Reporting bad drivers to the police

Does anybody know what the right number for reporting a near miss due to bad driving would be for Birmingham?

Is the something more convenient than the normal lengthy crime reporting method of calling in at the police station?

I don't think a near miss is gonna count as a crime.

Yeah I know from previous incidents that it doesnt.

But how about driving 60mph+ in a 30 zone? That is a quantifiable crime surely?

You got any evidence? If you weren't operating a speed camera at the time, then don't bother.

Besides, the police aren't going to take you very seriously unless a) someone got seriously injured or killed, or b) thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to private property.

Sad but true.

There seems to be a bit of a push towards reporting bad drivers, as dicussed here by the london folk:

http://www.lfgss.com/thread36761.html

There is a whole department/programme called "roadsafe" at the met police. Was wondering if we had something like that here. I guess Ill have to look myself.

You mean a "How's my driving" hotline for dickhead drivers?
No chance - this city is overrun by them.
Got "curb-pinched" yesterday - as a driver swapped lanes so rapidly without noticing me in the inside lane. Connected with me and the bike and simply ushered me into a lovely curb.
I used the words Cunt, Daft, Blind, and Retard a few times. Much better than sitting in a queue with an automated customer services helpline.

In London, I was told you need to pick up an incident form from a police station which needs submitting within 24 hours. Unless there is CCTV or a witness to back up what you report there is little chance of anything happening, however I would suggest it is still worth doing because that driver could be involved in an accident and there would be a previous complaint registered against them.

What was the model, colour and reg? might have been stolen?

Could you smell the alcohol on the drivers breath? I thought so... Fuzz should care a bit more then.

Been in contact with the po po. They took some details and told me to go to the station to pick up a "self reporting form".

I respect that you're trying to do the right thing, and I'm saying that without sarcasm or passive aggression or whatever the fuck, we all need to step up and 'say something' at times.
But, if I made a report every time I had someone nearly hit me, accidentally or otherwise, I'd be filling in multiple forms every day.
Plus any 'grass on a bad driver' scheme is open to abuse by people just trying to stitch someone up, ex-partners, racists or whatever.
I ride pretty defensively, I try to read the road and usually do ok, and when I don't see the problem until too late I give them some lip, never does any good but asking someone if they're 'blind or just fucking mad' gets it off my chest.
Worst one was a guy who opened a door on me, I asked him if he was 'fucking mad' (it occurred to me he was and I genuinely wanted to know) and he lost his shit, pointed at his kids in the back seat and said "don't swear in front of my fucking kids you cunt". Repeatedly.
I was laughing as I rode off, figured he was a comic genius or something.
Anyway, yeah, B'ham drivers are incredibly shit, but they say that about everywhere and I've been a few places, they're shit everywhere, it won't change anytime soon.
Just take calculated risks.

I knwo what you mean Void, but in the situations where drivers are just taking the piss in terms of wrecklessness like blasting across busy tight residential streets with children hiding tightly jammed parked cars and 60mph+ and nearly killing me in the process, I feel the need to report.

I ride defensively and hyper cautiously, I only evaded a 60mph side collision due to very "luckily" sharp skip stopping and fluking a weird 90ª pivot. If I hadn't had the luck of superhuman bike control beyond my normal ability I wouldve been a gonner for sure.

^^+1, I've been amazed how bad the state of some people's driving is since I started working the roads. Happens so much that I'm just used to bad driving now, doesn't really wind me up too much.

To be fair, if he/she nearly killed you, you'd be in hospital shitting blood on the brink of death. Plus, where's 60mph come from? did you have your radar gun on you at the time? I guess what I'm trying to say is HTFU DFP.

STFU Winston.

I will do my whinging.

Was it a BMW?

Nissan almera

P7THN

PYTHON maybe someone will see it around...

Heres some direct landline numbers for west mids police:

0121 6874070 & 0121 2365000

I'm all for reporting dangerous drivers. Probably nothing will happen off the back if one complaint but the theory is that if enough people complain about the same person the police will be more inclined to do something.

I think WMP are busy with way more important stuff...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/sep/08/police-dog-twitter-tweeting-smithy

If you go on www.askmid.com and pay £3.50 you can get limited details on the owner, it tells you who (if applicable) has insured the vehicle.
Saw it done on a different forum after a SMIDSY, think it was askmid...

Had a good one about 3 or 4 months ago. In the same journey home this woman in a black vw golf passed me 3 times each time she pass she pinch me to the curb. I wasn't hogging the lane just ensuring I had enough space. 3rd time she passed me I was that pissed off that when riding by her while she was stopped at traffic lights I was lucky enough that her doors were unlocked. Opened her right rear passenger door and continued on. When she passed me later on that journey she gave me a wide berth.

I managed to make an official report at the police station.

Something called a "self reporting form".

You were supposed to report the driver, not yourself!

Hey, just wanted to give an update to everyone.

I got called up today by a nice policeman, who told me he had been pestering this driver to come in to the station, who had recently done so. The driver in question claimed he did not remember the incident, but provided his phone number for me to contact if I wanted compensation for my bike. The policeman said this was a sure sign that the driver remembered the incident/his bad driving.

The policeman said he would take this to court if I wanted, that he and his superior would support it. This I found kind of overwhelming as I managed to avoid the car properly hitting me. So was worried about CCTV surfacing on which it would probably look like I was not hit at all.

So I said I was only really hoping for the driver to get a stern warning, so the wrecklessness would not go unnoticed. So the policeman said he would be very happy to do so. He said he would talk to the fella and make him regret it.

Fantastic stuff, faith in the police restored.