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news
Startled phone driver caught by camera cyclist smashes into car before fleeing scene through red light (supplied)Startled phone driver caught by camera cyclist smashes into car before fleeing scene through red light – but police refuse to act because victim didn’t report incident
“The state of road policing in Harrow is zero,” one London camera cyclist has claimed, after the Metropolitan Police failed to act on footage he submitted which showed a motorist, seemingly startled by the rider confronting him over his phone use behind the wheel, smashing into the side of another car while trying to drive off.
Following the collision, the motorist then drove in the wrong lane and through a red light to flee the scene – but the Met told the cyclist that they couldn’t punish the driver because the owner of the car that was hit didn’t report the incident.
The incident occurred in Harrow last May, when a cyclist – who says he has submitted hundreds of videos to the Met showing apparent evidence of illegal driving – spotted the driver of a white Volvo, equipped with what he described as “illegal” tinted windows “where you could barely see anything”, using his phone at the wheel.
After catching up with the driver at a set of traffic lights, the cyclist leaned in to look at the motorist who, as the rider says in the video, still had “his phone in his lap”.
After hitting his windows in response to the cyclist confronting him, the motorist can then be seen attempting to drive off (despite the lights still being red), by moving into the left-hand lane.
However, just as he does so, another motorist approaches from behind, and collides with the side of the Volvo driver.
But, while the motorist who was hit, as well as the occupants of the car in front, got out to inspect the damage, the Volvo driver – his car badly dented on the left side – instead begins to reverse, to cries from the cyclist of “where are you going? Where are you going?”
The driver then moves into the wrong lane, peeling around the stopped cars, and through the lights, which had once again turned red, fleeing the scene.
“He got surprised with me filming, and without looking he turned to the left lane, smashing another car coming from behind,” the cyclist, who wishes to remain anonymous, told road.cc.
However, despite the cyclist submitting clear evidence of a number of driving offences committed in one fell swoop, he says the Met failed to act on it because the motorist who was hit didn’t report the collision.
“I had reported it to Met Police collisions team,” he said. “And despite the driver having Illegal tints, using his phone whilst driving, driving without due care and attention, hitting another vehicle, and jumping a red light at the same time while doing a hit-and-run, they did nothing about it.
“When I chased them up, they said they planned to do nothing about it, despite having crystal clear evidence of what had happened. Their reasoning was that the driver who was smashed into did not report the incident to the police. I tried multiple times, I contacted my MP, raised a complaint, and nothing came of it.”
The cyclist continued: “I want safe roads, and there’s nothing I can do but report it to the Met Police and trust that they will do something about it, but it is getting worse daily.
“Honestly the state of road policing in Harrow is zero. Every day it is getting worse, with no punishment for law breakers. With a constant response of lack of resource.
“I have asked under a FOI request how many police road traffic operations they’ve performed on Station Road (including illegal modifications like number plates, window tints, speeding, mobile phone usage) – their response was zero.
“This is despite over 250 reports on this one mile stretch of road of the crimes you can report to Met, such as close passes, mobile phone use, and red light jumping.”
Last week we reported that the same cyclist, after submitting more clips of driving offences, had been issued with warning letters by the Met – one for “leaning in towards drivers’ windows, especially lone female drivers”, and another for “riding down the middle of the road towards an oncoming bus”.
Criticising the warning letters – the first of which was later detracted by the police, who apologised for their “inaccurate recollection” of events – the cyclist claimed that the Met have “let off many drivers for actual dangerous situations” and said he reports motorists so “my wife isn’t in constant fear when my kids go out to the shops”.
The Metropolitan Police has been contacted for comment.
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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47 comments
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295493225093
Just the first one that popped up in a google search, I'm sure there are better ones out there. If you're going to behave illegally why would you bother with legal plates?
I guess the country is more policed... also we have a lot of radars for example, could they do some checking in addition to speed limits and red lights?
For a case of fake plate, a driver was fined 1000 euros, but for driving without a proper insurance you could get as much as 3 years in jail AND a fine (in theory)...
Apparently those who use fake plates around here are mostly criminals, ie not to save on insurance and inspections, but to hide their identity...
I was wondering if other countries used some kind of anti-copying technology. One type would be to use something like an RFID chip embedded into the plates which could then be interrogated remotely. It's not something that I've heard of being put into use though as it would take some effort into making the RFID chips difficult to clone as by default the criminals could also read the data from a valid RFID chip.
However, it seems that most places just rely on sufficient policing to reduce the issue until it's just determined, career criminals that clone plates. I did have a quick look for number plates that use RFIDs and read an article on the future of UK number plates that discussed RFIDs and digital number plates (both are unlikely to happen though). Digital number plates would be fun as the police or owner would be able to change the message on them to something like "STOLEN" if the vehicle is nicked.
it seems that most places just rely on sufficient policing to reduce the issue
Not in Lancashire they don't. Try looking up H3 NET on DVLA or DVSA- first detected by me in August. Maybe it's a police officer's own car
In my country it's not even possible to get and keep a registration plate without MOT or insurance...
Ho! Ho! Ho! In this country, at least in Lancashire, MOT, insurance and VED offences are just ignored by the police.BW19 XPU, without MOT for 4 months, and VED for 7 months, was first reported by me 3 months ago. I have regularly shown on here a pickup without MOT and VED for 6 years which was frequently parked for hours outside the same pub 150 yards from the police station
FTFY
Isn't it the law to report a road traffic accident, and not leave the scene? Eh?
Irrespective of anyone affected reporting anything.
If someone is killed in a hit and run then there's no complainant and hence no crime.
So is it legislation that says the victim has to report s collision or is it the Met making high hurdles to reduce their workload?
I videod a driver hit a cyclist, low speed and no injury, and they told me the same thing. Which is insane because I can report a driver for running red lights or using their phone but actually physically hitting a person has to come only from one source, which is mental
It also confirms something that I've always suspected. I can report a close pass on me and the police may take some action but won't ever take action if I report a close pass on another cyclist. Eg a cyclist coming towards me. The anomaly is that even though I have to be involved in the incident I'm still not considered to be a victim but just a witness.
It probably depends on which police force is involved.
A few years ago, I reported a close pass on a cyclist ahead of me and Avon & Somerset police said that they were going to take some action such as a letter or NIP.
You are a witness either way. It reminds me of the time I was flashed at in Cliffe Castle park, Keighley. Since, let's give him the fictional name of Mr Parker, didn't actually lay hands on I was only a witness to bad behaviour according to the way traffic offences, like close passes, are dealt with. Of course as anybody who's suffered either experience will know it can have a lasting effect.
but in cases where you report other cyclists close passes, you literally are the witness to it, not the victim ?
I suspect its really just another filter they put in to try to reduce case loads.
as I thought around controlling, intimidation or coercion behaviours to stop people reporting crimes, the police were freely allowed to investigate anything as they saw fit, so the police do not require the victim's consent to press charges.
The statement that the police can't do anything about the car being bumped, since it wasn't reported, is probably true. It reminds me of an incident that occurred in a supermarket I used to work for: a sixteen year old was shopping, with her mother, when a man felt her bottom. The girl complained to her mother, who complained to me. Long story short, the judge at Bradford Crown Court, threw the complaint out because the girl hadn't made the complaint, in the first instance, themselves. I was summoned to give evidence and my then employer said, 'it's not a ********* matter.'
With the multiple offences already committed, there's no need to make up a red light offence; given the proximity to the stop line as the light changed to amber.
With ULEZ driving an ever growing list of cloned plates, I suspect the victim had a lot to lose from reporting this one.
I'm sure the met are merely waiting for it to build up to a critical mass and then they'll swoop in and confiscate and crush them all then there will be no more pollution or traffic jams and we'll all ride to work on unicorns.
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