Near Miss of the Day 723: Driver overtakes family of cyclists and almost collides with car pulling out of junction

If you’re a ‘must get in front’ driver, sometimes it pays to have some local knowledge. Today’s Near Miss, filmed in Altrincham earlier this week, certainly isn’t the kind of close pass normally featured in this series. In fact, the motorist gives the riders plenty of room as they overtake. However, in attempting to pass two separate groups of cyclists at once, one of which appears to be a family, the motorist failed to take account of the possibility of an unwitting driver emerging from the upcoming side road, nearly causing a collision but for some timely braking.

To cap it all off, the whole palaver was completely unnecessary – both sets of cyclists were just about to turn left onto National Cycle Network Route 62, the Trans-Pennine Trail.

The clip was sent into us by road.cc reader Bob, who was riding in the second group.

“We don’t know the family cycling in front of us, but there is some distance between us,” Bob said. “As most car drivers are aware, the majority of the cyclists down that road are turning left so many just wait instead of overtaking.

“In this case the car decides to overtake us and the family in front, but a car turned out of the side road. Fortunately, they saw the danger and stopped.”

Bob told us that he hasn’t reported the incident to Greater Manchester Police, who are yet to respond to the last video he sent them of a dangerous overtake.

> 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