Getting this close for a photograph was not ideal

Motorcyclists are more vulnerable than most other road users, who are usually surrounded these days by a protective steel cage, within which multiple airbags are poised to come to their aid if they have a serious collision, even from the side.  So it makes sense for a motorcyclist to feel relatively vulnerable.  Ride a motorcycle like everyone else on the road is actively trying to kill you, so they say.  And sometimes of course that’s precisely what someone is trying to do, even if he or she doesn’t quite realise it.

I was attacked (the only word for it) by a car driver recently who decided he needed to teach me a lesson of some sort by passing very close and cutting in sharply at high speed.  He passed within less than two feet of me and was clearly doing it quite deliberately.  There had been no previous encounter or altercation, so presumably it was because I had dared to be on his road and in his way.  I wasn’t riding as fast as he was driving and I had therefore put him to the trouble of changing lanes to overtake me, so maybe that was it.

But would there be any point in reporting it? Would the police be interested?

As I pulled alongside him at the roundabout about half a mile further on, on the approach to which he had been forced to brake very hard and was now stopped in traffic, I was able to speak to him.  I pointed out that he could have killed me by passing and cutting in as fast and close as he did.  In response I got told to learn to ride properly and in the meantime to get off the so-and-so road.  There were some other vehicles ahead of us both but no-one had been following who might have seen the incident and no policeman handy, so what could I do?  Well, I told him I would report him to the police anyway and he gave me another mouthful.

So I followed him at a safe distance anyway, to be sure I had got his car’s number.  And since I had a camera mounted on the handlebars (I was on the hunt for riding pictures for this Blog) I took a couple of pictures.  But I also decided fairly quickly there would be little point in actually contacting the police; they wouldn’t have enough evidence to prosecute (no corroboration) and they were unlikely to be bothered doing anything else anyway.

Instead I consoled myself by following him for a while longer, still at a safe distance behind.  If nothing else he would learn that you cannot easily shake off a following biker in a car, at least not without getting really silly and attracting all sorts of attention to yourself.  So you can be followed home or to work or to wherever you are heading and the biker can then take note and maybe use the information to your disadvantage.

Nothing provocative and no further attempt to talk to the driver, I just followed him for long enough to give him something to think about, something which might just start to make him think twice before buzzing a biker again.  He did seem to notice photographs being taken as I followed him and he did thereafter seem to be driving on his best behaviour, so maybe I did get him wondering quite who was following him and whether he had got himself into trouble of some sort.

It was only necessary to follow him for a mile or so before he pulled into a college car park and went inside the building.  It was just before 6pm; he was probably going to a night school class and had needed to get there on time.  He now knew that I knew where he went on a Monday evening and where he parked his nice shiny car for an hour or two, leaving it unattended in the college car park. And if he thought about it at all, he could have worked out that it would not be difficult for me to have found out quit a lot more about him too now that I had this lead, if I was so inclined.

Contacting the Police

It was a couple of hours later, after I had got back home and told the story to Management, that she persuaded me to ring the police anyway.  They might not be interested but this young man had clearly used his car as a weapon with which to attack a motorcyclist.  If it had been my son, who I suspect has had his moments while driving, as I did when I was younger and wilder, I would have wanted him to have his horoscope read by a policeman in these circumstances, so he’d think twice before doing it again.  The driver probably hadn’t given any thought at all to what it would feel like as a motorcyclist to be buzzed as closely as this and it would do no harm at all to make him more aware.

So there would be value in him having that pointed out to him by Authority, if I could get Authority interested in doing so.  I didn’t have high hopes, but I gave the police a ring.

I started off  by saying that I realised they probably couldn’t do anything in the way of prosecution but that it might do some good if a policeman had a word and if it was my son etc etc.  I then outlined the incident and explained my concern that it had clearly been a deliberate attack rather than an inadvertent near miss and that the young driver had also responded in the way he had afterwards, by giving me a mouthful and telling me to get off the road.  The key point I made was probably the one about the driver having used his car as a weapon to deliberately intimidate a motorcyclist; that seemed to count for quite a bit.

Instead of the polite “sorry there’s not much we can do” I was expecting, she then said she would look into it and would I be happy to provide a statement?  It sounded like she was looking up his car’s number on the computer as we spoke and maybe something on the computer influenced her too; of course she didn’t say anything either way.  A couple of hours later she rang back to make arrangements for an Officer to interview me; clearly the police were willing to take the trouble to look into the incident.  I was impressed.

A Police Officer Calls

Promptly at the appointed time along came a PC to my home.  He was quite a sight to behold, wearing all-black uniform, military-looking boots and a yellow vest which, together with a belt with all sorts of things attached to it, seemed to contain quite an arsenal of weaponry.  This included a Taser gun in a quick-draw holster.  It emerged later in our conversation that Tasers are now carried routinely in Lancashire by at least one Officer per team; it looked frightening to me just sitting in its holster.  Things have moved a long way since Dixon of Dock Green pounded the streets.  And of course the Police Officer looked extremely young to me; indeed he looked like he had only just left school.

Mind you, policemen have been young to me for the past 20 years at least, especially the small ones.  This guy wasn’t small and you wouldn’t want to mess with him and within a few minutes it became clear that he didn’t want for experience either.  He listened or rather read through the story of the incident, which I had written down for him in advance, to save his time.

He gave no indication of either his impressions or his intentions until he had finished reading and had also asked some questions.  Again it seemed to count for quite a bit when I said that what bothered me was the driver using his car as a weapon against a motorcyclist and that he couldn’t have been taking late avoiding action because he had been crossing sharply from right to left as he passed rather than the other way around.  The Officer then explained, as I had anticipated, that there would be no realistic prospect of prosecution.

But he then said there were two things he could do.  First of all he would go and see the driver and have a word.  It was likely that the driver would deny that he drove at me deliberately; he would probably say that he was merely taking avoiding action as he passed me and might deny passing close at all.  The officer would nevertheless make clear to the driver the dangers of driving at or close to motorcyclists.  This is what I had hoped would happen; the driver would realise that dangerous driving was taken seriously by the police when it was reported.  The second thing the Officer intended to do took me completely by surprise, but I’ll tell you about that later.

Tell it calmly and accurately

I think it helped to get the police interested in taking action that I didn’t pull over immediately after the incident and ring them up while I was still angry – which of course immediately after being attacked and then getting a mouthful of abuse as well, I was a bit.  By telling them the story unemotionally and by asking for help to educate the driver rather than demanding his immediate castration, I presumably came over as more credible than otherwise, and having a sense of proportion about the incident too.

It probably also helped that as an advanced rider, trained to observe and analyse what is happening on the road, I could describe the incident in a way which showed that I had observed things accurately and that I had good, logical reason to conclude from the line he took (moving rapidly right to left as he passed) that the driver must have passed very close to me deliberately rather than having been taking late avoiding action. (No apologies for plugging advanced rider training, it’s something I would encourage everyone to do.)

I’ve done it (i.e. reporting an incident to police) the wrong way and ended up feeling fobbed off, probably as a result of coming across as angry and maybe wanting revenge.  If you are doing it because you’re angry and want to get the other guy in trouble this will of course be apparent to the police and they will take your anger and desire for vengeance into account when they assess your credibility.

From their viewpoint road rage incidents, as they call them, are often six of one and half a dozen of the other.  So if there are things about the incident, for example about your own riding or belligerence, that you would prefer not to have to detail to the police, don’t be surprised if they suspect something anyway or discover it from the other driver; the police are not mugs and they won’t let themselves be used as mugs either.

So, just as the police themselves have to keep their cool when an incident happens, so do you if you want to retain credibility as a reliable witness.  It’s probably best not to tackle the bad driver yourself at all unless you can stay calm and courteous as you do so – and certainly not to do so in any aggressive or challenging way.  Almost any driver’s instinctive reaction to anyone giving them an earful about their driving is to return it in full measure or at least to argue the toss, so the police won’t automatically assume fault from his having sounded off at you when you probably also sounded off at him.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t speak to a bad driver who has put you at risk and if you can find a polite way to say that you’ve just had quite a serious fright and could he or she possibly consider not doing that again to a motorcyclist, it might not automatically provoke an aggressive reaction and it might even have the desired effect.  But any aggressiveness on your part will almost inevitably provoke aggressiveness in return and will be potentially counter-productive if you wish to involve the police.

This is perhaps particularly true for women drivers whom you have seen driving badly or dangerously, which of course happens these days.  Women who drive aggressively might be inclined to accuse aggressively too, and might not be above putting on a tearful performance about being verbally assaulted by a nasty man for no reason at all while they are at it, so beware.

Don’t kid yourself that you stand any real chance of persuading any offending driver, male or female, that he or she was wrong and you’ll then get an acknowledgement let alone an apology; that is extremely unlikely ever to happen.  Generally it will be best to restrict yourself to saying, if anything, concisely and politely, that you have noted the registration number and intend to report the incident to the police.

Don’t risk another attack

If you’ve just been attacked by another road user, it’s obviously a good idea to deny him any further opportunity to have a go at you, so whatever else you might do, it is vital not to put yourself in a position, on or off your motorcycle, where you can be attacked again.

On this particular occasion the driver who had cut me up was alone, respectably dressed and in a newish car which was in good condition.  I reckoned I was safe enough following him providing I kept well back.  And since his driving settled down and it looked like he was on his best behaviour as I was following him, I even took the risk of riding directly behind him to get a clear picture of his number plate, although I did follow at more than my usual following distance.  The picture which heads this Article was taken while halted by traffic lights, after he had shown himself to be on his best behaviour for a while.

Ideally you should keep at least one other vehicle between you and the object vehicle when following a bad driver, so he (or she) cannot stop and reverse into you at speed.  Doing this would put you on the ground and prevent you from continuing to follow as well as damage your bike and maybe cause you injury.  And it might also allow an ill-intentioned driver to turn the tables by claiming that you had rear-ended him.  This is a common way of deliberately causing an accident to conduct an insurance fraud.  (Likewise accelerating hard into the side of a vehicle which they have just waved or flashed out of a side turning ahead of them; that’s another trick they use.)

Really it’s best not to follow bad drivers at all unless you have a clear purpose in mind and there are indications that it will not be dangerous to follow them.  I wouldn’t have followed a car containing several young men wearing baseball bats for example; I would have simply got the registration number as best I could and then quietly scarpered.

Bear in mind too that your eye-catching motorcycle can sometimes generate obstructive and perhaps even violent envy from other road users as well as the friendlier interest from the public which we have the privilege of attracting.  I’m convinced that some drivers of old cars, perhaps because they are losers in life themselves, get so resentful of the symbol of someone else’s success (or as they might see it unwarranted privilege) that they can be goaded into obstructing if not attacking GoldWings in the same way that motorists are generally less likely to show generosity to drivers of Jaguars and other “flash” cars.  This might be even more likely to happen if they think a GoldWing is on their case by following them.

Take your own revenge?

Revenge is sweet, so they say, but they also say it’s a dish best served cold.  Tempting though it may be to take issue or to extract vengeance, at least try to avoid doing so when hot blooded.  Whatever entitlement you might feel to take revenge on bad drivers if you can, allowing the red mist to descend and take charge of your actions while you are still riding a motorcycle is not a good idea.

I suppose I could very easily have damaged the car I had been following as soon as the driver left it in the college car park but, putting the morality of doing that aside for a moment, I could very easily have been spotted and remembered.  GoldWings are eye catching bikes.

But what if you could get away with it?  One chap I know was outraged when he saw an obviously healthy and agile young woman park her Chelsea Tractor in a disabled bay right outside a supermarket as he was leaving it, also on foot.  He pointed out that it was a disabled-only space and when she told him to mind his own business he told her that if she didn’t move her car he would slash the tyres.  She ignored this warning and went into the store; he then slashed all four tyres and left.  He got clean away with it but vigilante actions are a risky business with all the CCTV that’s around these days, even if you happen to think the victim thoroughly deserved it.

Another biker I know once turned up at a meeting and proudly showed off a set of keys which he then ostentatiously dropped down a drain.  He had been at the Council’s Recycling Centre that morning dumping some stuff when a really pushy bloke barged in front of everyone with his BMW and was being a real pain to others, including the biker.  The BMW driver happened to have left his keys dangling in the lock of his open boot lid as he bustled around, getting stuff out of his boot and then out of his car and to throw into the various skips.  The biker took the opportunity to pocket the dangling keys, finished his own business and left.

So if taking revenge on other road users is attractive to you, opportunities for vigilante justice may sometimes present themselves without too much risk of getting caught.  It’s worth bearing in mind however that in both of these cases the victim of the vigilante action, even if she and he couldn’t identify the actual perpetrator, would probably associate the incident with a motorcyclist and have something of a down on all motorcyclists thereafter.  One way and another vigilante action is probably not a very good idea, if only because it can easily rebound and/or escalate out of your control.

How about a bit of psychology?

Getting a bad driver to think twice about doing it again by perfectly legal and non-violent means is potentially a different matter and might at least give you some sense of having turned the tables.  There are laws against stalking these days so it would be unwise to make sustained efforts to hound anyone but following someone immediately after an incident in order to identify them and show that you have identified them (and incidentally now know where they live or work) is at least something you can hardly be criticised for.

The driver I followed to the college car park would be likely to have had some concerns about what might happen next.  Having a camera mounted conspicuously on my handlebars seemed to have a useful psychological effect too, albeit only after he had attacked me.

Perhaps I should ride routinely with my camera on the handlebars in future.  Indeed if I can get my granddaughter to teach me how to use it in video mode I might even leave that running routinely while I’m riding.  And maybe I could also fit a rear-facing camera, and maybe wear a hi viz vest announcing that video recording is in progress – now that really would be a defensive approach to riding!

The Trick up the Policeman’s Sleeve

Let’s get back to reality and finish the story of my recent incident and the involvement of the police.  Remember the Police Officer who called to gather information from me said there were two things he would do, one of which was to “have a word”.

Unless persuaded otherwise by what the driver had to say when interviewed, the Police Officer also intended to make an Intelligence Report of the incident on the Police National Computer.  This would flag the car’s number plate to any ANPR equipped police car (Automatic Number Plate Recognition, so all traffic cars and lots of others these days) as a vehicle known in connection with a report of bad driving.  It would make his car an object of interest and if it was seen being driven badly it would probably be stopped.  Maybe the driver would also get flagged personally on the computer too, the Policeman didn’t say.  But he did take the trouble to ring me a few days later to say that the PNC intelligence report had indeed been entered, which was kind of him.

I suppose I should have realised that the police will use ANPR to flag up all sorts of potential offenders who deserve a close look, but I had no idea that this included suspected bad drivers.  The police can use this technology to flag up bad riders too of course, so if bikers are reported by other road users for riding dangerously, they could also end up subsequently attracting the particular attentions of a traffic car.

No doubt some people will think it’s an infringement of civil liberties to use computers and cameras to flag people as targets in this way unless they have at least had a relevant conviction, but I think it’s a very good idea.  Abuse of police technology is of course a possibility but that’s always been true of all police facilities and authority – and improved technology also helps to catch abusers too, as the former traffic officer who extracted sexual favours for letting people off discovered the hard way recently; he’s now doing eight years in jail.  The police seem to be getting better at weeding out their own bad apples and good for them.

Of course there’s no point in ringing up the police every time you see an example of poor driving.  You’d never be off the phone and they’d soon have you marked as a nuisance caller.  But it’s surely comforting to know, for those of us who at least try not to ride or drive badly ourselves, that reporting really dangerous driving to the police is not a waste of time providing you go about it the right way.  And since the police were willing to do something when a motorcyclist reported that he had been attacked on this occasion, I for one will be happier to trust them to do so in future.  I’ll be less likely to follow the offending driver myself, scheming as I do so how to cause problems for him.

Well done Lancashire Constabulary.  Thank you for listening properly when I called to report the incident.  And thank you for taking this opportunity for constructive intervention, to the benefit of safety on our roads. Very professional, indeed from my viewpoint it was absolutely first class policing; minimal paperwork and worthwhile impact.

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