More than 1,000 close passes were reported by cyclists in Essex in 2023, through the county’s video submission portal.
The Extra Eyes initiative, which is run by the Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP), is designed to allow road users to report careless and dangerous road use, by uploading video footage.
Last year, cyclists logged 1,279 reports through the scheme, with 84% of the reports being for close passes (1,073).
Of those, 56% were taken forward by Essex Police, which will have resulted in prosecution or the offer of a driver improvement course. Meanwhile, 7% resulted in an advice letter being sent and 35% resulted in no further action.
The largest number of reports came from drivers, who made 2,816 reports, of which 1,885 (67%) were for careless or inconsiderate driving.
Among these, 35% were taken forward by the police, 3% resulted in an advice letter being sent and 53% resulted in no further action.
There were also 934 reports by pedestrians, 28 by motorcyclists and 36 by horse riders.
Will Cubbin, partnership manager for SERP, said: “We are very satisfied with the figures for 2023’s Extra Eyes initiative, and we continue to praise the public for playing their part, in the continued shared aspiration for Vision Zero – no deaths or serious injuries on our roads, by 2040.
“Whilst we would like all dangerous, or poor, road user behaviour tackled directly, Extra Eyes has a strict legal criterion around the quality of dash cam footage, so sadly, it isn’t always possible to process complaints.
“We ask Essex road users to check out the criteria on our website, to support a satisfactory outcome.”
Sadly no-one takes any notice of pedestrians when we constantly report close passes by cyclists on pavements terrifying us repeatedly as they zoom past us riding illegally, and then verbally abuse us when we object. Elderly and disabled people are frequently forced to stay home or take taxis as pavements are no longer safe for us to walk along. I speak from lived experience
Christina Young, Liverpool
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