Where to post vids of dangerous driving?

[Raph]

I used to send vids of dangerous driving to roadjustice.co.uk. Is there an equivalent now?

I'm reluctant to post up vids on youtube with number plates visible, and sadly sending them to the cops is pointless, they didn't do anything when I was physically attacked by a passenger out of a transit van, or when another white van hero tried to crush me against a bollard, or when a 10-ton truck passed me with less than 6" to spare... but a database of bad driving is probably still a good idea so incidents can be cross-referenced.

Today's fun moment was a driver giving me a perfectly reasonable amount of space by moving over... into the path of an oncoming van - and then swerving in to avoid a head-on collision. The van driver had to pull over sharpish and stop.

This kind of thing is happening more and more - several times recently someone's overtaken without considering what's coming the other way e.g. round a blind bend, then had to push me off the road to avoid a head-on prang. The other day a ***** was behind me at the lights, I was going straight on so not indicating, when the lights changed I took off as normal and she revved up, overtook and cut left right in front of me, missing my front wheel by a whisker and almost hitting a traffic island cos she'd miscalculated. Maybe she was making a point about the "changes to the highway code", which strangely as far as I know has never suggested that motorists can turn left across cyclists. I didn't bother keeping the vid but I think I've got to start logging these incidents.

I'm thinking that if there isn't a website to post up vids then I'll probably go the way of others and just post them up on youtube for public view. There's a youtube about Devon & Cornwall cops that are taking action on vids submitted to them - today's one would definitely meet the criteria but I don't know who to send it to as the local cops here are pretty "laisser faire" about this kind of thing.

[Slowtwitch]

Stick em on YouTube, these crazy fools deserve no anonymity.

[pwa]

The only reason I can see for hiding number plates is if doing so might hinder a prosecution. If a prosecution isn't likely, why worry about the number plate being visible? If the driver is happy with the way they were driving, why would they mind having their skill (?) open to a wider public viewing? In any case, number plates are on view in public all the time.

[Slowtwitch]

The police round our way very good when presented with video evidence, even if it's not prosecutable they'll do their due diligence and go round and give the driver a good old fashioned warning. Ive handed over at least half a dozen pieces of footage and all of them have been acted upon.

I've no qualms posting bad drivers on YouTube. In fact it does seem to be acting as a deterrent, especially if they are embarrassing. I've heard of drivers losing their jobs over YouTube footage, which, if you're a professional driver for a living, and you endanger someones life with poor or aggressive driving is fair play.

[Jdsk]

I used to send vids of dangerous driving to roadjustice.co.uk. Is there an equivalent now?

1 The ease of notification and follow-up seems to differ greatly between police forces. (As you suggest.)

2 But there many reports of subsequent action, and it feels as if they might be increasing.

Lots in the archives on this.

Where was it?

Jonathan

[Slowtwitch]

I got knocked off in 2019, at a busy junction when I was just about to set off. It was quite serious and I was unconscious for about 15mins. When I came to a policeman was moving the mangled remains of my bike to the side of the road. I was so angry I tried to get up and shout but my legs weren't playing ball.

He immediately asked me if I had a camera on me, and fortunately I captured the entire incident and the plates of the car that hit (it was a hit and run). Even though it was a busy rush hour, there were apparently no witnesses, or at least no one wanted to come forward.

With the help of the footage and my testimony, which was good up until I went flying into the air, the driver got a two year ban and a £1600 fine. There was alcohol in his blood, but not enough to prosecute.

Without camera evidence I would have been snookered.
I subsequently posted it on YouTube. Turns out he was a well known council leader responsible for a large social services team. I don't think that went well...

[thirdcrank]

I used to send vids of dangerous driving to roadjustice.co.uk. Is there an equivalent now?

This made me wonder what had happened to the Cuk Road Justice campaign, which was launched with some publicity some seven years ago, although trying to find that out seems to indicate that the site was roadjustice,org.uk Anyway, I've not been able to discover why it was apparently taken down. (That could be my poor IT skills.)

The significance of this for me is that the reason might indicate whether the relevant bit of Cuk felt the purposes had been achieved or if there was now something better ie the equivalent being sought now.

Then, there's my oft-repeated advice about headcams and headcam footage about deciding what's the goal. eg Embarrassing the driver involved or prosecution.

[gaz]

I used to send vids of dangerous driving to roadjustice.co.uk. Is there an equivalent now?

This made me wonder what had happened to the Cuk Road Justice campaign, which was launched with some publicity some seven years ago, although trying to find that out seems to indicate that the site was roadjustice,org.uk Anyway, I've not been able to discover why it was apparently taken down. (That could be my poor IT skills.)

The Road Justice campaign was launched as a joint venture by Cycling UK / Cyclists Defence Fund. The latter has since been merged into the former. At some point in 2018 the website was closed, it now redirects to: https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaign/road-justice

The bulk of uploaded material was destined to sit in an 'evidence' database rather than being passed on to the police for any enforcement action, a fact that was made clear at log-on.

RJ.png

My interpretation is that even though you can no longer add incidents to the 'evidence' database, the campaign is ongoing.

[cycle tramp]

I got knocked off in 2019, at a busy junction when I was just about to set off. It was quite serious and I was unconscious for about 15mins. When I came to a policeman was moving the mangled remains of my bike to the side of the road. I was so angry I tried to get up and shout but my legs weren't playing ball.

....lt Turns out he was a well known council leader responsible for a large social services team. I don't think that went well...

I hope you made an official complaint to his employer as well. Both in work and outside of work council workers, especially those on the social services teams ate expected to be aware of safeguarding/ welfare issues, and his behaviour should have seen him investigated for bringing the council into disrepute.

[thirdcrank]

gaz

Thanks for that which covers the Road Justice campaign but leaves the OP without the alternative sought.

If the video footage submission query is taken to mean as part of a report of bad driving to the police then the key is Operation Snap. As there are some 43 territorial police forces in E&W it's a matter of how this is interpreted locally, if at all. In particular, it's a bit pointless somebody considering reporting an offence in Westshire Police (not its real name) to base their expectations on reports of what Eastshire Constabulary do because they may be different.

So, if somebody wants to report bad driving corroborated with video footage to the police, then their local forces website is a staring point. Here's something I prepared recently on a broadly similar topic

I suggest researching whether your police force is set up for acting on cycle cam videos.

If they are not, and if you are sufficiently bothered to try to change this, then AIUI the official buzzwords are "Operation Snap." Here's the police inspectorate on the subject:-

Operation Snap


One cost-effective way in which forces can engage with the public and deal with road traffic offences is the use of video footage recorded on dashcams and helmet cameras. Operation Snap was initially developed by forces in Wales and the approach has now been adopted by many English forces. It enables the public to upload footage of road traffic offences that may provide evidence for prosecutions or lead to other police action.

The project has been recognised by the Department for Transport as best practice, and we agree. If implemented well, the scheme has the potential to significantly reduce the bureaucracy associated with the file preparation process for the police, as well as building good relationships with the public

Roads Policing: Not optional. An inspection of roads policing in England and Wales (pp36-37)

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk ... -wales.pdf

Unfortunately, they stopped short of a specific recommendation to adopt this, settling only for this:

Recommendation 9

With immediate effect, in forces where Operation Snap (the provision of digital video footage by the public) has been adopted, chief constables should make sure that it has enough resources and process to support its efficient and effective use.

Still worth a letter to your local sheriff (police and crime commissioner.)

viewtopic.php?p=1599804#p1599804

[cycle tramp]

I used to send vids of dangerous driving to roadjustice.co.uk. Is there an equivalent now?

This kind of thing is happening more and more - several times recently someone's overtaken without considering what's coming the other way e.g. round a blind bend, then had to push me off the road to avoid a head-on prang. The other day a ***** was behind me at the lights, I was going straight on so not indicating, when the lights changed I took off as normal and she revved up, overtook and cut left right in front of me, missing my front wheel by a whisker and almost hitting a traffic island cos she'd miscalculated. Maybe she was making a point about the "changes to the highway code", which strangely as far as I know has never suggested that motorists can turn left across cyclists. I didn't bother keeping the vid but I think I've got to start logging these incidents.

Blimey - it sounds tough around your neck of the woods. What I would say is that if you are filming, attach a camera sign to the back of your bike. My brother's done this and although it does prevent every stupid occurance, he generally finds that he is treated with more respect.

[Raph]

Well, it's getting gradually worse but still nowhere near what it was like in London when I lived there 30 years ago. Bad driving was always accompanied by self-righteousness even after the most obvious offences, and often with threats of violence.

Here it's mostly good vibes, with only the very occasional hardnut Kray twin behave-alike asserting dominance, but actually the more common danger is drongos that don't look ahead and then get into an uncompromising situation where they'll happily compromise the cyclist rather than just slow down as they would for a tractor or horsebox.


Sorry yeah - .org.uk, not .co.uk, but I did get on the correct one last year and couldn't find where to post up a vid.


Unless I actually get shunted and bike smashed and broken bones etc, I'm never after a conviction, I merely want that driver to know that they were noticed, logged, and the next occurrence could cost them points or lose them their license.

There's still a really slack attitude among motorists, even mates of mine - people generally laugh about how crap their driving is, whoops butterfingers, "what am I like!!!" as though it were a trivial matter like cooking gone wrong, whereas I personally know several people who's careers have been terminated by drivers casually cocking up. Two involved dooring - both were musicians, both had to give up playing due to dislocated and messed up shoulders. Another one was cut up, front wheel caught on a bumper, was dragged half a mile as the driver pretended nothing had happened and carried on driving. But some motorists always regard themselves as the victims somehow. I'm sure yesterday's incident would have been laughed about afterwards - "guess wot we nearly hit this transit van, you shoulda seen the guy's face!!!" ...etc...

Anyway, since typing the above I've spent over an hour reporting this on Operation Snap. I'm only really hoping a word in the ear of the driver might help avoid a future scrape that could end a lot worse.

Reminds me: I've got to reset the dates/times on all the cameras, it was an hour and a half ahead for some reason. Hope that doesn't mess up the evidence. (An hour and a half later it was after dark, so at least there's some evidence FWIW that my camera's time was out!)

[Raph]

Well... one month on and not a word from Operation Snap, I'm so glad I bothered .

And the other day there was an almost identical manoevre from a delivery van, overtaking me perfectly with loads of space... but right into the face of an oncoming car that had to squash up into a hedge and stop to avoid a head-on smash, as though the driver hadn't seen that someone was coming the other way, and this on a pretty straight bit of road with perfect visibility. Should I report that and get no response again? Or did I get no response last time because effectively I'm not the plaintiff, I merely witnessed the near-miss? Or do they only bother after someone dies?

The time I actually got physically attacked the cops gave me loads of "oh how awful for you" sympathy, traced the driver but basically did nothing even though the driver did come really close to enable the passenger to reach - I've been wondering for some time whether the law is really any use at all.

[deeferdonk]

i used to ride with a camera when cycling in town and uploaded some videos onto our police portal for such things. With my inexpensive computer it took a considerable amount of time to download the footage, crop it a couple of minutes either side of the incident and upload it in a suitable format. It was the policy to not respond to any submissions. Not even an automated email to confirm it had been reviewed. I therfore assume I was just expending effort to upload it into a blackhole and stopped wearing the camera, as it was just something extra to charge /attach etc.
Likewise I had similar zero response when I sent video to the local bus company.
The only response i did get was from a fleet manager of a lorry firm (which specialised in driver training) who i complained to after a scary pass on a nice straight bit of road on a lovely bankholiday monday. Apparently i wasn't aware that there was oncoming traffic so the driver couldn't give me much room. Apparently the only options available were to plough into oncoming traffic or nearly kill me.

[thirdcrank]

@ Raph

Beyond answering your query about where to post your vids there's not much anybody on here can offer.

The only other thing I can think of is writing to your local police and crime commissioner, whose powers include setting police priorities, telling them you think they have got those priorities wrong. They may send some local "community" police officer round to fob you off but insist it's an issue for the PCC. Were it me writing, I'd concentrate on the broad policy issue of bad driving and reports through Operation Snap in particular, avoiding getting bogged down on the details of one incident.