[the little onion]

So here’s an odd one. Just posting it here for any advice, though as a CyclingUK member, I’ll also contact them to hear their view.

 

I was close passed in a really bad way a while back – basically, nearly squeezed between a barrier and a badly driven car. During the process, I “dropped the f-bomb” four times. I submitted the footage to the police, including an apologetic note for my language in the footage. The police are taking it further with the driver, apparently, but the driver has now complained that I was using foul and abusive language, and thus a public order offence. I’m now going to be interviewed under caution for a public order offence!

 

I’ve sent some footage to the police before which has included some fruity language, but never had anything like this before. Frankly, the whole thing is embarrasing that this has been taken this far. Surely there is no public interest in pursuing someone who lets their language standards dropped when narrowly escaping a serious road incident?

 

Any thoughts or advice welcome.

Topic

[the little onion]

I can now add another detail

I can now add another detail to this horror-show, as a related case has now concluded.

A few months previous to this (as the officers interviewing me about the swearing were aware), I was subject to an assault by a driver. What happened was I was cycling on a painted cycle lane when a driver did a massive U-turn in the opposite carriageway right in front of me, blocking the cycle lane and also part of the pavement. I didn’t have time to brake to a stop, but I did manage a nifty swerve and a squeeze between this car and the main flow of traffic. 

My bike somehow made very slight contact with the car. My best feeling is that the driver opened his door as I was going passed, and brushed my pannier. Said driver took deep offense at this, beeped his horn, and started chasing me, driving at me – including driving with all four wheels on the pavement at one point, and through a red light (I also went through the red light, but only to escape this psycho). I got to the point where the traffic was clear, and realising that he was going to ram me and I had no prospect of escape, bunny-hopped onto a pavement and stood next to a wall, thinking that he won’t ram me if he is going to end up ramming a wall. The driver started swearing and shouting at me, accusing me of hitting his car, then punched me in the head. Luckily I was wearing a helmet (let’s not start the helmet debate!). He broke my glasses, then as I tried to phone the police, snatched my phone and threw it across the road. Fortunately, enough people had stopped at this point that the driver changed his mind, jumped back in his car, and sped off.

 

With regards that case, the driver has been cautioned, and had to attend some courses. I think this is with regards assault and dangerous driving – the police haven’t given me the full details. But I can post about this incident now that the case is closed.

 

My wider point is that, at the time of my swearing incident, the driver from the assault had not been arrested. The police knew that I had recently been victim of an unprovoked assault by a driver, yet refused to consider that as part of my story, and why I was more than a little nervous at being driven at on purpose by someone filming the whole incident on their phone. Indeed, they were actively dismissive of a very similar case, just a few weeks earlier, when someone else had deliberately driven at me, and then punched me, in a similarly unprovoked incident..

 

I am absolutely disgusted at the police. Frankly, I don’t trust them. I think that they are institutionally anti-cyclist. In other words, people cycling on two wheels cannot expect the same protection and application of the law as people on foot, in cars, on trains or any other form of transport. I believe this is hard-baked into the culture of road traffic policing – as reflected by how no specialist road traffic officers I have dealt with actually cycle, and the deeply prejudiced attitudes on show. 

 

If you cycle, you cannot trust the police. They are your enemy, not your friend.

[Secret_squirrel]

the little onion wrote:

Bungle_52 wrote:

Can you let us know whether cycling UK have been of any use. I have found them particularly unhelpful recently to the extent I am getting no replies to emails. V disappointing for a charity that is supposed to be on the cyclist’s side.

to be honest, CyclingUK haven’t replied to the majority of my emails in recent months. I love their national campaigns, but it seems they are very stretched when dealing with more local cases.

Can you elaborate on “emails” – have you explicitly raised an insurance case with them?  Im surprised you are leaving something so crucial to emails when you can call them.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycling-legal-advice

[David9694]

First para bit of a bitter

First para bit of a bitter pill.  When you’re in a public service with an enforcement power, people will try in all sorts of ways, to play you. You have to never forget there are always two sides to every story.  In the police’s case with public complaints, it’s usually one thing has led to another and ideally someone has to be deemed to have “crossed the line” – but all too often the lines between guilt perpetrator and innocent victim are not clear-cut.  As we slide into right-wing politics, perpetrators become victims all to easily. 

My anecdote coming up suggests some niavety from the police about acting even-handedly.  After I was knocked off my bike by a driver a few years ago my father advised me to hand deliver a letter claiming damages to the driver’s house a few days later.  Stupid advice, at best from another era.  I think it was the driver’s mother who opened the door – she took the letter an that was that. I got a ‘phone call from the police later that day saying don’t do that – point taken.  That’s what you’re dealing with. Unknown to me at that point, the driver had on the day of the incident gone to the police station and lied her head off to them – in their shoes I’d find that really annoying.  I still remember the voicemail left by the police officer who visited me to take my statement to get ”my version” of what happened.  There was only on one fucking version.  

As others have said, there’s no way on this Earth a driver with their 2 tonne suit of motorised armour can claim to be scared of a cyclist, not least when they’ve just put them in fear of their life. 
 

 

[wtjs]

someone down the station is
someone down the station is fed up with being asked to do their job properly by cyclists submitting videos and thought you know what, let’s cut down on the workload by making cyclists scared to submit complaints in case they end up facing prosecution themselves
So when somebody (me) submits numerous indisputable videos of offences, the police REALLY don’t like it when they are deprived of a means of victim blaming like this because the only (I think) video of mine with swearing on it was when the offender said he was going to ‘fucking flatten’ me and knock me off my bike. No swearing from me. The police response was ‘verbal words of advice’ to the driver. As you know, for years the police have failed to respond to my reports.

[wtjs]

The police are obliged to
The police are obliged to investigate but they have considerable licence, along with the CPS, to decide if an offence has been comitted and/or if it is serious enough to require further action
This charming view of police thought and action processes may apply in some areas of the country, but they certainly don’t apply in the Land of the Traffic Offender: Lancashire. You have seen the videos too often, and I have the reporting details for all of them. The Filth don’t investigate, don’t reply and don’t take any action.The PCC responds to complaints with ‘this is an operational decision of the police’. Traffic law and active travel are dead ducks in at least one area of the country.

[quiff]

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

I for one can’t understand that tit for tat verbal abuse can be prosecuted on one side, but not the other… 

However, the video evidence will speak for itself. 

Unfortunately if the newly added video is all the video evidence, it doesn’t show much of the driver’s verbals. I really sympathise with the little onion here and hope there’s footage showing the driver giving as good as they got. Such a depressing state of affairs and one I could well imagine myself in.  

[Rendel Harris]

grumpyoldcyclist wrote:

Sorry this is not the fault of the police, this is the driver after ‘revenge’. He may be prosecuted for dangerous driving so he is out to get his own back, so has complained to the police and they are obliged by law to act.

The police are obliged to investigate but they have considerable licence, along with the CPS, to decide if an offence has been comitted and/or if it is serious enough to require further action, as any cyclist who’s submitted clear evidence of driving offences and had them NFA’d knows. The police could easily in this case, and in yours by the sound of it, have told the complainant either that they did not think there was a case to answer, that they did not think the case had sufficient chance in court or that it was not in the public interest to proceed, so I’d say it is their fault to a considerable degree.

[grumpyoldcyclist]

Sorry this is not the fault

Sorry this is not the fault of the police, this is the driver after ‘revenge’. He may be prosecuted for dangerous driving so he is out to get his own back, so has complained to the police and they are obliged by law to act.

Reason for this theory, I have a story to tell.

I live near a school and in the twenty years we’ve lived here the issue with parking has got worse. There are pretty yellow markings on the roads, ignored, pavements driven onto. The local bus route had to be changed because at school time it got stuck. Anyway one thing that really annoys me is the drivers sitting there, sometimes for 30+ minutes with their engines running, summer or winter. I was walking past one car last November and I gently tapped on the passenger window to ask the driver to switch off. The woman said she would switch off when she was good and ready. I pointed out it was illegal, as was her using her mobile behind the wheel. She said mobile use was fine as she wasn’t driving anywhere. The upshot is I’ve been reported to the police for assault as she was ‘in fear’ of me. Now I didn’t swear, threaten, touch or get anywhere near her, but she wants her own back and the police have to be seen to be taking it seriously. So far two conversations with the Police and I’m waiting on the next stage.
I would point out that at 68 years old and 74 kgs, the idea of me threatening anyone is quite hilarious.

[Bungle_52]

Thanks for the info. V

Thanks for the info. V disappointing this. I would have thought if the cyclist defence fund is for anything it is for cases like this. I left British Cycling to join cyling UK and now I’m questioning whether to renew.

[the little onion]

Bungle_52 wrote:

Can you let us know whether cycling UK have been of any use. I have found them particularly unhelpful recently to the extent I am getting no replies to emails. V disappointing for a charity that is supposed to be on the cyclist’s side.

 

to be honest, CyclingUK haven’t replied to the majority of my emails in recent months. I love their national campaigns, but it seems they are very stretched when dealing with more local cases.

[the little onion]

Thanks – I have my suspicions

Thanks – I have my suspicions along similar lines. I do think that a more likely explanation is just old-fashioned prejudice. The reviewing officers haven’t ridden a bike on the roads in decades, so have no practical experience. They also suffer, in my opinion, from a kind of prejudice against cyclists that sees them as an illegitimate road user, a rogue hazard. Furthermore, I think that they see absolutely no hierarchy of vulnerability on the road, so that in a swearing-laced shouting match between two people, the one who should feel more threatened is the one in a two-tonne locked metal box capable of 100+mph, not the one protected by a few mm of lycra.

These are not run-of-the-mill beat officers, but actual specialist road traffic officers. Who told me happily that they have literally have NO experience of cycling on the highway in DECADES of full-time policing. I mean, zero minutes sat on a bike in the road in their adult lives. And we wonder why the police don’t understand cycling?

[Bungle_52]

Can you let us know whether

Can you let us know whether cycling UK have been of any use. I have found them particularly unhelpful recently to the extent I am getting no replies to emails. V disappointing for a charity that is supposed to be on the cyclist’s side.

[Rendel Harris]

As one had every reason to

As one had every reason to suspect, your video proves there is absolutely no justification in the police pursuing this action against you. Your (thoroughly justified in my opinion) expletives contain no threat whatsoever towards the driver, the first one is telling them to get away from you and the subsequent ones are simply punctuating what you say in a way that most of us do when we are upset or annoyed. The decision to prosecute is quite obviously massive overkill and clearly reflective of bias; I would hazard a guess that someone down the station is fed up with being asked to do their job properly by cyclists submitting videos and thought you know what, let’s cut down on the workload by making cyclists scared to submit complaints in case they end up facing prosecution themselves. I can thoroughly empathise with both the way you behaved in the video and the stress the whole unjustified process must have put on you. Simply disgraceful.

[chrisonabike]

Late – but I’d put my hand in

Late – but I’d put my hand in my pocket for this one.  Sounds like a serious and pretty flagrant example of partiality by the police.  Needs heard.

[the little onion]

OK: here goes. I was hoping

OK: here goes. I was hoping (see point 2 below) for this to in a different direction, but it doesn’t appear to be going there:

Video here: https://vimeo.com/1053042277/ba82ecb97a?share=copy

Point 1: The first expletive happens just as they driver very close to me, edging me leftwards. You only see the nose of the car in the video briefly, but it was actually closer than this earlier. As you can see, I was actually moving slightly left to avoid being rammed.

Point 2: THE DRIVER WAS FILMING ME ON THEIR PHONE! You can’t see this so clearly in the video, but I mentioned this in my original online submission to the police, and also in my police interview. They were looking at me, laughing, and filming me with their phone. It was absolutely deliberate, not ‘sloppy’ driving. Of course, the police didn’t bother to ask the ‘victim’ of my swearing about it.

Point 3. The reason I unclipped the camera and waved it at them was to show they were being filmed, so they didn’t ram me with their car.

Point 4: As I slow down for the traffic, and you hear me say “sorry but….”, it is clear and obvious that they were the ones continuing the conversation. The driver swore at me in this, but this admittedly isn’t clear in the audio.

 

 

I appreciate all the supportive comments here, but this experience (and some other bike related incidents that are still playing out) has been really detrimental to my mental health. I am not sure I have the strength to fight it. The b******ds have won again.

[Author]

Replies