Some achievement from this Near Miss of the Day motorist to overtake a cyclist without leaving their lane. Needless to say Avon and Somerset police took a dim view of the overtake, and said the driver involved can expect to hear from them soon…
The road.cc reader who submitted this clip explained they were “heading out on the 3rd of January up Fireclay Road in Bristol to test out my new cameras and sure enough this black Ford gets a wee bit too close for comfort.
“They managed to not put a wheel across the white line because of the oncoming traffic. I submitted this to Avon and Somerset police that night and got a response on the 11th Jan so that was quicker than expected.”
In their response, Avon and Somerset police confirmed that as a result of the report the driver will receive a warning letter, fixed penalty or prosecution.
> 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@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
14 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 697: Close pass driver overtakes without crossing white line — police action confirmed”
Quote:
Can we be privy to the make and model, plus your thoughts about the cameras, please?
In their response, Avon and
In their response, Avon and Somerset police confirmed that as a result of the report the driver will receive a warning letter, fixed penalty or prosecution
Even taking this statement at face value, this means that the offender receives the terrifying warning letter to hang up in the toilet. However, the letter should be read carefully- I hope the OP will place the text on here.
This is Lancashire’s evasive letter, which I have received many times
Thank you for your recent dash cam submission to Lancashire Police.
Your footage has been viewed by members of the OpSnapLancs team and we are in agreement with you that the standard of driving shown by the other drivers fell below the minimum standard that should be shown on the roads today.
We will write to the registered keeper of the vehicle involved, requiring them to identify the driver.
Once the driver has been identified then we will assess the most appropriate outcome, which could be;
1. An advice letter
2. A Driver Educational Course.
3. A conditional offer of points and a fine.
4. A summons to court.
Firstly, it is clear that, despite my meticulously clear reports being a sizeable fraction of the submissions they receive- they are sequentially numbered, they are so car-obsessed that they can’t cope with the idea that it’s not a ‘dash cam’… ‘the other drivers’?! Secondly, it doesn’t require degrees in Jurisprudence and Semantics to work out that this letter leaves it open to Lancashire Constabulary to do nothing at all, or just give unrecorded ‘words of advice’. Someone else cited a letter from another force, Lincolnshire I think, which was not ambiguous, so it is not impossible even for police officers to write such letters. So when they don’t- it’s a con, and you can assume that the least possible penalty has been issued to the offender. Examine your letter, and post the bent ones on here!
I forgot to mention
I forgot to mention Lancashire Constabulary’s latest dodge to discourage reports of offences- they insist on the use of this site
https://unitedkingdom1cpp-portal.digital-policing.co.uk/lancashire/appeal/public-dashcam-submisson
This site has now been disabled. This was described by OpSnap Lancs 2 days ago as a ‘temporary random glitch which is being monitored by LC IT’ and they gave me some trivial, useless ‘advice’ to ‘help me access the site’ (you know- the ‘was the computer switched on?’ type) – which I had already done as a routine to no effect. The same random glitch was present yesterday, and is there again today- at home, and on the public library computer. It will be there tomorrow. I sent the videos in to the specific OpSnap Lancs email- they won’t accept it. They really don’t want people posting reports accompanied by indisputable evidence on indisputable offences like crashing through red lights at 50- some of your local police will be trying the same dodges soon, if they haven’t already. If any of you can get this site to come up, let me know how you did it!
Just tried the Nextbase portal for Lancs:
https://www.nextbase.com/en-gb/national-dash-cam-safety-portal/
“Thank you for using the Nextbase National Dash Cam Safety Portal. The force you have chosen is working hard towards being fully ready to accept dash cam footage and expects to have this ready shortly. However, you can still use this portal to generate a full witness statement and upload your video. Please be aware that once this has been completed you need to contact your local force by email or by calling 101 . The witness statement can be printed or emailed to your local police force to speed up the process of reporting the incident.”
Thanks, but whatever Nextbase
Thanks, but whatever Nextbase claims isn’t true as regards Lancashire Constabulary. Lancahire’s online incident reporting system won’t do anything about ‘moving traffic’ incidents either- one can report anything there but it’s just a supermassive black hole from which no response ever emerges now, and never did before.
As this is recent what was
As this is recent what was the polices view on posting it here?
I am asking as I’ve had two NFAs last week from Herts police – I stated that I was intending to post one but would refrain if it was going to interfere with any investigation. Having initially said they’d take unspecified action, they then used this as a reason to NFA both submissions.
In this case as a warning
In this case as a warning letter is the only action they would presumably not object as it couldn’t prejudice any trial. In any case, it’s the most pathetic excuse imaginable for NFA, any close pass will be dealt with in a magistrate’s court at best so the question of prejudicing a jury does not arise. It’s a transparent avoidance mechanism. To be fair to the Met, I’ve never removed footage from social media and they’ve never refused to act because of it.
given the Met frequently use
given the Met frequently use footage shot and broadcast on national tv and around the globe sometimes, in prosecutions and dont seem to have any issue with, theyd probably struggle to square that circle if they did go down that route.
its one of those things I wish would get challenged in court to stop the police using it as an excuse though, the best you can do is maybe dont tell them in the future what you intend to do with the footage first.
Awavey wrote:
Yes, this will probably be my future course of action, but I genuinely don’t want to jeopardise an investigation, for obvious reasons.
That’s if they don’t just NFA everything from me now…..
That’s if they don’t just NFA
That’s if they don’t just NFA everything from me now…..
They will NFA anything they think they have the slightest chance of getting away with. It doesn’t matter to them how stupid the proffered reason is. They rely on most people losing heart and not taking it further, and the fact that there is no effective internal monitoring of officers’ decisions.
wtjs wrote:
Very possible. It’s also hard to say whether they have ever taken action, although other conversations with more sympathetic officers would suggest otherwise.
It’s also hard to say whether
It’s also hard to say whether they have ever taken action, although other conversations with more sympathetic officers would suggest otherwise
The more sympathetic officers could resolve at least part of the uncertainty by, to reiterate what I wrote below, not writing deliberately ambiguous ‘action letters’ which leave it open to them to take no action at all. You know what they say in Full Metal Jacket: You can Talk the Talk, but can you Walk the Walk?
Awavey wrote:
My thoughts exactly, when has anyone ever got off on the basis that their crime was seen on national TV, and yet a few people seeing a share on Twitter could prejudice a result?
Captain Badger wrote:
That sounds really petty of them.