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news
C3FT close pass measurement deviceCyclist accuses police of ignoring close pass video footage
A cyclist has accused police of failing to act after a driver passed him so close he claims he was almost knocked off his bike.
Simon Keen approached road.cc with two videos of drivers coming dangerously close to him on one commute in September, in Batford, Harpenden.
He alleges when he sent the footage to Hertfordshire Police with his concerns, they told him they won’t prosecute or educate drivers unless someone is injured. Road.cc has contacted Hertfordshire police to confirm or deny this, but the approach would be in stark contrast with a recent West Midlands Police initiative to prosecute close passing drivers in an innovative close pass initiative.
Cycling UK lauds West Midlands Police’s new close-pass initiative
Keen described the second of two close passes a “very close shave, with a car overtaking me at night approaching a blind bend and almost hitting me and an oncoming car.”
He says: “Having reported this to Hertfordshire police, which in itself was a challenge, I have been told that neither Herts police nor Bedfordshire police (where I live) will prosecute or even have a word with drivers.
“They will not consider videos as providing any evidence and will only get involved if someone is hurt,” he said.
Keen’s two close passes can be seen in the following videos. In the first instance a driver pulls out of a side road as Keen passes, which he says felt like the driver was driving directly at him. In the second incident, a different driver attempted to overtake Keen on a blind bend, with oncoming vehicles.
Warning: video below contains swearing.
He describes the incident in an email to police, seen by road.cc.
He said: “The driver had had time to overtake me when the road was clear and also made no attempt to pass me with any clearance. This incident was far worse as he only just missed me.”
Keen says it is unlikely the two drivers didn’t see him, as his bike had bright lights front and rear, as well as a Fly6 with flashing red light on the rear, he was wearing a white cycling jersey and reflective backpack, with reflective paint on his tyres and saddle bag.
Police in Camden, North London, are undertaking a similar decoy close pass initiative as West Midlands, and today sent a driver for prosecution for passing within six inches of one of their officers.
Whilst we try & educate people first when you give me 6" passing room then jump a red light expect my officers to send you to court. pic.twitter.com/Hup404MrTC
— Sgt Clarke (@MPSCamdenTnSgt) 29 September 2016
Over the summer Hertfordshire police did a crackdown on pavement cycling in Baldock and Letchworth.
Sergeant Alan Clarke, of the Letchworth and Baldock safer neighbourhood team, said: "We have had increasing reports of people, predominantly adults and teenagers, cycling on pavements."
"Cycling on pavements is dangerous, anti-social and unpopular with cyclists who obey the rules of the road - as well as pedestrians who have to negotiate bikes using the pavement."
"This kind of behaviour is unacceptable, frequently causes collisions and can be very intimidating for people trying to use the footpath."
It is unclear whether anyone had been injured by pavement cycling.
We will update the article when we hear from Hertfordshire Police.
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85 comments
They're a moton troll: they registered as 'Applecart' to post balls that they probably believe.
I do have some 'sympathy' for the invisibility of cyclists.*
However, the argument of 'stay well left/out of the way/ride defensively' put forward by the likes of Applecart, L.Willo and every other moton apologist who thinks, because they have a bike, that they can educate cyclists, collapses there (and many other areas, to be fair).
The argument that drivers can't see you calls for making yourself more visible and obvious, and do exactly the opposite of sheepishly hiding in the kerb, trying not to inconvenience our motorist masters. It's exactly the sort of contradictory bilge spouted by people like this who are twats first, drivers second, and cyclists when they've had their driving licence revoked.
* http://road.cc/content/news/81753-invisible-cyclists-eye-tracking-experi...
I've seen the RAF pilot quoted here and his arguments referred to a lot too...
http://road.cc/content/feature/159493-trend-spotting-should-we-all-be-us...
I have had 5 interactions with Hertfordshire Police in 20 years of living and working in the county: A missing child, assisting at first response to an attempted suicide, first response at a serious road traffic accident, complaint about kids with airguns, and 1 complaint about behaviour of another road user. In each situation they have been proactive, professional and prompt to respond. With regard to my 2 complaints, they took them seriously and took what I consider to be the appropriate action.
I guess it depends on luck with who you get, what your expectations are and your own ability to treat professionals with respect. To accept their judgement as to how to deal with your complaint based on their training, experience, available resource and options as to appropriate course of action.
Seeing the way some people interact with authority, it's not really surprising that they get short shrift as time wasters.
Just remembered another. Friendly advice about road safety at the start of motorcycle season, free tea a safety video and chat with Police riders that was actually half an hour well spent.
Applecart, sorry, but you are completely wrong.
I have been cycling for over 30 years; I've done and ridden just about everything, including 12 years in London, some of it as a cycle and motorcycle courier.
I am a cycle guide with my own tour company.
What you are advocating is, in my opinion, dangerous and incorrect.
What has saved me from accidents is defensive riding, where you assert yourself and take a primary position on the road. This does not mean obstructing cars, but making them aware that you are there and have a right to be there.
Riding tight to the kerb is asking for trouble. You have nowhere to go if there's a super close pass. I always leave a margin for safety.
Yes, assume drivers haven't seen you, but when they do pull out on you, don't expect me to apologise and send them flowers. THEY are the ones in a 1.5 tonne hunk of metal that can kill you. THEY are the ones that should be extra careful not to kill a fellow human being. The level of driving skill and awareness is shockingly poor and needs to be brought to everyone's attention. If that's by multiple close pass / pull out videos then so be it.
PSNI also did not do anything when given video footage of a driver who went straight on in a right turn only lane and skimmed me by no more than a couple of inches.
Apart from being hit, this is my closest call.
The only solution I have found in Belfast city traffic is to ride in the middle of the lane and take control to stop forced overtakes by dickheads. Most of the time, I move faster than the cars, so they hold me up.
The only Police Force that seem to be stepping up to the mark and (reportedly) doing their duty to protect the vulnerable are the West Midlands, with their close pass overtaking policy. See how this progresses, but good on them.
Police Scotland can't even be arsed doing anything even when someone is badly injured,they would of likely done cyclist for wasting police time
Blimey, I've stirred up a hornet's nest here! If your life revolves around raging at people with cameras on your helmets for not giving you space and watching videos of other people doing that on the internet, you're a nob. Try giving people the benefit of the doubt and you'll enjoy cycling, as well as your life a lot more.
As for people rubbishing what I've said, the two key issues are:
1. visibility (drivers don't see you)
2. speed (drivers under-estimate cyclists' speed, and cyclists over-estimate drivers')
Both points are fully backed-up by research. If you keep these in mind you'll be a hell of a lot safer. I'm not saying drivers don't need education too, but you need to also control your behaviour and stop raging at people as it makes us all look like sad twats. Enjoy cycling folks and stay safe, please.
Are you saying that cyclists' behaviour is a significant factor in cyclist KSIs?
- If you are, you're wrong. No research will back that up. Look up causes of cyclist KSIs - govt and RoSPA figures.
- If you're not, then you must accept that you're arguing a trivial point - that cyclist behaviour is largely irrelevant to the type of driver behaviour that really matters (ie that which leads to cyclist KSIs).
I think there is a vaild point here to be fair... cycling behavious is not the cause in the majority of cyclist KSI's, the fault sits with the driver in an overwhelming majority of cases. However, cycling behavious can and does affect the exposure / vulnerability of cyclists to poor standards of driving.
And actually... ranting and raving gets you no where... it doesn't make the driver go... "oh woops, I think I got it wrong there, that cyclist is right, I'll take greater care next time"
It makes them think... "cyclists... dicks"
The right answer is providing controlled feedback when possible... not saying thats what I do... that I don't pull out the obsenities from time to time, but really, the only chance of positive change, is positive, constructive discussion.
As epitomised by Chris Boardman - totally agree we need that. We're not in the promised land yet, though, are we? 'Drivers' and authorities aren't showing that many signs of listening, are they?
In the meantime, some progress on prosecution (W Mids police) and fear of being filmed or abused by gobby/punchy cyclists might not be a bad thing.
Yes, you got it. I would go further and say that, as drivers are usually at fault we need to be even more careful not to antagonise people and to pre-empt accidents by following the general rule that: everybody is blind to cyclists and cannot judge speed. You'll probably live longer.
At least someone gets what I'm saying: ie. steaming along in the middle of the road with a camera on your head shouting at drivers and making signs is not going to help anyone, it just creates bad feeling.
"She provoked him, your honour. She deserved it. If she hadn't antagonised him, it would never have happened."
Yes, I'm saying cyclists' behaviour is as much a factor. I've looked at the stats and the main cause is "didn't look properly" and it's about 57-43 drivers vs cyclists fault at junctions this backs up my assertion of "I didn't see him", but also that cyclists can be equally careless.
Looking at a Guardian article from 15.12.2009, it says that collisions are attributed solely to the driver 60-75% of the time. My point therefore is, as it is so incredibly risky sharing the road with cars, don't take any kind of risk as a cyclist. This means: never assume somebody has seen you, assessed your speed correctly, or will give you space as the potential cost of this is your life. If you bear that in mind you have a lot less to get angry about..
This is exactly the sort of nonsense argument we used to have with L.Willo. Yes, I could stop every time I'm not certain someone has seen me, but I've got places to be. I can't take 2 hours to get to work because I'm stopping every time I see another car.
[/quote]
This is exactly the sort of nonsense argument we used to have with L.Willo. Yes, I could stop every time I'm not certain someone has seen me, but I've got places to be. I can't take 2 hours to get to work because I'm stopping every time I see another car.
[/quote]
I'm not talking about stopping. My commute right now is 5k on a cycle path so I'm lucky, however I used to cycle 25 miles Weston-Super-Mare to Bristol, or 11 miles Clevedon to Bristol for work regularly on A, B and country roads and never had any problems. You just have to be careful around junctions - always presume they haven't seen you. That either means gunning it so you're past the cars before they can decide to turn, or feathering the brakes well in advance so you never put yourself inbetween a car and a left turn. This helps you to not die, which is good.
Proven not to be the case, studies have shown passing distances unchanged unless the cyclist where a vest marked "Police" or "Polite" in which case they are fine, they see you but they don't care unless they think the police are watching.
I don't agree.
This constant reporting of incidents on social media is making the problems worse in my experience. It's polarising attitudes to cyclists.
By George, I think you're onto something!
Fook the root cause analysis: all you need now are some stats that show that the numbers of cyclists killed and seriously injured on the road has proportionally increased since social media - they shouldn't be hard to find!
watched the video, no issues withh the guy pulling out.
cyclist probably neededs a better headlight to ride on unlit roads
finally got to the close pass after a long period of nothing, crazy close can't be defended.
I get what you mean about the first one but when someone does that to you there is always a heart in mouth moment when you aren't sure if they have seen you or not, so I can understand him calling the guy a tosser. Probably wouldn't have posted the video if the second, worse one wasn't on the same bit of video.
How dare I have an opion that isn't the same as yours!
(insert expletive here)
Cretins.
I don't even know what an "opion" is. (Some kind of onion?)
I just don't see how using a camera (or two) is antagonising car drivers. You may be confusing cause and effect here - maybe the increase in driver aggression is causing more cyclists to consider getting cameras to provide evidence in case of a collision. That's what prompted my purchase of Fly6 and Fly12 cameras.
Just pointing a camera at a public road should not be a bone of contention. If you're driving along normally, then what's the problem? It's only the reckless and feckless drivers that should have any concern that they're being filmed and being on a public road means that there's no expectation of privacy (despite all those car drivers who pick their noses thinking that no-one's watching).
In the reverse case, I don't think cyclists object to car dash-cams and protest that the motorists are making it a "them-and-us" scenario. Likewise, motorcyclists have been using video cameras for a while and I don't think people consider them to be divisive.
The simple truth is that a camera shows objectively (albeit from a single view-point) what was happening and is useful if there's any need to provide evidence. Otherwise, you just have an argument from different onions.
@ Drosco, How on earth does carrying a camera create a them and us scenario?
The camera just records what is happening and in the unlikely event of an incident it cuts thru' the "He said.." "She said.." nonsense.
I will accept that cameras positively affect behaviour if people know that they are being filmed, as witnessed this week when it was reported that Police wearing body cameras saw a 93% reduction in complaints.
But again I cannot see how would create a them and us situation either.
Fine, people can do what they want, but it does create a them and us, which impacts on all cyclists, not only those who choose to use cameras.
Personally, if I was so obsessed with getting killed riding a bike everyday that I felt the need to wear a camera to record my demise, I probably would be riding at all.
Cycling community wanker.
I was knocked off my bike bike twice last year by two drivers. One turned right and drove into me as I was passing a junction, the other pulled out of a left hand junction and knocked me across the road into oncoming traffic. I had first one then the other collar bone broken. The response from both South Wales and West Mercia police was tough tits no action against the drivers is necessary.
So yes I now have a Fly 6 cam and a helmet cam. If a driver can see he's being recorded he might, just might, watch his own behaviour.
I'm really sorry that happened to you. I don't however think that having a camera will make someone less likely to hit you because if they have time to clock you with a camera, they certainly have time to not drive into you and potentially commit manslaughter. If it makes you feel safer though so be it. I would always presume that they haven't seen me though.
Drivers squash cyclists.
Drivers drive aggressively around cyclists.
In response:
Cyclists wear helmets.
Cyclists wear cameras to record driver behaviour.
And the cause of the 'them and us'? The camera wearers...
drosco - go and sit in the corner and think about what you've done.
I ride with a camera incase the worst happens and hopefully there wil be some evidence and that will give my family some peace of mind.
Only once ive sent a video clip to a company because the driving fell far bellow the poor standards Ive come to expect.
I commute 5000 miles a year by bike. I see my fair share of bad driving, but don't feel the need to get a camera. I fact I'm sick of cameras intruding into every aspect of daily life.
Do I feel any safer and notice anyone driving better now that people are videoing rides and sending them to the police - NO.
Do I get more abuse from drivers who see cyclists as the enemy - YES.
Each to their own. Personally I use a camera so there is evidence if I'm injured or killed by the driver of a vehicle. I want my family to have some way of seeing justice done, and hopefully to avoid unnecessary hardship.
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