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Near Miss of the Day 45: Compilation - One cyclist's experience over three months

Our regular feature highlighting close passes caught on camera from around the country – today it’s Norfolk

Last night’s BBC regional news programme Inside Out South highlighted research from the Near Miss Project run by Dr Rachel Aldred of the University of Westminster which found that on average, cyclists experienced one “very scary” near miss a week, on average.

> BBC regional news segment asks ‘how close is too close?’

Here’s a video from road.cc reader Paul Downs that starkly illustrates that point. Given an action camera for his birthday in 2015, he began filming his 20-mile each way commute in Norfolk.

“Most of it's pretty quiet, but not all of it, as the video shows,” he told us, with the footage in the video above shot in the space of just three months between September and December 2015.

Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.

If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.

If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).

Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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25 comments

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HLaB | 6 years ago
0 likes

The scary thing is these are all too common 

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Paul_C | 6 years ago
0 likes

I'm looking at that video and he's riding TOO close to the edge of the road therefore encouraging them to try and squeeze past.

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burtthebike | 6 years ago
3 likes

The first really scary thing about this vid is that any of those incidents could have resulted in death or injury with just a tiny change in circs; a pothole, a gust of wind, a misjudgement by another driver.  The second is that we all see this regularly, if not every day, then still pretty frequently, but nothing seems to change.

I'm sure all these issues will be addressed in the government's forthcoming inquiry into road safety.  The one they postponed for three years until the Charlie Alliston case.

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drosco | 6 years ago
1 like

This is probably pretty typical of most commutes I would suggest. While not pleasant, with a bit of common sense and awareness, I think risk can be mitigated. In 5 years of commuting 20+ miles a day, my only accident was being doored at the weekend in a sleepy village.

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jasonhill72 | 6 years ago
1 like

I’m reading Derren Brown’s ‘Happy’ at the moment and his take on philosophy and how to live responsibly. There’s an interesting section on the causes of road rage and where anger comes from, even in mild mannered individuals: “Much is happening all the time that is beyond our control and as the Stoics have told us, it is from that realm that most of our anxieties originate. The result on the road is a power struggle…

“The real culprit here, though is our sense of entitlement. It is very hard to be our most compassionate when we are navigating such dangerous territory. When we are in cars, we cannot communicate with any of the subtlety of a normal social situation”

I think this alludes to one of the key issues as to why this happens, a lack of empathy for the cyclist and how a close pass feels to them. There’s definitely something in the way that attitudes to others change as soon as you start driving.

To illustrate the point of being ‘in a different world’ when driving, as I’m cycling along stationary drivers I make a point of letting drivers know if they have a blown brake light bulb, that’s not working. A gentle tap on the window or a wave and a point to the back of the vehicle. Frequently the initial look is one of surprise/irritation, sometimes confusion. The bubble has been burst, the state of mind has been changed, you’re back to having to interact with a real person. Then, nearly always, there’s gratitude when the driver realises you’re trying to help and not inconvenience them. “Better me than the Police”, I sometimes say. (Mind you, there was once one driver who steadfastly refused to even look at me and just gripped onto their steering wheel more tightly!)

No answers on this one, but the issue isn’t going to go away as long as there’s this disconnect between actions and effects on others.

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Deac | 6 years ago
0 likes

 I think im going to give up cycling.

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psling | 6 years ago
2 likes
"steady lad [20 posts] 3 hours ago

If its the latter I'll punch them (if male and between 21 - 58)."

 

Do you ask for proof of age i.d.?!?

 

"madcarew [455 posts] 2 hours ago

Some of those were sphincter clenchingly bad, but quite a few I wouldn't call remotely close, but wide angle cameras do make things a bit difficult to judge. "

 

I think the issue in those is not the closeness to the cyclist but the endangering of the occupants of oncoming vehicles, most of which can be seen to slow, stop or swerve to avoid the overtaker of the cyclist.

 

 

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Jimmy Ray Will | 6 years ago
4 likes

I believe what we see on a day to day is down right rude, unsettling, but not in itself hugely dangerous.  

What I am thinking is that rather than these moves being demonstrations of incompetency or anti cyclist mentality, I'm starting to believe its just about being at the receiving end of the normal language of driving.

Bare with me...

When accountants talk to accountants, the language used is direct, uncompromising and in many ways damn right rude. This is because a good accountants job is to collect money owed to them quickly and resist paying bills due for as long as possible. All is fine with this as long as accountants talk to accountants. But, from bitter experience when accountants deals with non-accountants, offence is very quickly taken. 

Bascially its the same on the roads. The common language is power and dominance. My lane, my turn, my right of way. The mantra is to get from a - b as fast as is feasible and if squeezing a few margins makes that happen, that is fair game. As drivers we all play this game (to varying degrees) every day. In our boxes, this is all fine. We don't like being cut up, 'done' at lights etc., but its normal behaviour. 

Now, put us on our bikes and these little moves, acts of dominance, power, squeezing the margins, suddenly take on a different perspective, as its suddenly our lives, not our arrival time on the line. 

We are the non accountant being aggressively chased for money. 

Is there a point to this ramble? 

I suppose its about needing to identify why these things happen, so the right changes can be made. For me the biggest thing is about humanising cyclists to motorists, to publicise the vulnerability, and responsibility placed in the hands of drivers. 

What I don't necessarily like is all this talk of close passing. Of saying that close passing is common, normal behaviour that needs addressing. Rather than idenify horror on ourroads and generating a need for change, publicity simply normalises the behaviour to the majority. 

For example, would you still speed in a car if you didn't think everyone else speeded too? 

 

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beezus fufoon replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 6 years ago
3 likes

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

...Bascially its the same on the roads. The common language is power and dominance... 

there are other "languages" - the insecure driver with the failed "overtake" left chugging away in the wrong gear just over your right shoulder - but certainly among male drivers up to a certain age this seems to be the case - I would go further and suggest that it includes status, and that also includes the choice of which car to buy in the first place - the manufacturers know this is a prime market and that's why they design cars that look like training shoes

what's lacking in our society is any sort of rite of passage - send all the young men naked into the rainforest armed only with toothpicks and don't allow them back until they've killed a tiger, or something similar

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robrob1978 | 6 years ago
0 likes

As the saying goes... "It's all killer, and no filler".

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madcarew | 6 years ago
2 likes

Some of those were sphincter clenchingly bad, but quite a few I wouldn't call remotely close, but wide angle cameras do make things a bit difficult to judge. 

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Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
1 like

Lorry at 0:25 needs sending down. What a bellend.

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steady lad | 6 years ago
4 likes

A couple of these show the very worse sort of idiot driver, the ones where a stream of cars pass you at  safe distance then the idiot comes along to prove a point and drives very close to you i.e following a car that is a safe distance but driving aboout 150cm closer to you than that.

One day I will get the chance to catch up and ask this person whether they are stupid or deliberately trying to unnerve me. If its the latter I'll punch them (if male and between 21 - 58).

Cheers

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davel | 6 years ago
7 likes
DrG82 wrote:

In so many of the clips above the drivers almost crash into oncoming vehicles, in those situations I fear the drivers will take the choice of self preservation and flatten me rather than hit the oncoming vehicle.

Yes they will: that's an instinctive reaction and there's very little that most people can do about it, once they're in that position. Split-second decision - choose between hard metal thing or squishy thing. Not many people will react quickly enough to properly weigh the risks and not just do a self-preservation knee-jerk, and I don't think they can be blamed for that.

What they can, and should, be blamed for, and have the book thrown at them for, is the stupid and risky driving that puts them in that situation in the first place, and which cyclists see all the time. I have no time for commenters on these articles shrugging and saying 'nothing happened, so what'. Often, the driver has already created a situation where if another vehicle appeared, they would be taking out the cyclist : their driving has already created a dangerous situation that's beyond their control.

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CXR94Di2 | 6 years ago
8 likes

There must be literally thousands upon thousands of recorded incidents of close passes, all of them have one primary feature, drivers dont want to slow for slower road users, so take the dangerous option.  If there was presumed liability, it would hit the driver in the pocket.  It works well in parts of Europe.

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Leviathan | 6 years ago
3 likes

Wellll, technically, if he went the wrong side of the traffic island, it wasn't a close pass.

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DrG82 | 6 years ago
7 likes

Dodgy passes once a week!

Last week in one 4 mile ride to work a bus pulled out of a stop on me, then about 100 m down the road a van drove out at me on a roundabout without even slowing down and then about 2 miles later a car attempted a pass where there was a traffic island and a zebra crossing and decided to squeeze me into the kerb before I smacked my fist into her rear passenger side window and she noticed I was there.

 

In so many of the clips above the drivers almost crash into oncoming vehicles, in those situations I fear the drivers will take the choice of self preservation and flatten me rather than hit the oncoming vehicle.

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Chris | 6 years ago
2 likes

Blimey, I didn't know my commute was being filmed this evening

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Billy1mate | 6 years ago
0 likes

Whilst cyclists are allowed on dual carriageways and A roads, the closing speed of passing vehicles is horrendous. I avoid these types of road but of course, the fact still remains that the level of driving is absolutely atrocious. 

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wycombewheeler replied to Billy1mate | 6 years ago
3 likes
Billy1mate wrote:

Whilst cyclists are allowed on dual carriageways and A roads, the closing speed of passing vehicles is horrendous. I avoid these types of road but of course, the fact still remains that the level of driving is absolutely atrocious. 

Ate you suggesting that we should never cycle on national speed limit roads? That we should in fact by limited to the town we live in?

Very little difference between single carriageway a roads and many other rural roads in terms of traffic speeds but the a roads tend to be a little wider so make overtaking easier.

Dual carriageway that are almost motorways but without the hard shower are a different matter.

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IanW1968 | 6 years ago
4 likes

Yep, but we we all are fully behind promting sustantable transport and getting more people to more active.   

Why do UK resident keeps electing knobheads? 

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beezus fufoon | 6 years ago
0 likes

looks like a typical 30 minute ride in essex

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Dr_Lex | 6 years ago
0 likes

Sadly, NFN.

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Jitensha Oni replied to Dr_Lex | 6 years ago
1 like

Dr_Lex wrote:

Sadly, NFN.

Normal for just about everywhere  2

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Goldfever4 | 6 years ago
1 like

Jesus christ some of those were horrible. Some a bit close for comfort, some downright stupid, but there were some properly anus-rupturing scary ones too. Yeesh.

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