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Near Miss of the Day 727: Motorist overtakes tandem towards oncoming lorry – and gets sent on driver education course for his trouble

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's Leicestershire…...

Quite often our Near Miss videos are accompanied by laments about how local police have failed to take action when a motorist has committed a dangerously close pass. Today’s submission, however, sees Leicestershire Police praised for their “first-class response” to this particularly foolish overtake, which resulted in the driver having to undertake an education course.

Road.cc reader Joel was on his way home with his daughter on their tandem, when the driver in question decided to overtake them, seemingly unaware of the rapidly approaching HGV. The motorist ends up having to squeeze between the lorry and the cyclists, narrowly avoiding hitting all of them in the process.

As well as earning an accusatory beep from the lorry driver, the motorist was sent on a driving education course at their own expense after Joel reported the incident to Leicestershire Police.

Joel told road.cc that the response from the police was “first class”: “Texts and letters to inform me of the progress, which were well written and considerate – and moreover recognised and acknowledged the distress that this type of incident can cause.

“I only wish that when I cycle the other way from my house, into Warwickshire, that I got a response even approaching this level.”

As for the driver, Joel said: “I hope that they think a little more carefully in future and don't try this sort of thing again.”

> 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

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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6 comments

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eburtthebike | 2 years ago
1 like

Whilst driver education courses are probably good, they are a bit of a scattergun approach, so perhaps there should also be an element made to fit the crime, and in this case, the perpetrator should have their car confiscated for a week/month, and be made to ride a bike.  I'm pretty sure that would cement the lessons given in the classroom rather more firmly.

Avatar
Seagull2 | 2 years ago
4 likes

i would suggest that warranted far more than a bit of education !   surely some points, and a fine,  as well as further education  -  both carrot and stick !  is that too much to ask ??  

Avatar
kenyond | 2 years ago
3 likes

As much as I'd like them to drive better after being sent Inn a course, I sadly think it could make some people more hostile toward cyclists.
They'll see them and think it's the cyclists fault they got in trouble, not their own

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janusz0 replied to kenyond | 2 years ago
4 likes

Of course some people will behave like that, but if only one person on the course becomes a better driver, the course will have done some good.

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Jimmy Ray Will replied to kenyond | 2 years ago
2 likes

To be fair, I think one of the major points of these courses is to minimise the sense of victimisation felt by the perpetrator and the need to seek retribution in some way.

The driver awareness courses are fundamentally a positive experience for attendees and are deliberately positioned as such. 

Whilst I am sure there are cynical sods that will take nothing away from the course itself, they will still leave aware that their actions were deemed wrong, and they can and have been caught because of that... oh and lets not forget their one 'get out of jail free card' has been used up. 

I'm quietly a fan over points if I'm honest. 

Avatar
wtjs replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 2 years ago
0 likes

I'm quietly a fan of courses over points
It takes all sorts! Points good- courses junk, especially the online 'no inconvenience guaranteed' comfi-courses

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