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news
Lorry driver close passes police officer (Twitter, Jeremy Vine)“Drivers have a responsibility to protect vulnerable road users”: Hi-vis police officer close passed by lorry driver
Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Cox, head of crime at Lincolnshire Police and national lead for fatal collision investigations, has reminded motorists that they have “a responsibility to protect vulnerable road users”, after footage posted by broadcaster Jeremy Vine showing a lorry close passing a police officer received a backlash from angry drivers.
BBC Radio 2 and Channel 5 presenter Vine was riding with cycling officers from the Metropolitan Police as part of Cox’s latest fundraising campaign for RoadPeace.
In May 2021 DCS Cox raised over £50,000 for the road crash victims charity after completing a 200-kilometre run, the largest amount raised for the organisation by an individual fundraiser.
This year, the former lead for Vision Zero at the Met is aiming to complete 30 miles of physical activity (walking, running or cycling) a day for a week, as he aims to “amplify victim's voices and bring road danger reduction to the forefront of national conversation, and prevent the needless deaths and injury on our roads”.
Each route starts at a police station and travels to people affected by road death and injury, who will tell their stories and, Cox hopes, help shed light on the five people killed every day on the UK’s roads. The campaign has currently raised over £64,000 for RoadPeace.
> Popular 'cycling Twitter' cop runs 200km to raise record £43k+ sum for RoadPeace
During yesterday’s ride, Cox’s ambition to increase public awareness of the need to reduce road danger was inadvertently aided by the driver of a Waitrose lorry who, as can be seen in Vine’s video below, passes one of the police officers – decked out in hi-visibility clothing emblazoned with ‘Police’ on the back – with little room to spare.
Out cycling with HIGHLY VISIBLE police officers — and a massive @waitrose truck actually close-passes one of the @MetCycleCops! Take a look and see his reaction.
> Event: raising awareness and funds for @roadpeace with @AndyCoxDCS and colleagues https://t.co/MDUcPBKUYK pic.twitter.com/n8IEqsQSRM
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 21, 2022
According to the officer on the receiving end of the close pass, the lorry’s wheels were “touching the line” as he passed the group of cyclists.
“He thinks you’re on one side, he’s the other side, so he’s fine,” replied Vine in the footage.
“He’ll get undue care and attention for that,” the officer confirmed.
Despite the officer’s assertion that the lorry driver should have given the cyclists more space or waited until it was safe to pass, since the video was posted online last night many Twitter users have leapt to the defence of the motorist, who they claim “stayed within his lane”.
“He stayed within his lane, the cyclist should have been more aware,” one user tweeted. “JV cycles around London looking for trouble. JV you are promoting a negative narrative against me and my fellow cyclists with your anti-motorist agenda.”
Just don't overtake in your truck if it's not safe. This is really, really simple.
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 22, 2022
Another said: “I’m a big supporter of road safety and cyclists’ rights, but there has to be reason on both sides. A [very] busy road, lots of big lorries – cyclists should cooperate by dropping to single file or keep away from lane line.”
Another remarked that the officer’s “road positioning was selfish and asking for trouble. He put himself in danger.
“No large vehicle could pass him with decent space without going onto the wrong side of the road. For a big truck, near a junction, that would be dangerous.”
Victim blaming AGAIN
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 22, 2022
This would be an unacceptable overtake. "Staying in your lane" is nothing to do with it. https://t.co/2Pn4nJ0PAI pic.twitter.com/ptyWhsh2Fm
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 22, 2022
Vine responded to a number of the tweets, which he claimed were “criticising a police officer for trying to keep vulnerable road users safe.”
“When you pass a vulnerable road user, distance from the line is not the issue,” the broadcaster wrote. “It is distance from the cyclist.”
It shouldn't have overtaken with so little room to pass. That's what the experienced police officer made clear. pic.twitter.com/rnqI2QxpHm
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 21, 2022
Another user claimed that the antagonistic replies to Vine’s video “show that some British drivers are dehumanised.
“As long as they are ‘in their lane’ it doesn’t matter if they endanger the life of another human being.”
Ultimately it took DCS Cox, who in his previous role as a Met Superintendent built up a solid reputation on Twitter for schooling those spouting anti-cyclist rhetoric on the platform, to add some much-needed perspective to proceedings.
“The point lost by so many commenting on this thread is… Drivers have a responsibility to protect vulnerable road users,” he tweeted. “That way everyone gets home safely, alive.”
You can donate to DCS Cox’s latest campaign for RoadPeace at his Just Giving page.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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56 comments
Looks like the equivalent of someone sitting in the outside lane doing 60mph.
No, other drivers shouldn't undertake them, but you're being inconsiderate and causing an unnecessary obstruction.
"Obstruction ... weaving across lanes ... inconsiderate"
Bingo!
What most of the fairly depressing comments on social media about this incident disregard is the fact that drivers have a duty of care towards other road users no matter what the situation. It's not enough to say I was still in my lane, it doesn't give you carte blanche to proceed; drivers can still be charged with careless or dangerous driving even if they were technically within the law, e.g., someone driving at 60 mph on a national speed limit country road is within the law, if they cause an incident by doing so in thick fog at night, they are culpable. We can argue until the cows come home as to whether the police officer should have been there or should have singled out, the lorry driver had clear sight of him and chose to squeeze by at an unacceptably close distance and that, as the police officer says, is sufficient for a driving without due care and attention charge.
Is it worth highlighting the builders truck and mpv car both pass "in the lane" without raising concern, so the 1.5metre isnt the exact issue here, it's the Waitrose truck, always a debate about whether vehicles that size should be allowed in cities but at least it didnt have one of those cyclists stay away stickers on the back, that gets much closer and might even head abit towards the cyclist group, now we cant see if something coming the other way made the HGV driver feel they need that bit more space, but again the van behind the truck passes within lane and wasnt an issue and the truck doesnt exactly progress far.
Was passed twice yesterday by someone driving a Ribble Weldite team car.
First pass was on a stretch on solid white lines, while I was doing 20+ mph and vehicles travelling in the opposite direction.
Second pass was on a blind bend.
When those involved in cycling don't give a damn, what chance of "ordinary drivers" driving responsibly?
Sometimes pro and amateur racers will draft off the back of normal riders for practice. Maybe the driver was doing the same for practicing driving in the peloton without taking a cyclist down.
Just watched the video,and in this case I think my cycling group might well have singled out but taken the lane.
What is interesting is consider how close cars and lorries have to drive when using those lanes - which I think demonstrates the problem with the old HWC wording of "give cyclists as much space as you would passing a car." which often is measured in gnat's crotchets.
So if the police are taking issue with this, and consider passing in another traffic lane and not giving 1.5 metres is inappropriate, they have written a test case for a while host of other infractions we see, including cycle lanes and overtaking on marked highways.
Seems like a storm in a tea cup to me.
If the lorry stays in its lane then I can't see the issue at this speed.
Tell me, what a speed is it unsafe for a lorry to travel over a cyclist?
Well, Teller (from Penn & Teller) got run over slowly by a huge truck without any harm:
More seriously, I'm with Rich on this one. It is very close, so I appreciate that any sudden pothole or swerve could drastically change the situation which is why I would re-position myself if I suddenly had a lorry that close to me.
I must have missed the bit in the video where the lorry ran him over...
The point is that the cyclist has his entire lane in which to manoeuvre. If he's uncomfortable with the proximity of the lorry he can move away, the low speed of the lorry gives him plenty of time to do so.
It's very different to a close pass at speed when you're both in the same lane and you've nowhere to go.
I thought the Hierarchy of Road Users puts the onus for any such evasive manoeuvres onto the road user who is more likely to squash the other if someone misjudges things...
In general, I like the Hierarchy of Road Users, but it does lead to some cyclists using that as an excuse to be inconsiderate of other road users, in the same way that we often complain at drivers not being considerate of cyclists on the road.
I think most of us cyclists are conscientious and try not to hold up other traffic unless it's deliberately preventing an unsafe pass.
In this case, the lorry couldn't pull out thanks to opposing traffic, so the cyclist's positioning was essentially blocking 2 whole lanes of traffic, whereas they could easily (and I think should) have moved over within their lane.
There were several cyclists there, so even if they were fully taking up two lanes (which I don't think is true), they would still be creating less congestion than typical cars/lorries. The lorry driver merely had to hang back a bit to avoid the whole issue and would likely have been delayed by less than 5 seconds.
The cyclists did not follow the rules for being in a group - Be aware of drivers behind you and allow them to overtake (for example, by moving into single file or stopping) when you feel it is safe to let them do so.
I don't think that's fair as other vehicles were able to easily overtake and give the cyclists a bit more room. If there was traffic coming the other way (couldn't see any on the vid) then the lorry merely had to wait a few seconds and then they could have overtaken with a better gap.
But none of them were the 1.5m away.
Reading twitter, many are happy to use the bits of the HC that suit and ignore or be unaware of the obligations for the cyclists.
(no one has answered my other scenarios either).
The code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules.
The speed is low, so generally a lesser distance can be gotten away with. I don't agree that the cyclists were blocking overtakes, so I don't think it's a case of cherry picking from the HC. I haven't read the Twitter replies (and am unlikely to do so), so I can't speak for others, though I would say that it sounds like comparing cyclists' safety with drivers' convenience.
They were blocking overtakes as you already said "lorry merely had to wait a few seconds and then they could have overtaken with a better gap." ! (assuming there were no other riders in the vicinity.
They could have show the required consideration to other road users by being more central.
I wouldn't consider a slight delay to an especially wide vehicle as blocking overtakes, but the officer could have ridden more centrally. It's a slight change and I wouldn't consider that he was ignoring his Highway Code obligation.
In my mind it's similar to when you have a line of vehicles that you want to filter past and one or two are either too close to the kerb or too far out which makes you have to weave in and out to make progress. It's slightly inconsiderate, but again, I wouldn't consider it to be against the Highway Code.
Maybe they did not think it was safe to do so?
I doubt it even occured to them. They were already in a group, so why would be unsafe about going single file or more central ?
Being crushed by a lorry that's travelling at 2mph is likely to have the same end result as being crushed by one that is travelling at 30mph - the only difference with the slower lorry is that the risk is 15 times greater.
I think you mean 15 times less, (probably more like 1000 times less as energy is related to speed squared).
I agree that having a lorry that close is dangerous and the lorry driver should have just hung back a bit to give the cyclists more room (especially as they're police). My perspective is that I've seen lots of far more dangerous driving on the streets (and NMOTD videos) and I wouldn't consider this incident notable if it happened to me.
I don't disagree with the driver getting done for this - I just think he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't a police cyclist.
Well cyclist did not have his "whole" lane to manouvre as other cyclists were present and it did seem the Highly Visible Police were on the outside as escorts for the other cyclists raising money for the Road Peace campaign. I disagree with his assertion that the truck was "on the line" but he was closer to the cyclists then would have been preferred.
In other news, the Sheffield leg had mention of several cars who close passed them (again in Hi Viz labelled jackets) AND having to deal with an RTA on the route as well.
> “Drivers have a responsibility to protect vulnerable road users”
No, drivers have a responsibility not to endanger others. We don't say "gun owners have a responsibility to protect people".
Alas this is probably a good analogy. I suspect - in the rare cases where people actually think about it - motorists do consider themselves the "apex species" on the roads and see behaving appropriately towards others from a kind of "white knight" perspective. So "good guys with guns".
This is poor infrastructure, both for the cyclists and the lorry driver. Lanes just are not wide enough and as it stands, both have rights (and responsibilities) to be using the road.
Ideally the driver of the larger vehicle should hang back if they cannot pass with sufficient clearance but the real life pragmatic approach in these less than ideal circumstances is surely for the cyclist, who is far more maneuverable, to be aware of the larger vehicle and make space? This is very different to the driver of a larger vehicle forcing their past in the same lane. The cyclist has an entire car sized lane which they can still easily control from the centre without riding up to the lane markings.
If that was my video I'd probably not even post it up and prosecution seems way over the top, especially compared to many of the NFAs associated to far worse driving showcased in NMOTD committed against cyclists who are not Police Officers.
Only just watched the video and I agree. I don't think it's the best driving, but if I were that officer, I'd've just gone more central in my lane to avoid the danger and wouldn't really have given it much further thought.
on the subject of staying in your lane, at 1:35 the same cop seems to drift into the outer lane as he rides away from te lights, certainly not the best example of riding.
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