Near Miss of the Day 497: Driver on near-empty road makes very close and fast pass on side-by-side riders - but police take no action

Possibly because it's an issue that, with the recent consultation into proposed changes to the Highway Code being widely reported (and in some cases misreported), but we seem to have had a few submissions of videos to our Near Miss of the Day series recently in which cyclists riding two abreast are subjected to very close passes by motorists - in this case, by the driver of a BT Openreach van on an otherwise empty road in Cambridgeshire back in May.

As is typical of roads in the Fens, it's straight, and with no hedges, sight lines are good, so it's difficult to see this as anything other than a deliberate attempt to intimidate the cyclists, who were riding side-by-side, as they are permitted to do - although Cambridgeshire Constabulary did not take any action.

The footage was sent in by road.cc reader Luke, who told us: "It took place on the A1123 between Haddenham and Earith, Cambs in May.

"The footage was uploaded to the Cambs police website and a report submitted at the time but there was never any response from them, as usual.

"I also contacted BT Openreach complaints who declined to look into the matter as it had been reported to the police.

"I further reported it to BT complaints a few days later and another person replied saying that they would look into it.

"However, when asked if they would inform me as to the outcome they said they wouldn’t, so I suspect it was buried in the absence of any transparency there!"

> 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