Police appeal leads to arrest of aggressive cyclist who abused driver

My god if I/we reported every abusive driver the police would have to employ a lot more officers.Seeing as they are cutting the number of police that would never work.A bit like reporting abuse doesn't work for cyclists now

Nob driver meets nob cyclist, there is only one outcome... A good nobbing

Doesn't sound as though the cyclist in this case was particularly endangered, but I think for irate incidents between drivers and cyclists in general there is an inherent imbalance even without the help (or lack of) of the legal system. Cyclists have often just had a near death experience and are at the mercy of the adrenalin feeding their response. The driver on the other hand is in a nice warm cosy shell and has had no threat to their physical wellbeing and would be expected on average to be calmer.
e.g.
Cyclist: "You effing idiotic #*£~~*!!!! you could have killed me!"
Driver: "Sorry mate I didn't see you"

I don't know, maybe the answer is for the CPS/Police to publish guidelines. If I see bad (dangerous) driving I report it to the police, I don't expect anything to happen I just hope it is on file so that if the driver actually has an accident it acts as some kind of marker that it wasn't a one off but the driver has previous.

But am I wasting my time?

We hear that the CPS won't proccede without evidence, but what do they want? It seems video isn't enough? Do they need a dozen witnesses, do the witnesses need to be independent etc.

Then you move on to the Courts, and the juries, how do you get the system to properly punish drivers, or are the sentences about right.

I heard this week that no prosecutions will be brought against the kent? bridge/fog crash last year. First thought dangerous drivers lock them up, second thought the drivers are being given further education. Which is the right approach? Surely when you are given a licence you know the rules, but everyone knows in the real world it doesn't work like that. After the recent bike related police excercises one thing that emerged is how many drivers don't know the law. So is most of the solution simply education rather than punishment????

would the money spent on policing be better spent on prosecuting the media for click baiting? for hunting down "hate" speak on twitter???

Not a single rant above, just a good discussion.
Sadly CPS rarely take action for road related incidents, including road related assaults and damage, unless there are witnesses other than those directly involved.
Annoying, unjust even, but it prevents malicious allegations going anywhere.

Compare and contrast...
One of the Manchester Cycling Community was biking home recently,
(apols for an errors in this abridged version, if you are reading this, General...)
it's chucking it down with rain, loads of standing water by kerb so he's taking the lane but is getting repeatedly tailgated and beeped by the driver of a white Audi.
Eventually, the bloke deliberately drives him into the kerb and verbally berates him topping off with calling the cyclist a 'Paki'.
Gets home and is persuaded by his girlfriend to report it.
Police are very keen to report it, but they are not arsed about the aggressive and dangerous driving but the racial element.
Share the Road indeed, GMP.

Presumably, if this is a first offence, the Police will issue a caution. Just as they did to the bloke on the singletrack thread who grabbed a cyclists bars and threatened to shove him off his bike.

On the other hand, the public would not be very happy with the CPS wasting tax payers money bringing every complaint to court, even when the lack of hard evidence means that there is virtually no chance of obtaining a conviction. Obviously this is very frustrating for the alleged victims but I don't really see an alternative.

In this case, there would appear to be several other witnesses, a reasonably clear photograph of the alleged offender, possibly DNA evidence obtained from the saliva, fingerprints from the glasses allegedly removed and thrown into the car, the testimony of a probably very frightened 11 year old boy who allegedly witnessed his grandparents being attacked .... and the suggestion in the original article that this may not be the first time that the man under arrest had behaved like such a maniacal knob end to other road users, allegedly.

If the evidence is strong, it will go to court as it should do.

Stumps, as far as the end user, the man in the street, there really is no distinction between the Police, the CPS, the Courts, they are the same thing they are the law.

Whether the police won't investigate, the CPS decides not to is irrelevant.

Your a police officer? and you may see it differently as you are involved and understand the whole system to a far greater extent. To the general public the CPS are invisible. You see the Police and you see the courts.

I assume the car driver will be receiving a fixed penalty notice for stopping in the ASL given their admission?

The police and the courts will pursue motorists who splash mums and kids on the school run though ....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543804/Motorist-facing-court-dr...

A press release is hardly what you would call zeal.

mrmo - it is relevant because your using the article to criticise the Police BUT the article you used was the fault of the CPS not the Police.

This guy definitely 'crossed the line' but the zeal with which the police have investigated it seems at odds with cyclists experiences listed above. Perhaps a bit media driven and the police feel under pressure to do something? I also think there are probably 2 sides to this story, and we've only heard the motorist's side. There's also a passenger who can back up his story (true or false). Must be some good innocent 'pranks' you can play with motorists to make a point rather than just 'going nuts'? Noting that if any motorist 'red mist' descends it might be to your detriment.

No, the same doesn't happen for cyclists if abused by motorists in Somerset. I know from bitter experience. I didn't have a child on the bike but otherwise my attack was pretty similar although I'd not broken highway law by jumping a red light like the driver in this story.

If people think the attitude of our Police is poor, just read this article from the US http://blogs.bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2014/01/17/what-really-happe...

Thank the Lord.

Now all the motorists who were no doubt absolutely terrified and cowered inside can venture out now that The Menace of the Roads has been taken out by the brave G-Men on the foot of tips by the trusty Citizens' Road Red Guard Pioneer Hotline.

But that's not all: now motorists will have more respect for us real cyclists!

Hooray!

mrmo - if the Police seek advice from the CPS it is them alone who make the decision to nfa a suspect, not the Police otherwise why go to the CPS in the first place ?

If there is insufficient evidence the Police can nfa a suspect themselves and dont need the CPS to do it. In the case of the lawyer if the Police went to the CPS it was to get a charge but the CPS obviously thought otherwise.

There appeared to be obvious problems with some of the Police actions from the start which are basically not good enough but thats besides the point when it came to the decision to charge.

http://road.cc/content/news/27275-cycling-barrister-captures-death-threat-video…-insufficient-evidence-say-met-cps

In my mind this is actually a decent parallel to the above.

Consider the police action in the two cases.

Maybe if we reported every act of dangerous driving, aggression and abuse from motorist to cyclist with video evidence, a VRM, and GPS track showing exact time and location of the incident then follow up through the Police Complaints Commission, followed by legal action and national press en-mass when nothing has been done instead of brushing it off and not bothering to report it or chase it up after the fact and just moaning on YouTube, web forums and googlemaps extensions then something might get done.

How about a wide campaign for a month in which as many cyclists as possible report every single bit of motorised abuse, with time location and VRM? At the same time get Halfords to sponsor a national bike awareness campaign by renting billboards, bus and bus stop space. I nominate November.