Cycle RAGE!!!!!

[Rroff]

I can't see anything wrong with that video, cyclist is keeping over to the left and it is up to you to get past him.
This just shows the major problem with motorists v cyclists, nothing is really happening but motorists make a mountain out of it.
I was talking about the hoards of cyclists taking over all the road like they were showing in the Cyclist documentary, I never knew that happened.

Wasn't being critical of the cyclist (as I mentioned earlier most of them were trying to cooperate with traffic that day) - it was just an example of what I had to do but multiple times, some of them spending more time crawling along, in a few miles which does happen sometimes depending on time of day and weather - on a day like that it gets a bit too much.

Not that concerned about having to do that the odd time but on these roads these days that reality is it tends to generate a lot of near misses due to the number of drivers that either just don't care or are driving to a poor standard or just get frustrated at the limited chances to pass when it is busy.

^I don't get what you're posting about.
The video just shows a single cyclist doing nothing wrong (apart from being alive in the eyes of drivers of course), and you waiting to correctly pass him. Am I missing something?

Wasn't complaining about the cyclist in that specific clip - but my motivation for post 214 was that on that journey I'd repeated that procedure, in some cases having to wait until 5-6 cars had found opportunities to get past, 6 times in a few miles which was both frustrating but also generated a lot of near misses due to a mixture of drivers who just didn't care, driving to a poor standard and/or had got frustrated. While it isn't normally that bad as it is only certain times of day depending a bit on the weather where there are a lot of cyclists out I'm still of the opinion that on today's roads it is less and less of a good idea for cyclists to be there in mixed traffic.

And the point I keep making in all situation like this, how long was that driver held up for? Is it really the end of the world that his journey took an extra minute at most?

I'm not that bothered normally when it is just 1-2 cyclists in this respect but on that day I repeated that no less than 6 times in a few miles and that was getting a bit much - but I'm also concerned with just how busy the roads often are today how often that generates near misses despite being in most cases completely not the cyclists fault in terms of their approach. In just 3 months of driving this route I've twice seen cyclists ditch over the handlebars just to get out the way of a pair of idiot drivers in one instance the two drivers making contact as one pulled out without looking to overtake the cyclist while the other steamed along from behind to overtake the car and cyclist in one go.

 

[AndyCr15]

one instance the two drivers making contact as one pulled out without looking to overtake the cyclist while the other steamed along from behind to overtake the car and cyclist in one go.

But cyclists are the issue, right?

 

[Rroff]

But cyclists are the issue, right?

Well my opinion is the roads are just getting too busy, especially lately there seems to be a big increase in both cars and bikes, for mixed traffic with that level of speed discrepancy and/or density of traffic involved and ultimately cyclists are going to be the losers in that equation.

Seems to be a trend at the moment for people to take up cycling for health/fitness reasons and/or due to feeling the pince with increasing house/rent prices, etc. and increasingly people needing a car for work due to things like increased 24x7 shift patterns and reduction of public transport amongst other factors - living rurally a lot of the bus timetables have been savaged to the bare minimum over the last couple of years partly due to "austerity" resulting in more people taking up other forms of transport.

 

[jpaul]

so you didn't yet have your dashcam when those over-taking incidents occurred ? otherwise you would have witnessed them to the police.

I liked the new driver proposals from yesterday - haven't found the exact DFT proposal/pdf ...but the radio article discussed (again), the
zero alcohol, curfew, no hands free, and passeneger limiting, strategies, used in other countries.

 

[Dyson]

so you didn't yet have your dashcam when those over-taking incidents occurred ? otherwise you would have witnessed them to the police.

I liked the new driver proposals from yesterday - haven't found the exact DFT proposal/pdf ...but the radio article discussed (again), the
zero alcohol, curfew, no hands free, and passeneger limiting, strategies, used in other countries.

I agree with most of the new ideas, but the curfew one just seems like a bad one. I just don’t see the point, it just prolongs the period until they have to drive at night.

 

[Rroff]

so you didn't yet have your dashcam when those over-taking incidents occurred ? otherwise you would have witnessed them to the police.

I liked the new driver proposals from yesterday - haven't found the exact DFT proposal/pdf ...but the radio article discussed (again), the
zero alcohol, curfew, no hands free, and passeneger limiting, strategies, used in other countries.

As per my earlier post:

Not sorted a dashcam yet for my latest vehicle - I've been thinking about it.

Bought a cheap and cheerful one earlier this month for this vehicle due to the number of incidents I was seeing

EDIT: Maybe partly due to being higher up in the pickup and seeing more of what is going on around me but seem to encounter far more of this stuff when driving it than in a regular car.

 

[jpaul]

I liked the new driver proposals from yesterday - haven't found the exact DFT proposal/pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ta/file/817695/road-safety-statement-2019.pdf


so dashcam stuff is working - looks like 50% prosecution - wow !! I assume there is no incentive .. other than being a responsible citizen
p24

Operation SNAP was devised in response to requests from the public for police to deal with traffic offences detected by media such as dashcam, helmet cameras or personal video that do not involve a collision. It was the first project of this kind in the UK. This was rolled out across Wales in April 2017 following a successful pilot in October 2016 in North Wales police force area. Subsequently, this project has been replicated in a number of police forces in England and is seen as an example of good practice. Previous processes for dealing with digital media from the public involved allocating an officer to visit the reporting person and collect evidence – which was a 28-point process and would take an average of 16 hours. The operation now means that the police can receive a completed witness statement, the corroboration and make a decision on the offence in less than 30 minutes. From November 2017, Operation SNAP became business as usual for all Welsh Police Forces. The following statistics have been gathered since this time (November 2017 - March 2019): 3,274 submissions received, 1,606 offences processed and 1,668 submissions resulted in No Further Action. These figures represent a 49% success rate. The offences recorded above can be broken down further as follows: • 106 Written Warnings (Close pass, cyclists) • 58 Dangerous Driving • 705 Due Care/Reasonable Consideration • 2 Insecure Load • 131 Not in proper control (Mobile phone) • 165 Contravening Red Light • 56 Contravening a Traffic Sign • 181 Written Warnings • 88 Crossing White Line • 110 Other offences

 

[Rroff]

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ta/file/817695/road-safety-statement-2019.pdf


so dashcam stuff is working - looks like 50% prosecution - wow !! I assume there is no incentive .. other than being a responsible citizen
p24

Can we start reporting people who drive everywhere at 40MPH! I try to be tolerant I sure make mistakes myself, etc. and we all have the odd one off instance of poor judgement, etc. but the people who sit at a constant 40MPH regardless of speed limit grind my gears LOL - another thing that seems to be on the rise lately. Especially when they pull out infront of you when there is nothing behind you causing you to have to brake quite a bit then just sit there.

 

[jpaul]

Operation SNAP was devised in response to requests from the public for police to deal with traffic offences detected by media such as dashcam, helmet cameras or personal video that do not involve a collision. It was the first project of this kind in the UK. ... The following statistics have been gathered since this time (November 2017 - March 2019): 3,274 submissions received, 1,606 offences processed and 1,668 submissions resulted in No Further Action. These figures represent a 49% success rate. The offences recorded above can be broken down further as follows: • 106 Written Warnings (Close pass, cyclists) • 58 Dangerous Driving • 705 Due Care/Reasonable Consideration • 2 Insecure Load • 131 Not in proper control (Mobile phone) • 165 Contravening Red Light • 56 Contravening a Traffic Sign • 181 Written Warnings • 88 Crossing White Line • 110 Other offences

so has anyone submitted dash cam coverage to the police?

 

[Rroff]

so has anyone submitted dash cam coverage to the police?

Personally I would only bother if it was something serious like obvious drink driving or someone intentionally creating a dangerous situation, etc.

 

[Phil99]

so has anyone submitted dash cam coverage to the police?

I submitted one recently after a close pass on my commute home (by bicycle). Car must have come within about a foot of me at 60mph+ (NSL road) as a tractor was coming the other way. Police have got back to me to let me know that they're examining it further to decide if there's enough evidence to send warning letter/actually prosecute. If they send a warning letter which results in the driver thinking twice before trying something like that again I'd see it as a positive result, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Rroff]

I submitted one recently after a close pass on my commute home (by bicycle). Car must have come within about a foot of me at 60mph+ (NSL road) as a tractor was coming the other way. Police have got back to me to let me know that they're examining it further to decide if there's enough evidence to send warning letter/actually prosecute. If they send a warning letter which results in the driver thinking twice before trying something like that again I'd see it as a positive result, but I'm not holding my breath.

Distances don't always show well on dashcams or the likes either and events don't always portray well - I have some footage where a driver was doing 20+ MPH under the speed limit for 3 miles then when I went to overtake tried to keep pace with me creating a dangerous situation but on dashcam it looks like a fairly normal, very slightly delayed, overtake.

 

[Phil99]

Distances don't always show well on dashcams or the likes either and events don't always portray well - I have some footage where a driver was doing 20+ MPH under the speed limit for 3 miles then when I went to overtake tried to keep pace with me creating a dangerous situation but on dashcam it looks like a fairly normal, very slightly delayed, overtake.

Exactly, yep. I sent a couple of freeze-frames with the video footage to try and illustrate how close it really was because if you watch it in real-time it still looks like a fast pass, but not quite as close as it felt at the time. The camera is mounted centrally under my handlebars, and if they look at the space between the verge and the car they should be able to kinda work back from that to get an estimate of the passing distance.

No idea if it was malicious/intentional or not. I think people just don't appreciate how terrifying moments like that can be. It typically takes no extra effort on the driver's part to pull off a safe overtake. A slight misjudgement on their part, an unexpected gust of wind from a gap in a hedge or an unfortunately placed pothole and I'm potentially dead with passing distances like that. Stick to the 1.5m+ recommendation and we're all good.

 

[Rroff]

No idea if it was malicious/intentional or not. I think people just don't appreciate how terrifying moments like that can be. It typically takes no extra effort on the driver's part to pull off a safe overtake. A slight misjudgement on their part, an unexpected gust of wind from a gap in a hedge or an unfortunately placed pothole and I'm potentially dead with passing distances like that. Stick to the 1.5m+ recommendation and we're all good.

In my experience probably not malicious/intentional more that they just don't give a **** and if anything happened they weren't the ones that would come off worst.

 

[Bear]

In my experience probably not malicious/intentional more that they just don't give a **** and if anything happened they weren't the ones that would come off worst.

If people are close passing because they don’t give a **** I would say it is intentional. I’m sure plenty of drivers do it on purpose as a punishment pass because they hate cyclists and do it to spite them.

 

[Rroff]

If people are close passing because they don’t give a **** I would say it is intentional. I’m sure plenty of drivers do it on purpose as a punishment pass because they hate cyclists and do it to spite them.

You assume the cyclist even enters their mind as something they should give consideration to.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

You assume the cyclist even enters their mind as something they should give consideration to.

If we take my wife as an example she knows all the dangers, she has heard me constantly going on about wreckless motorists and has fetched me from A&E 5 times and at least 10 times after other incidents.
She also panics If I'm more than 5 minutes late because she thinks the worst HOWEVER she constantly makes big errors while driving near or past cyclists and she admits that she doesn't really know what to do around them, she panics.
I've always said that most people are just like her, they don't mean harm, they just haven't got a bloody clue how to handle cyclists.

 

[jpaul]

(...so you turn the dash cam off when she's driving ? god forbid ... you couldn't wipe it subsequently .. some people record audio in the car too)

I think many people are just unable to evaluate the (increasing) size of the vehicles they are driving - reversing cameras are somewhat a testament to that ..
but, as a cyclist, you frequently find the oncoming vehicle is closer to you than they are the edge of the road or the parked car they are negotiating.

Bought a cheap and cheerful one earlier this month for this vehicle due to the number of incidents I was seeing

even without the dash cam ... you would stop and witness any accident where a cyclist was injured to exonerate or condem the motorist ? I have never seen such an incident.

 

[Resident]

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ta/file/817695/road-safety-statement-2019.pdf


so dashcam stuff is working - looks like 50% prosecution - wow !! I assume there is no incentive .. other than being a responsible citizen
p24

so has anyone submitted dash cam coverage to the police?

The issue where I live is that the local force out-right refuse to join an submission scheme & will only deal with public caught footage if they (the force) ask for it in witness appeal.

But then again, the number of times I've witnessed them contravening the Road Traffic Act or ignoring offences around them is astonishing. There's little wonder we ended up with 1400+ CSE victims. The force & it's leadership aren't fit for purpose and haven't been for a long time.

Only in the last week a male went on a rampage, ramming cars and attacking buses with a sledge hammer in a particular area of the city over a period of several hours. Still took the force over 24hrs to catch him.

 

[Rroff]

even without the dash cam ... you would stop and witness any accident where a cyclist was injured to exonerate or condem the motorist ? I have never seen such an incident.

If the situation warranted it. In the case of the two I've mentioned before one (where there was contact between two cars but not the cyclist who just bailed to get out the way) was the other side of a dual-carriageway the other time it was all resolved by the time I'd stopped.