Police chief writes to cyclist to explain why he can't investigate crash

Believe me, I appreciate your predicament. There are 30 million tax payers in the UK, would I pay £10 more tax a year if it meant £300m extra in the police budget (for example), yes I would. And yes, I'd rather you went and 'dealt with' someone hitting their wife than coming to take the details of someone who's had a minor bump.

Sswindells wrote:

More people are killed on the roads that murdered - Oh ok, so an intentional act of violence designed to end someones life is less important than usually poor driving behaviour? Ok, less women get beat up by their husbands than have their cars scratched. Lets give up on helping domestic violence victims too. Yes cyclists and pedestrians can be killed on our roads, but the vast majority of the time it is not intentional. Murder on the other hand is.

[...]

Lets put it simple, there are a lot fewer police officers now, and what is left have to prioritise what is important right now, what's important later, and what can we hopefully sort out when we have a free minute. Vulnerability is our biggest priority, protecting vulnerable children specifically. Then vulnerability in violence and abuse. Sexual crime features high up there. Because MOST road traffic incidents are accidents (as in not intentional) we don't prioritise unless it is really serious, in which case we do go.

I think the problem is, you are prioritising vulnerability, but treating the symptoms not the cause. Yes, on this occasion I've only got bumps and bruises. Or, in my case from a couple of years back, a broken wrist that means I can now only hold a pint or a saucepan with one hand. But if you (for valid and understandable reasons, as stated) treat such collisions as trivial, it reinforces the impression that driving with due care for other vulnerable road users is OK. And next time someone doesn't bother looking, I'm cooling on a slab in the mortuary.

It's easy to say your treating the symptoms not the cause. Does that mean we should ignore those that have been victims and focus on stopping new victims? Or just focus on victims? Or try and help both, those that have been affected and those that might be? It is resource intensive. And when swinging savage cuts come we have to make a decision on what is important and affects more people. Unfortunately, protecting children comes first ad always will.

It is not trivialising road incidents, but it's about saying we can't do everything anymore. Instead of blaming the police why are you not protesting against the cuts? Or why not petitioning the driver standards agency to be more involved in bad driving and dealing with repeat offenders? It's an easy answer to blame the police.

What do you suggest? GMP had over 8000 police officers in 2008. Now they have about 6500 and are set to lose another 1000 potentially more. How do we provide justice to victims, stop the causes of crimes in the first place, protect road users, search for missing people, deal with all the other day to day stuff you don't see or hear about that needs to be done? A lot of people are quick to say you should be doing this or that but not many realise the complexities of doing it.

The fact I am on this site suggests I am a cyclist as well. I am not defending the police for not getting involved because as I have said the police do a lot of stuff I don't think we should. And waste time in the wrong places. But about 40% of the cops I have worked with are all cyclists too who commute, race, and just enjoy Sunday rides etc. none of us want to be in a situation where we are the victim of someone's poor driving. And we all know we won't get special treatment ( despite what you might think ). I would love to spend more time dealing with poor drivers, who run red lights, speed, park illegally and dangerously, and I'd also love to spend more time dealing with poor cyclists who ride without lights, through red lights etc. but unfortunately the next job I'm going to needs me there right that minute so I don't have the luxury to stop and do what I want to.

Sadly there isn't an answer which isn't "invest in more cops" because this government won't be doing it. So we have to make that judgement call which job we go to and where we invest time and resources with every single call. Sometimes we get it wrong. And CC Fahy is making no apology for it because he's just telling you what every front line police officer would tell you if you asked.

Trust me, nothing annoys a cop more than someone breaking the law in front of them and them not being in a position to deal with them.

Sswindells wrote:

Theres a lot of ignorant comments on here. I'm a Police officer, and I don't go out of my way to support Policing because there are a lot of dumb things that the cops do that I disagree with...

There is a fundamental misunderstanding about safety in this post.

Roads are industrial environments in that they are places where dangerous heavy machinery operates. Nearly all other industrial environments apply near miss safety principals, including in the UK, rail and commercial air transport.

The premise of near miss safety is that there is a direct mathematical relationship between near misses and casualties. The only difference between an incident resulting in a near miss, and one that results in a casualty is chance. If you can't or won't act on near misses, you won't reduce casualties. It's that simple.

Key to acting on near misses is the process of investigation to find the cause, and apply remedial action. Without this in place all you can do is treat the symptoms (i.e., hospitalise or bury), not reduce the casualties .

We now have in writing that investigation will no longer be performed.

Great news for safety don't you think?

Sswindells wrote:

More people are killed on the roads that murdered - Oh ok, so an intentional act of violence designed to end someones life is less important than usually poor driving behaviour? Ok, less women get beat up by their husbands than have their cars scratched. Lets give up on helping domestic violence victims too. Yes cyclists and pedestrians can be killed on our roads, but the vast majority of the time it is not intentional. Murder on the other hand is.

Vigilantes - That'll really help the situation. Hiring private security, who are ultimately enforced muscle, so then so will others. That is what a gang is in theory. Muscle enforcing ones will on another, a protection racket. I don't see how "we're not investigating this incident" reads "that's OK hire someone to protect you instead". I suppose every time a window is broken, there are no witnesses, and no other evidence and the Police say they can't investigate that opens the doors for vigilantes to take over?

Inept management with cuts to Road Policing - No, it's putting resources where they are needed. I wouldn't like to say what an average day looks like but I can promise there will be more of a need for officers to attend emergency calls like domestic violence, burglaries, sexual offences than there will to be to deal with crashes on the roads. So it makes more sense to put the officers there. When there was lots of money and lots of cops then yes big traffic policing departments, now there isn't, so all they can do is react, and usually they're reacting to serious crashes not minor ones.

Lets put it simple, there are a lot fewer police officers now, and what is left have to prioritise what is important right now, what's important later, and what can we hopefully sort out when we have a free minute.Vulnerability is our biggest priority, protecting vulnerable children specifically. Then vulnerability in violence and abuse. Sexual crime features high up there. Because MOST road traffic incidents are accidents (as in not intentional) we don't prioritise unless it is really serious, in which case we do go. But as our Federation are massively highlighting at the moment under the campaign #whatdowestop I'll give you an example, the other weekend there was 2 of us covering a large inner city area, within the space of 5 minutes we had 3 emergencies, A domestic violence incident, female heard screaming things being thrown about then silence. A burglary in progress occupants and children in the address. A suicidal male who has phoned to say he is on top of a bridge over a dual carriageway. How do you expect us to then attend a traffic accident where there aren't any injuries, everyone has exchanged details, there is no reasons for concern? To be honest we'll never go to that traffic accident because we'll never get time and it's not an appropriate use of our resources.

A death on the road is still a death - it doesn't matter too much to the victims whether or not it was 'itentional'. You are also implying that these things are unavoidable which is a laughable premise.

The comparison between car scratches and domestic violence also is not thought out. The difference between road deaths and car scratches is apparent. The fact that more people die in this way highlights that it is a serious issue.

The problem with a claim of 'priority' is that many will find it contridictory when things they perceive as less important take precendence, insinuating that people on bikes are unimportant. This cynicism has existed well before the budget cuts.

This was never due to a lack of evidence, either. The rise in camera cyclists hasn't been matched by a rise in prosecutions.

So, say someone is assaulted and punched. Now, of course we understand that this sort of behaviour shouldn't be ignored. However, what you are saying is that when someone is hit by a car and suffers bruises, it isn't important.

Sorry for my ignorance but if you read the actual complaint from the cyclist involved it states he is astonished the police were not going to do anything further. It is not a question of neccessarily attending every collision but there is little excuse for not following up when an allegation of careless driving has been made. That can be done slow time. Its not always about getting some cash. I'll stand by my inept management comment. Fahy has been chief for 7 years, none of this has happened over night. Making "use of resources" comparisons between murder, domestic violence and road traffic incidents is crass.
If there were only two of you on duty in a busy town centre on a weekend then it was because either nothing ever happens where you work or it's a sign of more poor management. If you extrapolate GMPs job cuts so they can compare with your shift numbers then the normal number on duty where you are would be three. I bet there less response officers in GMP than there are main office or specialist investigator types. I'm afraid you show signs of someone who believes it is ok not to attend burglaries in odd numbered houses. Particularly with the broken window comment. The federation are on the side of ACPO or NPCC or whatever they want to call themselves (the vast majority of whom oppose regionalised police forces because they would lose their jobs, drivers, personal bag carriers but that's a different issue) so putting your faith in them is misguided.

Sswindells wrote:

Theres a lot of ignorant comments on here. I'm a Police officer

There we go just the type of comment the public expect from a police these days, together with general condescending nature of your post just because people question how the police spend their time.

You might be better off restricting your comments to those private police Facebook pages were you exchange racist jokes or whatever it is you get up to.

stumps wrote:

There is some absolute drivel written here by people who know bot all about what they are typing.

If names and addresses are exchanged with no injury then a collision report will not be submitted, simple as.

Due to this govt there are simply not enough Police officers with in excess of 15,000 less than when they came into power and that number will only rise. They have made the job so unappealing and cut the starting wage to less than a McDonalds manager that no one wants to do it even if forces were recruiting.

At least if you don't like the service you get from McDs you can go to Burger King or where ever. If the police service is crap your are stuck unless you make a private prosecution which you can only do in certain circumstances for certain offences with permission.

And a McD manager does a far better job. Neither does a McDonalds manager get quite the benefits that a fully fledged copper does e.g. gold plated pension, early retirement, nor the huge amount in over time coppers can rack up. Anyway McDonalds fast food places are run on a franchise basis. Are you suggesting this is the model you want the Government to adopt and you'd be on a zero hour contract? Perhaps you would prefer flipping burgers? No, thought not.

ydrol wrote:

Cops appear to be conflating two things:
1. Attending the scene
2. Charging the driver after their details are known.

So it appears that anything that does not result in KSI will not go to court. So charges like "driving without due care and attention", "careless driving", "dangerous driving" are not going to be put in front of CPS unless bones were broken?

And even , a recent storey had a some police force describing broken ribs on a cyclist as 'minor injuries'??

My injuries were described as minor... I broke 6 ribs, had concussion, and ended up losing a kidney, very nearly lost my spleen too! Police attended, but I'm pretty sure they didn't investigate. They blamed the collision on "cyclist error", but provided no explanation of how they came to that conclusion. I was hit from behind (in a cycle lane), by a taxi... driven by a 74-year-old.