Tom Pidcock unimpressed by Amstel beer... but Pogačar chops the lot; "That's sportsmanship": Uno-X come to Conti racer's aid; "Quite positive" close pass prosecution figures; UK's most abused bollard; But cyclists; Weekend round-up + more on the live blog

Awavey wrote:

Like an example they gave of a wholesale ice cream seller whose suppliers refused to deliver to them because of an LTN in the way!?!?

Seriously??

It's what they claim ": 'We have six companies saying they are not going to be delivering to us (because of the LTN)" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11956383/Businesses-slam-Sadiq-...

Matthew Acton-Varian wrote:

It looks like Hampshire police kinda know what they are doing.

That's not the impression that I get from submitting to them. Part of the problem is that they won't tell you what the result was. If you ask for an update you get an email telling you that they don't have enough money to tell you the result and to complain to the PCC. While it might sound good to spend the money on dealing with the offences instead of updating the victim, if they don't tell you what action was taken, you have to assume that none was taken.

Fair enough, though I did say kinda, as was not 100% sure on victim feedback. I don't have personal experience as I have only ever had experience from West Mids Police. I have never bothered with a camera for the exact reason it is a waste of money with their lack of prosecutions.

if they don't tell you what action was taken, you have to assume that none was taken

And you'd be right almost all the time. When the police are prepared to spend all the time and money in response to a FoI request refusing to tell you what they actually did when they claim they 'took action', you know they were lying and did either nothing at all or sent out the joke warning letter

Jogle wrote:

Matthew Acton-Varian wrote:

It looks like Hampshire police kinda know what they are doing.

That's not the impression that I get from submitting to them. Part of the problem is that they won't tell you what the result was. If you ask for an update you get an email telling you that they don't have enough money to tell you the result and to complain to the PCC. While it might sound good to spend the money on dealing with the offences instead of updating the victim, if they don't tell you what action was taken, you have to assume that none was taken.

Hampshire only let you know the outcome if it goes to court. I've had a couple of cases that did - https://road.cc/content/news/near-miss-day-733-291029

With the current system, I put a YouTube link in the report and then they subsequently asked me to upload the original files. I don't think they would have asked for the original files if they weren't going to do anything. Bit frustrating not to know if they're just sending letters or if they're actually prosecuting, I'm sure that could be automated very easily.

I don't think they would have asked for the original files if they weren't going to do anything. Bit frustrating not to know if they're just sending letters or if they're actually prosecuting

An charmingly charitable assumption, which will please the people in Police BlackOps! It's a way of making you put more effort in, with no effort on their part (they don't have to watch or do anything with those 100s of MB files other than delete them) with the hope of putting you off any more reports. The aim of the police is to appear to be taking action without taking any- how difficult is it to knock out a quick email when they've sent a letter to the offender?- because that, or nothing, is almost invariably what they've done. The answer is that it would be easy, but they don't want you to know how little they've done. Secrecy is the major weapon of the police in relation to offences against cyclists, or any offences for that matter

What one force does is upload a spreadsheet of dates/times/locations of reported offences and the outcome. Anybody interested could just check the list.

I'm also greatly encouraged by Hants' stats. I have reported a few dozen to them and, like others, heard nothing back except one where the driver stopped and swore at me, they wanted to record it as a separate offence. Amusingly the car appeared for sale on a local Facebook group and I caused a stir by mentioning the incident  

What one force does is upload a spreadsheet of dates/times/locations of reported offences and the outcome. Anybody interested could just check the list

Well, that's very interesting. Which force?, and do you have the link to this spreadsheet which would completely contradict Lancashire Constabulary's official position that they are prevented by law from even confirming that Lancashire Constabulary knows what Lancashire Constabulary did about this case where they stated in writing they were taking action?!

The important point is that the person who reported the offence woud know the details and the registration, and so would know the outcome linked to, say, the driver of 4148 VZ although no other member of the public would be able to link the punishment to the driver. This published spreadsheet seems highly improbable to me!- not least because it would be seriously breaking ranks with other forces, but if it exists I will be using it in communications with the Information Commissioner and, I hope, the Information Tribunal, so I'm hoping for a reply

wtjs wrote:

Well, that's very interesting. Which force?, and do you have the link to this spreadsheet

It's Northamptonshire: https://www.northantspas.com/PAWeb/Public/Content/23

Thanks. But I've now looked through a couple of massive 'concluded cases' spreadsheets and not found anything to do with offences against cyclists, such as close-passing- it's almost all speeding cases You can find a reference number for an offence against a cyclist, but I need to know from some cyclist in the Northamptonshire area who has actually managed to find 'their' offence listed and then been able to link it to an outcome. How do you do It? 

wtjs wrote:

Thanks. But I've now looked through a couple of massive 'concluded cases' spreadsheets and not found anything to do with offences against cyclists, such as close-passing- it's almost all speeding cases You can find a reference number for an offence against a cyclist, but I need to know from some cyclist in the Northamptonshire area who has actually managed to find 'their' offence listed and then been able to link it to an outcome. How do you do It? 

Make sure you're looking at the 'Op Snap' link, not the 'FOI' link.

In the 2023 March submissions file there are examples of cyclist 'witnessed' incidents:

I will be able to tell you soon if that egress ref actually matches the reference you get when you report, as I have one submitted from early April, and you get a number assigned to the submission:

Done a bit more digging and you can find out a bit about the outcome. If you filter the 'concluded offences' spreadsheets under the FOI tab by camera type 'dashcam', you can see all the public submitted content.

I looked at the 2nd July 2021 in the 'dashcam submissions' spreadsheet under the OpSnap tab. There were three offences marked for prosecution (processed), two of which involved cyclists. The concluded offences sheet has those three offences listed, with the time and location, two marked as attended courses and one prosecuted. It doesn't state number of points or fine, which is a shame, but is a lot more feedback than some forces give out.

(bit hard to read, but here are the snippets - bit worrying reading the reason they didn't prosecute one close pass: because the road was a bit narrow!)...