Near Miss of the Day 737: Overtaking van driver beeps at cyclist and swerves at him ... but only gets a warning letter

I did say to the officer that with high-viz, helmet, day-bright lights, mirror, cameras and a defensive road position, that I thought I'd done all I could for my own safety. But maybe not?*

*actually, some look quite aero

The car didn't hoot, it was the van. Two beeps as they raced up behind, then a long blast as they went past and swerved. The first two beeps are quieter as the microphone doesn't pick up sound that well, but they were loud enough to me!

Warning letters don't need to go out in the 10 day time frame. They can be issued in template form with minimal input. They make nice easy stats that give the appearance of action while essentially doing nothing

And they're handy as scrap paper for the recipient. They are otherwise worthless, because the police will ensure they 'don't notice' the previous offence when the driver commits the next one.

A fixed penalty for careless driving was not considered as this offence must be witnessed, in person, by a police officer for the FPN to be issued

Obvious lying by the police. Lying, dodging and incompetence are the staples of traffic police work. Below, you can see wstransportation.com's PN22 DTX -a 44 tonner hammering through an A6 red light on 21st March. If you ignore the usual rubbish, as I will, about 'how can he stop in time if it's just changed to red there?', 'how do we know he actually went through the lights' or 'the Met police only prosecute if you go through the lights over 3 seconds after they turned red' etc. The police were quick to exonerate the driver, as Lancashire Constabulary invariably does for HGVs, with this (an exact and complete copy- I would have included the officer's name but Lancashire keeps them anonymous)

Thank you for your submission APL 103264.The footage, including still, shows the HGV crossing the first solid white stop line whilst the traffic signal is amber.  The further solid white stop line is for bicycles, as is clearly marked.  There are no offences disclosed from this footage and therefore no further action will be taken

I refer those sceptical about Highway Code Rule 178, such as Lancashire Constabulary, to this Part 1, Section 30 and Part 2, Item 49. The complaint is now with Inspector Oliver Jones who "has just joined my department but has some knowledge of OpSnap from his previous role in Division". Policemen always come with a built-in excuse!

I did think about your red light battles when the officer mentioned they couldn't issue FPN's for that. Maybe Lancs have a similar policy?

I'm assuming you are sending a video of the red light infringement and not just a photo?

The video and still and slomo were in police hands on the same day- that's why the police official response mentions 'the footage'. I never send video into the site any more because it's invariably ignored. I don't think, despite my non-reticence on the subject, most people on here yet realise just how bad Lancashire Constabulary is. You now have the evidence that Lancashire Constabulary doesn't know how Advanced Stop Lines and traffic light legislation work- the Highway Code is very specific and is not difficult to read, but the duffers who 'review' evidence still can't get it right

This is my submission (and one reason I got a bit annoyed with Ashley Neal's horn advice!). I think you are right there and interesting that the MET seem able to hand out FPNs for careless driving.

They did issue a NIP and took the time to speak to the driver over the phone. I can't think it would be much more effort to issue a 3 point 100 quid FPN, with the warning if it goes to court, the fine will be a lot more and you could get more points.

I can imagine the one driver that got prosecuted, if they read this, will not be thinking blimey, I'd better not do that again. They'll be saying wasn't I unlucky to get done for it and they'd be right.

The question is, what to do about it?

Velo-drone wrote:

Hammering drivers is not likely to be a priority for a lot of directly elected Police & Crime Commissioners.

It should be.  The police's duty is to protect the public, and the most likely cause of harm to the public is distracted, inattentive, or as in this case, deliberately dangerous drivers.  If the police don't want to be picking up bits of people at crashes, they should be enforcing road laws to ensure that such drivers are removed from the road.