Saturday was a busy day in Magnatom Towers. My in-laws are staying at the moment and due to the help with childcare and the extra labour, it's always a good time to get work done on the house. So 70% of the 23 year old lounge paper is stripped (I know it's 23 years as the decorators wrote the year down!) a back boiler has been stripped out (a Corgi engineer had disconnected it before anyone asks!), I slice my finger open taking said boiler out, and the police turned up at the door....
Police!? It's ok, I've not been rumbled. At least not yet. In fact they came with good news.
A few weeks back I had a nasty incident where a car overtook me so close I honestly can't understand how it didn't hit me, and I had to swerve out of the way. I felt it was bad enough to show the police.They were back to tell me they had spoken to the lady, and she has been charged with Careless Driving.
It's funny, upon hearing that I felt a little guilty. Human nature I suppose. I don't like taking action like that, which is part of the reason why I very rarely do. So that wasn't the good news. What was good news was her reaction. Upon the police arriving at her door, a few weeks after the incident, her initial words were:
You're here about the cyclist I nearly knocked down aren't you?
According to what she told the police, she has been concerned about the incident ever since and felt bad about it. She has apparently learnt from this and now gives cyclists a much wider berth.
That is good news!
So whilst this driver will, if she does plead guilty as expected, get 3 points and a small fine, this is not the good news. The good news is that one driver will be much more careful around cyclists in the future.
A result.
As for the video. It is private at the moment and will remain that way until I can find a way of blanking her number plates. She has been good enough to apologise and admit fault. I think it is only fair.
Anyway, I'm being totally anti-social to my in-laws at the moment. So no chance to check spelling and grammar..... :-)
I've almost got my kids riding ojn the road all the time now - a few near misses riding on the footway including when where they both nearly piled into a car reversing out of a driveway (do some folk never read the Highway Code?), plus of course they are finding it is faster and less hassle to ride along where vehicles are supposed to be travelling. We've still to crack two big roundabouts although they can see that I'm corking the exit to make their crossing of some frankly dangerous cycle facilities across the exit/entry onto the roundabout.
ReplyDeleteYet today seemed to bring out the idiots at least half a dozen drivers overtaking and both forcing oncoming cars to brake severely AND cutting in on the bike at the front, and two occasions where I'd seen the potential for a head on crash into oncoming cyclists and baulked the impatient driver's attempt to blast through. It wasn't as if we were actually slowing them down much riding at 15-20mph through a village with parked cars and bus stops, already forcing speeds down to close to this level
Must get that camera!
yeah, there seems to always be an "i almost feel bad about it" moment when this happens. doesn't change the fact that you're still the victim and a reminder like this from the police could save someone's life.
ReplyDeleteas for obscuring the plate number, that's not required, but... i've been using kdenlive on linux and that has an "automask" feature that tracks movement and does a pixel-blur over faces, number-plates, etc. if you want, i can mask the plate for you. just get in touch via youtube's PM and we'll sort out the details.