A fly in the ointment

That's me that is... Essentially I realised I was being a bit of a hypocrite. Normally I'll see videos of incidents that other people have on the roads of the UK and my advice is to speak to the police. Well my incident on Sunday (linked in Sunday's entry - though I'll be taking it down soon) had been videoed, but I was on the verge of letting it lie. I'd emailed a link to the video to the Police Scotland contact address, and they'd said to pop to my nearest police station to give them the details and make sure I showed them the video.

All seemed like a bit of a hassle, but hey, I work near a station, so bit the bullet and popped down today. Basic details taken I then pointed out I had video of the incident, and had my iPad with me. First response from the guy at the counter was, "whoooooaaaahhh!" before asking if he could take it to show one of his colleagues to see what they thought the charge could be. So basically I have an incident number, and the police coming round either tonight or tomorrow to take a proper statement, and pick up a burned copy of the video - which is more than I expected. 'Dangerous' driving was mentioned, though I'd suspect 'Careless' would be more likely if any actual charge was brought, but what's most likely is a wee chap on the door to remind the driver that really he should drive in a manner that's less likely to cause major concern to other road users (in the first instance it's up to the h'officer I'll be speaking to, then the fiscal if it goes further).

There's a part of me gets guilty about something like this (it's only the second time I've ever made a report to the police, the other, about four years ago, involved a guy deliberately swerving at me in his car, but I had no camera on the bike at that point); then I think that it's not actually me that's done anything wrong, and if it makes this guy think twice, or look properly, whenever he decides to overtake another car in the future, well that can only be a good thing. So all in all I think it's a good thing (and quite frankly justifies having the camera on the bike, it's another thing that if it makes people act better on the roads just in case someone might have something on film).

So pretty painless after I'd been putting it off, the day rounded off, after melting in an increasingly uncomfortable office, and suffering one dig at my ability, with dinner at l'Escargot Bleu with some current and former colleagues, that was a really pleasant counterpoint