offences they suddenly stop committing them, unsurprising correlation I know but it’s the truth

I fully support this initiative, and wait with anticipation to see if it has any effect (I’m not from WMP area so hopefully there will be followup info/media), but the above quote from the blog about enforcement should just be typed out in big bold foot high letters and plastered across billboards everywhere until the message sinks in elsewhere too, especially in locations frequented by people in charge of policing budgets…

And yes, even the most experienced of cyclist should read their helpful advice, you might learn something, you might not, you might be reminded of something you’ve forgotten, you might disagree with some of it, but at least you’ll be thinking about things…

Won’t the pointy helmet and the yellow hi-viz vest with ‘POLICE’ on it be a bit of a giveaway though?

Excellent blog. I can only hope they have the funding/time to keep it up as I’d imagine it will take some time for the message to spread. As others have said it would be great if other forces adopted a similar approach.

To be fair on my cycle commute to and from work I haven’t had a huge amount of close passes. Did contact the local bus company to moan about one of their buses and they claimed to have a word with the driver.

Why dont we all send the article to our local Police force, and see what they have to say? I’ll start with Leicestershire, where a cyclist known to us died a month ago due to a taxi driver suddenly opening a door when stopped on a double yellow, causing the cyclist to fallover and get crushed by a passing van.

Interesting that so many posters on here are talking about close passes despite what it say in the blog about the main cause of deaths and injuries – though cycling several thousand road miles a year I understand why.

I’d say close passes happen about 100 times more often than someone does something like the pull out shown in the photos on the blog. Flashing front lights and an assertive road position on the approach to the junction helps to keep “incidents” to a minimum.

Every single close pass is unpleasant, they happen often and the consequences of a close-pass-gone-wrong are serious, that’s why they’re such a big issue for most cyclists.

Thing is, since they reverted to machine Justice and there are no real policemen any more, this is just a token effort. Our roads have more and more traffic volume, but the ratio of officers to users has plummeted. But as long as you aren’t speeding, it’s all fine………

Why dont we all send the article to our local Police force, democratically elected Police and Crime Commissioner and see what they have to say?

The backlash could be in the form of critisim of cycles passing with little clearance when filtering past queues of vehicles.

It could, but it’s invalid. Physics. Drop an orange on a melon and see which comes off worst. Then drop a melon on an orange.

I’ve had this reply from Leics. Police, –
“Many thanks for your email and comments. I have forwarded this onto our corporate communications dept, who will hopefully be able to look into this with the relevant teams.”

I’d say close passes happen about 100 times more often than someone does something like the pull out shown in the photos on the blog. Flashing front lights and an assertive road position on the approach to the junction helps to keep “incidents” to a minimum.

Every single close pass is unpleasant, they happen often and the consequences of a close-pass-gone-wrong are serious, that’s why they’re such a big issue for most cyclists.

I think this reflects a difference in attitude between that WMP blog and the Hampshire Police letter. As common as close passes are the WMP are saying empirically that the bulk of accidents are happening not in close pass scenarios but at junctions. They’re saying that….. and then policing the drivers making close passes.

The problem with a close pass is, even if it rarely results in casualty, it puts the cyclist in genuine fear for their life.

You can hear from the way a driver is approaching that they’ve elected not to slow for you or give you room, you’re rarely surprised that a close pass has happened there’s just varying level of surprise as to just how close it was. The driver then drives on pretty much oblivious, they’ll have forgotten the encounter in a minute or so. The cyclist themselves has just had an experience of near catastrophe that they’ll carry with them for the rest of the journey and the rest of day at least.

Its fear and intimidation and I know from my own experience that police officers don’t like it if you frighten or intimidate them – they get a bit arrest-y about it – and there are plenty of circumstances where it a made clear that theres zero tolerance of threatening behaviour.

WMP seem to be (belatedly) applying that zero tolerance rhetoric to road users. It a great they’re at least saying that but its a shame that what they’re saying seems so novel. But it clearly stands in pretty strong contrast to Hampshire’s 95% tolerance approach.

As said above I think this is great and can barely believe it’s not fake. Does anyone know where the 1.5 m is measured from? – is it the end of your handlebar? , or midline of the bike?, or …

Well written blog there.

MCTD: The cause of most deaths or injuries isn’t close passes. It’s around junctions. But the main reason given as to why people are reluctant to take up cycling is that it’s viewed as dangerous. The close pass is something that can be seen regularly on any road, it’s an easy thing to us as a programme of education and or prosecution.

Here’s an exert from my comment posted on the blog:

An excellent article, well written and focusing on the issues I’ve witnessed as a commuting cyclist over the last 20 years.

Is this guidance available to all of the regions traffic officers?

I ask this from a personal perspective. I was the victim of a very close pass, very similar to the Team Sky bus incident that is doing the rounds on social media, on 8th September on the A438 in Hereford. A articluted tipper lorry passed me and closed the gap whilst along side because of the oncoming traffic. I had to brake hard and stop, otherwise I would have been user the trailers wheels. Further along the road I was stopped by a patrol car and was given advice by two officers about how to avoid dangerous situations whilst cycling.

I was advised to ride on the cycle path, it was actually the pavement, not a shared use path, pavement. I was advised to stay clear of HGVs, because they are dangerous. I did ask why I was being spoken to and not the driver of the tipper lorry, but that was seen as being arguementative.

I rode away before I lost my temper, not the right course of action, I should have taken the officers names and reported the incident. But under the circumstances I wasn’t thinking clearly. A very close pass and then victim blaming.

Before targeting the motorists of Birmingham with a long overdue education programme on vunerable road users, maybe get the traffic officers singing from the same hymn sheet.

Just a thought.

I think the close pass thing is an example of “survivorship bias”. Many experience it, it is genuinely frightening but doesn’t kill as often as junction pull outs. That said its a thing that puts people off cycling – both people just starting and those who ride a lot. So it is a real issue.

whoops – I think Bigblackshed is saying a similar thing to me….

+1 – both that they’re actually going to be taking some real positive action, and that they’ve recognised the asymmetry in terms of introducing danger to the roads and that enforcing laws against cyclists is a waste of resources if the aim is to make the roads safer – as I often bang on about.

I presume the reason they’re addressing close passes rather than incidents at junctions is that it’s a far easier issue to address as it happens a lot more, so they’ll catch lots of people doing it – not only that but they’ll catch people who do it all the time. Incidents at junctions are not only tough to catch, but also I suspect likely to be one offs – people pulling out and hitting cyclists have probably never pulled out in front of a cyclist before, and if there isn’t a cyclist there then there would be nothing wrong with the driving. The only way to address those would be to actually catch people in the act. I presume drivers are prosecuted in the aftermath, but with the close pass thing you’re catching repeat offenders and hopefully changing their ways.

Realistically, despite it not being the cause of most deaths, addressing resources at close passing is likely to improve road safety more than trying to catch drivers not seeing cyclists at junctions (if nothing else it should improve general cyclist awareness which might prevent some of those as a side effect).

Close passes and junctions are psychologically two different things: When someone pulls out from a junction without looking, it’s usually a genuine mistake (though this doesn’t lessen the danger, of course). Whereas close passes usually occur despite the driver having seen the cyclist – at best with a callous disregard for their wellbeing and at worst as some hateful punishment pass. I think the thing cyclists hate most is the irrational hatred of a small subset of car drivers, so close passes are always going to be emotive.

Interestingly, around where I live (Sheffield, near the Peak District boundary) there are loads of cyclists and I genuinely believe that most drivers are understanding – probably because there’s a higher proportion of drivers who are also cyclists (or at least know one). It’s sort of a critical mass thing – considerate driving breeds other considerate drivers.

As encouraging as the article is, I can’t help but think that the enforcement approach risks breeding more division between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Read it through twice.
Its a great , positive article.
One problem, or a potential one is time.
Commiting 2 officers to this project , lets be generous and say 1 8hr shift per week. They bimble around on bikes and when the rear one gets buzzed the front rider stops the driver and he gets a talking at using a folding tablecloth mat with roads drawn on it that a 4 year old might use toy cars on , or 3 points and a fine.
This floor mat chat is supposed to last 15 mins? I reckon I get a ‘within 1m’ pass every 5 – 10 mins , and where is this mat going to be , on the floor in the pouring rain,
If your going to do it , do it properly. Driver awareness course . 1/2 day off work and pay the £75 or whatever. Show the drivers some real life smashed to bits road bikes ,let the parents of a lad whos been killed by a driver being a **** have 15mins to try to explain the devastation.
Birmingham has a bad rep for some groups of people racing in modified high performance sports cars. Easier and more effective to police , and probably more likely to stop death on the roads.

I think the point about stopping the ‘close passers’ is that they are the people who are not taking enough care in their driving, hence they are also the most likely to not see cyclists at junctions, or take more risks at junctions.

I think the point about stopping the ‘close passers’ is that they are the people who are not taking enough care in their driving, hence they are also

Agreed, they could be waiting all day to see a driver cutting someone up at a juntion, but pulling close passers and having a stern word will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Far better use of police time, and far more drivers will be educated, and pass on their experiences to others. A surprisingly well thought out strategy.

The article is pretty clear to me. Stats show that close passes despite being far more numerous very rarely lead to serious incidents. Serious incidents are far more likely to happen at junctions, despite being far less frequent when they do occur they’re rarely pretty.

But they can’t ride around hoping to be knocked off at a junction to ‘catch’ motorists, instead they’re broadly correlating that drivers who don’t give cyclists the space when passing probably need a more forceful reminder to watch out harder for them, including at junctions.

The most positive parts for me are the acceptance that while some proportion of cyclists do break the law, jump lights, etc., the consequences are very rarely anything other than annoying. Hence it’s not a big issue for their resources. Not because it gets us off the hook but it answers the ‘but they break the law too!’ complaint.

And also the wise advice to cyclist particularly the ‘watch the wheels’ bit.

Been doing this in Australia ( i think) already.

I’ve had this reply from Leics. Police, –
“Many thanks for your email and comments. I have forwarded this onto our corporate communications dept, who will hopefully be able to look into this with the relevant teams.”

Most of Leics police chief officers are active on Twitter – @accleicspolice , @CCLeicsPolice (check out his profile pic for evidence that he is a cycle supporter).

This is also true of most police forces now – Twitter is a useful way of making contact. The CC of Hapshire is Olivia Pinkney @OPinkney for example!

I think the point about stopping the ‘close passers’ is that they are the people who are not taking enough care in their driving, hence they are also the most likely to not see cyclists at junctions, or take more risks at junctions.

Exactly my thoughts. The real problem is general carelessness and disregard for other peoples safety. And they’re basically saying it’s not going to be tolerated, which is exactly what we need. Same goes for fannying about on mobile phones, tailgating, etc. These are the things that need to be enforced, or people just become too comfortable living by their own rules.

I’m not sure the article says close passes are not a common factor in accidents though. Just that junctions are more common, which is predictable really. I’ve certainly heard of quite a few incidents where people have been hit from behind on the open road. And it’s undeniably dangerous when a car passes you at 70mph leaving no more than 12 inches of space. That is not acceptable at all.

This popped up on the Beeb today. Can only be good news.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37384899