A tale of two (reported) drivers

It's been an interesting couple of days with respect to cycling around Worcester and reporting dangerous / illegal / anti social driving to West Mercia's Operation Snap portal.  Allow me to elaborate.On Thursday I was asked to give a presentation to Worcester St John's Cycle Club on my experiences of 3rd party reporting to West Mercia, about the Close Pass Map, the grant Bike Worcester received from West Mercia PCC, the reduction in road danger offered by the humble Pass Pixi, and my recent experience at Worcester Magistrates Court.At the end there were a few questions and a bit of chat, and then one of the guys offered to say a few words. He'd been on the receiving end of an Operation Snap submission for a close pass, and had opted for an education course. When he received the notification from West Mercia he remembered the incident. He'd seen the cyclist, even noting the Pass Pixi sign, but was aware of some vehicles behind him, and felt pressured to overtake. At that point he knew it was the wrong decision, regretted it immediately, and therefore wasn't surprised when the letter arrived. Interestingly he'd never seen the video (West Mercia wouldn't make it available).Given the incident happened in Hallow, I asked for his number plate, and checking my hard drive confirmed that in fact I was the cyclist. For the first time he watched the video, with me, and a room full of others from the club. There was a notable groan from the room. We shared a beer, we chatted about the incident, he apologised and advised he's a better driver following the course. I'd say that's about as good an outcome as could be expected. Fabulous.So that brings me now to this afternoon. I'd just finished the monthly Worcester Critical Mass bike ride and grabbed a coffee at Spin the Black Circle with the lovely Bike Worcester posse. As a few of us returned to our bikes an elderly couple were checking out the tandem that was on the ride. Often this results in a lovely bonding session sharing cycling stories, hearing stories of cycle touring in far flung countries and plans for this years adventures. Not today.For the sake of this blog I'll call the guy Bob. Bob's opening gambit was that cyclists should have MOTs, pay tax and have insurance. There are well rehearsed responses to these poorly thought out views, so I cordially provided these to Bob, but to no avail. There were a few insults thrown my way, and then he got his phone and showed a video of a car close passing someone on a bike. I asked Bob if he was driving the car, which was a yes, and then asked if he'd been contacted by the police, yes. It turns out he too had attended an education course following the incident. Bob showed me the video again, and asked if I knew what was wrong. I'd estimate he was about 1300mm from the edge of the road, the cyclist was somewhere in the middle, so maybe < 500mm between the rider's shoulder and the car. I pointed out he would fail his driving test if he endangered another road user like that.The Highway Code was updated in 2022, and provided clarification that drivers should leave 1500mm when overtaking someone on a bike at 30 mph. So this was a close pass, it had been submitted to West Mercia, who had issued a Notice of Intended Protection to the driver, Bob. I asked Bob if he'd read the update to the Highway Code from a couple of years ago, a question that was never answered. Looking at the video I saw the familiar time stamp in the corner, and recognised the location, and told Bob it was probably me he'd close passed. A few more insults, Bob asked if I'd got a driving license, if I'd obtained it legally, pointed out I was one of those (?), that I was patronising, I was stupid, and I was calling him stupid, Bob thought I was posh because I had time to ride bike and had a camera, then when I pointed out the camera had been funded by West Mercia advised I was a scrounger, and implied the police are corrupt. Tax and insurance again. So I suggested to Bob he get in touch with his MP if he wants the law(s) changed, and also contact the PCC about the grant we'd received.It then got a bit weird. He asked if I had children, and whether they got in trouble with the police, because posh people don't raise their children properly. He asked who was looking after my children now. He asked me where I lived, then wanted my address, then loosely insinuated he was a police officer and I had to give him my address. I asked for his badge. Bob wasn't a police officer. There were mild physical threats from Bob, but I pointed out if he 'gave me the back of his hand' we'd be going to the police station together.The coup de grace was a fascinating sentence: "I don't want to wish anyone any harm, but the best thing that can happen to one of you with your cameras is to get hit by a car and be killed."On this note I called a halt to proceedings, and we went our separate ways.Despite essentially confessing to the incident and accepting the education course Bob seems to think he's done nothing wrong, and also seems to have learnt nothing from the course. This genuinely concerns me; if drivers like Bob are going to be dismissive of the Highway Code, and see nothing wrong with endangering other people like this (and possibly in other ways when behind the wheel) I don't see why they should be allowed to continue to drive. Clearly a big fan of the My Way Code.So in summary the current approach by West Mercia of offering education courses works brilliantly for some people, and not at all for others. I hope Bob reflects on our conversation, and maybe changes some of his views, but sadly I suspect this won't happen. I am however more than happy for him to tell his story to as many people as possible, and maybe some people will reflect on their own driving, and make improvements to reduce road danger, with those ripples slowly spreading across the West Midlands and beyond, leaving a better world in their wake.To quote a John Lennon lyric: 'You may say, I'm a dreamer'.Yes I am. But I'm not posh. And maybe ripples don't have a wake.