Please report dangerous drivers to the police - Roadsafe. Report to plod, not just whinge here.

I filled one in and got this VVV. I have to be honest given the little information I had I'm reasonably certain they haven't done a damn thing. Replied asking if a reg number was recovered from CCTV, next reply will be "so how did you identify/contact the driver?" or "many thanks, keep up the good work".

Tempted to invest in a headcam, have cycled for years in london but more recently I have felt drivers are simply let off far too often and without my own proof in the event of an accident I will get the same useless responses.

Dear Chris .....,

Thank you for your submission to Roadsafe London concerning the incident below.
You provided details of the vehicle concerned and all appropriate checks have now been undertaken.
From the information you have provided, but without further corroboration, police will not be taking any further action however a letter of warning has been issued to the driver concerned. The letter contains reference to the Highway Code Rules relevant to the incident (guidance only, not enforceable), along with the equivalent sections/regulations of Road Traffic enactments (enforceable) and their penalties upon conviction.
We appreciate this may not be the outcome you were hoping for however would ask that this does not deter you from making further reports to Roadsafe London.

Please be advised, Roadsafe London is not an alternative means of reporting road traffic offences or breaches of Highway Code Rules with a view to prosecution.

Kind regards,

Deborah BELL PC167TD
On Behalf of ROADSAFE LONDON
MPS Traffic OCU (SCO15)
TrafficMailbox-.Crackdown@met.police.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: DoI Mailbox - Online Forms
Sent: 09 December 2013 21:27
To: Traffic Mailbox - Crackdown; DoI Mailbox - Online Forms
Subject: RoadSafeLondon CRK01-00014300

Form title: RoadSafeLondon
Reference: CRK01-00014300
Submitted: 09-12-2013 21:26:42

---

    Type of Incident Reporting

---

Type of Incident Reporting:Cycling near miss
Date: 9/12/2013
Time: 4:24pm

Location: In the bus lane going down brixton hill near the college. Heading from streatham towards brixton.

    Vehicle details

---

Colour: White
Make: Removal Truck

Model: Unsure

    Driver details

---

Driver's Name: Crispins Removals
Address: On the A23 between the prison and brixton town hall.

Driver Description: I am unsure, the cab was high but I could see 2 passangers. The removal truck looked in bad condition and had Crispin Removals on the side.

    Your Information

---

Your Information: The time was taken from my strava gps log of my ride, I'm riding a white bike and wearing brown trousers and a black top. I was in the bus lane and the van came across within 45cm of the curb(and less of me). I remember a silver police car near with it's siren but he should have looked before pulling into another lane.

    Contact details

---

ContactName: Chris .....
Telephone: 079....
Email: ....

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Also lmao at the last part, feel free to distribute the fuck out of this.

So, you didn't provide them with reg details but they reckon they've contacted the driver?

Good for you mister erratic tipper lorry driver no RJ57 G.... that I got the last one or two digits wrong and have given up filing a report.

You're now free to continue with your shit driving and absolutely cuntish attitude. One day, there will be one of those odd incidents where a cyclist or pedestrian somehow just appear underneath your front left wheel. Never mind, if the cyclist didn't have a helmet on it's really not your fault.

You're now free to continue with your shit driving and absolutely cuntish attitude. One day, there will be one of those odd incidents where a cyclist or pedestrian somehow just appear underneath your front left wheel. Never mind, if the cyclist wear a headphone on, it's really not your fault.

ftfy.

So, you didn't provide them with reg details but they reckon they've contacted the driver?

Yeah. I am going to guess a general message was sent to the removal company so the drivers boss who binned it or if it is an ex removal van(and judging by how fucked it looked peeling off the lettering would have been the most servicing it would ever get) someone who is now nothing to do with the van/driver.

If they reply with a reg then for me it shows they atleast checked the CCTV in the area even if they got nothing solid to act on. If they don't then imo they are sending out a blanket "we spoke to the driver" response when they haven't and it really just isn't on.

edit - all the info I filled in apart from my details I swapped for ...'s is in the 2nd half of the quote/message.

Good for you mister erratic tipper lorry driver no RJ57 G.... that I got the last one or two digits wrong and have given up filing a report.

You're now free to continue with your shit driving and absolutely cuntish attitude. One day, there will be one of those odd incidents where a cyclist or pedestrian somehow just appear underneath your front left wheel. Never mind, if the cyclist didn't have a helmet on it's really not your fault.

or pedal reflectors ?

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/pcsos-soon-able-to-fine-cyclists-without-lights-and-reflectors/015786

Pedal reflectors are actually pretty noticeable from the rear. Or would be if the driver actually bothered turning his lights on, unlike two motorists I saw within five minutes of each other last night. One of them also had only one functioning brake light.

Speaking of lights and reporting registrations, I was once driving up a motorway in Kent and had my car's headlamp and windscreen smashed by a load of stones that fell from a badly loaded, speeding, tipper lorry. I pulled over, repeating the registration, and phoned plod. Turned out the reg was untraceable as according to the police it was supposed to be on a car (!)

The reason construction / tipper lorries are such a problem for cyclists, I'm sure, is principally that they're used by an industry run by fucking charlatans who will cut every corner they can.

The new power to fine cyclists for not having reflector should stop them from going under HGV.

#boris.

(3) Would it not make an awful lot more sense if the law said something along the lines of "between sunset and sunrise cyclists should be clearly visible to other road users which is almost certain to include lights and reflective materials." The idea that someone with full reflective clothing, in primary with top quality lights could be fined whereas someone hiding in the gutter with barely visible (but legal) lights and a couple of dirty reflectors could not be is very very silly.

The trouble with that is it becomes very subjective, one man's clearly visible may not be the equivalent of another.

I agree though that the law on reflectors doesn't match the reality of cycling. There are alternatives, I have one of these as a rear light for instance (although I didn't buy it because it had a reflector). On the other hand I don't have pedal reflectors (but do have shoes with reflective spots on the back which the legislation wouldn't accept).
https://www.ridepdw.com/goods/lights/radbot-1000

Where I hate your posts like this is that they completely overlook the fact that at the margins reflectors can make you a little more visible, a helmet can help in some crashes, headphones can prevent people hearing something that they would have otherwise heard and avoided.

It's moot when the driver decided not to check his mirror, look properly, or pull over if he want to use his mobile phone, regardless of how shiny you appear to be.

If a driver can see a peds, then he should be able to see one on a bicycle.

White turns to a kind of muddy orange-grey under street lights. Just like everything else. Surely that's just common sense?

It's moot when the driver decided not to check his mirror, look properly, or pull over if he want to use his mobile phone, regardless of how shiny you appear to be.

If a driver can see a peds, then he should be able to see one on a bicycle.

It's amusing that neither of you appear to have noticed that you agree.

Mmm. No.

In the absence of evidence, you should obtain evidence.

You should do this because "common sense" is often wrong, not right.

This is something that all students, in any kind of science pursuit, learn in or before their first year, including the soft sciences.

I admit that I do find it quite funny how you'll demand evidence of anything and everything except where you've already internalised a "common-sense" viewpoint on it, and bang on about how "common sense" is right except where you don't agree with it, though. Trolololol.

I assert that for the most part relying on common sense is better than doing things at random, or indeed stubbornly refusing to do something because there is no evidence of significant benefit when common sense tells you that it can almost certainly help some of the time.

Except for all those times when you're all "but where is the evidence of such and such why haven't you got any evidence, give me a link to your evidence". Lolz.

Again - you are right to pick me up on this when I do it, and I probably do.

But...can you give me an example of when I have?

It's just common sense, innit.

Hmmmm, extended patch of single-handed 1:1 trolling there by Jeez, matching everyone else post for post. Thank God for the ignore function. If everyone could just refrain from troll-quoting that would be lovely.

I've been on the train recently and therefore reading more of Khanemans (sp) book on system one and system two- common sense is the product of system one more often than not, it takes an effort of will to refuse to accept your initial conclusion and this effort is something that a lot of people will not make.

In the absence of evidence, you should obtain evidence. .

In fairness, there are certain things we don't have evidence for that it would be too dangerous/backwards not to use until we have appropriate evidence. In medicine for example - I don't think we properly understand how general anaesthesia works, and paracetamol remains a bit of a mystery, along with many other commonly used drugs, but the "common sense" fact is they do.

There might be similar cases for cycling - and it would be unethical to run any experiment where the endpoint was "# of DSI", because the second you got a statistically significant variation you'd have to end on grounds of danger to the control group. So yeah I'm not sure you could scientifically "prove" whether high-vis in well lit areas reduces serious collisions.

(NB I actually agree with you and personally think it might have a net negative effect by reducing the onus on other road users to "see" not "look", increase antagonism to those of us who don't want to look a twat, etc etc)

Merely because (assuming you're right) we don't know how general anaesthesia and paracetamol work, it doesn't mean that there is a lack of scientific evidence-based research showing that they do work. Efficacy and method are two different things.

Are you seriously trying to argue that there's been no such thing as a double-blind medical test on the efficacy of paracetamol and that highly-trained anaesthetists who go through years of schooling to be allowed to practice are basically using a kind of modern day witchcraft?!

When I went in for my foot operation I did wonder why they scattered pennies and nails over my chest, then cut the head off a Cockerill.

Having just come off an anaesthetics rotation, it is more or less witchcraft.

It's highly amusing when the patient, younger student, etc inquires how or why something works and everyone just has to "gallic shrug SCIENCE".

Danstuff - correct, I was hoping noone would call me up on that - I just didn't have a better analogy. The point is there are things we do without proper justification. Also, there isn't a good trial of anaesthesia because we'd have to have awake patients as the control group... you can trial two anaesthetic agents against each other but not really against something that isn't also a GA.

Medic chat>>>>>>>>>>>>.

In related news, surveys say that the general public think that anaesthetists have the same level of training as physiotherapists and dieticians and a minority actually know/believe them to be medical doctors.

On the other hand, they do get to play su doku and go on their ipad all day for money.