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Portsmouth launches near-miss reporting web page for cyclists

Council hopes to gain clearer picture of where cycling incidents occur

Portsmouth City Council has added an online tool to its website allowing cyclists to record near misses. The News reports that the information gathered will be used to influence future road improvement plans.

The tool, which can be found here, is being trialled until the end of August.

The page states: “Examples of a near miss are, being passed too close, another vehicle pulling in or out across a cyclist’s path, being driven at, and a near left or right hook. This list is not exhaustive however, and what qualifies as a near miss may differ from one cyclist to another – depending on experience and level of confidence. We encourage you to report any incident you feel was a near miss.”

Councillor Simon Bosher, Portsmouth’s cabinet member for traffic and transportation, said: “We believe we are one of the first local authorities in England to encourage and enable cyclists to report near-misses in this way so we are interested to see how the new system is used.

“We all have a duty of care to look out for each other. As the highways authority we are committed to making Portsmouth’s roads safer for cyclists and reduce the number of collisions. Our near-miss system will support our work while empowering cyclists to take action themselves by reporting a near miss.”

Ian Saunders, the chairman of the Portsmouth Cycle Forum, commented: “This will absolutely help to improve cycle safety in Portsmouth. This could have a big knock-on effect on the way the council prioritises future improvements.

“There are so many near-misses that simply go unreported because they are not accidents and there are no serious injuries. This new system will now collect all that missed data and help make Portsmouth’s roads safer.”

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6 comments

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zabdiel | 6 years ago
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There's also https://closepass.cc which allows people to record cost passes anywhere in the country. I think it was created by someone from Portsmouth.

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Beecho | 6 years ago
1 like

I’ve ridden into Portsmouth once. Gonna be a lot a footage submitted.

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Pushing50 replied to Beecho | 6 years ago
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Beecho wrote:

I’ve ridden into Portsmouth once. Gonna be a lot a footage submitted.

I live in Portsmouth and have used this virtually every day since it's  inception. I have not seen it widely advertised in the area media though. It is also just a reporting form format and no video evidence can be submitted. Some of the questions are:

Was it deliberate/not deliberate?

On a scale of 0-3 how scary was it?

On a scale of 0-3 how dangerous was it?

A scale up to 3 does not seem that much of a scale to me. If I am run into the gutter, or a vehicle encroaches into the cycle lane, or a near head on collision because of a. drivers cutting right hand turns at junctions b. cars parked on double yellows, then this is more than just a flipping 3!

Bloody dangerous place to ride and the infra sucks. This reporting form is required for the city but as per the comment above, who is going to analyse the data and do anything about it? Drivers need education and most are unwilling to listen. 

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mdavidford replied to Pushing50 | 5 years ago
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Pushing50 wrote:

A scale up to 3 does not seem that much of a scale to me. If I am run into the gutter, or a vehicle encroaches into the cycle lane, or a near head on collision because of a. drivers cutting right hand turns at junctions b. cars parked on double yellows, then this is more than just a flipping 3!

Yep - it needs to go up to 11.

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gmac101 | 6 years ago
2 likes

It’s a lovely idea but who is reviewing the data, drawing conclusions, planning any changes and is there a budget to deliver any modifications to the infrastructure?

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Stef Marazzi | 6 years ago
1 like

It's important to have this data then easily accessible. Avon & Somerset Police have been capturing similar data for two years but you have to write to them especially to find what's happened in certain roads you are interested in. If this kind of thing was more easily accessible by the public, councils, infrastructure planners etc, it would help target areas for improvement with a lot more "proof".

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