Near Miss of the Day 643: Police officer pulls out on cyclist

One of the more niche sub-genres in our Near Miss of the Day series comprises incidents in which the perpetrator is a police officer – there’s some examples here –and it’s always a bit of a head-scratcher given that they tend to be better trained than the average driver as well as being, you know, the people tasked with upholding the law.

So while today’s offering, which happened on Lilford Road in Camberwell, South London just after 8am this morning is by no means the worst example of driving we’ve featured in the series, we thought it was worth sharing.

When even the police can't be bothered to look for bikes or indicate before pulling away it's no wonder the roads are dangerous...@MetCycleCops @metpoliceuk @MikeyCycling @anneramsey740 @Jezter55 @roadcc pic.twitter.com/CPh2FcbOZH

— Rendel Harris (@Rendel_Harris) October 12, 2021

As Rendel, the road.cc reader who posted the footage to Twitter says, “It’s not exactly a near miss (could have been if I hadn’t kept aware) but if the police can't be bothered to look for bikes or indicate before pulling out ...”

He added that he has lodged a formal complaint with the Metropolitan Police regarding the incident. 

> 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