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Near Miss of the Day 286: The driving instructor and student edition

Our regular feature of close passes around the country - today it's Hampshire...

The latest  video in our Near Miss of the Day series is a bit of a shocker - a close pass by a learner driver in a driving school car, so with a professional instructor alongside giving 'guidance' presumably on the Highway Code and how to pass vulnerable road users safely.

It was filmed near Winchester, Hampshire, by road.cc reader Robert.

He said: "This is the worst close call I’ve experienced. It was a driving instructor giving a driving lesson to a young girl.

"When I spoke to them at the traffic light they wouldn’t roll down their window to talk to me. I emailed the driving school with a complaint and have not had a response yet."

The instructor in question might do well to subscribe to the YouTube channel of fellow driving instructor Blaine Walsh, who has worked with Carlton Reid and Chris Boardman on films explaining cyclists' rights on the road, and how motorists can share the road safely with people on two wheels.

 

> 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 (link is external).

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

> What to do next if you’ve been involved in a road traffic collision

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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21 comments

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thax1 | 4 years ago
2 likes

Perhaps you’d also like to share the name of the Driving School here so that we may leave some constructive feedback on their social media presence? It may well help current and potential future clients better select a suitable organisation.

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grumpyoldcyclist | 4 years ago
1 like

Please report this to the police and the DVSA.

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TriTaxMan | 4 years ago
5 likes

Best possible course of action is to report the driving school to the DVSA with the footage of why you consider it inappropriate, which given the fact that they let their pupil overtake you into the face of oncoming traffic on the approach to a corner.

Also find the driving instructors Facebook and other Social Media  sites and post the footage along with a detailed explanation, and share it with any local cycling groups etc.  Because people like that should not be responsible for teaching others to drive.

Hit them where it hurts - in the wallet and they will maybe get the message.

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alansmurphy | 4 years ago
1 like

No indicator on, no change of speed (to show they'd seen you and anticipated they may need to take action) and no reaction to the slow sign on the road. Are you sure this was a lesson and not a drive back from a dogging spot?

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iandusud | 4 years ago
0 likes

Please report that to the police asap. That was a shocker and all the more so from a learner driver under instruction from a driving instructor. 

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hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
4 likes

Apologies to any driving instructors reading this, but I get the impression that it's not usually a first career choice. It's like driving a taxi (excepting London and The Knowledge) whereby you don't need many skills except for knowing how to drive.

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mike the bike replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
0 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

Apologies to any driving instructors reading this, but I get the impression that it's not usually a first career choice. It's like driving a taxi (excepting London and The Knowledge) whereby you don't need many skills except for knowing how to drive.

 

You might be surprised at how much you need to know to become an approved driving instructor.  Apart from the advanced level driving test (which includes theory and hazard perception) you have to give in-car lessons and are assessed by very experienced examiners. And then, four* years later, you have to do it again. Many candidates, as you rightly remark, enter the trade later in life, but many don't make it as far as the coveted badge.  

Of course there are chancers in some of those school cars, but then some doctors fiddle their expenses and some plumbers forget to fully tighten that underfloor joint. Life is full of these little disappointments. 

 

* Or thereabouts, depending on your grading.

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Miller | 4 years ago
2 likes

I've often had the impression that driving instructors are not telling their students anything useful about how to drive around cyclists. 

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Mungecrundle | 4 years ago
0 likes

Double

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Mungecrundle | 4 years ago
5 likes

My theory goes something like this:

Most drivers consider themselves to be above average, rating themselves as 'excellent'.

After the driving test there is no further training or evaluation of ability.

Standards inevitably slip. From an already low base.

Drivers who consider themselves good drivers are quite often not actually that competent or attentive.

When unexpected (as in they weren't looking properly or able to anticipate) situations arise, they find themselves out of their depth, but being 'excellent' drivers the problem is obviously due to "some other idiot".

Cyclists represent a challenge to negotiate safely, when drivers cock up around cyclists it must be the cyclist's fault.

QED cyclists are a dangerous nuisance and should not be on the road.

Being an excellent driver, it is a duty to police other road users, a close pass should show them that they need to get over into the gutter where they belong with the other crap.

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Legs_Eleven_Wor... | 4 years ago
4 likes

I witnessed a brilliant example of why this sort of thing happens, this morning.   A car driver wanted to turn left, but that meant cutting across my lane.  So he did so.  I had to brake and go around him.  As it happened, the lights were red so he had to stop, and his window was down.  

I drew alongside. 

'Next time, how about making sure that the lane is clear before you go into it..?'  I asked.  

'It was clear,' he said.  And drove off. 

And you know what?  From his point of view, it probably was.   After all, there was nothing in the lane that actually mattered. 

What was that quote from one of the Avengers films?  Loki arrives, and Samuel L. Jackson's character says to him, 'We have no quarrel with you'.  Loki replies, 'An ant has no quarrel with a boot'. 

Yep.   

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Legs_Eleven_Wor... replied to Legs_Eleven_Worcester | 4 years ago
1 like

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

I witnessed a brilliant example of why this sort of thing happens, this morning.   

And another, yesterday evening.   On the 'main' road, heading towards a set of traffic lights.  A side street to my left, about thirty feet before the lights.   Selfish twat in a small red Seat pulls out of the side street but can't get onto the main carriageway, as there's a car there and the lights are red.  So he sits straddling the cycle lane at 90°. 

'Thanks mate,' I say, as sarcastically as I can manage.

He looks at me and gives a slight shake of his head as if to say, 'What did I do?'

'You're in the cycle lane,' I say.

'So?' he replies, before winding his window up and driving off.  

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brooksby replied to Legs_Eleven_Worcester | 4 years ago
0 likes

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

On the 'main' road, heading towards a set of traffic lights.  A side street to my left, about thirty feet before the lights.   Selfish twat in a small red Seat pulls out of the side street but can't get onto the main carriageway, as there's a car there and the lights are red.  So he sits straddling the cycle lane at 90°. 

TBH I see that manoeuvre so often I'd just assumed it got taught in driving lessons nowadays... 

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CXR94Di2 | 4 years ago
1 like

My son had an instructor for a week. He was the most intolerant bigoted anti everything that wasnt a car.  He lasted one week, then we sacked him off.

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EK Spinner | 4 years ago
2 likes

"When I spoke to them at the traffic light they wouldn’t roll down their window to talk to me. I emailed the driving school with a complaint and have not had a response yet."

 

2 Things come come to mind here.

1 which window did you approach, the instructoe is in charge here not the driver and it is they who should be held responsible. and getting into a discussion (argument) in front of their client could lose them some business (and in this case that would be a good thing)

2 Most driving schools are private businesses with only 1 or 2 employees and are often family members so I would not expect any serious repercusions like I would hope to get from a larger firm (even then ??) I think this should go straight to the police and whoever certifyies the instructors (DVSA ?)

Either way some local promotion of a clip like this will give them a kick up the jacksie, they get most of their business from the local area and through recomendations.

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quiff replied to EK Spinner | 4 years ago
0 likes

EK Spinner wrote:

1 which window did you approach, the instructoe is in charge here not the driver and it is they who should be held responsible. and getting into a discussion (argument) in front of their client could lose them some business (and in this case that would be a good thing) 

I've had a close pass from a learner driver before, where they were significantly closer to me than the cars before or after them. I managed to have a perfectly civil discussion with the instructor at the next lights, but he refused to accept that it was a close pass. Unfortunately I expect most learner drivers (particularly younger ones) are more inclined to listen to what their instructor tells them than the grievances (however reasonably expressed) of someone else - I'm not sure how many would decide to sack the instructor.  

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ktache | 4 years ago
0 likes

Don't some see SLOW as some sort of challenge?

It's around those where the really dodgy stuff happens to me, blind corners and all that.

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burtthebike replied to ktache | 4 years ago
1 like

ktache wrote:

Don't some see SLOW as some sort of challenge?

It's around those where the really dodgy stuff happens to me, blind corners and all that.

I think the driving test shoud include literacy.

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to burtthebike | 4 years ago
3 likes

burtthebike wrote:

ktache wrote:

Don't some see SLOW as some sort of challenge?

It's around those where the really dodgy stuff happens to me, blind corners and all that.

I think the driving test shoud include literacy.

psyche evaluation more like.

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levermonkey replied to ktache | 4 years ago
1 like

ktache wrote:

Don't some see SLOW as some sort of challenge?

In your best Richard Hammond "Yes I am!"

It's the only way I can explain some driver's behaviour.

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burtthebike | 4 years ago
2 likes

With a sign on the highway in big letters "SLOW".

Couple of years ago, a driving school car was parked blocking the dropped kerb at the end of my road, and I asked the driver if he knew that it was against the law to block it.  He said yes and carried on walking away.

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