Near Miss of the Day 721: “I thought my number was up” says cyclist after bus driver’s shocking overtake

A cyclist who was subjected to a shockingly dangerous overtake by a bus driver on a country road in Greater Manchester says, “I thought my number was up.”

The footage, shot by road.cc reader Colin, shows the driver of the Warrington-based Cheshire Cat Cat 5 bus overtaking him with very little space to begin with – then braking and pulling across the rider due to a vehicle coming the other way.

It’s notable that following the ultra-close pass on Colin, the bus driver gave the cyclist ahead of him on the road plenty of room when overtaking – although he did so on a bend, where luckily there was nothing approaching from the opposite direction.

“If the bus had the stick out lights in the rear I might have been hit,” Colin told us.

“The guy in front is not known to me and had no idea it was happening, the bus pulled in because of an oncoming car round the bend. When it cleared he still overtook on the bend.

“I reported this both to the police and the bus company who responded and said the driver had been dealt with,” Colin said.

“The police did not respond at all and in fact have not responded to any of my recent incidents,” 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