Good result for dangerous driving?

Fined £400 + £85 costs and 6 penalty points applied to their license. A good result for some pretty dangerous driving?

The fine is pretty substantial compared to some of the other cases I’ve seen about dangerous drivers bullying other road users. This fine was how ever for failing to nominate a driver.

The registered keeper of this vehicle was sent several letters by the Police and failed to respond to all of them. They were summoned to court for Failing to Nominate a driver and were fined £400 + £85 costs and given 6 penalty points.

It’s a shame the police couldn’t do more work to find out who the driver was a take them off our streets for good. But let’s be honest, this was probably a better results fine wise than if they were charged for dangerous driving. In fact they probably wouldn’t have been charged for dangerous driving, as the CPS pretty much always lowers the driving offence as a standard practise.

So whilst this is a good result, lets not get stray from the issue, the registered keeper may not be the driver in the video. The driver in the video may have gotten away free, we don’t know. The registered keeper could be trying to cover for a friend who may be banned, uninsured or be a wanted criminal, who knows.

You can watch footage of the incident below, the basics of it are as follows.
The driver came too close for comfort as we stopped at some traffic lights, I asked him if he could give me some more space.
The driver replied that it was OK because he hadn’t hit me.
As we set off there is a cement truck to my right and the driver gets closer and closer, my speed stays constant throughout and he edges towards me several times. When he is finally able to squeeze past (and leave me very little room) the driver then slams on his brakes trying to force me into the back of him. Luckily I’m more than aware of this stupid kind of move and I’m able to brake and swerve.

It has to be the worst incident I have had, the only one where I honestly thought I was going to get rammed of the road and potentially die. I feel that it’s a shame that the Police didn’t push more on this to find out who the driver was and get him removed from the streets!


11 thoughts on “Good result for dangerous driving?

  1. I can’t help thinking if he would try that with a large and very massive vehicle like an HGV. This driver is clearly a menace to Public safety.

    It’s about time that in the event that when an owner exhibits a ‘failure to disclose’ the name of a driver, that the owner [or chief executive officer and all directors when a company owns a vehicle] should automatically receive the penalty that would would have been issued to the driver in addition to the fine and penalty for the non-disclosure.

    I’m pretty certain that would stop non-disclosure.

    1. It would be nice if the vehicle were seized too. On the basis that if the owner cannot prove the driver was insured, the presumption should be that the driver was uninsured. The ‘vehicle was taken without consent’ defence should also not work, since modern vehicles cannot be driven without the correct key.

  2. This is when using twin cameras paid for itself.

    Obvious good that no harm came to you. And very good that he got this penalty.

  3. Sorry to be all ‘glass half empty’, but less than £500 for thuggish behaviour which could have killed you or left you with life changing injuries? He’ll probably recoup that loss by not bothering with insurance, assuming he does bother usually.

  4. Glad you got a fairly decent result on this one. Not sure if it would have helped removing the drivers license as that is by no means a good way to stop someone driving!

    Would be interesting to see how the driver would react if he was still in his little metal box with a chuffing great HGV (that cement mixer for example) riding his rear bumper…..

      1. thanks for that… encouraging…

        how much of a factor was your footage in the decision, if it was the non disclosure of driver identity then I would think it was not material but it may have inspired the police to go that far…

        1. Without the footage they would have done nothing. How could I prove how dangerous the driver was or how dangerous the situation was without the video?

          This is why road users of all types are using cameras, because otherwise it is just your word against theirs. Not anymore 🙂

  5. A good enough reason to want to move to Holland or Germany..! I genuinely believe about 2 out of every 10 motorists have some sort of mini anger burst when they see a bicycle and at best will ignore your presence by continuing to creep onto a round-about or give you no room, at worst they honk a horn and cut you up.

    Twice this week I had massive trucks on country lanes passing me at 40mph+ causing oncoming traffic to brake before they cut back in on me. If I had the time I could write an epic book with the number of near misses, people winding down car windows and shouting at me for no reason other than I was on the road near them. Great to see you made it through this safely and that some action was taken. To be honest though, if he is a real rogue he has probably never actually paid that fine and has fallen off the priority list for the police – my wife had a rogue taxi driver hit her and she had 2 good witnesses. The inspector visited our house and explained how the taxi driver would work the system and continue to operate despite the court summons, he also had buddies turn up within 5 mins with false witness statements that suggested my wife swerved off the road and into him. The police said he knew exactly how to play the system and it was unlikely to end in prosecution. All she got was a small insurance claim and lifelong neck injury.

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