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How to stop close passes, who to write to?
I keep getting close passed on a section of my commute. It's a two lane 30 mph road and the lanes are relatively wide. I ride primary but still get regularly close passed. I often catch up with them at the lights and a common reaction is they're apologetic and have no idea that passing so close is an issue. I appreciate the generous distances most drivers give but then a lot either haven't heard of the 1.5m rule, or they ignore it. If the police ran a close pass operation here it would be a busy day for them.
How will the active travel goals ever be reached if this is what it's like to cycle? Who can I write to? The police, the council (for the road design), my MP? Is it a waste of time?
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13 comments
Yes it's a waste of time, no one cares enough to fix it. So we have to put up with it unfortunately.
I ride with a pass pixi, past Suffolk Police HQ, I often see the traffic cops driving on the same road, yet I get close passed all the time on it. I had one the other week who did it with a police car coming towards them, made no difference. One with an ambulance on blues & twos coming towards us, still overtook & close passed and made the ambulance brake to avoid a collision.
no one cares enough to fix it
It's even worse than that- the authorities (police mainly) are actively working against 'active travel', cyclists in general... No police vehicle has close passed me in the past 5 years, which is the time I've been looking out for the event, but they're certainly not interested in dissuading anybody else from passing as closely as they like and reports are just binned without even declaring them 'NFA'. Close Pass of the Day on here, which could be filled many times over, has made no difference - years of propaganda with no effect at all, which is largely down to our main enemy.
Having cameras will make it easier for you to provide evidence [although don't be surprised if it gets ignored].
If you are getting close passes from commercial vehicles such as HGV, busses and coaches, upload the clip to YouTube [but keep it as Private - need to have a link to view], and send the link to the company transport manager. If they only have an online contact page, don't send the link, and mark it as 'complaint: for the attention of the Transport Manager.
Make sure your complaint lists the offenses [preferable to note legislation and index (Road Traffic Act, section 1.2.3 for example)] and keep clear and precise.
Make sure you copy yourself/ screen capture the contact form.
Print to PDF all communication between yourself and the company.
If you get no resolution, send it all to the Traffic Commissioner for your area, as they issue Operators Licence and the firm must have a robust complaint resolution process in place.
If there are enough complaints about a vehicle or company, the TC may not renew the licence.
You can do this in parallel with reporting to your local police force for them to ignore.
Your main and almost insuperable problem is the almost limitless tolerance and sympathy the police display towards motorists, especially in their interactions with us 'rats of the road'. WU59 UMH is well known to the police and to my fans on here having today achieved a landmark 7 full years without VED. Didn't quite make the 7 years without MOT, but was driving around for 6 months after an MOT failed for several "dangerous" defects. It was regularly parked for hours at a time, including most of last Christmas Day and New Year's Day, outside the pub 150 yards from the police station. If only there was some way for the crack Police Squad to locate the vehicle and owner and view the MOT and VED history of the vehicle! The trailer does not, of course, display a number plate
I don't think that's fair, sometimes the system is slow to update !
Would your local paper like this story? 7 years and the police being notified about it is quite something.
Local papers never reply and are only there for advertising. Lancashire Constabulary is only too keen to state firmly that VED evasion is nothing to do with them, and the previous Tory PCC was equally keen to state firmly that operational decisions of the police (which covers everything you want to complain about) was nothing do with him. Now that the local champion evader has returned after a 4 week absence and is now parked at the usual pub 150 yards from Filth Central, the new People's Crime Commissioner is about to be informed of some of these LC operational decisions so that he can have the opportuniy of stating it's nothing to do with him either.
There is now a development of uncertain veracity on this Nissan, with a photo somebody has sent me suggesting it's stolen.
WU59 UMH is well known to the police and to my fans on here having today achieved a landmark 7 full years without VED. Didn't quite make the 7 years without MOT, but was driving around for 6 months after an MOT failed for several "dangerous" defects
This is a shot from some sort of 'motor trade' website which I don't know, but to get the full report you have to pay £12, which I'm not interested in and wouldn't be able to trust if I was. The police could still make up a claim that it wasn't nicked and I wouldn't be able to check. I began looking for MOT offenders around May 22, and the first time I reported it was August 22- I don't know if I saw it previously so it couold be new to this area. I assumed that there was a trade in these 'No MOT/ No VED so untraceable' vehicles, and the importance for me was that the police were ignoring it as usual but on my second detection he'd had his phone numbers and Facebook page for his agricultural business signed on the back. I didn't actually suspect it was nicked because you'd think even Lancashire officers could detect that. I'll just mention the possibility to the PCC.
Without knowing the police force, it is hard to say other than you are wasting your time with lancs, Essex, Surrey, Suffolk, Norfolk.
Get a camera, rear facing and report via the police portal.
Add Scotland to that list. You won't even find a dashcam reporting portal in Scotland either so you can forget that also.
You didn't mention The Scottish Dodge, whereby if, by witchcraft, you manage to force your HD video upon the reluctant Scottish Police and they visit the Alleged Offender: the AO only has to state that he doesn't recall the incident for the SP to NFA the report
They also ask you to email footage. To get that email address you need to go through the back and forth of them turning up at your house with no appointment and leaving a card if you're not in. The next hurdle is chopping and compressing your footage into tiny 25MB sections. Then you get the "email account does not exist" message.
I am afraid you won't be able to stop close passes but you can play your part in trying to hold drivers to account which may reduce the problem in the long term.
First thing to do is work out what police force you come under and see if they run OpSnap or some other system for receiving video footage of incidents during your ride.
If they do then you will need a camera. Battery life will be a major factor when choosing a camera. You can get away with shorter life if you can get spare batteries and change them at work before your return journey. Low light performance is an issue even with some expensive cameras and if this is the case a mic input is useful so you can call out number plates. The ideal would be front and rear fixed cameras and a headcam but this is something to build up to.
You then read the instructions on the police web site and report driving you deem to be inconsiderate or dangerous. At this point you will suffer one or both of the following. The police will take no action against the driver. The police will not tell you the outcome of your report.
You then need to email your PCC and MP to see if they will help. Unlikely. You can also send your videos in to roadcc NMOTD and get advice from commenters who report already, some of whom may be in the same area as you.
It is very easy to get disheartened when reporting but I feel it is important to keep it up. I've been reporting in Gloucestershire since 2020. Here is my first ever.
https://road.cc/content/news/near-miss-day-461-dangerous-overtake-rain-2...
In all that time only two drivers have had points and a fine and I think one of those was because the oncoming van had to stop. I still report and in 2024 nearly all my reports have met with (as yet unspecified) action. If it was "just" a close pass then it was NFA but the assessor did take the time to explain why. Things should have changed now though as they have said they are going to send out advisory letters for close passes so I'm going to start reporting them again.
Finally good luck if you decide to join us vigilantes/road safety campaigners. (delete as appropriate)