It wasn’t a stationary vehicle though, it was moving, far too closely to a person on a bike.

This is part of the problem cyclists face, people equate “you thumped my van” with “you nearly killed me with your driving”. They aren’t remotely equal. No cyclist has ever hurt a van driver by banging on their van.

Drivers worry about being inconvenienced by cyclists. Cyclists worry about being killed by drivers

+1

Being a cyclist does not makes us above the law because we are more vulnerable. Thumping a stationary vehicle will always elicit a response. If you and others cannot see that this may not go down all that well with the police then it is clearly a waste of my time trying to explain it to you

What a lot of bollocks. Get some perspective. Really.

Exactly how strong are you? Even when I was in my peak condition and training in martial arts 5 times a week I very much doubt I would even be able to make a mark on a moving vehicle.

I could probably dent a car if I stopped, got off the bike, set my stance, and punched the centre of a panel. Fairly good chance I’d bust my hand though.

So, if we can assume we are not damaging property, exactly what law are we breaking by banging on a car?

Read the thread mate, he hit the van again in anger while it was stopped. Vans especially are easy to dent. If you can’t dent one as a grown adult I’d be surprised.

It wasn’t a stationary vehicle though, it was moving, far too closely to a person on a bike.

Again, wrong. Read the thread ffs.

I thumped the side of his van, partly instinctive “fending off” partly angry, yes I know I probably shouldn’t have. Anyway, he stops,

Sounds like he stops the van afterwards to me. You don’t “fend off” a stationary vehicle.

Re. the thumping:
I think I banged twice, once when he squeezed past and again as we stopped. 2nd one anger/adrenaline and yes probably shouldn’t have happened.

I’m going to sign out of this discussion now, too many people who can’t read. A waste of resources.

Read the thread mate

I did. I didn’t say anything that indicated I hadn’t. Maybe you should have read my reply.

I’m going to sign out of this discussion now, too many people who can’t read. A waste of resources.

I think you’re signing out because you’re talking bollocks and everyone has called you on it but whatever.

he hit the van again in anger while it was stopped.

What made him angry?

Vans especially are easy to dent.

Shame they don’t get punched more often then. Porr ickle vannywans

Even if it’s stopped after the first thump, thumping the side of the van will alert the driver in case you’re in the blindspot and he is attempting to park….

It’s not like the op caved the side of the van in with a D Lock and ripped the mirror off.

As far as I’m concerned as a company van driver, if you’re close enough to thump it whilst moving, he’s assulted your fist with his 3 tons of van.

Re. the thumping:
I think I banged twice, once when he squeezed past and again as we stopped. 2nd one anger/adrenaline and yes probably shouldn’t have happened.

I’m going to sign out of this discussion now, too many people who can’t read. A waste of resources.

You probably won’t read this in that case, but the regardless of whether he hit the vehicle once or twice while moving or not won’t affect the Police’s view on the earlier incident (dangerous driving) or the latter anti-semetic insult. Many years ago a driver ended up in court after an incident with me and tried to use a similar defence that the starting point was me damaging their wing mirror (I didn’t as witnesses testified). They still ended up in court and were sentenced to a suspended sentence.

If you and others cannot see that this may not go down all that well with the police then it is clearly a waste of my time trying to explain it to you.

Good, now shut up.

Would it be appropriate to ask whether you are Jewish? If you are not, I’m not sure how the police would actually handle misdirected hate speech.

Certainly in Scotland it would make no difference whether the complainer was or was not actually Jewish to the decision to prosecute or the religious aggravation being added to the complaint. Consider for a moment an Indian who gets called a “**** Bastard” – clearly, there is a racial aggravation but the complainer is not Pakistani. Similar tests have been applied to homophobic, religious hatred too. The potential impact on the victim is something which the court can (should) take into account when sentencing, and obviously there will be a different impact where the abuse is targetted at a person’s protected characteristic rather than just general abuse.

Drivers worry about being inconvenienced by cyclists. Cyclists worry about being killed by drivers

I think this would be the basis of quite a good campaign to raise awareness of the difference in perspective.

Happy to accept whatever the police see fit to give me for the thump on the van.

My wife just phoned and said police just showed up at the door to talk to me! I’m at work, odd they didn’t call first. They’ll pop round again this evening, apparently they want to ask me what I want to do about it, go to court or whatever.
I dunno! How can I say “throw the book at him” without it sounding like I just want revenge? Which is not the case.

Not revenge, but the guy clearly needs to be stopped, imagine how anyone would feel if it was their kid/wife/some guy they know from the pub.
There is absolutely no need for it.

How can I say “throw the book at him” without it sounding like I just want revenge?

‘WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!!’

Or words to that effect.

Are they really leaving the decision whether to prosecute with you?

If it were me I’d be keen to try to prevent this **** doing the same thing to other cyclists.

Probably has before actually, but you’ve likely been the first with a camera running.

So do it for the rest of us, please.

< I dunno! How can I say “throw the book at him” without it sounding like I just want revenge? Which is not the case. >

Ask them to take the action they would do, if they had been following behind and seen it themselves.

apparently they want to ask me what I want to do about it

“I’d like you to flamethrower the bastard and then torch its nest.”

So do it for the rest of us, please.

Indeed.

My answer would be that he committed two crimes, and you have video evidence of both. I’d love to see that driver end up with a driving ban + road rage re-education.

I don’t know if the police have mandatory targets for hate crime investigations these days. But any any rate I suspect the police are more motivated about the hate crime aspect (which is clearly important) and less interested in the dangerous driving whereas my priorities would be the other way around.

Good luck. Expect a lengthy process though. Don’t rush into anything if you’re not sure.

They gave me a similar choice when I reported the guy who grabbed me around the throat, basically said there’s little chance of much happening without any video/CCTV etc.

So I reluctantly let it go providing they pop round and give him a round of *****

Obviously your case is different!

Being a cyclist does not makes us above the law because we are more vulnerable. Thumping a stationary vehicle will always elicit a response. If you and others cannot see that this may not go down all that well with the police then it is clearly a waste of my time trying to explain it to you.

WTF? That’s all bollocks. Eliciting a response is the primary reason that I’ve done this in the past to let the clueless **** driving know there is a squishy human about three inches away. What do you do? Just politely say “excuse me good sir you appear to be attempting to kill me with your van. Please refrain from doing so”

I’ve done the same to stationary vehicles after the event too. Once I even (and you won’t believe this) broke a wing mirror with my elbow. This was after the driver clipped my bars causing the end cap to break. Seemed like an appropriate response. You break my sticky out bit and narrowly avoid injuring me so I’ll break your sticky out bit, see how you like it!

The ‘Jewish ****’ thing might be related to the area you were in – guessing you probably already know, but there’s a large Jewish community around there (might be the largest in Europe, not sure). All the more reason to make sure the police do something about him, angry anti-semites who can’t drive but regularly go through areas with lots of Jewish people is probably a bad combination.

Ignoring all the pish and drivel

Good to hear that the police turned up and are interested

OP. Please push the police to prosecute as much as you can.

Please.

.

Ask them to take the action they would do, if they had been following behind and seen it themselves.

👍👍

My wife just phoned and said police just showed up at the door to talk to me! I’m at work, odd they didn’t call first. They’ll pop round again this evening, apparently they want to ask me what I want to do about it, go to court or whatever.
I dunno! How can I say “throw the book at him” without it sounding like I just want revenge? Which is not the case.

I assume they were actually coming to take a formal statement? The problem with calling and making an appointment is if they are on their way to meet you and a 999 comes in, or they see some idiot driver they then end up turning up an hour late for you – sometimes better to act when they are in the area and quiet.

As for how you say “throw the book at him” – I’d say:

“if he keeps driving like that and nobody does anything, one day he’s going to have serious accident and I wouldn’t want it on my conscience that if I’d spoken up it could have been prevented” and “he’s clearly got some sort of anger issue and religious hatred – I don’t know how society solves that, but its certainly not be ignoring it”.

Now the question might be what are your views on non-court based resolutions. e.g. a driving course, a written apology and some group anger management sessions? v’s drag him in front of the magistrates, you potentially having to give evidence, and then the magistrates having fairly limited option, e.g. careless driving probably gets him a handful of points not a ban (unless the video is compelling), and a fine.

If you don’t like the idea of those then just say to the police that, you think it sends the wrong message, and that not adding points to his license means he’s no closer to being kept off the roads than today, and that standing in the dock will do as much for making him think about his behaviour as any counselling. That may or may not be true, but the cops aren’t likely to argue with you.

BUT beware, the courts were creaking before Covid and have a massive backlog now – so if you do decide court is they way, and he pleads not guilty (and when you see what I am about to say you’ll see why a defence solicitor might suggest its worth doing):
1. The trial will probably not happen until 2022!
2. There are numerous opportunities for an underfunded crown prosecution service to screw up along the way and the case be kicked out of court.
3. There are numerous things that can legitimately go wrong and cause further delay – covid outbreaks, staff sickness (defence, prosecution, court), witness sickness/absence, legal aid funding, the outcome of some other trial etc., cctv system not working on the day, currently a defendant simply has to say they have a cought/temperature and they don’t have to turn up!
4. There’s probably a 50% chance that if you do get to a trial and are sitting in the witness room that after hours of hanging around it gets rescheduled.
5. After all that they might be found not-guilty.

So I reluctantly let it go providing they pop round and give him a round of *****

Applause??

Frozen cumberlands?

Update:

Several months of faffing at first because they couldn’t view any videos I sent them, regardless of format, then they kept missing me due to coming round while I was at work, away etc, with few weeks between each contact… anyway eventually the policeman showed up and watched the video on my PC.

He then went off and got the name and address from the company.
Cue another couple of months during which he tried knocking on the door a couple of times, no one home, no response (by mail) from the landlord.

I just got an update yesterday saying someone finally answered the door, it’s a Polish family who’s been living there only 2 months, no idea where the van driver’s gone and as the police only have the name and (old) address, no date of birth or anything, there’s no further lines of enquiry and the case is now suspended pending any new leads.

Bit of an anti-climax following all that!
It seems fairly obvious to me to go back to the company and get more details. He quite possibly even still works there. Or chase the landlord for more details. Maybe the police point of view is simply that they’re wasted enough time on this fairly minor case.

Anyway. What now?
Point this out and ask the police to continue?
Ask for his name and stalk him on social media, sausages at the ready?
Give up on the police, take it up with the company?
Give up on the whole thing?
Plaster the video all over youtube?

post it on YouTube. Case is suspended. you might even get some new leads from that video.

Stick it up on Youtube and link it the company’s Twitter. Police are gonna do **** all now, and probably because the company didn’t give them enough details in the first place on purpose….

Police should have demanded more details though!

What’s the company name?

Name

Name and shame the company, video on Youtube, then send the video link to the local press.

Youtube it
Then email all the big wigs at the company with a link
And link it on here

Email the transport / fleet manager the YouTube link. Cc local news. They will know exactly who was driving. They must keep records.

The company will 100% know whom the driver is, it’s a legal requirement.

I drive a van part time…..if I acted like that, I’d expect to be sacked.

The company will 100% know whom the driver is, it’s a legal requirement.

mmm… my company know my address, but lots of people move without telling them. Its unlikely they don’t have their DoB though if they are/were on payroll, and most driving jobs will have a copy of the driving license they could have provided. However, an incredible number of people don’t update DVLA when they change the address so tracing someone could be quite an effort if they are no longer at the company.

In general, there’s a 6 month time limit for prosecuting most minor RT offences (there are special cases when this can be “extended” but it’s unlikely this is going to end up in this camp).

It wouldn’t be outrageous to post in youtube – but it feels to me like you should allow the company to respond in some way – e.g. perhaps they’ve already fired him? perhaps he’s left the company before it came to their attention.