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Near Miss of the Day 846 (updated): Motorist escapes punishment for extreme close pass and deliberately reversing into cyclist

West Midlands Police say that the driver was not prosecuted because the two-week time frame had expired, though the cyclist claims that he was told by police that the the alleged collision was not “clear” in the video

Update: West Midlands Police has told road.cc that a motorist, who committed an extremely close pass on a cyclist before slamming on his brakes and appearing to deliberately reverse into the rider, avoided punishment because the victim neglected to report the incident within the required 14-day time frame.

As part of our original Near Miss of the Day article (which can be found below), road.cc reader James told us that he submitted the clip to West Midlands Police’s ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’. After receiving no response for several months, he later contacted the force’s Traffic Investigation Unit, who asked him to resubmit the footage.

However, while James claimed that an officer from the Traffic Investigation Unit told him that there was no “clear video” of the collision, West Midlands Police has told road.cc that the driver was not prosecuted simply because the two-week window for issuing a Notice of Intended Prosecution had expired by that point, and that the cyclist was invited to “pursue an allegation of assault”.

“The video footage of an incident in July last year was submitted to us via our website in November,” a spokesperson for West Midlands Police told road.cc.

“Our traffic office contacted the cyclist within 48 hours to advise him that if he wanted to pursue an allegation of assault, he would need to report that to us via 101, but the timeframe for us to issue a Notification of Intended Prosecution (NIP) for a traffic offence had expired.”

> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling

Responding to the police’s statement, James said that the incident had been passed to the Traffic Investigation Unit “within 48 hours, well within the time limit”.

“The limit for a collision is also six months,” he said. “I contacted TIU before six months had passed and they informed me that the collision wasn’t on camera and they wouldn’t continue with a prosecution since it was several months ago.”

As we noted in our guide to reporting near misses or collisions to the police, any notice of intended prosecution must by law be issued to a registered keeper or owner of a motor vehicle within 14 days of the alleged offence. So, the earlier you submit your footage, the more time police have to investigate the incident, increasing the likelihood that dangerous drivers will face some sort of punishment for their actions.

Of course, as we saw with this incident in Coventry, even that may not be enough to secure a fair outcome…

You can read the original article below:

A motorist who committed an extreme close pass on a cyclist, missing him by a matter of inches, before slamming on his brakes and appearing to deliberately reverse into the rider, escaped punishment after West Midlands Police deemed that the collision was not captured clearly enough in the video.

road.cc reader James was cycling on Willenhall Lane in Coventry last July when the driver of an Audi – who, as James notes, appears to be holding a joint in his mouth in the clip – dangerously overtook him.

After James vocalised his disgruntlement with the driver’s too-close-for-comfort pass, the motorist slammed on the brakes. A staring and muttering match then ensued, before the hooded motorist appeared to have had enough.

However, before driving away he then decided to leave James with a parting gift by reversing back towards the cyclist (and over the white line into the next lane), appearing to ram him.

“After the incident I called 999 because the driver has what appears to be a joint hanging out of his mouth, although it has gone out,” James tells road.cc. “Unfortunately I gave the 999 operator the wrong registration.”

> Near Miss of the Day 845: Cyclist close passed... by driver with bike racks on their car

That proved only the start of James’ troubles while reporting the incident.

“I reported it to West Midlands Police via their online ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ and I was informed the video would be sent to the Traffic Investigation Unit,” he says.

“Several months later when I chased it up with TIU, they had no idea what incident I was referring to and asked me to send them the video via the Nextbase online reporting form.

“I did this and someone from TIU called me to say that the collision, which I thought was very clear, isn’t actually captured on video. They told me the bike shakes but there’s no clear video of the car actually hitting the bike so this isn't being treated as a collision.

“They thought that the suspect would claim that there was no collision and that I just shook the bike to make it look like there was.”

> Near Miss of the Day 844: Driver insists cyclists who film motorists are asking to be hit

He continued: “The time limit for sending a NIP for the close pass had also expired, so the driver got away with no consequences.

“I suspected at the time that reporting via the ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ was the wrong thing to do – it would take weeks or months for any action to be taken, by which time it would be too late.

“I should have reported via the Nextbase portal for the TIU to handle it. They might have just got back to me and told me to report via the ‘Non-Stop Self Reporting Collision Form’ or they might have just processed it as a close pass. Regardless they wouldn’t have sat on it for weeks or months.

“Due to the collision not being clear – though I think it is and I was there to witness it as well – and due to the delay, the decision was made not to refer to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling

“I was surprised at outcome of this deliberate collision,” James concludes. “No action of any kind.”

West Midlands Police has been contacted by road.cc for comment.

> 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.

> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision 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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54 comments

Avatar
HoarseMann replied to Mungecrundle | 1 year ago
2 likes

or for a mere £2.50 you can use the DVLA form 888:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/v888-request-by-an-individual...

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brooksby replied to Mungecrundle | 1 year ago
4 likes

Mungecrundle wrote:

If nothing else, do the decent thing by getting this reckless person's insurance premiums hiked so that the rest of us driver's don't have to pay.

I hate to be all judgemental, but that driver doesn't look like he'd be paying insurance and/or having a driving licence.  I'm sorry, but he just doesn't...

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NOtotheEU replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
1 like

My guess is it's the local criminals pool car and the police know they'd have to catch it on the road and by then the driver and reg will be different anyway.

 

 

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Muddy Ford | 1 year ago
4 likes

One for road.cc to help with I think. WMP should not be allowed to brush this incident off, and the pot smoking driver should be prosecuted for assault with a deadly weapon. This is not just a driving offence. How can the police be so ineffective? If the cyclist had been a person from a recognised minority group, this driver would be in jail already whilst they investigate and primarily protect themselves from accusations of being institutionally 'ist'. But because the gutter media are being allowed to normalise anti-cyclist sentiment the police feel they are on the popular side by laughing the incident off. 

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Rome73 | 1 year ago
0 likes

'“I did this and someone from TIU called me . . . ' Someone called you? On a phone? That's a result isn't it. Usually, if you are lucky, you receive an email worded 'Thank you for your submission blah, blah, unfortunately blah, blah, insufficient evidence, blah, blah . . . . ' 

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Ride On | 1 year ago
1 like

I think they get 6 months for a NIP following a collision as compared with 2 weeks without. Probably now that has expired as well but worth knowing.

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
11 likes

The video may not show the collision clearly, but it does clearly show the driver using his vehicle as a weapon to intimidate and cause fear, so why can't they prosecute that?  If we want safer roads, we have to get dangerous drivers removed and there could hardly be better evidence than this video. 

This guy probably does this regularly and one day he'll kill someone, whereupon everyone in authority will wail and gnash their teeth, bemoaning the fact that no-one had told them about this driver.

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wtjs replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
4 likes

everyone in authority will wail and gnash their teeth, bemoaning the fact that no-one had told them about this driver

The problem is that it's the police that is notified of the next offence - they will just suppress any previous reports about the driver/ vehicle. Just the same as they will deny that they knew about MCC 276 having no MOT for over a month- this is on the High Street of lawless Lancashire's Dodge City: Garstang. Nothing whatsoever will happen as a result of the offence

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HoarseMann | 1 year ago
12 likes

I've reviewed the footage again and have spotted the problem: the cyclist only had 3 cameras.

It's ludicrous that you can capture such clear evidence and it is brushed off. Even so, after reading about some of the excuses the police give for NFA's, I've now taken to positioning my forward camera so that the front wheel is just in shot. It really helps with judging distances and road position.

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ShutTheFrontDawes replied to HoarseMann | 1 year ago
1 like
HoarseMann wrote:

I've now taken to positioning my forward camera so that the front wheel is just in shot.

Do you think that will help? This person has three cameras.

Everyone on here that suggests that having a rear facing camera, a camera pointing down, a fixed camera, a head-mounted camera, etc, etc, etc are only just increasing the standard required by police for video evidence to be taken. It's self defeating.

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HoarseMann replied to ShutTheFrontDawes | 1 year ago
2 likes

Yes, I do think showing the front wheel helps a lot. If you've already got the camera on the front, then it's worth trying to angle it so that the wheel is in view. In this case, if contact between the wheel and the car could have been conclusively demonstrated, it would have given the police one less excuse.

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hawkinspeter replied to HoarseMann | 1 year ago
7 likes

HoarseMann wrote:

Yes, I do think showing the front wheel helps a lot. If you've already got the camera on the front, then it's worth trying to angle it so that the wheel is in view. In this case, if contact between the wheel and the car could have been conclusively demonstrated, it would have given the police one less excuse.

Although I agree, I think in this instance the police had no interest in doing their job and would just have found another excuse instead. ("You can see the impact, but it's not clear if there was damage caused" etc)

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ShutTheFrontDawes replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
2 likes
hawkinspeter wrote:

HoarseMann wrote:

Yes, I do think showing the front wheel helps a lot. If you've already got the camera on the front, then it's worth trying to angle it so that the wheel is in view. In this case, if contact between the wheel and the car could have been conclusively demonstrated, it would have given the police one less excuse.

Although I agree, I think in this instance the police had no interest in doing their job and would just have found another excuse instead. ("You can see the impact, but it's not clear if there was damage caused" etc)

Exactly.

But then again, perhaps it's our own fault for not having enough cameras and not pointing them in precisely the right direction at every given moment. We really should be helping the police to do their jobs after all. Three cameras is clearly not enough. We really must try harder next time and get a fourth one! That will make all the difference next time.

Einstein's definition of insanity springs to mind.

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the little onion | 1 year ago
8 likes

Institutionally anti-cyclist.

 

(p.s. the police are almost incapable of ever admitting that they do anything wrong. The best people for this is CyclingUK, but they aren't miracle workers. Get them involved in the appeal and chase-up)

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Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
12 likes

If only there were a legal mechanism whereby an attempted assault, even if it wasn't successful, could be prosecuted. Oh hang on, there is. Likewise there is the offence of causing fear of violence. How on earth can deliberately reversing your car towards another person with the intent to make them think they might be hit, even if contact isn't made (which it clearly is here), be given a free pass?

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wtjs replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
8 likes

How on earth can deliberately reversing your car towards another person with the intent to make them think they might be hit, even if contact isn't made (which it clearly is here), be given a free pass?

How?! It's the police!!

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HoarseMann replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
8 likes

Quite, this is well beyond a traffic offence. Even without any collision or injury, that was a threat of violence.

At least assault: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/outlines/assault/

I'd add in affray too https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/3

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jaymack | 1 year ago
12 likes

James should lodge a formal compalaint and just keep escalating 'till he's satisfied with the outcome Yes it's a bore but it'll be a complete balls ache for West Mid's to deal with and it will mean that next time they won't be quite so quick to do nothing. 

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thehill replied to jaymack | 1 year ago
3 likes

was about to report something to West Mids, but the driver  didnt try to reverse into me, and i am still alive, so what's the point

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eburtthebike replied to thehill | 1 year ago
1 like

thehill wrote:

was about to report something to West Mids, but the driver  didnt try to reverse into me, and i am still alive, so what's the point

They would only treat your report seriously if you were dead.

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ChrisB200SX replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
7 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

They would only treat your report seriously if you were dead.

But then a judge won't treat it seriously because "No sentence I could impose will bring the dead person back or reduce the chances of this from happening to someone else"

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brooksby replied to ChrisB200SX | 1 year ago
6 likes

ChrisB200SX wrote:

eburtthebike wrote:

They would only treat your report seriously if you were dead.

But then a judge won't treat it seriously because "No sentence I could impose will bring the dead person back or reduce the chances of this from happening to someone else"

But at least their thoughts and prayers would be with you  3

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ktache replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
2 likes

Don't forget the remorse, and the killer drivers ongoing nightmares...

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Bungle_52 replied to thehill | 1 year ago
4 likes

If you report it nothing may happen. If you don't report it nothing will definitely happen.

In my opinion we need to continue to collect evidence that the police are not supporting cyclists. The reasons for this need to be establishd and then CUK or a similar body will have the evidence to take action. Report it then post the footage on here with the oucome.

It's easy to say the police are lazy but they do have obstacles put in their way. Gullible magistrates and juries often come up with ludicrous verdicts and this leads the police to require sufficent evidence for a prosecution. In this case a good lawyer would have got the driver off an asault case. I'm not sure why they didn't take action over the close pass but reporting it in two different ways may not have helped. May be we'll find out if they respond to raod.cc's request for a comment.

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