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Driving to the supermarket on Sunday evening, in a 30 limit, doing bang on 30, I was overtaken. Ridiculous driving, but not much point in reporting it I thought as there was no other witness to the incident - I did think I might ask WWSTWD though. However when I got to the supermarket there was a police officer there dealing with an uninsured car - I think he was waiting for the tow truck, so not doing much and happy enough to talk to me. I had remembered the registration number just in case, so I explained to him what had happened. He suggested he would go round and have a word with the driver which was about all I could hope for given the lack of corroboration. In passing I mentioned to him that reporting drivers seems to be getting a habit for me, as there was an official report (for which there was another witness) currently going through the system...
Anyway, coincidences. I did kind of notice at the time that it was the same colour and same size of car as in the previous incident, but didn't think much more of it. It's only just now it's occurred to me to check my notes to see what the registration number of the car I previously reported was. You know where this is going don't you?
So the question is what difference does this make? Is it additional reinforcing evidence, or do I start to look vindictive towards this driver? I have just sent an email to the investigating officer for the first case having realised what has happened. I'm not even sure how formal a record there is of the report I made to the police officer at the supermarket, though presumably he will be easy enough to trace and likely to remember the conversation.
Hopefully I've also given little enough detail there not to cause any problems with any case.
Not that much of a coincidence that an uninsured driver would be driving in such a way that needs reporting... you have watched "Traffic Cops" haven't you? Uninsured twonks are always giving themselves away!
Also not much of a coincidence that your paths have crossed with the same eejit repeatedly.
People are creatures of habit and routine and yours and his clearly have a bit of overlap.
See also: The walloper in the silver 08 plate Vectra who routinely performs potentially lethal overtakes on the A71 on my commute home.
I wouldn't worry too much about it, if anything it establishes a pattern of behaviour on the part of the driver.
There's a couple of vehicles local to me which I see being driven in a borderline antisocial manner fairly frequently, I don't know exactly where the drivers live but it can't be far away.
I only notice them because (IMO) they drive stupidly, I'm sure there are plenty of similarly local drivers whom I don't notice because they don't draw attention to themselves.
In the words of teenage Wombat Jr, Numptys gonna Nump.
I gave up on reporting incidents after witnessing a collision between a van and a parked car when the police rang me up and said 'did the driver of the van have a beard'? To which I said I didn't know as I was behind the vehicles when it happened so never saw the driver.
They got really very arsey with me saying words to the effect of 'we need you to tell us the driver had a beard as he is saying he wasn't there and we need a positive identification to bring charges'. I explained that I couldn't lie just to appease them and after all I had got the registration number, make, model & number of the van + the name of the business which was plastered all over it.
It's always been clear that a large proportion of the worst driving is repeat offences by the same people.
[b]DezB[/b] wrote:
Not that much of a coincidence that an uninsured driver would be driving in such a way that needs reporting… you have watched “Traffic Cops” haven’t you? Uninsured twonks are always giving themselves away!
You misunderstand - the uninsured driver was somebody different who was already at the supermarket. I am kind of surprised at a driver continuing with similar clearly illegal behaviour when he already knows he's been reported, but I guess I'm applying my own standards there - I'd try and be a model driver when I already had something hanging over me.
@johndoh, I did get a fairly good look at the driver this time, but apparently the keeper of the vehicle has nominated himself as the driver for the first incident.
Reported a car a month ago for a dangerous close pass while road cycling on a blind bend with double white lines, loads of info (but no video) including colour make model and Reg of car.
I checked on the .gov site to ensure I'd remembered the correct number and spotted it was a month out of MOT. Mentioned this in my email to the police and got the standard' we'll keep an eye out' response.
A month later the car still has no MOT.
Guess they've not seen them ?
An interesting update - I've been asked to submit an incident report form for the latest incident despite not having an independent witness - the form that makes very clear when you select it that without an independent witness they'll take no action. I presume this is now into pattern of behaviour stuff and it will be taken into consideration despite that.
You need to report nob drivers as they are usually nobbish all the time. The 'information' gets logged, until such a point there is some real issue, and then the cops can really act upon it.
reports will also generate a apnr alert so the nobs will get pulled if the cops are bored and have nowt better to do