Near Miss of the Day 343: A Christmas catalogue ... of poor driving

The guy in the red car who cut in before the island should have been reported, and video supplied. But as CXR said, the cyclists should have claimed the lane. Also the white van - video evidence should have made this an open and closed case. Guy in the jag just seemed to be in his own little world, ignorant of everything going on around him. Probably had Wagner playing at full volume on the radio.

The driving was very poor. There is alot the cyclist could do to stop drivers causing potential issues. Where the driver tried to squeeze between the rider and central island. The rider should have taken the lane and ridden central. The other occasion the two riders became separated by 20 yds causing a gap for the stupid driver to get by and left hook the lead rider. If they had ridden two abreast then it less likely the driver would have attempted a pass before the junction.

Don't get me wrong the drivers were not thinking and being safe Driver education needs to be drastically improved. Cyclists can do alot to protect themselves by positioning in the road

Doesn't even look that bad to me, it's just normal driving behaviour here in Hampshire.

Starting with a basic inability to look further ahead than the end of the bonnet, which then means an inability to plan and take action not to pass at a pinch point.

"big car, big dick" - I think it's probably the opposite!

25th was fine, my time into work at 7:40 I saw two cars, left at 12 and a few more cars but all ok.

Back in work this morning and already the bell-ends were out, couple of not so great but not crazy overtakes and then later on a couple more crappy ones but did have some good patient drivers to sort of balance things.

Sometimes too much space for drivers makes matters worse and agree it's just dangerous driving, there's a choice to give space but they don't, ergo it's deliberate. Whether the intent to ahrm is there or not the end result is the same far too often.

out on Christmas day...10 close passes on empty roads...lets face it, close passes are deliberate...either due to Cycle hate, Lazy driving or both..... either way yesterday on clear open roads, dry and sunny weather it was totally inexcusable...

The first one, "Not a good pass on a blind summit", is not a close pass at all - the driver has given the rider at least 1.5m - and it's not a blind summit: as we can see from the rider's POV the pass was made well past the crest of the summit with a clear view of oncoming traffic.  The other three are pretty awful though.

The other day, with a friend, crossing an island over the M6 in Cumbria, a car shielded by a lorry, had to pull up dead sharp when he realised there were two bikes in front of him. He apologised profusely through the windscreen. As he went down the road, he gave us a wide berth, and waved again. Further down the road, there was a man standing by a house. It was him. He waved us down and couldn't have been more apologetic. There are some nice people out there.

Christmas driving is far worse than normal.

Everyone is in a rush, they're quite often in an unfamiliar area (eg folk visiting family that they only see a couple of times a year), the weather is crap, it's dark, the car is probably full of hyper screaming kids and it's a fair probability that the driver will have had some alcohol recently.

Most people simply aren't used to doing long drives; they do the same old commute/school run for 95% of the year and then suddenly they're on long-distance stuff, blindly following the satnav and in a rush. Basically, fuck everyone/everything else on the roads, so long as I get to Aunty Mabel's in time for turkey.

Bellends, I got a seasonal close pass from a lovely person at 5:30 this morning, boxing Day, zero traffic, wide road, I guess a clunge is a clunge no matter the time of year.

Usual shite driving.