Near Miss of the Day 908: cyclist praises swift punishment of driver after shocking close pass but slams "sorry state of affairs" with third-party reporting in Scotland

Absolutely, glad magnatom got a result but the Polis Scotland 'process' as described is an absolute load of bollox. Contact PS via 101, arrange a appointment to show footage (said appointment may or may not be kept by PS), AFAIK it's always 2 occifers who attend (not sure if that's due to corroboration or not, I wouldn't have thought so), if they agree to take it further the complainer generally has to put the footage on a pen drive or similar at their own expense, it then appears the occifers (if they can be bothered) go to the registered keeper's address and hope (a) to get someone in and (b) to get whoever opens the door to agree they were the driver (PS say there's nothing they can do if they don't agree which is yet more patent bollox).

Could all be dealt with by one officer in a station viewing footage from a portal and mailing a Notice of Intention to Prosecute/S172 legal notice to name the driver (with 6pts and a nasty fine if they don't) just as happens in nearly every other police force, and, in Scotland, with nearly every detected speeding prosecution.

We do live in a weird world where "there so many shit and dangerous drivers that if we actually dealt with them it would take up all our time" is an excuse to ignore the danger. 

Could be - but because mass motoring that's an open question.  Or rather - two:

1) What's the ratio of "wrong'uns" (serial offenders) to "moment of madness" / "temporarily distracted" drivers and also the ratio of harms caused by either type?  It could be the second is order(s) of magnitude greater than the first simply because there are so many drivers.  If so it could take up an impractical (e.g. people aren't prepared to pay for it) amount of police and court work to make an appreciable difference.*

2) Even if a large proportion of the issues are caused by a small number of wrong'uns (which would be "low hanging fruit") how easy is it for the police to keep them off the roads (even when assisted by a portal)?  Currently it seems that the punishment for "doing it again" is to be told "don't do it again" again.  If that's not fixed a lot of resources could be used up just picking up the usual suspects over and over.

*  It's possible to get some benefits from "culture change" of course e.g. as with drink-driving - but can that be generalised to other behaviours?  Plus that was a LOT of resources and has taken a generation (or more?) and perhaps "driving high" has actually replaced this?

I assume lots of countries have introduced portals. Is there no evidence to show that they work? Sure, it costs money to run one but perhaps they pay for themselves in other ways (e.g. fewer KSI's and safer roads which encourages cycling).

bikes wrote:

I assume lots of countries have introduced portals. Is there no evidence to show that they work? Sure, it costs money to run one but perhaps they pay for themselves in other ways (e.g. fewer KSI's and safer roads which encourages cycling).

The simplest method to determine their success would be to just count the number of warning letters and/or convictions. However, the number may well be lower if the police force in question ignores the submitted evidence (see wtjs for details)

the number may well be lower if the police force in question ignores the submitted evidence (see wtjs for details)

Yes, Lancashire's 'portal' is just an automatic exit to the bin. This is just a slightly different still from the video (awaiting upRide) showing Amazon's LD71 UOM driver hand held mobile offence which should get him 6 points, but which will result in no action here- Mikey has it easy!

Can you put these on YouTube for more exposure?

You can't have more 'exposure', in the sense of viewability, than a simple weblink like this:

https://upride.cc/incident/cu14umk_fiesta_uwlcross/

If you mean 'more views', I am not interested in a load of car nutters writing stupid comments. I will stay with upRide until and if they shut it down. They are compressing the already compressed videos more than they used to, so they look a bit rough- the one above was only 7.5MB when I sent it to them.

I did mean more views. If you made a short compilation video of the worst offences and it got a lot of views, then it would be harder for Lancashire police to continue doing nothing. A public shaming, rather than the quiet, relatively private one here. I believe the comments on YouTube help the algorithm that pushes the video, so you can welcome the nonsense you'll get. Maybe Jeremy Vine would retweet it, and away you go.

Not my experience of police Scotland. I've reported many close passes over the years and Police always attend and process the incident as required.

Really? You are very lucky then or you are a relative of a police officer.

Not my experience of police Scotland. I've reported many close passes over the years and Police always attend and process the incident as required

Yet another troll alert

What region are you?  I've received mixed responses from K division over the years and I've never seen a result beyond an ear bashing. Usually they come back to me with driver not identified by keeper. On a few occasions the driver has been identified and given a tongue lashing. One occasion it took the polis a week to interview me. There was then a shift change and recovery days meaning three weeks had passed so the driver was NFA. Another time they threatened to seize my phone and backed down when I told them they could have a link or flash drive. More often than not I'm told that the threshold hasn't been met while forgetting that they have the power to issue a FPN and points. Another time I ended up with a lecture for my lack of helmet and the risks I was taking. I had to remind the officer that if hit by an artic at 40mph a helmet was the least of my worries.

It makes little odds if it is Grampian, Lothian, Strathclyde or whatever the polis in Scotland can come across as complacent and apathetic regarding driving offences towards cyclists and pedestrians. 

the polis in Scotland can come across as complacent and apathetic regarding driving offences towards cyclists and pedestrians

No, No, No! They are complacent and apathetic (and actively hostile if Lancashire Constabulary is anything to go by).