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news
Near Miss of the Day 383: six points and £660 fine for failure to nominate driver
Today’s near miss resulted in points and a fine – albeit not for the incident itself. When the registered keeper of the van involved was contacted by police, they failed to name the driver and the matter went to court.
The incident happened in May 2019 in Surbiton.
Mitch said: “As I neared the top of the hill, I was passed by a bus. I felt the bus was a bit close to me as it pulled in at the end of passing, but it wasn't bad enough that I was going to report it. Following the bus was a white van that got really close.”
Mitch reported the incident to the police that day and they issue a notice of intended prosecution. However, the registered keeper declined to name the driver and this is the matter that went to court.
The vehicle’s owner failed to attend and was fined £660 in their absence with £100 in costs and a victim surcharge of £66. They also received six penalty points on their driving licence.
Mitch suffered another close pass within a few days of this one, just 100 metres away (the second of these two videos). He points out that in that instance, the driver was identified and merely went on a driver improvement course.
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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22 comments
I have a simple suggestion for making it more unappealing for people who fail to nominate..... The CPS should make it such that in the case of a failure to nominate the registered keeper of the vehicle gets a penalty equivalent to the maximum possible penalty for the driving offence as the failure to notify penalty, plus the penalty for the actual driving offence.
So for a category A careless driving offence they would get 4 penalty points plus 75% of their weekly income as the failure to notify penalty, plus whatever penalty the driver would receive for the actual driving offence.
For a category C careless driving offence they would get 9 points plus 175% of weekly income fine for failure to notify plus the driving offence penalty.
If you make the penalties for failure to notify so penal people won't have the desire to not notify the police as to who the driver was.
There was plenty of opportunity for the van's wing mirrors to fall off, or ninja rocks to hit the side windows there.
I think the fine and points should be increased for the displaying of the "blind spot warning" sticker.
Failure to nominate the driver of a commercial vehicle should result in a court order to stop the company from operating until they do.
'Commercial vehicle'?
Mate, they were jobbing builders
Was the driver wearing a disguise or was it too much effort to interview him ?
You've not grasped it. The driver was not identified or traced.
That's why the registered keeper of the van was convicted of the alternative offence.
Keep up please!
I'm not familiar with your posts, so I'll give give you the benefit of the doubt that that was an attempt at humour.
No. Just correcting your obvious misunderstanding of how the criminal justice system works in these modern times.
And you thought you'd do this by introducing material that is not in the article.
And I didn't misunderstand anything.
I didn't think that it was great footage of the driver (in the circumstances I wouldn't have wanted to get too close either).
Easy option for the police; send out NIP to registered keeper of the van, then send out forms requiring disclosure of who was driving at the time (might have been sent out with the NIP). No response, so submit prosecution file for decision. No interviews, no faffing about with video evidence, in theory only a short witness statement required from the oic.
I just hope that the courts can trace the defendant…
How could the driver be interviewed when the van's owner refused to reveal who the driver was? Short of the police launching a public identification appeal using this not terribly good imagery I fail to see how this could be achieved.
They could interview the owner. Perhaps the owner and the driver were the same. Perhaps the question "do you recognise this member of staff/family " may have resulted in an answer or very awkward silence.
It's not like a FPN for speeding where you may not know which of you was driving.
Yet again, that was dangerous driving, and the sooner our laughingly named "justice" system aligns with reality the better. Failure to name the driver in such instances should result in much heavier punishment e.g. confiscation of the vehicle.
Never mind, government review of road crimes etc, etc.
Isn't the problem the whole definition based on "below the average" and "insanely below the average"? There are a lot of bad drivers out there on our roads, and they keep moving the bar...
it's worse than that, because in a jury of 12 drivers half of them will be below average, but you need to get 10 of them to convict, so the barrier becomes, worse than 84% of drivers.
The relevant standard is actually that of "a competent and careful driver" (not the average). But you're right that a jury will apply that objective standard subjectively and have a view on what "a competent and careful driver" would do, so it amounts to about the same thing.
Isn't it something like 85-90% of motorists believe that they are of average skill level or better? (I may have made those numbers up).
So, yes, you and wycombewheeler are both correct in that the chances of an "average" jury of "average" motorists is that they will almost never convict a fellow motorist.
Exactly. If the registered keeper is not prepared to take responsablility for their own use of the vehicle or disclose the driver if not themself then they should not be allowed to keep any vehicle, or for that matter hold a driving licence.
Let's suppose the vehicle in question was involved in a hit and run resulting in a death. What's to stop the registered keeper refusing to disclose the driver?
After this one, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-35472617
I have a jaundiced view of police action.
This one wasn't much better.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-39385809
To be fair to the police, they did all they could in both those cases. It was the CPS that dropped the charges, as the evidence wasn't enough to secure a conviction.
You have to be lucky if you've only got the car registration, that the vehicle owner admits they were driving. If they get awkward, or it's a stolen vehicle etc., you are going to struggle to prove who was driving.
So, trying to get a mugshot is quite important.
Yes, should have said cps.
Still a pathetic fine in either case for which really is perverting the course of justice.
And in this story, can the owner really not say who was driving from the footage?