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Near Miss of the Day 545: Tesco driver nearly wipes out cyclist

Our regular series featuring close passes from across the country - today it's Dorset. ...

Today's close pass footage shows an impatient Tesco driver trying to overtake a rider as they approach a set of traffic lights at the foot of a hill.

The video, captured by Gary, from Dorset, shows him descending in wet conditions.

As he gets close to the traffic lights a Tesco van goes around him before moving back into the left hand lane nearly wiping him out in the process.

Gary, who works at Poole Hospital, was travelling along the B3073 near Wimborne Minster on his way home.

He said: "I didn't want to go and speak to the driver [after], but I knew I had to. 

"I approached him very calmly, and tried to get him to see it from my point of view, even informing him I drive vehicles larger than his almost daily.

"My advice to him was simply, wait behind, you can't push people into the kerb just to get to the red light.

"I did that rather than just going on my way because I don't think he had any clue what he was doing was wrong.

"He said to me he was trying to ''get round me before the light, and I had to brake as well'.

"That tells me he thinks he was doing the right thing by overtaking and I should have braked to let him back in.

"The idea that perhaps not overtaking, just to sit at a red traffic light, didn't seem to have entered his mind."

> 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.

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