Near Miss of the Day 460: Van driver sacked after close pass

A van driver filmed making a close pass on a cyclist in Staffordshire will no longer drive for the firm that owns the vehicle.

The incident happened on the A34 near Trentham Gardens at around 7am last Thursday 21 August.

Damian, the road.cc reader who submitted the footage said: “I reported this to the company via Twitter on the same day, they have responded today with the following:

 “It’s good that they have taken it seriously, and hopefully the driver will think twice about passing other cyclists this close,

 “I have also reported it to Staffordshire Police, as they now have a portal to report incidents like these which I was unaware of until yesterday.” 

> 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