Deliberately targeted by white tradie ute (nsw

[arkle]

Maybe cyclists have made complaints about that ute driver in the past, and maybe those complaints are recorded somewhere.

arkle

[AUbicycles]

Oxford, no need to take it to extremes.

So what this type of incident and report does, even if there is little actual result in this case is add another one of these to the list. Many people may not report these but the more reports there are and the more of a concern that it is, the more important it becomes on the agenda of the police and authorities. It then has a long term effect of e.g. General road user education and cycling infrastructure that enables safer co-use of the roads.

It may not be satisfying but reporting and following up, within reason, helps.

[ColinOldnCranky]

Maybe cyclists have made complaints about that ute driver in the past, and maybe those complaints are recorded somewhere.

arkle

+1

In most cases going to the police will not result directly in court action. Put simply the evidence that is supplied by the complainant is insufficient to hold up when presented in court. And likely does not stand out in the cop's eyes enough to drag him away from other investigations and general tasks he also has to fit into h is working life.

However, by doing as arkle suggests, regular offenders DO get to stand out. And, hopefully, that is the person on who cops will then allocate their time.

Insisting that your particular case is THE major law and order issue of the day works against the interests of the cycling community. But just by reporting concerns to the fuzz, insisting no more than that they receive your complaint, you do the whole riding community a favour. It gets added into their base of knowledge and serial offenders get noticed.

[Oxford]

and that is why I suggest writing. it does two things, first they have to respond to you, the paper trail requires that. second they can do it when they have time to fully consider the matter without other pressures interfering. you are more likely to get a favorable outcome this way and by favorable, I simply mean a positive response to your enquiry rather than a broad dismissal. I haven't always liked the outcomes of some of my complaints when I was cycling, BUT the driver was made aware of the situation which is worth a lot in some cases.

[jasonc]

I do see your point, but at the time the seriousness of the situation was evident to myself and all those other road users left standing on the side of the road.

this is a discussion forum. no problems with either point of view. my post was my opinion. i provided reasons for my opinion. lets just hope there is a positive outcome for all.

[foo on patrol]

Just another thing on the 000 all. I rang the local ambualance station to get them for my wife as she was in some distress with serve pain but was told they couldn't respond to it and told me to ring 000 and they would come out. So even their own system of calling in a case is screwed up as far as which number goes.

Yes my wife did need a trip to the hospital at the time and had treatment on the way in. This is why it can be confusing the to Joe Public as to which numbers to ring because you don't have a separate number for the police in this circumstance and I've been told to ring 000 in these types of situations when threatend

Foo

[scotto]

Devils advocate time . What do expect to happen ?
You weren't hurt, there was no collision , you say deliberate, he'll say "I didn't see the bicycle". The police can't really do anything I would think except let the ute driver know of the complaint, don't think they can charge him with scaring you. It's one of those situations were you'd get more done if you were hit. But in the eyes of the Law, nothing happened. Imagine the police POV dealing with every car driver who has someone pull out in front of them or scare the daylights out of them.

so do you agree that all speeding fines issued where no one was harmed, no property was damaged etc etc should be quashed and never enforced again?

Um. Speeding fines are a breach of road use regulations and written into legislation...,,

[skull]

Threatening someone with physical harm is against some sort of law as well.

[il padrone]

How is standing up for your rights and expecting the police to do their job being immature?

They way it is worded mate, if you can't see that then i can't explain it any further for you.Tim
time and time again, certain people on this forum get all antsy when they are disrespected as cyclists. Common courtesy when referring to people doing their job is not to much to ask is it? or is it?. Many of the people here who are of that ilk

You seem to be missing the crucial qualification to Oxford's post:

when the local jack boots do nothing I just write to the commissioner and explain the attitude problems I come up against, that usually gets action then. when they begin to realise that you will happily tread over their foreheads to a superior their attitude sharpens up.

Please explain what is so 'militant' about taking further action through police channels when such obvious law-breaking is not acted on by police officers who have a personal agenda that is hampering the fulfillment of their duty to the community. It has been my experience that police are often only too willing to brush off such aggressive driving acts even where there are a number of witnesses. There may be all sorts of reasons why this occurs, but the fact that it does occur is not good enough and people should be aware that the matter can be taken further with good effect.

[TimW]

How is standing up for your rights and expecting the police to do their job being immature?

They way it is worded mate, if you can't see that then i can't explain it any further for you.Tim
time and time again, certain people on this forum get all antsy when they are disrespected as cyclists. Common courtesy when referring to people doing their job is not to much to ask is it? or is it?. Many of the people here who are of that ilk

You seem to be missing the crucial qualification to Oxford's post:

when the local jack boots do nothing I just write to the commissioner and explain the attitude problems I come up against, that usually gets action then. when they begin to realise that you will happily tread over their foreheads to a superior their attitude sharpens up.

Please explain what is so 'militant' about taking further action through police channels when such obvious law-breaking is not acted on by police officers who have a personal agenda that is hampering the fulfillment of their duty to the community. It has been my experience that police are often only too willing to brush off such aggressive driving acts even where there are a number of witnesses. There may be all sorts of reasons why this occurs, but the fact that it does occur is not good enough and people should be aware that the matter can be taken further with good effect.

As asked by the forum owner, I have moved on, but I was wondering how long it would take before you jumped in IP

[il padrone]

Failing to give way should be prosecuted with as much diligence as speeding is. SMIDSY should be disallowed as any sort of defence (excuse), as is the case with "my speedo is not working".

[il padrone]

But just by reporting concerns to the fuzz, insisting no more than that they receive your complaint, you do the whole riding community a favour. It gets added into their base of knowledge and serial offenders get noticed.

I am not so sure that just a complaint, with no action requested, will lead to the required paper-trail that enables aggro or incompetent drivers to be traced in event of later incidents. I would have expected that an official warning would be the minimum that would lead to any record of an incident. To get this you would need to make a statement to police about the incident, probably with an independent witness, with a request to take action.

I did this a few years back when a Gippsland local blasted his horn at us from several hundred metres back on a straight road clear of traffic, then flew past at ~100kmh with < 4" to spare (a fellow rider behind gave me the distance he saw). I am confident this was a direct case of assault. Police were willing to follow this up, visited the driver, took our statements, and sent the file to the DPP. Nothing resulted AFAIK, but that's fine - this driver may well be on notice now.

[Undertow]

From an alegation of dastardly driver behaviour the thread now seems to now be a place to pummel police. So, about police...

I read a lot of self serving arguments that do not always make much sense without giving an undue benefit of the doubt.

There is a wide variety of what people see as dangerous.

Some people seem to be primed to see faults and rush to report. That just makes it harder for the cops to bother with other legitimate complaints.

There are some alegations supported by video footage that doesn't look anything like the description.

There are many cyclists themselves who very publicly demonstrate a disdain for their own safely while expecting others to value their lives more than they do.

And anyone who complains to the local plod but then is unwilling to go to court is wasting the time of those public servants that are being paid for by my taxes. Talk to cop and ask about that and you will hit a raw nerve.

And finally And there are heap of other things that cops need to do as well. The cops have to somehow juggle all these complaints and demands while filtering out the trivial, the vexatious and the plain wrong to arrive at the few that they can afford the time to deal with properly and sufficiently to get a conviction.

I don't think cops are anything special. But they have my sympathy.

Name one area that the police have jurisdiction over that has more deaths or injuries or property damage than traffic? I doubt you can.

I put it to you that seeing as this is the area that has the most harm caused by illegal activity (including driving without due care and attention which covers SMIDSY) then this is the area where police should spend most of their time.

[jules21]

I did this a few years back when a Gippsland local blasted his horn at us from several hundred metres back on a straight road clear of traffic, then flew past at ~100kmh with < 4" to spare (a fellow rider behind gave me the distance he saw). I am confident this was a direct case of assault. Police were willing to follow this up, visited the driver, took our statements, and sent the file to the DPP. Nothing resulted AFAIK, but that's fine - this driver may well be on notice now.

that's a cop out - the police have their own prosecutors. i imagine the DPP took one look at that 'handball' and thought or said "prosecute it yourself you lazy sods".

[ColinOldnCranky]

Name one area that the police have jurisdiction over that has more deaths or injuries or property damage than traffic? I doubt you can.

I put it to you that seeing as this is the area that has the most harm caused by illegal activity (including driving without due care and attention which covers SMIDSY) then this is the area where police should spend most of their time.

You could have selected a more targeted grouping. In which case on your implied criteria, would have to be on other areas of trafic deaths, the majority of which are NOT related to cyclists.

The cops are charged with a host of other matters. Drugs, organised crime, sexual and other assaults. The fact is that a cop does not get to choose - he has to also attend to other matters that are important to others in the community. You and I do nto get to decide.

However it is neither here not there as far as the points I made. The issues I raised were along the lines of the boy who cried wolf.

[Undertow]

Name one area that the police have jurisdiction over that has more deaths or injuries or property damage than traffic? I doubt you can.

I put it to you that seeing as this is the area that has the most harm caused by illegal activity (including driving without due care and attention which covers SMIDSY) then this is the area where police should spend most of their time.

You could have selected a more targeted grouping. In which case on your implied criteria, would have to be on other areas of trafic deaths, the majority of which are NOT related to cyclists.

I was purposefully including all traffic problems in my criteria, as they should all be treated equally, it shouldn't matter what vehicles are involved. But at the moment when you report things (not just to the police) cyclists don't seem to be treated equally.

The cops are charged with a host of other matters. Drugs, organised crime, sexual and other assaults. The fact is that a cop does not get to choose - he has to also attend to other matters that are important to others in the community. You and I do nto get to decide.

I would like you to be correct on this point, however it doesn't seem to be the case. Cops do get to choose, this is evident by the number of complaints seen on this and other forums about the police not following up on there complaints.

[GraemeL]

Don't blame the cops, blame the government. They keep cutting and cutting until there is nothing left. I think the police do the best they can with what they have.

Graeme

[ColinOldnCranky]

I was purposefully including all traffic problems in my criteria, as they should all be treated equally...

Is that so? You have implied earlier that they should treat whole classes of issues LESS equally but that all VEHICLE related instances should be treated equally.[/quote]

I would like you to be correct on this point, however it doesn't seem to be the case. Cops do get to choose.

Sorry, careless choice of words on my part. They do not get to choose carte blanche not investigate, say, burglaries, out of control parties, family assaults,etc. Thatis policy and priority set from on high and varies from time to time acording to the demands of society/politicians/changing trends.

Cops do get to choose, this is evident by the number of complaints seen on this and other forums about the police not following up on there complaints.

And this is my point. They will work on some matters and dismiss others, for the simple reason that there are only 168 hours in the week and considerably less in a working week. And if they experience too many less than worthy complaints from a group then the outcome is likely to be that they will spend less time looking at the merits of that group of compalint. We can affect how un-equally we are treated.

[Undertow]

I was purposefully including all traffic problems in my criteria, as they should all be treated equally...

Is that so? You have implied earlier that they should treat whole classes of issues LESS equally but that all VEHICLE related instances should be treated equally.

[/quote]
I did not imply that, you inferred it.

I would like you to be correct on this point, however it doesn't seem to be the case. Cops do get to choose.

Sorry, careless choice of words on my part. They do not get to choose carte blanche not investigate, say, burglaries, out of control parties, family assaults,etc. Thatis policy and priority set from on high and varies from time to time acording to the demands of society/politicians/changing trends.

Cops do get to choose, this is evident by the number of complaints seen on this and other forums about the police not following up on there complaints.

And this is my point. They will work on some matters and dismiss others, for the simple reason that there are only 168 hours in the week and considerably less in a working week. And if they experience too many less than worthy complaints from a group then the outcome is likely to be that they will spend less time looking at the merits of that group of compalint. We can affect how un-equally we are treated.

I'm not saying other issues should be ignored so more resourced can be spent on vehicle related issues. I'm saying that as a whole vehicle related issues have the greatest impact on our society and therefore the police should take this into account when allocating their resources.
Here is what I have found so far on the cost of traffic issues.
"In this paper, we obtain detailed data on road traffic crash (RTC) casualties, by severity, for each of the eight state and territory jurisdictions for Australia and use these to estimate and compare the economic impact of RTCs across these regions. We show that the annual cost of RTCs in Australia, in 2003, was approximately Dollars 17 b, which is approximately 2.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)."
source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16797462
Also "The total recurrent expenditure on police services around Australia in 2009–10 was approximately $8.5b"
source: https://aic.gov.au/en/publications/curr ... urces.aspx
Surely if we as a society are spending over twice as much per year to clean up road traffic crashes as we are spending on police in total you would have to agree that the police either aren't treating traffic issues seriously enough, or they are grossly underfunded.

[biker jk]

Don't blame the cops, blame the government. They keep cutting and cutting until there is nothing left. I think the police do the best they can with what they have.

Graeme

I don't know about WA but in NSW the size of the police force has increased. It's often an attitude problem, not a resourcing issue.