Sussex Police responds to allegation that close pass videos submitted to it are not properly investigated

well-said

This sounds crazy but I'm glad you're ok. Were you usng a camera at the time?

No camera, no. The driver admitted fault and said he hadn't seen me in full daylight. If that's not careless driving at least I don't know what is.

A driver can receive any number of warning letters

Even I, a well-known pathological police-hater, am not convinced about this- or Lancashire would not have come up with the recent dodge of sending 'educational material from the Highway Code' to offenders with no mention of any warning letter. If your statement was true, what is the 'warning letter' warning about? That after a few more offences and packets of worthless educational material they might receive a letter containing 'harsh language'? (yes, that was lifted from 'Aliens'!)

What I mean that there is no legal framework around a warning letter. The police are not bound to ramp it up second time round. I don't have any figures but I am aware of one driver receiving 2 such warning letters from Sussex Police. They made reference to the first warning, so they were aware, just chose not to escalate it. 

What I mean that there is no legal framework around a warning letter

One type of legal framework is called a law. The police don't bother much about those either- I have repeatedly bored people on here with impeccable photos of Range Rovers, heavy lorries etc. crashing through red lights at 50+ mph, vehicles crossing unbroken white lines etc. but Lancashire Constabulary don't even respond about those because they're so common round here- they're so common because LC don't view them as real offences until a proper meaty accident occurs. So, as far as the police are concerned, there no legal framework around anything unless they say there is. They wish to decide everything themselves with no reference to the law, precedent, rationality or anything else that they don't control completely. Our job is to stop them getting away with it. That's why I keep going

You can submit a video but only by very old fashioned methods (phone 101, they come and visit you, take a statement, copy your file to a memory stick). This can consume quite a lot of the time limit for action, and is no use if the complainer is a tourist and no longer in Scotland. I have no idea what they do if you're on holiday in Caithness from the Mull of Galloway...

If this is to change, we need legislation, so please contact all your MSPs (constituency and list) and get them on side.

Agree - for a first incident. Not sure if warning letters are recorded / noted so that a second incident is treated differently, but would hope so.   

quiff wrote:

Agree - for a first incident. Not sure if warning letters are recorded / noted so that a second incident is treated differently, but would hope so.   

I'd assumed that the police would record warning letters - there's no reason not to.

I agree that a lot of incidents could be dealt with by warning letters or education courses.

I am however concerned that the outcome of a submission has more to do with availability of resources and the attitude of the police force or the individual officer than the seriousness of the incident.

Lack of communication and lack of transparency is also an issue which greatly undermines any confidence that the correct decisions are being made.

Tom_77 wrote:

I agree that a lot of incidents could be dealt with by warning letters or education courses.

I am however concerned that the outcome of a submission has more to do with availability of resources and the attitude of the police force or the individual officer than the seriousness of the incident.

Lack of communication and lack of transparency is also an issue which greatly undermines any confidence that the correct decisions are being made.

only if warning letters really are warning letters, and a record is kept and subsequent infractions are prosecuted. i.e "you've done this wrong, we know you have, we are telling you not to do it again and next time we will prosecute". Otherwise it's pretty pointless. "you've been a naughty boy, we'd like you to consider not driving like that in future if it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for you"

driver detention education courses can be good as the driver will not want to waste the time again even if the course itself has little impact.

Yes I just want to see some evidence that warning letters have an effect,but I've rarely seen (I think the Met claimed it cuts reoffending but didnt publish any stats to back it up) a police force offer that information.

And even the passes that only warrant a letter do still impact you, I wont ride my bike without a video camera recording the ride, I dont walk round with a body cam, I dont drive with a dash cam,but I wont ride my bike without it, that's how much it impacts me.

When I've attempted to 'educate/advise' drivers face to face on what theyve done in a close pass,and I dont bother now because I've given up, I'm always met with denial, incredulity that anything they did was wrong and blame shifting onto me, they only nearly collided with me because I was riding in their view a daft position or its perfectly ok to drive head on at you whilst they overtake parked cars even though there was a gap they could stop in because youre supposed to ride on your side of the road...never did get the driver to understand their logic there

So my issue with just using letters to deal with this, is what effect do they have ? Does the driver react differently because the letter comes from the police than speaking to me directly ? Do they even recall the incident ? Will they as a result drive more carefully around cyclists fearing further follow up because now they know some of us carry cameras and do call the police ? Or do they just go b****y cyclists,road tax,red lights & bin the letter and just carry on as before ?

If there was just a single case the police could demonstrate as proof this system works, and so makes us safer on the roads, that this motorist was first sent a letter, a month later caught on camera with a similar pass so we prosecuted, I'd be happier to accept it.

Until then for me the letters achieve nothing and have no impact on road safety for cyclists.

I gave up trying to educate drivers a while ago now, I just submit the footage. What I submit has changed though. After many "no further action"s I no longer submit close passes, I only submit ones where I am forced to brake or swerve to avoid being hit. This is as a result of some honest feedback from Gloucestershire Constabulary. What I have started doing, however, is riding at least 1m from the kerb and often more. This means that drivers tend to slow down before overtaking but if they don't I have more room to move in when close passed.  As an older rider on a sit up and beg dutch style bike I sometimes throw in a wobble if I hear a car approaching fast from behind. I have found this particularly effective so far. You just have to get used to occasional abuse but that's water off a duck's back for me now.  I have decided that if the police can't (or won't) protect me I'll do it myself. I believe this is called "defensive" cycling.

As for letters etc. I hope you are wrong but I would not be surprised if you are right. It just seems to me that the way the law stands at present that is the best the police can do.

My personal opinion is that letters, visits or "strong words of advice" are reasonable outcomes but only if records are kept by the forces concerned and if action is taken for repeat offences

I have no confidence, verging on certainty that they won't, that Lancashire Constabulary would 'notice' that an offender had committed the same offence previously. Therefore, the repeat offence is only going to be detected by the same cyclist. This BMW driver (need we say more) committed almost the same offence 2 days later at the same location while overtaking the same cyclist. The police are refusing to include the evidence of this offence in the prosecution. Only 2 days ago (bearing in mind the offence took place 18 months ago and the witness statements etc. a year ago) I received from the officer concerned requests for 'the original video without the GPS data' and 'rear facing camera views'. I immediately stated these did not exist. The driver is pleading 'Not Guilty' to the white line crossing offence!

Brilliant, thanks for the link. I personally reckon 0.001% is woeful, imagine a lot of people on here would agree, particularly as I imagine there are a lot of minor incidents people don't bother reporting.

Interesting to see "No Offence" as a code too - so case closed (the most common outcome) is supposedly a reasonable response even if there was an offence committed?

Thanks - your intervention seems to have done the job.  I had my first response from Derbyshire police yesterday, and that's exactly what it said, with the box ticked for 'advisory letter'.

Has anyone ever had a prosecution or FPN for a video submitted through Op Crackdown?

I keep asking this as well. Lancashire has never prosecuted anyone for close passing- my case was to be the first, went through the statements etc. He appeared in court and offered to take the joke driving course, an offer which was made to him 18 months before but which he failed to take up when you had at least to turn up in person. The court accepted the offer and the course is now online and even more of a joke. We keep hearing rumours, but there has been no proper punishment of any of the cases we have heard about on here- the problem is that the police don't view it as a real offence. Please, anyone, give us information about points, fines!!