Near Miss of the Day 443: Impatient driver makes close pass through roadworks ... to save a few seconds

Impatient motorists overtaking cyclists while going through roadworks to save a few seconds is something we’ve highlighted in our Near Miss of the Day feature before – here’s an example from Essex a couple of years ago – and that’s what we have today, as a driver makes a dangerously close pass on a bike rider on the A52 Leek Road at Kingsley Moor in Staffordshire.

The footage was submitted by road.cc reader Jase, who told us: “The video starts with me cycling up an incline where I was aware of an articulated lorry following me, after a left-hand bend and at the point the double solid lines changes to single, the lorry driver overtook me – and I recall thinking that he’d been particularly patient (some lorry drivers aren’t).

“He was quickly followed by a blue Toyota RAV4, who as soon as he’d overtook me had to brake for the traffic lights/roadworks - I did the same and filtered in behind the lorry.

“After approximately 45 seconds (sorry that’s a boring part of the footage – you can skip to 1:51 if you like), the signals changed to green and I followed the lorry through the contraflow.

“It was at this point that the blue Toyota felt it necessary to overtake me whilst in the contraflow – despite the limited space available for us both and the relative shortness of the contraflow itself.

“If they had waited less than 10 seconds the roadworks would have finished and it would have been far safer to overtake.

“You can see from the footage that as I became aware that he was overtaking, I was faced to move to the left towards the cones,” Jase added.

“At one point I did consider moving into the coned area, but chose not to as wasn’t too sure what the road surface was like – it was roadworks after all.”

> 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