“This is why we ride in primary position”: “Impatient” driver tries to pass mum and daughter cycling with oncoming traffic; When Jeremy Vine met Greg James; Pidcock brushes off Ineos Tour de France rivalry as “Netflix drama” + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Teenage motorist who hit and killed cyclist two months after passing test banned from driving for a year, ordered to complete 180 hours unpaid work, and fined £240
An “inexperienced” teenage motorist who pulled out of a junction and fatally struck a cyclist, just two months after passing his driving test, has avoided jail, and has instead been banned from driving for a year and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to causing the cyclist’s death by careless driving.
The most iconic trio you said?
As they say, this photo lives rent-free in my head…
https://t.co/2bgCtBbsSa pic.twitter.com/0rTOH4RnlG
— janina (@jeanine______) June 26, 2024
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Tour de France squad (+ tactics leaked?)
If you can’t already tell, I haven’t slept well last night knowing the fact that I’ll have to see the Red Bull livery on a cycling team’s kit now. But hey, the team with the most boring design team on earth, has somehow managed to absolutely knock it out of the park with its livery on the S-Works Tarmac SL8…
It’s finally time for le Tour! This squad will race 3 weeks Florence ➡️ Nice! Allez guys!
🔵 Nico Denz
🔵 Marco Haller
🔵 Jai Hindley
🔵 Bob Jungels
🔵 Primoz Roglic
🔵 Matteo Sobrero
🔵 Danny van Poppel
🔵 Aleksandr Vlasov📸 Joerg Mitter#redbullborahansgrohe #tdf2024 pic.twitter.com/pqsoqWnnYe
— Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe (@BORAhansgrohe) June 26, 2024
That bike is gorgeous!
Oh and if you didn’t miss, that’s the team that will be going to Tour de France, with a decently balanced squad consisting of sprinters, climbers, domestiques and Primož Roglič.
Meanwhile, looks like some of Red Bull’s tactics might have got leaked too!
Haha, I wish 😅💪🔥🐂
Source : IG Redbull#rogla #roglic #primozroglic #redbullborahansgrohe pic.twitter.com/denKukTHil— Debby (@Debby_Drckx) June 27, 2024
“It probably made a good episode, but I was the bad guy”: Pidcock brushes off Ineos Tour de France leadership rivalry as Netflix documentary drama, as Geraint Thomas says he’ll be riding to “help Carlos Rodriguez and the team”
There are a lots of jobs I wouldn’t envy in this world, and one of them is surely those managing the Ineos Grenadiers squad. The British team finds itself in a weird, precarious spot — going into the Tour with 2019 winner Egan Bernal, 2018 winner Geraint Thomas, the young promising stage racer Carlos Rodriguez, as well as the talented all-rounder Tom Pidcock.
And of course, where there’s even a whiff of competition, you know that Netflix is going to squeeze every last drop and then some more out of that bag. In the streaming platform’s latest foray into cycling documentaries, the Tour de France: Unchained, now in its second season, Ineos was portrayed as a team made up of riders not getting along with each other and having bad blood.
And that’s not sat well with the 24-year-old Tom Pidcock, who in the Netflix show was shown to defy team orders during the 2023 Tour de France and ride his own race, only to suffer in the third week, leading to suggestions of an internal Pidcock-Rodriguez rivalry.
“I was portrayed as the bad guy…,” Pidcock said, adding that he had not seen the Netflix episode. “It just makes a drama you know and it’s not even in chronological order. But at the end of the day, we’re racing.
“At the start of the [2023] Tour, me and Carlos were both going for GC. Then at some point, someone comes out on top, and they’re the person who’s the leader at that point. And that was Carlos. So, it’s just a drama. It probably made a good episode, but I was the bad guy. Whatever…”
Rodriguez also dismissed any talks of bad blood between the two, reports Cyclingnews. He said: “Unfortunately they wanted to make it entertaining. Maybe they even put some things out of context to create more audience but the relationship between Tom and me is good.
“I hope this year Netflix isn’t about us anymore. It’s not about us fighting or anything,” he added. “The feeling in training racing is better than last year and the year before. That’s why I feel that I made the state step forward. But we’ll find out during the race. I will give my best and try to do everything I can to try to beat them.”
Meanwhile, at least one Ineos rider has cleared up that he won’t be going for the GC, and that Geraint Thomas, fresh off riding the Giro. Speaking on his and his teammate and fellow Welshman Luke Rowe’s podcast Watts Occurring, he said: “I think I’ll be there to help Carlos.
“I think he’s all guns blazing for this. And yeah, [I’ll] just look for a stage at some point. But mainly there for the team. I’m not going to sit up and lose minutes straight away, but no stress, just get into the race and see how I am.”
Wondering what G’s role will be at the Tour? Hear from the man himself.#TDF2024 @GeraintThomas86 @LukeRowe1990 pic.twitter.com/cGslIVBMWO
— Watts Occurring (@Watts_Occurring) June 25, 2024
❗️New Tour de France kit klaxon❗️: Jayco-AlUla's not-blue jersey
Now that’s how you do a special kit! The kit draws inspiration from its second naming rights partner, AlUla, the ancient oasis city located in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
🟩🟧 Inspired by AlUla, raced at Le Tour! 🏁
Introducing our new jersey design for the Tour de France 2024 🪡#TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/rZVF6mqd0F
— GreenEDGE Cycling (@GreenEDGEteam) June 27, 2024
The team website, says: “The kit design represents a drastic departure to the team’s usual colour palette and branding, with dark green derived from the verdant green oasis of AlUla taking centre stage, while the vibrant golden orange draws on the stunning desert colours and landscape of the destination.
“Amidst the lively green and orange, a bold graphic pattern can be found throughout the jersey, derived from the architecture of Design Space AlUla. The eye-catching pattern is representative of many traditional architectural designs that can be found across the AlUla region.”
Wow, that’s a beauty of a kit… And look at that bike! Perfection, in my book.
Cycling market "significantly worse than expected", Halfords warns — with "high-profile failure of Wiggle" and widespread sales evidence of "another year of decline"
Publishing its preliminary financial results for the year to March 2024, Halfords has seen its profits slashed amid “significantly worse than expected” cycling performance and bike sales dropping to 30 per cent below pre-Covid levels.
The major retailer, the largest provider of cycling sales and services in the UK, highlighted the “high-profile failure” of Wiggle Chain Reaction as evidence of the “challenging” market and noted that “significant pressure” was being felt due to widespread industry sales.
road.cc tech editor Mat Brett seriously injured in cycling incident
A news that has had us shaken to the core… Mat is a gem of a person and has been an incredible colleague, besides obviously being a very skilful and adept rider. We are all keeping our fingers crossed and praying that he recovers back to his best self super soon.
> road.cc tech editor Mat Brett seriously injured in cycling incident
Anthony Gordon falls off electric mountain bike in England's Euro training camp in Germany and suffers grazes on his face and hands
Is there anything this side can do?
Anthony Gordon was seen in England training this morning with grazes on his chin, nose and hands.
The team went for an afternoon bike ride yesterday 🚲 pic.twitter.com/dN1agWNcTD
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) June 27, 2024
Well that’s me being way too harsh on the Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon, who hasn’t had much chances to impress, or perhaps disappoint — if you weigh in how even Champions League winner and Ballon d’Or contender Jude Bellingham has played in the last two matches.
If you’d missed it, currently the most hated man in England (don’t quote me on that), Gareth Southgate has been making use of electric mountain bikes as post-training warmdown for his squad, which has scored two goals in three games, while playing some really non-descript football, struggling to find any sort of rhythm to get going.
> ‘England being rubbish again at the Euros’ jokes, cycling-themed edition
And now, based on the latest pictures from team’s training, it looks like Anthony Gordon, who came on in the final minutes in the 0-0 draw against Slovenia, has suffered a graze on his nose, chin, knuckles and fingers after falling off his MTB at the team’s Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land camp.
Well that might give Southgate an excuse to not include him in the lineup for Sunday’s Round of 16 knockout stage match against Slovakia, after calls for him and Cole Palmer to start, in place of Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka, were made by many pundits and fans alike.
Anthony Gordon fell off his mountain bike while partaking in down time activities in the England camp, but is not an injury doubt for England 👇 pic.twitter.com/5eiX9ThPik
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) June 27, 2024
Tour de France bikes on a budget* — pro race bikes without the pro price tag from Specialized, Canyon, Trek, Pinarello and more
Perhaps one of the most appealing things about professional cycling is that you can buy pretty much the exact same bikes and gear as the pros. These days, pro bikes are essentially the same as those you can buy in a bike shop, aside from individual modifications that some riders might request. Fortunately, you can also find bikes that are very similar – not just in appearance, but also in construction – to those ridden by cycling stars.
We’ve searched for some of the best deals we can find at the moment. There are often some good deals on the exact framesets but you can also find more affordable alternatives that incorporate much of the same tech. Okay, these bikes aren’t cheap, but they are less expensive than the top-end models.
Which of these (almost) pro team bikes would you choose? Let us know in the comments section below.
*To address the asterisk in the title: we mean relative to the actual bikes the pros race, of course. We know that these still aren’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination!
Is this pro cycling or Mission Impossible? Visma-Lease a Bike launch Control Room, the “first-ever command centre in cycling”
Imagine telling Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor that 60 years later, there will be “command centres” to monitor cyclists’ performances, analyse data and make tactical decisions.
Now see, I love the tactical aspect of sports, it is one of the most enjoyable things about any game really! But the latest debate in football about relationism versus positionism, sparked by Pep Guardiola’s reliance on data, control and stability — and other managers desperately attempting to imitate it, most recently seen in the drab affairs in the second and third week of the Euros — has really left me burned and hopelessly seeking flair and style in the beautiful game.
I digress, but it looks like this is where sports is headed: Intense number-crunching and data analytics. And in lieu of that, Visma-Lease a Bike has a new weapon in its already stacked arsenal — no, not a new rider, but a ‘Control Room’ instead.
𝐍𝐞𝐰! 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐦𝐚 | 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐁𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 📡 🖥️
In the spirit of limitless thinking, and together with our partners Visma and BetCity, we proudly present this state-of-the-art innovation, enabling us to play smarter.… pic.twitter.com/uAgEYSNYFL
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) June 27, 2024
It looks almost like out of a Mission Impossible movie, the van in which you’d expect Benji and Luther to do their hacking stuff while Ethan Hunt goes and does the cool things outside — probably the same parallels can be drawn here too. Only that this van is draped in the Tour de France special “Renaissance” livery of the Dutch team.
“Thanks to Visma’s expertise in data collection and visualisation, all our data will now be analysed in one place. So that we can make the best tactical decisions, quickly and accurately — play smarter — all in one control room,” says the team, referring to its title sponsor Visma, a privately held company headquartered in Oslo, that provides cloud accounting, payroll, invoicing, and HR business software products.
Does anyone know if Pogačar is worried about Visma’s Control Room?
"Even the police were shocked": Bike thieves screw family's front door shut before smashing into van to steal bicycle
A cyclist has warned of the lengths criminals are now going to steal bikes, thieves screwing the family’s front door shut so they could not get out before smashing into the van parked on the driveway to take a mountain bike.
Illi Gardner is not playing around! British pro posts incredible Alpe d'Huez ride on Strava, claiming several QOMs
Hell of a ride, that, with several segments even faster than Tour de France pros! Chapeau Illi!
When Jeremy Vine met Greg James: They got reversed into by a van driver
What happens when two leading broadcasters meet on the road on their bikes? Of course, the got clipped by a van driver, almost reversing into the back of James.
The Channel 5 presenter and the BBC Radio 1 DJ met up on the roads of central London and decided to go for a little ride on the cobbles (not before Vine was mightily impressed by James’ blue helmet).
Blimey. I ask @BBCR1 ledge @gregjames how he stays safe on his bike, and this happpens. pic.twitter.com/NIpxwGx2yM
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) June 27, 2024
As they were making their way into the cobbled street, they followed a red Urban Foodservice van in, and straight away, like an omen from a bad horror flick, the van driver ran over a stranded Lime bike while turning in.
“If a car gets very close to you, do you kick it?” asks James. Vine replies: “No I haven’t done that either, but I do stay very vigilant… See this guy, I mean we’re seeing it all here, because he just ran over that bike!”
As they come to the end of the cobbled street, they pass the driver who’s stopped while making the turn. Just as Vine passes the van, the driver starts backing up, while James is still stuck behind the van, nearly pushing him into a street sign and only realising what he’s doing when the DJ smacks on the vehicle.
“Oh shit!” exclaims James, as Vine shouts: “God, for f**** sake man! What the hell man? It’s the guy from Radio 1, you can’t back into Greg James!” The driver promptly apologises saying: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Just a normal day in London then?
Analysing the near-miss with James, Vine said: “You did nothing wrong there but you will be blamed for that. When that happened to me, someone backed into me, I was told I was hovering near the back of the van.”
Vine could be heard telling James “I never get this many incidents” as they continued to cycle, with the Radio 1 presenter quipping “after him Vine” as they witnessed a driver on the wrong side of the road.
As the clip ends, Vine notices another driver going up the wrong way in the street, to which James quips: “After him Vine!”
The comments and arguments on this video are unintentionally fucking hilarious
— Greg James (@gregjames) June 27, 2024
I agree, this might be one of Vine’s finest works so far!
Recently, ex-footballer Joey Barton apologised and agreed to pay Vine £75,000 in damages and costs to settle part of a defamation case lodged by the Channel 5 presenter in the wake of a string of social media posts which saw Barton label Vine a “bike nonce” and a “paedo defender”.
“This is why we ride in primary position”: “Impatient” driver (unsuccessfully) tries to pass mum and daughter cycling with oncoming traffic, but social media thinks they “should get the hell out of the way”
We know how things are for cyclists for over in the States, but every once in a while, I get a harsh reality check. This time around, it came through a mum and daughter riding their Dutch bikes with front carrier and even a cargo bike in the sun — you’d look at the scene and almost be forgiven for thinking that can’t be the US.
Until you hear the rumbling of an oncoming car, before realising that another driver has been tailgating, and even trying to overtake them this whole time.
“This guy was getting ready to pass you with oncoming traffic”, says Nicole to her daughter cycling behind her. Another driver makes their way from the other side, as the cyclists then hold out their left hand to indicate that they are going to make a turn.
But the driver, instead of slotting behind and waiting for the cyclists to turn, once again tries to pass them right when they are about to make a turn, bringing out a “Yooo!” scream from the mum and a really ugly, grating honk from the driver as a response.
Just trying to get coffee with my daughter on her last day in town when this impatient driver tries to pass us with oncoming traffic and then again when we’re signaling a left turn. This is why we ride in primary position. We’re not moving over if it’s unsafe to pass! pic.twitter.com/yOSvmE9Fjb
— Fietser Nicole (@GoingDutchDEN) June 25, 2024
“Just trying to get coffee with my daughter on her last day in town when this impatient driver tries to pass us with oncoming traffic and then again when we’re signalling a left turn. This is why we ride in primary position. We’re not moving over if it’s unsafe to pass!” wrote Nicole, who lives in Denver and describes herself as “transportation cyclist, crossing guard and proponent of compact urbanism”.
If I were you, I would stay off the Twitter comments to the video, but as we like to say to cheer ourselves, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, with several cyclists coming out and batting for the pair.
“This is as clear bad driving as you’ll see. No dispute – 100% driver is the problem. The replies tell you that a huge number of drivers don’t understand that, and will consider this justification for their moaning about cyclists. A pitiful state of affairs.”
“A thread in which tons of people who’ve clearly never travelled in anything other than a car in their entire adult lives argue that a mother and daughter should get the hell out of the way so they can go as quick as possible down a quiet residential street.”
“The replies to this are INSANE. Seems like hardly anyone is trained well enough to be driving any type of car on the roads. Zero patience and ignorance behind a wheel is deadly. That’s why people are killed or maimed at an alarming rate. Ugh. We need bike/ped infrastructure asap.”
It may not come as a solace, but it might be fair to point out that this sort of driving is not endemic to the USA, with road.cc reporting on plenty of such “impatient” drivers over the years, particularly in our Near Miss of the Day series.
Just yesterday, we reported on two cyclists being squeezed by a campervan driver in a very dangerous move that forced an oncoming driver to almost come to a halt to avoid a collision. It seems that all of us have a long way to go…
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Latest Comments
@Type17 thanks for that
@Didsbury Yes, almost identical - bikes with throttles, >250w motors, assistance past 25km/h / 15.5mph are illegal electric motorbikes, not EAPCs/Pedelecs. I think that the only difference here is that private e-scooters, limited to 20km/h (and other limitations like weight, power, etc), are legal in the RoI for 16+ year-old riders, but enforcement is almost non-existent and illegal e-bikes and scooters are as common as legal versions. I asked a guy with an e-scooter which had full suspension and looked very fast/heavy what its actual maximum speed was, and he admitted that it could do 75km/h / 46mph.
@Type17 Is the Irish legislation on electric motor bikes and scooters etc. actually the same as in the UK?
The problem with capel street is food delivery people on electric motorbikes flying down it. I work near it and walk there frequently and it's a big problem. As for Wiggins, how was his jiffy bag? Still waiting for him to have his say. Also wondering how his charity that paid for his event went tits up.
What's also evident, but somehow hardly ever mentioned, is how much more boring road bikes have become. Black, matte frames, black rims, black parts and components. Give me a nicely colored bike with silver parts any day.
We buy more and more stuff these days; bigger items are becoming cheaper, bikes have more features, are more desirable, it's easier to get around it's easier to sell stuff and the inevitable result is that there's more theft. I've been wrestling with this situation for somewhile and I've come to the conclusion that the answer to the question - should police be protecting the increasing amount of private property that people have - and I'm not sure that the answer is yes. I think we would be better off as a cycling community with our own independent cycling recovery team. it might work in conjunction with the police but you know it doesn't have to take away from police time too much. You might object to the fact that it's not a level playing field with other road vehicles which maybe do have police resources thrown at them. But equally, a stolen car is a lot more dangerous than a stolen bicycle, and it's a lot easier to sell the latter than it is the former.
@mdavidford - bring back the edit function, at last something upon which we can all agree!
@mdavidford "laxtivist" Hmm... slacktivist? "I disapprove of what you say but I will sometimes defend 'till the next coffee and cake opportunity your right to say it"?
@IanGlasgow They can make a pass look faster, but they never make things look closer than they are If it was as simple as that, some would say you could be right, but it isn't and you're not. I have the advantage that I noticed the effect that 'wide angle makes passes look closer' and performed the experiments. It does. The fallacy in your argument arises from equating 'closeness of a pass' to 'making things look closer', when they are clearly not the same thing. The relevant thought experiment is to imagine a balloon inflated between the cyclist and the vehicle of the close passing b*****d at the moment of peak closeness. To a first approximation, the whole of that balloon is at the same distance from the lens. Then ask yourself 'does the reduced field of view image make the balloon look bigger than on the increased field of view image (which we're calling 'wide-angle')?' The answer is yes. Bigger balloon = less-close pass. QED. Conclusion: Wide-angle makes passes look closer!
There are reply chains on the main road.cc site - they haven't worked on the offroad.cc and ebiketips subsites or the forum since the same ill-fated migration that killed the edit functionality.
39 thoughts on ““This is why we ride in primary position”: “Impatient” driver tries to pass mum and daughter cycling with oncoming traffic; When Jeremy Vine met Greg James; Pidcock brushes off Ineos Tour de France rivalry as “Netflix drama” + more on the live blog”
Can I ask for an opinion?
Can I ask for an opinion?
Riding into work this morning along the side of Victoria Square in Clifton, Bristol. Was close passed by a driver in some sort of what used to be called a hot hatch (who immediately had to brake because an SUV was coming towards us and he couldn’t fit through).
Reached this junction – https://maps.app.goo.gl/EQZuRe3K2pni4jje8
The car was waiting right over toward the right hand side of the lane, right up against the centre-line. No indicators being used.
I presumed he was turning right since there was such a wide gap toward the left as the corner angle is pretty wide, and I went into that gap to go left. As I was alongside the car the driver started to move LEFT.
I don’t know whether he changed his mind at the last moment or what – the front of the car was actually pointing slightly right so he would have really had to yank the steering wheel over to make the move that he did.
Was I really that stupid to assume that a car at the right of a lane, actually pointing slightly right, but not using indicators – was going to go right?
Nope, everything suggests he
Nope, everything suggests he was going right. If he started to turn left I would just have either let him go or I would have been out and gone by the time he joined the road. Bit of a non event usually. Drivers do stupid and unexpected things all the time. You just have to keep your wits about you and compensate for them.
No. You have to make
No. You have to make assessments. But some will give misleading or incorrect signals and i try to remember that my assessments of likely behaviour are not binding on others!
I try to be aware where I’m unclear what others might do and wait a moment or two to see if the picture gets clearer. Perhaps “no turn signal” might suggest that? I’m not sure I’d haven’t done differently in the moment though.
Assume Nothing – Expect the
Assume Nothing – Expect the Unexpected
One example: If i were waiting to turn right at the junction pictured, and a car was approaching me from the right with the left indicator in use, I wait until I know that car is actually turning left into Lansdowne Rd before emerging.
Thanks for your feedback,
Thanks for your feedback, everybody!
USA, spearated cycle
USA, spearated cycle infructucture is great, but like motorways for motor vehicles; it’s never going to be the only road you use, so driver behavior must to be made to improve.
Yes, but the question is “how
Yes, but the question is “how”. There are some practical solutions (which are a mix of measures including engineering, route planning, psychology and enforcement)
Also you might find this interesting:
https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/04/100-segregation-of-bikes-and-cars.html
Is CyclingMikey wasting his
Is CyclingMikey wasting his time?
It would seem there may be a staffing issue at Marlowe House, which may account for the lack of communication to Mikey regarding final results of a report.
However, over recent months, Mikey has been reporting that he has not received any notification whatsoever.
He is reporting an alleged offence to the Police for which he may required to attend court. If the Police have issued an NIP to the registered keeper, should Mikey be informed of this?
Over the last year, I have been wondering whether there has been ‘rationing’ of Police action? Not enough resources to pursue the prosecutions, and perhaps even ‘rationing’ of action taken regarding reports from individuals, such as Mikey, who submit many reports?
The same ‘rationing’ was imposed on some “Traffic Watch” groups, volunteers who record speeding drivers, because they were catching too many speeding drivers. There was a TV News report on this about 6 years ago.
To conclude: Sorry Mikey, I have little confidence these drivers are being prosecuted. Most likely a warning letter as in the case involving cyclist Dave Clifton, where the phone driver received a warning letter, the cyclist and NIP!!!
Absolutely not a waste of
Absolutely not a waste of time.
Resources “should” be allocated based on need.
If the volume of reports from CyclingMikey and others indicate a serious problem then the authorities should put the resource in place to deal with it.
I believe CyclingMikey is now concentrating on phone use as that is basically a slam dunk based on the tightening of the rules in the updated highway code.
If the evidence is clear then the police are likely to run with the report (NIP/FPN/court) as those are the cases that are most likely to result in a usefull outcome compared to other types of bad driving.
With regards to the lack of response from the Met police, it is a resource issue.
In the past we used to get a response/update on pretty much every report that the Met police actioned.
My assumption is they have been told to now only inform the reporting party if they are needed to attend court as a witness.
Though given what we can assume to be the arduous process for the staff members to deal with each report, I don’t get why a short email update about NIP/FPN result has been removed given it will take a relatively short time.
Also, per a recent point made by CyclingMikey:
The majority of dangerous driving reports come from other drivers, not cyclists.
As you stated in your 2nd to
As you stated in your 2nd to last para., if the Police are pursuing a driver with an NIP, then emailing the witness/reporter is a quick and simple task, alerts the witness of possible further involvement, aswell as giving the witness the satisfaction that action is being taken. But this isn’t happening!
As Mikey is now nationally/internationally renowned, if there is one person the Police should keep FULLY informed to maximize publicity for road safety, it is him.
Why isn’t this happening???
True, if CyclingMikey can let
I honestly don’t know.
True, if CyclingMikey can let His viewers (and especially His critics) know that the police are definitively taking action in each case, it would be massively helpfull to the cause.
And encourage others to do also start reporting.
My only assumed reasons for the police/authorities now not providing proper updates is to discourage us from reporting to ease their workload and to not take too many drivers off the roads.
Tax reciepts from private vehicle ownership and use are worth a lot to HMRC.
But thats just the cynic in me talking…
It is just too varied
It is just too varied throughout the country.
I had a extreme close pass at speed from a 4×4. Captured very well by my helmet cam. I requested feedback 3 weeks after submission, itself not an easy process. Apparently the police were trying to confirm who the driver was.
Another two weeks I again chased up on my submission. The owner failed to reply so my submission was closed and a ‘failure to declare’ penalty was being forwarded.
1. Why drop my submission? This should become part of the failure to declare prosecution.
The process is too slow and bulky to work properly when it should be made easier and quicker.
I would argue that the majority of crime in the UK is vehicular crime so upping the prosecution rate would have a greater improvement on more people’s lives.
Once the owner is being
Once the owner is being prosecuted for a failure to declare the driver the original offence is effectively irrelevant. They are not being prosecuted for the original offence so the evidence you have supplied doesn’t make any difference to the offence they have committed in refusing to identify the driver.
Personally I think this loophole should be closed once and for all by introducing draconian penalties, e.g. the vehicle used for the offence should be impounded until the owner identifies the driver, and the fine and points imposed for refusing to identify should be doubled for every week that the owner refuses to identify from the date of the deadline to do so. However with the law as it stands at present the police were correct to close your submission and open a prosecution on the new offence.
The owner failed to reply so
The owner failed to reply so my submission was closed
and a ‘failure to declare’ penalty was being forwardedMost likely, they just binned it, either before or after the registered keeper failed to reply.
I believe CyclingMikey is now
I believe CyclingMikey is now concentrating on phone use as that is basically a slam dunk based on the tightening of the rules in the updated highway code
I’m a great fan of CM, but he has it easy compared to us in Lancashire! There aren’t any traffic queues here so handheld phone filming is not easy. Even so, it can be done, but Lancashire Constabulary still refuses to take action. I moved largely onto No MOT/ Failed MOT detection because it’s rife in Lancashire as a result of the police refusal to take action and can hardly ever be disputed- if police supervising authorities were ever to question the police (no sign of this happening yet) they would have to resort to ‘has to be witnessed on the road by a police officer’ or other such lies. They just ignore all reports from cyclists, and possibly from motorists too but I haven’t sent any of those, but we now have a Labour PCC and likely a Labour MP soon, so we’ll see if they continue to support the police pro-motorist/ anti-cyclist stance
I have seen a report that
I have seen a report that suggested Lancashire do not have a dedicated full time traffic division, is that true? My thought is this cannot be possible.
I am currently searching for a location in the UK I can move to, where I don’t have to deal with all the crap of deliberate closs passes, avoiding being flattened by distracted drivers, kicked off my cycle (as per Box Hill incident recently), and can cycle on an expensive cycle (ORCA or Pinny) without having to worry about being violently robbed, any suggestions?
BTW – I have experienced all of the above
So far, the only place I can think of, where this cyling utopia may exist, is the Outer Hebrides, but then for 50% of the year, I would be indoors on the KickR due to the weather.
Regions of the UK I know to avoid is Scotland (mainland), Lancashire, and Essex, because the Police Forces, according to the reports on this webspace, are sh*te when it comes protecting cyclists.
I wouldn’t bother moving to
I wouldn’t bother moving to Scotland either as Police Scotland aren’t bothered either.
I have seen a report that
I have seen a report that suggested Lancashire do not have a dedicated full time traffic division, is that true? My thought is this cannot be possible
There were a few years when they didn’t, but they do now. It hasn’t made any difference- they still ignore all reports on offences such as these:
https://upride.cc/incident/ld71uom_amazonprime_handheldmobilephone/
https://upride.cc/incident/px12dnd_stagecoach42_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/rx17mxlpn66kna_2lorriestogether_closepass/
‘Ignore’ in the sense of no response whatsoever- they go straight in the bin. This is not the Utopia you seek, unless you want to drive in whatever vehicle you like, in whatever manner towards cyclists you like, with no fear of any investigation or consequences. MF17 EFX was reported in May 23, during the last period he decided to drive around with no MOT
a report that suggested
a report that suggested Lancashire do not have a dedicated full time traffic division
I suppose the question is: now that Lancashire Constabulary does have a ‘full time traffic division’, how do they manage to fail to catch these vehicles with up to (WU59 UMH) 6 1/2 years without VED and which also managed 6 3/4 years without MOT and 6 months after an MOT was failed with ‘do not drive until repaired’ dangerous defects? By making diligent efforts to not detect these offences ‘officially’, that’s how. I have shown WU59 many times, so I’m putting up NA11 VWH for variety- no VED for 18 months. First detected 14 months ago. So if you have motorist friends seeking unrestricted driving freedoms at the NW Frontier, Lancashire is the place!
I do get the feeling that the
I do get the feeling that the police are not actioning the vast majority of Op Snap submissions.
Sorry to say, that is the
Sorry to say, that is the impression I get.
Is it just a resource issue? Or is there a Political/Public Opinion issue dimension?
Allowing members of the Public to submit evidence of offending, causing drivers to be fined, points added or DQ, well that is just a plain “war on motorists!” [Tongue-in-cheek emoji]
I do get the feeling that the
I do get the feeling that the police are not actioning the vast majority of Op Snap submissions
A feeling is not required- it’s a simple fact. Most reports go unexamined straight in the bin because the police have the obvious dodge lined up at all times- if there’s ever a question about a particular report they just say ‘resource limitations made it impossible for us to look at that one’.
What really convinced me
What really convinced me there is something stinking at the heart of road traffic enforcement, was the pursuit of the cyclist Dave Clifton in March 2024.
If Police resources are the reason why CyclingMikey rarely receives updates on his reports, then why were these valuable resources deployed to prosecute this cyclist?
The prosecution of Dave Clifton was pursued by the Police right up to the day of the trial.
Yet the driver that Dave reported was given a written warning, for an offence that carries a 6 point penalty!!!!
Who is running Marlowe House? Nick Ferrari? Well he did grow up in Sidcup!!!
Quote:
If we’re assuming it’s a disease, it’s quite possible for it to be endemic in the US and the UK.
So, the price for taking a
So, the price for taking a human life by dangerous driving is only £240 and a bit of litter clearance. I despair for this country ?
Davisian wrote:
The price for taking a human life by driving into them is extremely variable (even when we exclude “obviously” bad drivers who were high / driving illegal vehicles / breaking speed limit / not licenced etc. or excused because “medical incident”)
But … it doesn’t need to cost that much.
No visit to the court at all (another “hit at a junction”).
No visit to the court at all, until a private prosecution (which failed)
I blacked out before the crash – did go to court but “not proven” verdict
I cannot remember the crash – also went to court, also “not proven”
In fact, arguably worse behaviour with a different outcome also doesn’t necessarily cost that much either:
Drink driving, hit cyclist, attacked police – suspended sentence (but driving ban though)
On the other hand:
10 months in prison for another “failed to stop at junction”
“Almost inevitable” prison for driver who just rode through a cyclist on a straight road in clear conditions
“Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe” –
“Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe” – I didn’t realise that we’d perfected human cloning! You learn something new every day!
They have the same parents..
They have the same parents…and the same surgeons…
I’d heard of them – obviously
I’d heard of them – obviously – but didn’t know what they looked like. They look like androids.
Kloning as brooksby says.
Kloning as brooksby says.
chrisonabike wrote:
I see what you did there
Did he really crash his
Did he really crash his mountain bike? More likely he brushed against a small tree branch and instinctively dove for the ground.
andystow wrote:
Instinctively, doves tend to stay in the trees, not so much the ground.
We’re talking footballers
We’re talking footballers though, trained to trip over blades of grass, or from the briefest mere touch of their jersey fall over into a big heap on the ground.
Pog’s not worried about Visma
Pog’s not worried about Visma ‘playing smarter’ – he’s got the cheat codes.
The US video – I saw a lady
The US video – I saw a lady complaining about some bad driving, but not sure I actually saw any bad driving. Am I missing something?
The driver approached them a
The driver approached them a bit quickly and moved out to pass when there was oncoming traffic, but backed off. Then the driver seemed to move out again to attempt a pass when the cyclists were indicating to turn.
No close pass or anything, but the cyclists were having to do a lot of work to manage this bad driving with road positioning (and shouting!). Pretty low down on the scale of things though, not sure I’d bother making a fuss about it.
Certainly nowhere near as bad as the white van man who drove up behind me revving his engine today, forcing me to swerve out of the way, only to pull in just up the road. The adrenaline had not worn off and I gave him some strong words of advice.
HoarseMann wrote:
Fair point. I guess I just meant that (apart from the vocal objections) the video didn’t really convey it. But then I often have incidents on the road which feel bad at the time but which don’t look nearly bad enough on the footage to bother reporting.
What about this iconic trio?
What about this iconic trio?
Kitten Kong – Ecky Thump – The giant Dougal