Close Pass Initiative - follow up?

[Revolution]

Considering the number of close passes I am subjected to on a weekly basis I wonder if there is any follow up on the police authorities who have 'signed up' for the initiative?
The cynic in me imagines that after the PR photo of a policeman shaking hands and taking the 1.5m distance mat, it is rolled up and stuffed in the cupboard along with the faulty kettle and broken truncheon.
Do Cycling UK gain any feedback from the police?

[chris_suffolk]

Just had an e-mail from another forum I belong to , saying that close passes have now been put into law - 1.5m or face £100 fine and three points - same as speeding, so hopefully this will be more than just a passing fad

[thirdcrank]

Just had an e-mail from another forum I belong to , saying that close passes have now been put into law - 1.5m or face £100 fine and three points - same as speeding, so hopefully this will be more than just a passing fad

Did they provide a link to the new legislation? I ask because I don't think there is anything specific. The fixed penalty system was extended to include careless/inconsiderate driving quite a while ago and has been the subject of several media releases connecting this with close overtaking of cyclists and hogging the middle lane on motorways.

[Paulatic]

I’ve not seen anything about a new law.
Read today

@MetCycleCops
The driver of this vehicle failed to use his mirrors & #ClosePass Sgt Ikram. His wing mirror hit into his arm The vehicle was stopped by Sgt Osborne & reported for driving without reasonable consideration for other road users. We'll #BeSeeingYou in court. #unacceptable #StayWider

[al_yrpal]

Just had an e-mail from another forum I belong to , saying that close passes have now been put into law - 1.5m or face £100 fine and three points - same as speeding, so hopefully this will be more than just a passing fad

I wish! Just plain common sense… Seems to be lacking in some quarters, sadly including some so called cycling organisations. Loads of waffle no action.

Al

[chris_suffolk]

Have a look here

https://www.petrolprices.com/news/driving-close-cyclist-leads-fine/

[thirdcrank]

The WMP initiative has received a lot of attention on here eg

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=112889&start=360

I'm pretty sure there's something more recent - Bez seems to be the person who keeps up-to-date. Anyway, AFAIK, the WMP initiative is based on s3 of the RTA 1988 (careless/ inconsiderate driving) they've decided more-or-less unilaterally that 1.5m is the minimum, and they enforce this with a range of disposals from roadside advice through awareness courses and fixed penalties up to prosecution. ie I'm pretty sure that 1.5m is neither statutory nor in the HC

==================================================================
viewtopic.php?p=1247993#p1247993

Another, more recent thread, which includes CyclingUK's opposition to a specific offence

And another:
viewtopic.php?p=1244244#p1244244

[Xilter]

Arg I had woman in a Mercedes ML brushed my arm with her wing mirror today. Irked my chain just a bit. But the bit that boiled my blood was 30 feet passed me she indicated to turn right into the garden market. and due to the oncoming traffic she had to come to a complete stop.

I was so tempted to stop myself and say something as I came gliding back passed her. It was this temptation that compelled me to carry on passed and not even look at her, for I know she would have just shrugged her shoulders and mouthed sorry. at which point I may not have stopped my self from smashing her wing mirror off. and then myself shrugged, said sorry and continued to suggest I was just finishing the job she didn’t quite manage to complete.

[mjr]

I'm pretty sure there's something more recent - Bez seems to be the person who keeps up-to-date. Anyway, AFAIK, the WMP initiative is based on s3 of the RTA 1988 (careless/ inconsiderate driving) they've decided more-or-less unilaterally that 1.5m is the minimum, and they enforce this with a range of disposals from roadside advice through awareness courses and fixed penalties up to prosecution. ie I'm pretty sure that 1.5m is neither statutory nor in the HC

Rather than being "more-or-less unilateral", it's a fairly defensible logical extrapolation from the HC, which says "Motorcyclists and cyclists may suddenly need to avoid uneven road surfaces and obstacles such as drain covers or oily, wet or icy patches on the road. Give them plenty of room and pay particular attention to any sudden change of direction they may have to make" (rule 213) which combines with the established dynamic wide of a cyclist being 1.0m (LTN 2/08 section 2.2.2) to suggest leaving at least 1.5m to allow a cyclist to change direction/line suddenly by enough to avoid an obstacle in his/her path.

[crazydave789]

those amber downlights look interesting, are they available yet?

[thirdcrank]

I'm not suggesting for a moment that it's in any way illogical and even less that it's indefensible. I was responding to the suggestion that a new, specific offence had been created and trying to sum up the origins of the current situation.

I would say that if a case were to be prosecuted solely on the basis of that distance and with no other evidence it might not lead to a conviction. ie I think there would need to be evidence covering s3ZA (4)

(4) A person is to be regarded as driving without reasonable consideration for other persons only if those persons are inconvenienced by his driving.

AFAIK, this has been the problem with using this for the motorway lane hoggers.

I'm not going to go back to plough through WMP's info on this but IIRC most of their cases seem to have been disposed of without court proceedings, except when other offence have been detected.

[The utility cyclist]

Shall we put this to bed straight away!
The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.
Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

Spain, nope, since the passing law Spain has increased injuries and deaths, they have a worse KSI rate than we do in the UK, cycling injuries and deaths have been on the increase, their actual deaths numbered 76 but given they cycle half as much as we do in the UK per million person you could generously state their death toll is equivalent to 150 here.
Australia, nope, more focus on helmets and bells, what was it, three/four distance passing infractions in NSW whilst the local state raked n millions from unhelmetted non bell fitted cyclists! The US has had 3FL for decades and is applicable in about 20 states. best case it might save one life in 20 months, worst case it actually has a negative impact on cycling safety to the tune of 2.67 deaths over the same period.

The stats from West Midlands show us very little, we don't know numbers cycling, we have one years stats with a lot of policing, when that dsiappears as it surely will then we will see a normalising.

A distance law/rule is futile, we have a law already and that is not upheld by those whose job it is, even with video evidence! Simply policing driving standards and forcing people to drive to a higher standard or be removed from the roads is the way to go. Anything else is utterly futile as proven by the facts from everywhere else in the world.
You could simply stop up thrpugh roads in towns and cities so that motorists cannot go through so have to go around and/or have strict speed enforcement via electronic devices fitted and with much lower speed limits, that would solve a lot of problems in built up areas but no politician is going to do that ever.

[Psamathe]

Shall we put this to bed straight away!
The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.
Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

Spain, nope, since the passing law Spain has increased injuries and deaths, they have a worse KSI rate than we do in the UK, cycling injuries and deaths have been on the increase, their actual deaths numbered 76 but given they cycle half as much as we do in the UK per million person you could generously state their death toll is equivalent to 150 here.
Australia, nope, more focus on helmets and bells, what was it, three/four distance passing infractions in NSW whilst the local state raked n millions from unhelmetted non bell fitted cyclists! :twisted: The US has had 3FL for decades and is applicable in about 20 states. best case it might save one life in 20 months, worst case it actually has a negative impact on cycling safety to the tune of 2.67 deaths over the same period.

The stats from West Midlands show us very little, we don't know numbers cycling, we have one years stats with a lot of policing, when that dsiappears as it surely will then we will see a normalising.

A distance law/rule is futile, we have a law already and that is not upheld by those whose job it is, even with video evidence! Simply policing driving standards and forcing people to drive to a higher standard or be removed from the roads is the way to go. Anything else is utterly futile as proven by the facts from everywhere else in the world.
You could simply stop up thrpugh roads in towns and cities so that motorists cannot go through so have to go around and/or have strict speed enforcement via electronic devices fitted and with much lower speed limits, that would solve a lot of problems in built up areas but no politician is going to do that ever.

It is about far more than safety. It is also very much about scaring the wits out of people who would love to take-up cycling. Close passes are scarey. Somebody considering or trying cycling can quickly be put off the idea after a close pass or two. Somebody with children might be discouraged sooner.

It can be a majornfactor in stopping more people becomming cyclists.

Ian

[mjr]

Shall we put this to bed straight away!
The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.

Citation requested, please.

Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

I'm pretty sure most of us are in favour of "continual policing and a significant change in culture"!

Spain, nope, since the passing law Spain has increased injuries and deaths,

Plenty of confounding factors in Spain, including hateful H&H laws and promotion. Australia's anti-cycling measures have been discussed at length in the special forum.

You could simply stop up thrpugh roads in towns and cities so that motorists cannot go through so have to go around and/or have strict speed enforcement via electronic devices fitted and with much lower speed limits, that would solve a lot of problems in built up areas but no politician is going to do that ever.

...that was a partly political broadcast by the defeatist party... Never say never!

[The utility cyclist]

Shall we put this to bed straight away!
The Irish government did a study this year of all countries and found no evidence that a distance passing law has increased safety of people on bikes.
Not one single countries close pass initiative with a minimum passing rule/law has worked, without continual policing and a significant change in culture including carrot and stick it simply will not work.

Spain, nope, since the passing law Spain has increased injuries and deaths, they have a worse KSI rate than we do in the UK, cycling injuries and deaths have been on the increase, their actual deaths numbered 76 but given they cycle half as much as we do in the UK per million person you could generously state their death toll is equivalent to 150 here.
Australia, nope, more focus on helmets and bells, what was it, three/four distance passing infractions in NSW whilst the local state raked n millions from unhelmetted non bell fitted cyclists! The US has had 3FL for decades and is applicable in about 20 states. best case it might save one life in 20 months, worst case it actually has a negative impact on cycling safety to the tune of 2.67 deaths over the same period.

The stats from West Midlands show us very little, we don't know numbers cycling, we have one years stats with a lot of policing, when that dsiappears as it surely will then we will see a normalising.

A distance law/rule is futile, we have a law already and that is not upheld by those whose job it is, even with video evidence! Simply policing driving standards and forcing people to drive to a higher standard or be removed from the roads is the way to go. Anything else is utterly futile as proven by the facts from everywhere else in the world.
You could simply stop up thrpugh roads in towns and cities so that motorists cannot go through so have to go around and/or have strict speed enforcement via electronic devices fitted and with much lower speed limits, that would solve a lot of problems in built up areas but no politician is going to do that ever.

It is about far more than safety. It is also very much about scaring the wits out of people who would love to take-up cycling. Close passes are scarey. Somebody considering or trying cycling can quickly be put off the idea after a close pass or two. Somebody with children might be discouraged sooner.

It can be a majornfactor in stopping more people becomming cyclists.

Ian

And I'm simply saying that a distance passing rule makes no difference to the safety of people on bikes nor change the environment perceived or otherwise so that those that might want to cycle won't because as I said, a distance passing rule has done the square root of zilch to increase safety.
After their stance in 2009 CUK have changed their stance and done damage with their ridiculous mats that send out wrong messages regarding a persons position on the road and are poor in terms of the actual distance given plus not to mention there's no mention of MINIMUM on the mats nor the speed that that minimum is applicable too. Frankly its pathetic and IMHO dangerous, without police enforcement (we already have an existing law) and robust government intervention it's meaningless rubbish.