Report a Driving Offence

If you’ve witnessed a driving offence or have been in involved in an traffic incident where no people or vehicles collided, you can submit a report online.

You have a maximum of 10 days to report a driving offence. The Metropolitan Police have 14 days from the time of the offence to notify the registered keeper. They give us – the general public – 10 days so they have time to process submissions and send out letters.

You should absolutely not wait this long. You should submit a report as soon as is practical to ease pressure on the police staff reviewing submissions.

The form allows you to upload your evidence (i.e. video footage) directly on the Met’s website. There’s no need to upload the footage anywhere else unless the offence occurred in the City of London.

Steps in the form

There are lots of steps in this form which can seem daunting at first. After you’ve gone through it a few times you’ll be able to fill it in much faster than you did the first time.

Pick the location on a map

If you’re saving Open Location Codes or GPS coordinates with your footage (you’ll know if you are), you can just paste them straight into the search box and hit enter/return.

Otherwise, you’re going to have to click about on a very small map to specify where the incident took place. Try to be as precise as possible.

Your statement

You’ll need to make a declaration about the truthfulness of your statement. You’re being asked to declare that you’re making a statement which you believe to be true. Read carefully.

Your details

You can use your web browser’s autofill features to fill in some these fields for you. Search the web for the name of your web browser and “autofill” if you don’t know how to use it.

Your role in the incident

You’ll probably want to pick “cyclist” here.

Other people involved

You can mention several people in a single incident. It’s probably best to group several reports together if they happen at the same time, for example if two vehicles close pass you in just a few seconds.

Do not mention witnesses who were not involved in the incident. That comes later.

Pick the type of vehicle involved in the incident. When choosing the type of vehicle don’t worry if you don’t know the engine capacity of a moped/motorbike or the maximum gross weight of a goods vehicle. There are options for “don’t know”.

Checking Vehicle Details

You can check the make, colour, and type of vehicle on the DVLA website by entering the vehicle’s registration. This is a useful way of double-checking that you are reporting the right vehicle because you can verify the make and colour of the vehicle.

Checking PHVs

You can check whether a vehicle is a registered private hire vehicle (PHV) via TfL’s private hire website. You’ll probably want to enter the registration (VRM) without spaces.

Incident details

Specify the date and time of the incident. If you have GPS timestamps, use those. Remember that if the offence occurred when the UK was in summer time (BST) you will need to add 1 hour to any time from your camera that is marked as UTC. If you’re using your camera’s own timestamps (e.g. from the video file’s metadata or an on-screen timestamp) make sure these are correct.

Tick all the offences that you believe your report relates to. For example, if you were close passed by a driver who ran a red light then you might pick both “driving through a red light” and “cycling close pass”.

The other fields on this page are mostly self explanatory. Make sure you explain the actions you took in the inident, too. For example, if you were forced to brake hard to avoid a collision, mention that you were forced to brake hard to avoid a collision.

Upload your evidence

You don’t have to upload 4 minutes of footage (2 minutes before and 2 minutes after). You only have to upload enough footage for the offence/incident to be clear. However, make sure that you keep the original copy of the footage in case it is requested by the police as evidence.

If you are reporting an offence within the jurisdiction of the Metrpolitan Police, you will be given the opportunity to upload video files, up to 1000MB each. Remember to click the green “Upload” button so your file(s) upload in the background while you complete the rest of the form.

If you are reporting an offence which occurred in the City of London, however, you will not be given the option to upload the footage. Instead, you will need to upload the footage to a video sharing or file sharing website and then use a sharing link in the form. You can use Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud, or YouTube to do this, to name a few options. If you upload your video to a video sharing website such as YouTube, make sure that the video is “unlisted”.

When describing your footage, make sure to mention the make and model of your camera so that the police are aware that your camera might have a very wide field-of-view which makes objects appear smaller and further away than they really are. You may also wish to mention whether you were using video stabilisation on your camera, if it has that feature.

If there’s an incorrect date and time visible on your video, mention how and why it’s wrong.

If all you’ve done is create a video clip or rotated a video because it was upside down, you probably haven’t met the criteria for “digitally altering or enhancing” your footage. Make sure to mention if you’ve cut bits out of the video, or if you’ve changed its speed, or edited the audio. Basically, mention anything you’ve done to the video except making a single clip from a longer video, or flipping the video the right way up.

Witnesses

Use your own discretion here. If you’re out cycling with 10 friends, it’s probably not necessary to enter everyone’s details for a “minor” incident. On the other hand, it may be useful to mention a witness if the incident was very serious or if everything isn’t obvious from the video footage you uploaded.

Review

After the footage has finished uploading you’ll be able to review your answers. If you save the dates, times, or registration plates in the filenames of your video clips then now is a good time to cross-check the various form fields to make sure you’ve chosen the right clips.

Sign

You will be asked if you’re willing to attend court. If you pick “yes”, you’re stating that you’re willing to appear at court as a witness if necessary. If you pick “no” and/or refuse to appear as a witness, the police and CPS might decide not to prosecute in case the driver pleads “not guilty”.

It is extremely unlikely that you will be asked to attend court. You will only be asked to attend when both the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) agree on taking the driver to court and when the driver pleads “not guilty”. I have never been asked to attend court and people who have been making reports for upwards of a decade have only been asked to attend court a handful of times:

Once you submit the form you’ll be given a reference number. Save that number somewhere for your records. You’ll also be given the opportunity to download a copy of your report, which you may want to keep.

After this, you’re all done.

Get back out there and enjoy yourself 🚲