Reporting Dangerous Driving

[lizw]

This morning a car on the A1 nearly caused a huge pile up. The driver was undertaking, overtaking, slamming his brakes on in front of a van for no apparant reason. The van had to swerve violently on to the central reservation which thankfully he managed to do. The driver of the car then crawled in the middle lane at 20 miles an hour and if anybody tried to overtake him suddenly speeded up. He was also throwing litter and lit cigarettes out of his window.
I wouldn't usually do this but it made me so angry as it was 7.00 in the morning and I had both my children in the car and they were really scared.
We got the car's registration number - does anybody know if it is possible to report this to anywhere?

[camille79]

I would most definitely contact the local police station and report this as dangerous driving. Don't call 999 though, that's only for ongoing crimes!

[lizw]

Thanks Camille - I am going to do so straight away! Just needed to get all that off my chest- I was so cross!

[Coobeastie]

I'd try contacting the police but they won't do anything unless they get other witnesses.

I contacted Avon and Somerset after seeing a 4x4 driver try to run somebody off the road for having the audacity to overtake (cleanly) them. The police said that unless the driver who was threatened got in touch there was little they could do.

[lizw]

You're right - nothing they can do. They did take down the number though as if there are any future incidents involving this car it is useful to have it. (But I think they'll probably just throw it away...)

Can't believe how upset it made me. I've been driving 15 years and am used to prats but this really was scarey - I now understand about road rage - I wanted to do unspeakably horrible things to him...

[Shire]

I once saw a hired van being driven erratically (swerving across lanes, racing up behind people and flashing his lights etc) on the A34 / M3, and took the registration and the phone number of the vehicle hire firm and phoned the hire company to report that the vehicle was being driven dangerously. No idea whether they did anything about it though.

Hope you feel better soon x

[NORMANTHEDOG]

You should of course report it to the police,but i doubt very much if they will do anything about it,They will ask you to fill in a form and that will be that.And they wonder why the general public have so little faith in them at the moment.I had a incident just after xmas when a car rammed into my box trailer wanting to pass me on a dual carriageway,lucky i had the trailer on.I phoned the police and they asked me to fill in a form,i phoned again last week to see if anything had been done about it,i was told as no one had been hurt it had been put on file and noted. Wonderfull dont you think.

[Grunty]

The police were quite wrong (and dare I say lazy?) to tell you there was nothing they could do, unless you live in Scotland. In England and Wales only one credible witness is required. In Scotland two witnesses are required.

There is, however, the possibility that this will result in you saying what you have, and the driver saying that no such thing happened. They should still have traced and interviewed him. If he kills somebody tomorrow who will feel guilty? Not you because you have done what you could.

If it happens again though, it will be as well to take the numbers of a few other cars.

[lizw]

Can I just say thank you to everybody who answered here. You have made me feel better and more in the mood for the long drive home back down the A1!

[Toureman]

It is now possible to get an ASBO put on to dangerous drivers, the only drawback is that it will take more than one person to activate the ASBO, if there is one particular driver in your area and you can find other drivers to be witnesses and give evidence the ASBO will be given and it is up to the offending driver to prove the ASBO is not justified.

I know it does not apply to the above but it could be usefull to know in the future!

[JimmyRiddle7]

I also had a near crash experience today at 5.00pm on the M25, four carriageways narrowed to three, and was overtaken, and said car emergency braked after i sounded horn and forced into the hard shoulder to avoid colliding with vehicle. I have read all of the above posts and it seems it would be a waste of time repoting this. If i had hit him it would have been my fault???? If i had been able to keep up with him i would have definately voiced my opinon about his driving!!! It seemed even more insane that the driver was fairly mature in age. This sort of thing REALLY twists my melon!!!

[jimmyjones01]

I have just had someone, overtake me, whilst there was someone coming the other way. Cut right in front of me, really shook me up. Luckily wasnt that far from home, pulled in to the parking area, and what did i find... th same car, with the driver just getting out of it. Let him go on, because he looked like a "bad'n" but got his registration and left a note under his wiper. Going to the police with it tomorrow.