Close pass incidents being ignored by Norfolk Police

By John Swindells 01 May 2020 | Comment
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I have a Cycliq Fly-6 rear-view video camera in operation during most of my cycling, and this camera provides very good footage of vehicles (and if I'm lucky, the drivers) as they overtake me. I bought this camera in response to a very scary incident where a driver overtook me with barely a foot to spare as he was speeding up to a junction; in this case the Police were unable to take any action as there was no evidence of an offence being committed.

Here are some videos of close passes captured by the Cycliq camera. I'm posting these here as I have submitted them all to Norfolk Police - and (except for an email auto-reply) without any response. The first report was on March 10, so that's around six weeks of waiting. I even had the opportunity in mid-April to report them in person to a police officer who duly took all the details and promised to get back to me... but nothing happened. I also called the control room (on 101) and was told that my original email had indeed been forwarded on to the road policing unit, so it was "in hand". To reiterate, I have heard nothing about any of these dangerous driving incidents, and can only assume that the individuals have not been dealt with.

March 10: YL67 TTZ

This was a silver Audi on the B road between North Walsham and Felmingham. The driver had started overtaking well enough, but cut right in on me due to oncoming traffic.

April 11: FP12 YMK

This was a dark Volkswagen SUV, on the Norwich Road at Salhouse heading towards Norwich. The driver came up close and fast behind me, swerving close past me due to oncoming traffic.

April 11: PJ07 YDD

This was a Silver Fiat MPV - a Dublo by the looks of it - that had been modified for disabled access. We were travelling eastward out of Wroxham on the Norwich Road, and the Fiat overtook me very closely because there was an oncoming police vehicle at the time.

These overtaking offences were scary for me, and were also dangerous. The drivers needed to be promptly reprimanded at the very least, and really deserved short driving bans and points on their licence. Instead they have "got away with it" in spite of clear video evidence. For a short while (in 2019 I think) Norfolk Police did run a Cycling UK close pass campaign that nabbed drivers who overtook a plain-clothed cycling officer too closely, but this now appears to have been just a PR exercise. Reports from the general public? No thanks!

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