West Yorkshire Police have said it is “not appropriate” to release footage showing a motorist committing a close pass on a cyclist, after the force posted a now-viral video, clipped from the same rider’s Operation Snap submission, showing him squeezing between a parked car and an oncoming motorist.
On Friday, West Yorkshire Police released a video, which has since attracted hundreds of thousands of views and the attention of the national press, featuring a camera cyclist passing a parked car on a hill as a motorist travelled in the opposite direction in Menston, near the spa town of Ilkley.
The footage was submitted by the cyclist to the force’s Operation Snap portal for driving offences. The Leeds-based rider was wishing to alert police to an alleged close pass he was subject to at the start of the video, only for the force to prosecute him for his “poor cycling”, claiming his filtering distance was “significantly less than the car he reported earlier had given him”.
Last week in Bradford Magistrates’ Court, the cyclist was fined £1,200 for the manoeuvre, a hefty fine road.cc understands was the result of him disputing the matter in court, where the subsequent penalty may also have been means-tested.
The earlier close pass committed by the driver, which was not included in the police’s abridged social media post, resulted in the motorist being offered to take a driver retraining course.
According to West Yorkshire Police’s post, the unnamed cyclist “uploaded a video showing a car passing too close to his pedal cycle to our Op Snap portal”.
The post continued: “But later on in the same submission, he captured himself riding without due care and attention as he approached a parked car and an oncoming vehicle.
“Rather than slow down or have to unclip from his pedals, the rider chose to travel between the parked car and the vehicle heading directly towards him.
“This distance was significantly less than the car he reported earlier had given him. The driver was forced to hug the kerb to reduce the risk of contact.
“It is important that all road users are aware of the Highway Code, are considerate to other road users and understand their responsibility for the safety of other.”
The cyclist was ordered to pay £1,200 in fines and costs for riding without due care and attention, a spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police indicating that the matter was dealt with by the courts due to the lack of suitable training courses or fixed penalties for the offence in question.
The fine was also means-tested by the court during last week’s sentencing. According to Section 29 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, cycling carelessly without due care and attention can result in a maximum fine of £1,000. The additional £200 the cyclist was ordered to pay is a result of legal costs. road.cc has contacted Bradford Magistrates’ Court for more information on last week’s decision.
In a statement provided to road.cc, West Yorkshire Police also said it was “not appropriate” to release footage of the earlier close pass, the spokesperson stating that it would be “unfair” to the driver and not “strictly relevant” to the offence posted online.
“The driver was dealt with by way of a National Driver Retraining Scheme (NDORS) course offer. It would not be appropriate to release the ‘close pass’ footage,” the spokesperson said.
“There is no suitable approved course for the cycling offence, nor is there a fixed penalty option (as there is no licence requirement for cycling). As such, the matter was dealt with through the courts.”
The spokesperson said the police chose not to name the cyclist in their social media post as they “didn’t feel it would be proportionate to do so”.
Nevertheless, last week’s social media post, and its focus on the cyclist’s ‘careless’ riding, has been widely criticised online for appearing to conflate the danger posed by close passing motorists to people on bikes with that of cyclists filtering past vehicles at slow speed.
West Yorkshire Police declined to comment when asked by road.cc why they chose to highlight the cyclist’s careless riding in a social media post, and why they pointed out that his filtering distance was “significantly less” than the previous unseen close pass, especially when the level of danger to other road users was also greatly reduced by comparison.
It also isn’t the first time this year that West Yorkshire Police have been questioned for their handling of incidents involving cyclists submitted to Operation Snap, the force responding to such criticism in January by insisting that all video footage sent to the portal is reviewed and two-thirds of submissions “have resulted in action being taken”.
That statement was provided to us following one instalment of our Near Miss of the Day series, which showed the moment a cyclist narrowly avoided a crash with a taxi driver who, the rider alleges, was “too busy checking their phone” to see them.
West Yorkshire Police disagreed with the cyclist’s assessment that it was “a cut-and-dried example of careless driving”, officers suggesting that “no crime had been committed”.
A spokesperson for the force told us: “In the past year more than 65 per cent of all submissions to Operation Snap resulted in further action being taken. All submissions are reviewed by officers and staff trained who are experienced in the application of road traffic law.
“For action to be taken submissions must meet the required evidential threshold to provide a realistic prospect of conviction. Operation Snap continues to offer an important opportunity for the public to work with the police to improve driver behaviour and help support our Vision Zero ambition to prevent road death and serious injury.”
8 thoughts on “Police say “not appropriate” to release close pass footage captured by cyclist fined £1,200 in viral clip”
I cycle around here regularly and also submit footage to WY Police from time to time through OpSnap. My experience has been generally good, almost all submissions result in “positive action” as they say. The stats for cyclist submissions are good – I think as a road user group the cyclist submissions have the highest “strike rate”. I do feel in this instance (the Menston incidents) that we are not getting the whole story. There is of course nothing to prevent the cyclist in question releasing all the footage from the whole of the incident. When I saw the headline costs / fine I did wonder if it had been dealt with in the Defendants absence. Overall there does seem to be an imbalance in disposals – the cyclist should be given the option of an out of court route as the driver was.
Right then….
It’s not appropriate? Why not? Is it because it shows that in fact the close pass received by the cyclist was not, in fact, significantly more than the distances shown in this (admittedly rather stupid) example of bad cycling? Are they covering their backsides after another blatant lie?
Is this the same force that didn’t prosecute a close pass on me because I wasn’t in the dead center of a cycle lane, but slightly to one side to avoid a drain grate, and therefore I was “inconsiderate” in my cycling?
Or who tried to prosecute me for swearing in distress when a driver deliberately tried to ram me off the road, whilst filming me? Or who actually wrote in a witness statement that I swear in the majority of the videos that I submit (a blatant lie which they know is false, but don’t care. Shame I couldn’t get that tested in court).
Is this the police force who have a written policy – and I kid you not – of dismissing OUT OF HAND any complaints about how they handle submissions from cyclists who have previously complained to them.
Is this the same force that can’t see anything wrong with a close pass UNDERTAKE at speed, and refused to prosecute this incident; https://vimeo.com/1079291114/f8d5ab5f41
Or whose road safety unit does not contain a SINGLE cyclist (my sample size is the 6 who I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of dealing with) amongst their ranks?
Institutionally anti-cyclist!!!
So it’s appropriate to cite the offence for which the cyclist submitted the video as a comparative that “proves” the cyclist’s offence was far worse, but now it’s not only not appropriate to show the video but it’s not actually relevant to the cyclist’s offence either? Right. Shouldn’t you make a beeping noise when you back up like that, chaps?
Does the cyclist still have the original footage? Nothing to prevent them releasing it so we can see the validity or otherwise of the police claims.
Um, which is it then?
“In a statement provided to road.cc, West Yorkshire Police also said it was “not appropriate” to release footage of the earlier close pass, the spokesperson stating that it would be “unfair” to the driver and not “strictly relevant” to the offence posted online.”
It may not be “strictly relevant” to the offence posted online. But the pertinent question is why they chose to post the cycling offence online, but not the motoring offence. That’s “unfair”. If they sincerely meant the message posted alongside the cycling clip (“It is important that all road users are aware of The Highway Code, are considerate to other road users and understand their responsibility for the safety of others”), then they should have posted both offences. To post only one looks very much like seeking to dissuade cyclists from making reports.
This is a really important precedent, because it confirms that an oncoming car in their own lane CAN be charged with a close pass, even if the cyclist and the car remain in their own lanes. A cyclist riding in primary position could probably rack up dozens, if not hundreds, of prosecutions in an hour or two of cycling.
Or, West Yorkshire Police are full of shit.
@sigirides based on my sadly all too large experience, there are many fine officers within West Yorkshire Police. And many who don’t fit into that category, particularly as it pertains to cyclists’ issues.
The key issue is that the prejudiced, incompetent ones dominate, and are not corrected, constrained or checked in any way, so that cyclists cannot expect anything close to a fair and consistent treatment by WYP. As such, they are institutionally anti-cyclist.
@sigirides as long as you dive for the kerb to demonstrate you were inconvenienced.