[Nel]

Hi
Normally I shrug off close passes and get on with my day but an incident last night left me pretty shaken up.
Riding on the road with a shared use path alongside a driver passed blasting his horn and shouting’use the bike path’.
He then stopped in the middle of the lane and waited. I waited 50m back not wanting to get in front of him. This standoff continued for 5 mins until he pulled over and got out to confront me. Called me a c*** for holding him up, wasting tax payers money on bike paths, not paying road tax etc… then got back in his car and continued to wait.
After another 5 mins I got fed up and cycled on (I know this was stupid, should have gone on the path or turned around). He followed and then did a really aggressive close pass which I caught on my phone video.
I didn’t realise but he then waited a mile up the road and again close passed me, this time throwing something at me which hit me on the arm.
Has anyone got advice on reporting? I live in Norfolk. I was going to report as a traffic incident but there is an option to report aggressive behaviour, however this opens a criminal case. Should I go down the traffic incident route or the aggressive behaviour route?
Thanks

Topic

[bikes]

Wow, what an absurdly low penalty. But, yes, better than nothing.

[tommyraleigh]

Plenty of advice in here: https://road.cc/content/feature/everything-you-need-know-about-bike-cameras-310657

[qwerty360]

The correct answer is both RTC and aggressive behaviour.

Note that in theory, once they have thrown something at you, its a collision, though your issue is probably proving this (read, medical report showing soft tissue injury and/or video of stuff being thrown – this is where front + rear cameras show their value…).

If you have so much as a bruise you could request insurance details from police and argue for an insurance claim – I suspect the driver would get far more punishment from their insurer paying out a £50 claim (and having to declare it as a personal injury claim for the next 5 years on insurance) than anything the police are likely/able to do…

So if it was as bad as described, may be worth chasing from that route.

Note also that because its a collision the 14 day NIP limit doesn’t actually apply (though again, proving it). And yes, ‘unsecured load’ (i.e. stuff being thrown from the vehicle at you) is a collision…

Could also report to council as littering.

[Bungle_52]

I would just like to say thank you for taking the time and trouble to report this. Don’t forget you are not just reporting to get justice for yourself but in the hope that this driver will be more careful around all cyclists in future. The effectiveness of that will obviously depend on the police action.

In Gloucestershire I ask for the outcome of my OpSnap reports after waiting a year and I am always told. (OpSnap asks you to keep the video for a year so I ask if it is OK to delete the files and if they could tell me the outcome). Some forces publish annual stats from which it is usally possible to deduce what happened to your report. I don’t know anything about Norfolk though.

[Nel]

Yeah it feels like it should be more than a letter which will probably get ignored.
And it wasn’t that I felt the crime wasn’t serious enough, more that I thought the system might not think so and I had more chance of getting a result going through op snap.
Not sure I can be bothered opening a criminal case, I’d rather just move on and enjoy my riding than get wound up over some dickhead. I’ll put this one down as a win.

[HoarseMann]

I had a driver blast the horn, shout ‘I’ll squish yer!’ Out the window then proceed to swerve their motorhome and trailer as they passed, forcing me to brake and move left towards the kerb, narrowly missing my handlebars with the back of their trailer. All captured on rear video.

I reported it as a traffic incident and they were offered a course. I believe they paid £100 and attended the ‘what’s driving us’ one.

Not a great outcome, but better than nothing.

Is there the option to report as both? I would perhaps report the close pass as a driving incident and then the threatening behaviour as assault?

[Nel]

I submitted a traffic incident through op snap. They requested the supporting video the next day and I have now been told the driver will receive either a Warning Letter, a Fixed Penalty or a prosecution.
I am pretty happy with this outcome although it would be nice to know the actual result.

[mdavidford]

Sorry you’ve had to go through that.

Did the video capture the object being thrown at you? That’s a bit more than aggressive (antisocial) behaviour – you were physically assaulted, though I imagine it might be difficult to interest the police in treating it as that if it can’t be evidenced.

If your concern is about opening a criminal case being too ‘serious’ for the offence, I wouldn’t be – this person is almost certainly going to be a danger to others in future, so the more seriously it’s addressed the better.

[Tom_77]

I think it depends on:

• what outcome you are looking for
• what your video evidence shows (or what other witnesses saw)
• how much effort you’re prepared to put in (giving statements, possibly attending court, etc)
• how much time has passed since the incident – time limit for a NIP to be issued is 2 weeks, so a traffic incident needs to be reported ASAP

[Author]

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