How can road violence against cyclists be stopped? DCS Andy Cox on episode 7 of the road.cc Podcast

After a shocking video sent to road.cc showing a club cyclist being assaulted went viral this week, we thought it was time to discuss the issue in more depth. This week the road.cc team talk about their experiences of dangerous driving and violence on the roads, while Jack talks to Andy Cox, Detective Chief Superintendent at Linconshire Police and the national lead for fatal collision reporting.

We admit that this episode isn't the cheeriest, but hopefully after hearing the insightful thoughts of DCS Cox many of you may feel more positive about the future of cycling safely on Britain's roads. Luckily incidents like the one suffered by members of the Swindon Wheelers are rare, but were Wiltshire Police right to give just a police caution to the perpetrator, or was only a criminal prosecution neccessary in this instance? George, Dan and Jack offer their thoughts. 

Some of you might already be aware of DCS Andy Cox, a leading voice on the prevention of road crime who regularly pops up on our live blog for his succinct and common-sense tweets on cycling, dangerous driving and more. He also recently ran 200km in aid of RoadPeace, raising thousands for his efforts. 

Some of you might have tried to report dangerous driving you’ve witnessed on your bike before and were frustrated by the response; but as you’ll hear Andy say, while police don’t get it right every time, there is hope for the future and things are steadily changing: 

"There are all sorts of changes that needs to happen, we have made dramatic strides in a short while", he said. 

"There aren't many countries, if any, that have the appetite to receive the footage coming through. We have had quite a cultural shift there and rightly so, I've been advocating this for some time. 

"We have now delivered guidance across the country that would support the referrals of road crime through dashcam, headcam, any electronic footage. 

"I'm currently trying to collate data that will show me how many referrals we get, what our action is with regards to them, and I'm trying to communicate that publicly. I think there's some brilliant forces that are doing that." 

Andy also explains what needs to be done for the UK to sit up and take notice of the 1,800 deaths – many of them preventable – on our roads each year, and says why he thinks all cyclists should be running cameras. 

> How to buy the best bike camera

The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast - it's also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.

What do you think of the road.cc Podcast so far, and what would you like us to discuss in future episodes? Comment below and/or drop us a line at podcast [at] road.cc