Nuisance drivers

We all know them - drivers who habitually travel too fast on the roads you use every day, motorists who cut you up, cruisers with boom boxes, even idiots who throw things at you as they drive by.

They are nuisance drivers - not the everyday driver who usually tries their best to avoid you and often goes out of their way to make sure your journey is safe.

A new law is available to combat nuisance drivers aimed at "vehicles used in manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance". It is worth bearing it in mind if you have to report a motorist to the police for bad behaviour.

Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002. states:

1 Where a constable in uniform has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle is being used on any occasion in a manner which:
(a) contravenes section 3 or 34 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (careless and inconsiderate driving and prohibition of off-road driving), and
(b) is causing, or is likely to cause, alarm, distress or annoyance to members of the public,
he shall have the powers set out in subsection (3).

2 A constable in uniform shall also have the powers set out in subsection (3) where he has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle has been used on any occasion in a manner falling within subsection (1).

3 Those powers are
(a) power, if the motor vehicle is moving, to order the person driving to stop the vehicle;
(b) power to seize and remove the motor vehicle;
(c) power, for the purposes of exercising a power falling within paragraph (a) or (b), to enter any premises on which he has reasonable grounds for believing the motor vehicle to be;(d) power to use reasonable force, if necessary, in the exercise of any power conferred by any of paragraphs to (a) to (c). 

Like all laws there are all sorts of details but the above isS57 in a nutshell. S57 should empower cyclists and pedestrians - as well as concerned parents - that there is a way of dealing with habitual aggressive driving.

Updated 190804

:: False impression - daft bike routes like this 40 metre shared route in Mill Road, which starts at a junction and finishes in a hedge, lead drivers to think they have a right to the road, rather than sharing it. The Police Reform Act 2002 gives people a chance to strike back at nuisance drivers.
Picture copyright Will Bramhill