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news
Near Miss of the Day 768: Driver squeezes between two cyclists – but only receives warning letter as rider didn’t “swerve”
This close passing driver was issued with an advisory letter after narrowly avoiding both the cyclist he was attempting to overtake and another rider coming the opposite way.
However, road.cc reader Tim, who reported the footage to the Met, was told by the police that as the close pass didn’t cause him to slow, stop or swerve, and because the view of the other cyclist wasn’t available, the motorist received an advisory letter rather than a Notice of Intended Prosecution.
After questioning the Met’s decision and asking for clarification on what constitutes a close pass, the cyclist received the following reply: “There is no separate single offence for a ‘Close Pass’. This is proceeded with as a careless driving offence (driving without due care or driving without reasonable consideration for other road users).
“We wouldn’t be able to proceed with a close pass event on an unknown third party, as we do not have the victim’s viewpoint if it was presented to Court.
“Every piece of footage is reviewed and judged on its own merits, as you can appreciate. The careless driving offences are quite broad in their definition, so it is quite difficult to answer your question. I’ve always told people to send it in – as there might be something we see to support an offence. But the most simple requirement would be to cause someone to slow, stop or swerve.”
> 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
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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24 comments
I'm not often on the side of the police, having had numerous stone cold offences knocked back over the last couple of years, but in this case I can see their point, if they took the motorist to court for close passing the cyclist on their side without that cyclist as witness it would be dismissed at once. Often they use ridiculous excuses but in this instance it seems valid.
That doesn't seem to apply to other offences - it's rare to have a murder victim testify as a witness.
but its careless driving, you dont have to prove the other cyclist was "the victim" or hear their testimony, only show that the driving was below the minimum standard expected of a careful driver and the driver was not driving with reasonable consideration for other road users, and the simple easy to understand example any lawyer could present to a jury would be, would you fail a driving test doing that ?
the cyclist with the camera is an other road user, that vehicle is not being driven with any reasonable consideration for them, let alone the poor cyclist treated to the overtake, it falls below the minimum standard as neither were presented with minimum safe passing distances and it was done at speed.
its just a poor excuse from the police IMO, based on they dont want to exacerbate the backlog of potential court cases blocking the legal system up, which is over 2 years still I think, and will worsen now as barristers are taking a form of strike action over pay & conditions, which means alot of cases will get postponed and courts will process fewer cases.
Exactly, careless driving includes driving too close to another vehicle. How do we decide it is too close? The HC tells us the distances and you would adduce the HC in support of careless driving.
Perhaps, would you fail a driving test doing that?' should be the baseline for judging driving offences. A far simpler question to answer I'd suspect!
Examples of driving without due consideration suggested by the CPS also include having the temerity to gain an advantage on another motorist by using the wrong lane, so there is not even a standard of danger to be charged.
As to this case, the HWC is quite clear that a distance of 1.5m is required, and also makes mention of low speed, it seems the driver may have been exceeding the speed limit. As the evidence of poor driving is in the video, and the rider can testify in court that the depiction is a true representation of the events, there is no reason to assume the magistrates would dismiss the evidence.
I'm sorry to say that traffic policing in the UK is broken and I don't believe it is the fault of the police. The problem lies, in my view, in the inability of prosecutors to convince a jury that driving such as this falls below the standard of a COMPETENT and CAREFUL driver. At the end of the day the police can only issue a NIP if there is a realistic chance of the prosecution succeeding and as we have seen many times, it is hard to convince juries, judges and magistrates that this is the case, especially if the defence lawyer any good. It seems to me that any driving not in accordance with the highway code is INCOMPETENT and close passing is NOT CAREFUL but prosecutors fail time after time to convince the courts that this is the case. This is the problem that needs to be addressed.
I do not know what the answer is but I do have many friends who think I am mad to cycle everywhere and would't dream of doing so themselves. Some people even think it is too dangerous to venture out on to the roads in anything less than a huge SUV or similar. We will never get people cycling until this problem is addressed OR cycle lanes are provided for every journey made by bike.
And now on to warning letters. I seem to recall that one of the factors in deciding whether to issue a NIP is repeated behaviour. I suspect that juries would be less likely to see the driving as a "momentary lapse of concentration" if it has happened before. If this is the case, and records are kept of warning letters, then they do make sense.
Rant over.
Certain forces seem to be ok, but in general it is not good enough.
https://twitter.com/ASPRoadSafety/status/1525128034138955777
7 points - Fine £1038
It's a summary only offence so no jury. Magistrates are on the side of crap driving gets punished, but the cps doesn't progress eniugh as it's seen as "minor"
'The most simple requirement would be to cause someone to slow, stop or swerve.'
If only Derbyshire Police would apply these criteria - I've just had two reports (from the same bike ride) result in warning letters, even though the first incident forced me to stop and the second to swerve. It really does seem as though the various police forces make it up as they go along, with the aim of avoiding taking the matter seriously. And I do wonder whether these letters have any effect on the recipients, other than possibly making them realise that they can get away with it.
It really does seem as though the various police forces make it up as they go along, with the aim of avoiding taking the matter seriously. And I do wonder whether these letters have any effect on the recipients, other than possibly making them realise that they can get away with it
I don't wonder at all
In a facebook group I am a member of (for regional owners of a particular type of van) a fellow member took great pride in uploading a photo of the letter he had received for close passing a cyclist whilst overtaking. It showed the stills from the cyclists' camera, and was clearly a very poor overtake into oncoming traffic, yet he only got a warning. Consequently he found it most amusing that he 'got away with it' despite not actually beleiving that he deserved the letter in the first place. Many other members of course took the opportunity to roll out the usual anti-cyling nonesense, and to cap it all off his photo is now the group cover photo!
Wonder what their badge number is
So, if I walk down the high street, waving a machete around, it's fine - as long as nobody flinches?
Such lame excuses, coming from some police forces. 😱
But the most simple requirement would be to cause someone to slow, stop or swerve
It appears that you can only get a job as a Traffic Officer if you're as thick as two short planks with no appreciation or knowledge of cycling or cyclists. Are their tiny dysfunctional brains completely unable to think outside of that windscreen of the BMW (in the case of Lancashire Constabulary) they're driving around in? You stupid thick, thick, thick b*****d, I'm only alive at 70 because I don't collapse or swoon after being really close-passed at 50. I didn't swerve during this one, you appalling stupid pillock, how much closer do you want the driver to come before your Epsilon Semi-Moron brain can categorise this as a close pass?
It is A test, not THE test.
It is A test, not THE test
A basic misunderstanding of the aim of these criteria, which is to produce excuses for not taking action on a close pass no matter how gross and obvious. In other words, there is a group of individual dodges- the stupider the better- and a 'failure' of any one of them provides the excuse for not doing anything. If you had swerved, braked, stopped or whatever, they would just think of something else. That's all a bit too difficult and subtle for Lancashire Constabulary- they just refuse to respond, as they did with the Stuart & Braithwaite builder's van DU61 VHJ below
With smaller traders (who seem to do the worst passes anyway) I have a reasonable track record of wasting their time asking for quotes in obscure locations.
A roofer was invited to replace a roof on a broken down building about 20 miles out of Harrogate that I found on Google Maps. Crucially the only access was down a narrow lane - which gets progressively narrower - until it reaches footpath width. "You can ignore the sign that says NO MOTOR TRAFFIC".
I'm assuming the guy enjoyed his half mile reverse out of a lane with no turning spaces.
I recommend that approach within reason. Some years ago, I got continuously cold called by a solar panel company. After at least the 5th call I got fed up and started answering their questions honestly instead of telling them to get lost. The first time after about 5 minutes, the caller asked if I had any obstructions on the roof. I answered "Solar panels" - after a couple of minutes of confusion he realised I was taking the micky and with some abuse hung up - but obviously didn't update his call notes because a day or so later I got another call. Again I agreed I was interested in solar panels and they said they'd like to pass me to an assessor - without asking that vital question. He asked lots of questions which qualified me for an on-site quote. Some bloke had to drive from Northhampton to Birmingham. I tried to be out when they arrived but they were very late but parked on my drive so I parked next door. I "noticed" him, and said "Can I help? - they are out for the day." The bloke said he'd come to quote for solar panels - "That's odd, he's got a roof full on the back." I drove off just as my now ex-wife arrived. She just said "Nothing to do with me, but he does get very annoyed with cold callers so it's the sort of thing he'd do."
Later on I got a phone call from the salesman. I told him bluntly that I was fed up of their company cold calling me and if they had a recording, they could listen back and they would find I'd answered all the questions honestly - it was their fault for not qualifying the call and cold calling in the first place. He said I was being stupid - not as stupid as trying to sell a roof full of solar panels to someone who has a roof full of solar panels.
“Every piece of footage is reviewed and judged on its own merits, as you can appreciate. The careless driving offences are quite broad in their definition", in which case not observing the recommendations in the HC re overtaking cyclists should easily fall withing those broad definitions of careless driving.
Filming cyclist might not have swerved, what about the other victim?
CPS Some examples of careless or inconsiderate driving are:
And the doubt about this is what exactly ?
Isn't it fascinating how a cyclist that is close passed can be a "victim" if being so helps the police to avoid taking material action, but is definitely not a "victim" but only a "witness" when it comes to the question of whether they should be provided with updates and information on the outcome of their allegation in accordance with the standards of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime?
Those damn Schrodinger's cyclists again.
Dead but not dead; either or both could have been, and if that driving doesn't fall below that expected of a reasonable driver, then my name is Elvis Presley.