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news
Near Miss of the Day 683: Oncoming driver misses cyclist by inches
“It could have ended badly for me” is the verdict of the cyclist who found a motorist driving towards him without slowing down despite a flatbed truck being parked on the driver’s side of the road – with the vehicle missing him by just inches.
Johnny, the road.cc reader who sent it in for our Near Miss of the Day feature, says that the incident happened in Dunoon, Argyll & Bute.
“I’ve not taken any action, but it could have ended badly for me if it was a few inches closer,” he said.
“The obstruction was clearly on the driver’s side of the road too,” he added.
> 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
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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24 comments
Good lights placement.
Hang on - are those TT bars? I'm just amazed the rider didn't spontaneously die or something...
(beetlejuice!)
Got to give a chapeau for the colour co-ordination of jersey, gloves and bar pads though, classy!
I'm not too sure on this one. When the video starts, the cyclist is a fair distance from the parked vehicle, and the other vehicle has already begun to overtake. Perhaps the motorist could have eased off, but so could the cyclist. Give and take.
I thought the same, the driver was well into a move to pass a line of parked cars
See, I see it the other way. When video starts, both vehicles are equidistant from the parked van. Cyclist wasn't accelerating, car was to try to beat cyclist through. There is definitely a noticeable speed difference between first car and the following BMW. And even if the cyclist had slowed down more, the car was not making any effort to get over earlier so the only difference would have been cyclist having less control as braking hard in the wet, and car being in the exact same position on the road relative to cyclist.
Absolutely agree, theres a big gap behind the flatbed truck,and the obligation is always on the vehicles with the obstruction who are using the lane of oncoming traffic to pass it, to proceed only when its safe to, not drive at hyperspeed and play the but I was here just fractionally first and claim priority card.
I certainly wouldnt have yielded to them, and that car definitely left their foot in the tackle, if you excuse the mixed metaphors
Looked like quite a big gap in the "line" I no longer live in UK but my understanding would be the driver with the obstruction on their side of the road should be giving way...driver should have seen cyclist and rather than accelerate and as a consequence of that take a wide and long line should have slowed....believe the new highway code does away with the hierarchy of faster bigger first...the cyclist had clear priority but is expected to slow?
You are correct. And adding in that you should not come into conflict with other road users whilst overtaking, the driver should definitely have waited
More to the point, Nige has been quiet recently. I was full of hope that the image of TT bars would entice him out to play
.
Beetlejuice....
Don't tempt him out. road.cc is better without trolling
But no Nige = no Nasal Forage, and that makes road.cc a duller place...
The one or two who pounce on those who challenge Nigel's views and keep the conversation about his nonsense going are absent too. It's almost as if...
...there is a Christmas truce ?
...a Festivus miracle?
Some of us were on holiday and weren't looking at the road.cc website......
Where's the commitment?
Looks to me as if there was a very decent gap between the truck and the prior parked car for the blue car's driver to stop. As the obstruction was on the blue car's side of the road, priority rests with the oncoming traffic, which is the cyclist.
It's hard to tell with the angle and the lack of preceding footage exactly when the cyclist could have realised that the driver was going to hammer on through and decided to give way. But the car driver seems to be displaying either impatience or a complete lack of judgement of the dynamics of the situation, or both.
I agree that possibly the driver should have precedence given the relative speeds and positions, the heinous part seems to me after s/he's passed the flatbed when s/he apparently makes no effort at all to move left into the ample space behind it, just heads straight on at the cyclist and makes a close pass from in front. I can only see two options, either s/he didn't notice the cyclist or totally misjudged their approach speed and position, in which case driving without due care, or s/he doesn't like cyclists and thought it would be a laugh to spook one, in which case dangerous driving.
You really should report it, otherwise nothing will change.
Didn't seem much chance of a reg.
Weird camera angle !
You do realise how convoluted the reporting system is with Police Scotland. No portal exists to report and submit footage electronically. Reporting an incident can easily place the offender outside the 14 day threshold for a NIP to be issued. The only exception being if there was injury or fatality and it being a Hit and Run.
Gloucestershire was the same when I started. A system was introduced soon after and now seems to have settled down and I am used to using it so it doesn't take much time. They must have introduced it because they got fed up with having to deal with submissions on an ad hoc basis or they realised it could be an asset to road safety. Either way if you don't report incidents things will never change.