Near Miss of the Day 195: Driver pulls out on cyclist because he assumed he would stop to let him out

Today’s near miss sees a motorist pull out on a cyclist from a side road – not because he hadn’t seen him, but because he just assumed the cyclist would stop and let him out.

The incident occurred on the King's Road Junction onto London Road in Waterlooville, Hampshire.

What’s striking is that a motorist travelling in the same direction as the cyclist had stopped to allow the driver to pull out – because why not? They were stuck in a queue of traffic anyway, so it made no odds to them.

The cyclist, George, was not stuck in a queue, however. He had clear cycle lane ahead of him and he didn’t expect a motorist to pull out directly in his path.

George said: “I was using the cycle lane, wearing a high-visibility jersey and bag cover and my bike is equipped with flashing LED lights.

“However this motorist admitted seeing me and even explained to me that they expected me to stop for them, completely disregarding my right to use the cycle lane.”

 “I felt rather shaken up after this near miss given the wet conditions and the ignorance displayed by the driver.”

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

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.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling