Operation Snap is the national scheme that lets road users upload video of suspected driving offences for local police to investigate. In previous Views from the Handlebars, CycHull-ist Kevin P detailed his personal experience of using the portal to report offences he had recorded. In this instalment, he looks into data held by the police on the outcomes of Op Snap cases. His findings show that while the scheme is doing some good, the police are failing to do enough to tackle some dangerous driver behaviours.
What do the police do with our Op Snap evidence?
Having used my handlebar-mounted video camera to report dangerous motorist behaviour for the last three years, I wanted to get an idea of how this evidence might be spurring action from the police – and whether some offences were treated more leniently than others.
Police have two main options for taking forward OpSnap evidence. They can take "no further action" (NFA) when the evidence is insufficient or prosecution is not in the public interest, or they can act by writing to the registered vehicle owner to identify the driver. The driver may then receive a warning or a Notice of Intention to Prosecute (NIP), which offers a menu of outcomes: a fixed penalty (typically a £100-£200 fine plus 3 licence points), a road safety course, a court hearing with harsher penalties, or unspecified "other appropriate action."
After a submission, police usually email the person who submitted the footage to say either that no action will be taken or that a NIP has been issued. The email states that further detail (such as the penalty the offender chose) cannot be released due to data regulations (GDPR). Many people regard this as a false claim, since no individual can be identified from aggregate data.
The Dorset request
In November 2025 a group of Dorset cyclists sent a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Dorset Police for a year of Op Snap data. The following month, they received a spreadsheet covering 4,154 submissions. The results were striking: 901 were labelled "Cancelled" (usually NFA), 431 drivers chose court despite the risk of higher penalties, and 1,162 chose the retraining course — a costly option that can only be taken once every five years. The remaining 1,662 resulted in a conditional penalty, points and/or a fine. Overall, more than three-quarters of submissions led to some penalty.
The Humberside request
In May 2026, I sent an FoI request to Humberside Police for specific 2025 Op Snap data, including offence and submission dates, county, submitter type, offence description, outcome, and NFA reasons. The data was chosen precisely because it does not identify anyone, removing the GDPR excuse.
Much of the requested data was missing (notably the dates) and some was contradictory (Hull listed as being in Lincolnshire). A covering letter claimed the force holds no outcome data and does not record NFA reasons, yet the files clearly record each decision (NFA or an identified offence) and include NFA reasons — entered inconsistently by staff, with varied wording and spelling errors. Reasons for NFA included insufficient evidence, no video, wrong registration mark, an already-public Instagram video, submissions out of the 14-day window, parking offences (devolved to councils), foreign vehicles, and edited video.
I doubt that no outcome data exists: having issued a NIP, it is implausible the police do not record the response. Penalty management likely passes to Humberside's Central Ticket Office in Beverley, so I appear to have received Op Snap data but not CTO data — though both fall under the same FoI request. An enquiry about the location/authority mismatch went unanswered after two weeks.
What the Humberside data shows
Despite these omissions, the data shows some interesting patterns:
Volume: about 450 submissions per month, over 5,000 a year, with more in summer and a dip in August. Winter filming is harder because of headlight glare against dark surroundings. Most submissions come from motorists, about 40% from cyclists, 50-100 a month from pedestrians, and a few from horse riders.
Enforcement rate: 70-80% of submissions are recognised as an offence (and assumed to receive a NIP or warning), consistent across all 15 months.
Common offences: driving without due care or without reasonable consideration dominate. Cyclists report mobile-phone use, non-seatbelt wearing, and no MOT/tax, more often than motorists do — partly because helmet cameras capture the view into cabs better than fixed dashcams, and because cyclists check vehicle status online before submitting. Motorists more often report parking on crossing zig-zags.
Serious, calculated dangers to cyclists (close passes, failure to give way, left hooks, dooring) are mapped onto mild "careless" or "inconsiderate" offence codes.
Conclusions
FoI requests can retrieve useful Op Snap information, but what is provided varies between forces due to IT systems, structure, and willingness to cooperate. Framing a request as FoI imposes a legal duty and improves the odds, though persistence is still needed. Feedback to submitters has sometimes been erratic or stopped, yet action continues even when no feedback is sent — countering theories of staffing gaps or political interference.
Op Snap is doing some good: roughly 4,000 enforcement actions a year must curb some of the worst behaviour. But it tends to NIP only cases it is confident of winning, treating many dangerous acts leniently. Parking enforcement has moved to councils, which rarely act on the most dangerous violations (blocked cycle lanes, footpath parking) while penalising offences that inconvenience drivers. Many cyclists conclude that police and councils therefore show a systemic anti-cyclist bias.
This is a shortened version of a longer article by Kevin P. Read the full version here.
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