£100 fine and 3 points for close pass

vonhelmet wrote:

I’m sure this will be every bit as effective as, say, the ban on using a mobile phone while driving.

Or middle/outside lane hoggers on duals or mways. It made great headlines in the Daily Gammon when news came out that it would be an endorseable offence, but pointless when there are no police on the roads to enforce it.

fenix wrote:

This is a portal that you can upload any dodgy driving too.

 

https://www.nextbase.com/en-gb/national-dash-cam-safety-portal/

And this is worth noting from the South Cheshire Police - "Be aware that ALL offences will be dealt with that are shown in any footage supplied. It is your responsibility as a driver to uphold the law."

 

So if you tried to report a driver for a close pass and your camera showed you going through a red light then you'd get fined too. Which is fair enough. 

 

That should stop the 2 wrongs make a right type bellends. See a lot of it in motorbike vids, biker gets wronged then proceeds to do something like turn around and ride like a cunt to catch up wrongdoer. Saw one twat riding down the cycle lane in a recent vid as he decided he needed to tell off a phone user.

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

The problem is that if the driver decides to go to court and pleads not guilty how do the prosecution prove that the pass was closer than the prescribe limit, whatever that maybe when the law comes into effect ? 

Most video footage is from the front or rear and no one can measure the passing distance from footage such as this. It then falls on the onus of the cyclist to say that he / she thought the driver was closer than the limit but i can guarantee that no jury will ever find the driver guilty on a presumed passing distance. 

I think you could have an attempt using google maps.
You can measure the width of the road on google maps
You can find out the width of the vehicle from it's spec.
You can see where the cyclist is.
So then you can work out how far from the cyclist the vehicle should be and compare that with the footage.
So if the offside wheels are barely over the central line, then that should be sufficient in most cases.
Obviously there will be marginal cases that are not 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

hirsute wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

The problem is that if the driver decides to go to court and pleads not guilty how do the prosecution prove that the pass was closer than the prescribe limit, whatever that maybe when the law comes into effect ? 

Most video footage is from the front or rear and no one can measure the passing distance from footage such as this. It then falls on the onus of the cyclist to say that he / she thought the driver was closer than the limit but i can guarantee that no jury will ever find the driver guilty on a presumed passing distance. 

I think you could have an attempt using google maps. You can measure the width of the road on google maps You can find out the width of the vehicle from it's spec. You can see where the cyclist is. So then you can work out how far from the cyclist the vehicle should be and compare that with the footage. So if the offside wheels are barely over the central line, then that should be sufficient in most cases. Obviously there will be marginal cases that are not 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

but I tried that though with a close pass I had recently, the road ended up 3.3metres wide and is bounded by a pedestrian island refuge so I know the car cant exceed that width, the car was about 2metres wide give or take a wing mirror, and my handle bars are .6m across in total...but I was at least 1/3rd of the width of the road across towards the centre line, specifically to block pass overtakes through this pinchpoint or so I thought. Yet 1.4 + 2 does not equal 3.3. dont get me wrong it was uncomfortably (polite version) very close but the car didnt hit me or the island, yet somehow still fitted through.

and I appreciate it wont be completely precise measurements, but we have to be talking in terms of at least a +-30 cm error which is near enough 10% in this case. No jury would convict on those terms.

hirsute wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

The problem is that if the driver decides to go to court and pleads not guilty how do the prosecution prove that the pass was closer than the prescribe limit, whatever that maybe when the law comes into effect ? 

Most video footage is from the front or rear and no one can measure the passing distance from footage such as this. It then falls on the onus of the cyclist to say that he / she thought the driver was closer than the limit but i can guarantee that no jury will ever find the driver guilty on a presumed passing distance. 

I think you could have an attempt using google maps. You can measure the width of the road on google maps You can find out the width of the vehicle from it's spec. You can see where the cyclist is. So then you can work out how far from the cyclist the vehicle should be and compare that with the footage. So if the offside wheels are barely over the central line, then that should be sufficient in most cases. Obviously there will be marginal cases that are not 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

The questioning by a defence, should it actually get to court, would be "can you be 100% sure that your measurements of the precise piece of road are correct and that the position of the cyclist on the road at the precise time the vehicle passes is 100% accurate"  if no because it cant be means that the case will get kicked out. You cant have the exact point it passes, only the aftermath caught on camera.

It is really annoying but thats how defence barristers earn their money by finding, not innocence of their client, but doubts about the proescution.  

Mungecrundle wrote:

Having a law is one thing, having it enforced is quite another. Unless the submission of video footage taken by the public is deemed acceptable evidence for prosecution, and I can just imagine the legal minefield that this would become, then the chances of being caught in the act to a prosecutable standard are remote to none. We should also be aware of any quid pro quo in that there may be some expectation that for an apparently better protection in legislation that cyclists as a road using group will have to give something in return; helmets, banned from A-roads, mandatory insurance, licencing and all the other nonsense. 

As BTBS states, there are already sufficient statutes regarding driving without due care and attention, dangerous driving etc that should be just as effective as a stand alone close passing law.

Aren't the cops in Wales now accepting video footage as evidence of an offence?