hi all
when road riding I have taken to carrying at least one ride camera -either an Aldi rear light camera or a Xiaomi acton camera , which I find sufficient to record adverse events .
Like most road riders I have had a number of close and frightening passes ;on the occasions that I have submitted them to my local police force [operation spartan ] , I have had no response or feedback
The submission portal is generic -no distinction is made between incidents pertaining to oneself , and incidents observed involving others
I feel that I report occasions of assault not resulting in bodily harm ,and should have a personal response ; I appreciate that the police are incredibly busy ,esp with the current covid crisis ,but suspect that if the submission related to a non traffic/cyclist incident the the response would be different
One of these days a close pass will have me off causing injury and bike damage ;what are my options? I’m reluctant to complain and add to the police’s burden , but feel the matter needs to be reconsidered
Any constructive suggestions would be aprreciated
Cheers

Are police and crime commissioners still a thing?

The catch 22 is that for anything to change, you have to talk to someone who can actually influence things. This will mean it becoming a problem or extra workload for someone downstream.

Hmm.
Is this a thing for drivers using telephones too? Very keen to get as many of these caught, prosecuted and off the road as possible.
Given the fines associated with this one would assume that the time they spend dealing with it would be self-funding?
Also very cut-and-dried compared to close passes, which can be subjective, especially at the margins.

I had a phone call from Thames Valley Police saying they were going to send driver on an awareness course, Hampshire Police dont respond. I suppose you just have to hope they do something. You could call via 101 to enquire.

One of these days a close pass will have me off causing injury and bike damage ;what are my options?

Different scenario innit, the attending officer will take your statement, hopefully gather evidence, give you a crime number etc as an actual Victim rather than ‘just’ a concerned citizen reporting a near miss…

TBH I imagine the sheer volume* of shite driving video clips they must be getting is both overwhelming and earth shatteringly dull (*Assuming it’s proportionate to the number on YT)…
Dare I say it, the person who normally cares the most is the one who nearly got squashed, you’ll just find increasing levels of apathy the more you try to persuade the authorities to give a crap…

Video evidence gathering is only really of benefit when that actual event occurs and you need to demonstrate negligence/malice/fault…

Firstly good luck with getting anywhere. In Glasgow for many years there was little point reporting careless driving cases even when the resulted in a collision injury because they were pretty much always not proceeded with. Since they would be competing for limited court time with domestics, assaults, thefts, this may or may not be appropriate. Even with slight injury caused there was often no action taken. An example I was involved in was a driver that lost control on a bend due to excessive speed, skidded into the other lane and hit an oncoming car head on resulting in a trip to A and E for the occupants.

The driver’s defence was that the road was slippy because it was wet. Which it was. Every other driver that morning had managed to get round it though. The victims in the other car would have been good witnesses – a lawyer and his wife. Case sent to PF – marked No Proceedings.

There is an English barrister who is a cyclist and has blogged about the difficulty he has had getting any police action taken for bad driving.

Many of his posts are worth reading. He has a standard note regarding road positioning and safe overtaking distances he sends with any submission to the police.

https://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2016-03-09T14:42:00Z&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false

Seems that not much has changed in Glasgow. A local cyclist got as far as getting a case of bad driving to court before the PF dropped it on the day as not being in the public interest.

http://www.magnatom.net/2017/01/humble-pie-and-downright-lie.html

Hants police seem to have a policy of only acting if someone close-passes you twice. I guess this is because they know its extremely unlikely for the same 2 road users to meet again, but hey! it happened to me, and I caught it on video. They did try to track the van that did it, but it was unregistered and uninsured. Cool. So nothing happened, but they did phone me back and tell me anyway, so I like to think they would have acted if the van had been traceable.

Are police and crime commissioners still a thing?

They certainly are – I’m waiting for ours to emerge from lockdown for one of his pretty regular public meetings so I can suggest he reprioritise his resources towards the daily threats to my life when I cycle on the road

Doesn’t matter how many laws and rules are made the simple truth is that there isn’t a big enough police force and judicial system to manage them all.

I think the only way to police a lot of these traffic offences is to put as many cameras as they can out on the roads, even make it mandatory to require cameras on all motorised vehicles (could be part of a MOT). So any reports that are made of poor driving the police can then retrieve the camera and footage then issue an automatic fine of say £500. The cameras could also have gps technology in them so you’d only need a description of the vehicle, time and place of incident. Cost of cameras would be pushed onto the car owners (could be offset with cheaper insurance) and all the proceeds of fines goes to the people managing the whole scheme with any left over money going towards cycling infrastructure.

All company vehicles at my work already have trackers fitted.

Avon & Somerset are very good at following up and prosecuting.

Really variable, often needs pushing. At least according to the folk I follow on Twitter. Have a look at @MikeyCycling he’s a legend and has lots of good advice.

I assume you are in North Yorkshire unless Op Spartan is used in other places. If so, try an email to OpSpartan@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk asking for an update. They normally reply if you ask but won’t contact you otherwise. In my experience the most they will do is send a letter to the registered keeper saying how naughty they were and not to do it again as they will keep it on record for 11 months. They don’t even check to see who was driving so it’s of no use at all.

At least the recently updated website actually asks for your contact details, but only if you have a video as that is now done via Nextbase. The old report form (that is still used with no video) has nowhere to put your contact details so they couldn’t get back to you even if they wanted – a total waste of time and clearly done to meet some stat or another. I am close to putting in a FOI request and contacting the PCC after 2 recent nasty incidents that resulted in no action. Good luck.

Many thanks for all of the contributions so far , which have been helpful and thought provoking
I’ve written to the Police Comissioner and suspect that the MP may be due a similar missive

@ginkster -yes N Yorkshire-although I think that spartan includes a couple of other forces
Would you be willing to share the outcome of the FOI application?

I looked at the cycling lawyer reference- I’m not sure whether including similar details would affect credibility of each report or not, although I can see why he might do that

The observation regarding rules/coppers etc is salient- we are policed by consent here and I realise that we need a change in general perception, similar to seatbelts or drunk driving

Stay safe out there!

Would you be willing to share the outcome of the FOI application?

Of course, no problem. If I ever get around to it or anywhere with it! Letter to MP is a great idea too.