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"Drivers like this are going to kill or seriously injure someone": Cyclist knocked off bike claims police "completely unwilling to prosecute" drivers who hit cyclists

Having made a complaint to West Yorkshire Police questioning if there is an "institutional lack of understanding, or perhaps even prejudice, towards cyclists" — the rider was told the force is "satisfied" with its initial decision...

A cyclist has questioned West Yorkshire Police's approach to investigating roads incidents, concluding that he fears the force is "completely unwilling to prosecute drivers" who hit cyclists, after he was knocked off his bike in a collision two weeks ago.

road.cc reader George was hit by an elderly driver near Leeds on the 13th November, the 87-year-old woman turning across his path and knocking him from his bike in an incident captured by his front camera. The footage (below) was viewed by the police and the driver referred for a Fitness To Drive Assessment as an alternative to proceedings in the Magistrates' Court for driving without due care and attention or reasonable consideration for other road users.

Following an official complaint, the cyclist believing the driving crossed the threshold for prosecution for careless or dangerous driving, West Yorkshire Police stood by the decision and said it had "no issue" with the outcome and is "more than satisfied that there is no evidence whatsoever of an offence of dangerous driving".

"I don't think that West Yorkshire Police take the safety of vulnerable road users seriously, and at times this turns into victim blaming," George said. "I work with the police on other aspects of public safety, and they take those much more seriously and are keen to avoid victim blaming there. I feel that gross negligence in charge of a heavy vehicle is not seen as a serious issue, but as a simple unavoidable, unforeseeable accident.

"I simply cannot see how such gross incompetence is treated so trivially, or what the threshold might be for treating it more seriously. Drivers like this are going to kill or seriously injure someone — and it could have been me if I wasn't cycling relatively slowly uphill at the point of impact.

"A key problem is that police officers, even specialist roads officers, very rarely have any experience of cycling on public roads, and so they have no empathy or understanding of cyclists. This is an important issue of safety, as well as law and order.

> Cyclist slams West Yorkshire Police who failed to act despite pictures showing bikes being stolen in broad daylight

"Further to this, I'd add that it seems that a key part of the problem is that the police are treating driver-cyclist incidents in the same way as they treat driver-driver incidents, without any adjustment for the fact that cyclists are more vulnerable. So a collision with a cyclist in these circumstances is treated in the same way as if the driver had driven into another vehicle, without any consideration of the hierarchy of vulnerability. This reflects a kind of institutional lack of understanding, or perhaps even prejudice, towards cyclists."

When road.cc contacted West Yorkshire Police for comment on the allegations, we were told that the force would not comment on individual cases, but a spokesperson insisted that the force is "committed to casualty prevention" and employs "a range of possible options in our aim to improve behaviour on the road and prevent the likelihood of them being involved in future collisions".

And while there was no comment specific to this case, we've seen the response the cyclist received regarding his complaint, where the decision-making process behind the case was explained further.

Yorkshire cyclist hit by driver
Yorkshire cyclist hit by driver

During that response, an officer from the force's Service Review Team explained they previously served as a Roads Policing Officer for five years and "developed a certain level of expertise within the role based on years of experience in dealing with and managing serious collisions, primarily fatal road traffic collisions".

The response went on to state that the officer is "more than satisfied that there is no evidence whatsoever of an offence of dangerous driving" and that they have "no issue" with the decision to refer the elderly driver for a Fitness to Drive Assessment as an alternative to proceedings in the Magistrates' Court for driving without due care and attention or reasonable consideration for other road users.

When West Yorkshire Police was contacted for comment, a force spokesperson said: "We are unable to comment about individual cases. West Yorkshire Police is committed to casualty prevention and works with partners across the county to reduce road risk and deliver our Vision Zero ambition to prevent all road deaths by 2040.

> Cyclist "dismayed" by police "not interested in taking action against drivers", as force admits "shortage in staff" and "very valid concerns"

"Where driving offences have been committed, we employ a range of possible options in our aim to improve driver/rider behaviour on the road and prevent the likelihood of them being involved in future collisions.

"These options include Approved Driver Retraining Courses for eligible lower-level offenders as an alternative to prosecution, a Fitness to Drive assessments where it is believed that the cognitive ability of a driver/rider may have been a factor in a collision, or the full weight of prosecution at court in the case of more serious and repeat offending."

Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.

Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.

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58 comments

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Bungle_52 replied to mdavidford | 5 days ago
0 likes

My bad.

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the little onion | 5 days ago
4 likes

Can someone who know more clarify something: is the driver's license suspended until such time as they take this awareness course, or is it like a speed awareness course where you have a certain amount of time to complete it before any punishment happens, but you can freely drive up to that point? Because I'm terrified that the police might just let this driver get straight back behind the steering wheel after an incident like that!

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Oldfatgit | 5 days ago
17 likes

This is kinda what happened to me ... but in slow motion.
Circumstances are about right, except mine was an 80 year old male, in good light with a calculated impact speed of 60mph.

I received a dislocated elbow, fractured ulna, 11 broken ribs, 3 fractured vertebrae, punctured lung, internal bleeding, subdermal hematoma that's since turned fibrous, a patella that was broken in to 4 peices, and a TBH. 4 months of not being able to walk or pick up an empty teacup, and a further 12 months of physio. As a result I have some cognitive issues, arthritis, walk with a limp, and have been warned that early on-set dementia is a high possibility.

Because the 80 year old driver claimed guilt at the scene, he got 3 penalty points and a small fine for careless driving.

It took 4 years to get compensation from their insurance... and that as a court-steps agreement.

Are they still driving? I fecking hope not. I hope that the image of me, in a crumpled heap several meters down the road of the impact area, silently bleeding while getting CPR is seared permanently in their brain, and it's sufficient to put them off driving for the rest of their lives.

But hey... its only driving.

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VIPcyclist | 5 days ago
3 likes

Whilst I was reading this I was thinking : sounds familiar, yep, that's right . Then I read the bit about being referred for a fitness to drive and thought that it might be the best option in this case.
I have stopped cycling , West Yorkshire / Bradford Met, because frankly it's dangerous and I want to live until I'm an old incontinent twat who calls everyone Violet.
Also I feel confident that the person knocked off can claim on the drivers insurance for any damage done.
Yep I also agree with the institutionally anti-cyclist thoughts . Let's be honest the police seem to be institutionally everything a civilised society shouldn't be , except when they come round and nick those scummy drug dealers ; they don't even seem to be doing that around my end.

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brooksby | 5 days ago
8 likes

Really weird, on the face of it.

The oncoming cyclist is clearly visible, the motorist on the main road pulls up and stops, the motorist coming out of the side road pulls up to the line and stops, but then the motorist on the main road just pulls out and into the cyclist?!

Their angle of attack is all wrong too - if the cyclist hadn't been in the way then they would have driven directly into the other car.

Was the motorist distracted (cough cough mobile phone cough cough) or are they cognitively impaired? The speed with which they allegedly handed in their licence, I reckon they played a medical card...

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the little onion replied to brooksby | 5 days ago
3 likes

Am I missing something, or is there no mention in the story about a licence being handed in? The driver has to do some kind of awareness course, but no mention of the volunteering to surrender their licence.

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brooksby replied to the little onion | 5 days ago
2 likes

the little onion wrote:

Am I missing something, or is there no mention in the story about a licence being handed in? The driver has to do some kind of awareness course, but no mention of the volunteering to surrender their licence.

No, you're not missing anything.  I've just re-read the original article and I clearly just presumed they would hand in their licence… 

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ktache replied to brooksby | 5 days ago
10 likes

Even if they weren't hitting the red car they would have had to be going to the right of the stopped car, driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

I'm going for utter confusion, not helped by the low light level.

They are really going have to bring back their diving A game to pass the fitness to drive.

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anke2 replied to brooksby | 5 days ago
5 likes

I'd suspect the motorist was aiming to enter the little driveway - and then got confused by that "highly complex" situation of another car and "flashing, blinding lights all around"...

Good, if the driver finally handed in the license. Shame it was not done ten years sooner.

But I wonder: Will we know, one day in the future, that it's time to hand in our licenses? Without compulsory testing in place - and not even an obvious place to go to for such a test?

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chrisonabike | 5 days ago
7 likes

Maybe just camera angle but it where is the driver driving to?  (Also odd looking bit of road).  It looks like they were actually turning into an exit lane / the wrong side of the road e.g. they've got confused about which side we drive on in the UK.  If they had not kept turning in it looks like they'd have hit the stationary car instead.

Still, not surprised about the "well they're stopping driving so we're not taking it further".  The police are very familiar with this principle and apply this to themselves e.g. "unfortunately the officer under investigation has now retired from the force..."!

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kingleo | 5 days ago
11 likes

The big danger is cyclists cycling in pedestrian zones - they sometimes nearly hit motorists doing their shopping.

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Car Delenda Est | 5 days ago
12 likes

And now the driver will go away thinking that this is a minor offence not worthy of further consideration. After all they merely bumped into the cyclist, which is very different to running a person over with a car

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lesterama | 5 days ago
5 likes

There's no evidence of dangerous driving because it doesn't meet the threshold for that offence. It is clearly driving without due care and attention, though. Question is, why would police not make that charge?

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eburtthebike | 5 days ago
2 likes

Almost certainly not prosecuted because the driver had agreed to hand in their licence and never drive again.

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the little onion replied to eburtthebike | 5 days ago
2 likes

And what proof would the police have that the driver had, indeed, done that? How quickly was the decision by the police made?

 

the incident was 10 days ago. Given the time needed for everything to be processed, it must have been made pretty much immediately 

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wtjs replied to eburtthebike | 5 days ago
4 likes

Almost certainly not prosecuted because the driver had agreed to hand in their licence and never drive again
Maybe, but I think we/ everybody else will never find that out because of the various GDPR dodges that the police are so keen on misusing. Therefore, deterrent value of the collision: nil

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Rendel Harris replied to eburtthebike | 5 days ago
11 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

Almost certainly not prosecuted because the driver had agreed to hand in their licence and never drive again.

So when the police come round to nick me for bank robbery, if I hand over my gelignite and oxyacetylene torch and promise never to do it again I'm good?  

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HLaB replied to eburtthebike | 5 days ago
1 like

I hope so  7

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EK Spinner replied to eburtthebike | 5 days ago
3 likes

I was thinking the same, I seem to remember a fair bit of press coverage when Prince Phillip did the same and no proceedings were started against him after a crash.

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brooksby replied to EK Spinner | 5 days ago
0 likes

EK Spinner wrote:

I was thinking the same, I seem to remember a fair bit of press coverage when Prince Phillip did the same and no proceedings were started against him after a crash.

Didn't one K Starmer also have some problems with driving around vulnerable road users?  IIRC.

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AidanR | 5 days ago
7 likes

What a baffling piece of driving. The cyclist was clearly visible (you can see his lights reflecting off street signs), the sight lines are good, it's all low speed. How could the driver simply drive their car into the cyclist? They couldn't possibly have been on their phone whilst negotiation a junction, surely...

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wtjs | 5 days ago
10 likes

developed a certain level of expertise within the role based on years of experience in dealing with and managing serious collisions, primarily fatal road traffic collisions

This translates as 'it wasn't fatal, think yourself lucky, shut up and go away, if you don't like conditions on the roads find another mode of transport...'

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The_Ewan | 5 days ago
13 likes

Quote:

there is no evidence whatsoever of an offence of dangerous driving

There only seem to be two possible ways to support that - either they're claiming that there's no evidence that this happened, or they're claiming that driving a car into a person isn't dangerous.

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Clem Fandango replied to The_Ewan | 5 days ago
6 likes

Schoolboy error you see.  "Bloody cyclists" are not people.

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mdavidford replied to The_Ewan | 5 days ago
1 like

The_Ewan wrote:

Quote:

there is no evidence whatsoever of an offence of dangerous driving

There only seem to be two possible ways to support that - either they're claiming that there's no evidence that this happened, or they're claiming that driving a car into a person isn't dangerous.

There's no evidence it was being driven - the car could have been moving of its own accord.

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wtjs | 5 days ago
9 likes

Entirely standard police dodging masquerading as 'a wise police officer seeking the right resolution through his years of experience' bollocks. What actually happened was 'little road rat wasn't actually killed/ seriously injured/ injured/ hit (depending on whether they're explaining away a close pass/ collision/ serious collision/ cyclist death), so what's he/ family members whingeing about? (cut and paste in: our thoughts and prayers... insincerity additional bollocks as necessary. I have shown much more than enough evidence on here of other serious moving traffic offences which the police ignore because they can't be bothered/ have decided that everybody offends like that so it's not a real offence/ doesn't like cyclists and thinks everybody would be better off if they were frightened or bullied off the roads / sees themselves as matey blokes on the side of the motorist. As soon as they hear of an offence against a cyclist they're concentrating on ways of binning the case- as they succeeded in doing here. Just remember: it would have been just the same if the cyclist had been KSI'd: she didn't mean to do it/ tormenting the motorist won't bring the cyclist back ...

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Clem Fandango | 5 days ago
13 likes

Dreadful piece of driving.  Thank goodness they have registration plates so they can be held to account.  Oh wait.

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the little onion | 6 days ago
7 likes

Institutionally anti-cyclist

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