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@Huxley
Has anyone else been a similar situation? Legally, there must be something I can do. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Minh Ai[/quote]
Hi,
Sorry to come so late to this but I had a similar experience about 6 months ago. Cycling down Prebend Street in Islinginton a guy sped up behind me and started beeping his horn, trying to overtake me as I was going through some traffic calming barriers. As I could feel that he was practically touching my back wheel I looked backwards at him and moitioned him to keep back. This then made him pull up alongside me and shout a whole barrage of abuse at me before swerving his car erratically towards me(I too am a 5"6 girl and pretty certain that this guy would not have picked on me so much if I was a big burly bloke). I cycled on down the road but he continued to drive beside me shouting so in the end i got off my bike and then walked on the pavement. The driver turned left down a road infront of me and then proceeded to turn around, I walked over towards his open window (BIG mistake on my part) to try and tell him to keep back and that there wasn;t enough room for him to over take. I was so shaken that I wasn't even shouting at him but, as I was half way across the road he accelerated towards me and then slammed on his brakes hard, not once but twice. Although I was phyiscally shaking by this point I managed to memorise his number and scribble it on to my hand.
I then reported his actions to the police at Charring Cross, which is near where i work at lunch time. In actual fact the police there were very helpful (for some reason they seem to be OK at Charring Cross, I reported a hit and run incident there too and they were great). The guy talked it through with me and at first thought it was a traffic incident but then decided that in actual fact the guy was both driving dangerously and a displaying threatening behaviour. As I had his car registration then it was enough for them to work out who he was and they were able to check CCTV. Although it's taken them a long time I have been called by Islington Police who took another statement from me and I'm waiting to see what happens.
So I don't know if it's worth exploring the driving dangerously/threatening behaviour options? I didn't have any witnesses (although there was CCTV) but it sounds like he drove dangerously to me and that you just got lazy policeman. Otherwise try the insurance option and talking to the IPCC.
And good luck, it's really scary when something like this happens and people shouldn't be able to get away with it.