Near Miss of the Day 857: Driver of HGV carrying crane barely misses cyclist during shocking close pass

As far as Near Miss of the Day goes the 'near miss' part rarely gets closer than this, an absolute shocker of a close pass submitted by a road.cc reader in west London.

And as anyone who read yesterday's edition will note, Gary was wearing hi-vis and had lights on his bike, something a taxi licensing board objected to about NMotD 856.

> Near Miss of the Day 856: Taxi driver almost hits cyclist — licensing body says no indication rider had hi-vis or lights

Anyway, back to today's matter...

This was my close pass yesterday Phew pic.twitter.com/ysbs1av513

— Gary Craig (@_GaryCraig_) March 21, 2023

The footage has been viewed more than 1.4 million times on Twitter and has been reported to the Metropolitan Police, who are yet to respond, and the company whose HGV was involved. 

To the company's credit, Gary pointed out to us that Ainscough "have been fantastic with their response to date" and are "very apologetic".

"It really does appear that Ainscough are taking all the appropriate actions and are really safety conscious," he told us.

@Ainscough_ This was my commute this morning in Hayes your Swallowfield Road depot. @metpoliceuk full footage front and rear available @Technologic pic.twitter.com/zJDajH0zQs

— Gary Craig (@_GaryCraig_) March 20, 2023

The west London incident saw the van driver travelling in the opposite direction forced to brake to a complete standstill to avoid a collision and attracted plenty of comments from those who saw the footage.

One reply said: "Hope Ainscough and the Met sort it out, could have been such a bad outcome. I know that stretch of road well and is always so dangerous."

Another called it the "worst close pass I have seen".

"I know the camera makes the gap look bigger than it is so I don’t know how you managed not to get hit. This should be prosecuted," they said.

road.cc has contacted Ainscough for comment.

> 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