- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Near Miss of the Day 264: Close pass and a bit of afters
Today's video in our Near Miss of the Day feature pretty much speaks for itself.
It was submitted by road.cc reader James, who said: "From Aberdeenshire on my commute home tonight. It gets worse when he eventually passes ... "
> 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.
Latest Comments
- Phillman 2 sec ago
I desperately need a new tyre but cannot find one anywhere. The tyre says 20inch but the wheel is 22inch. Other tyres just don't fit. Can anyone...
- LordSandwich 5 min 59 sec ago
Your setup is a lot tidier than mine, for sure! 😅
- open_roads 36 min 21 sec ago
This looks like a potentially useful innovation - particularly for kids helmets....
- David9694 1 hour 13 min ago
Drivers : cyclists should pay Road Tax etc...
- ReflecToes 1 hour 15 min ago
A friend of mine created a rear light called tailgator technologies that has an accelorometer in it to get brighter when you are slowing down. My...
- ErnieC 1 hour 26 min ago
when does armed resistance become genocide?
- stonojnr 1 hour 39 min ago
well keep in mind the county council leading and proposing these active travel changes is Tory. so work that one out.
- Sredlums 2 hours 23 min ago
What I don't understand is what is so hard to understand about the fact that higher/steeper stems bring the handlebars closer to you. If you only...
- IanMSpencer 5 hours 6 min ago
I don't think you need have any concern about cycling safety improving with #toxicadi Ashley Neal advocating for us on protected cycle lanes....
Add new comment
51 comments
There are no excuses for this drivers dangerous behaviour. If they choose to take a wide vehicle down a single track road they should expect that they might encounter an obstruction to their pace. If that was a tractor with bale spikes would they have travelled so close to it? Would they have menaced the tractor driver to let them pass rather than wait for a safe place to overtake? No..because it's a cyclist, who are there only to wind up "legitimate" road users, it's ok to force them off the road. This driver was delayed 30 seconds at most. Wow. If it wasnt for cyclists the roads would be clear, and drivers would be free to use all of their excessive power and speed to race the roads just like Clarkson. Because the roads are never congested due to vehicles. No amount of road building will fix congestion. Glad to hear the police are treating this as it should be, dangerous driving. What if that cyclist was a child? The driver had no idea and didn't care. How many parents have to live with the fact their child was mown down by a driver in a 'tragic accident' that wasn't?
I think what you have to remember in these situations is that the driver probably shouldn't even be in that place at that time if they had obeyed the speed limits on their entire journey - if they start running a Strava like app (Carva?) and can show that they've broken no limits before they got to where you are then maybe you could feel some sympathy for them but my guess is that would be the case for a tiny minority of drivers.
Well done to the police on this occasion.
in my years of riding I have not come across many bad drivers but the only thing I have learnt is that anyone driving a rangerover has had their spacial awareness removed as they have no idea where other road users are, for evidence I defy anyone to produce a photo of a range rover parking in any carpark that isnt taking at least one and half spaces.
If the guy was a 10mph cyclist I'd agree it would have been easy for him to wait in the lay by, but he wasn't really slowing the motorist down, he was going around 20mph so why should he lose all his energy just so this impatient twat can get to his destination 10 seconds quicker?
Nearer 30 ;-).
Indeed. There is a rule in the Highway Code about pulling in if you're a slow moving vehicle (rule 169) but the definition of slow moving elsewhere in the HC and in law for a bicycle is under 10mph (rule 129 defines it in relation to overtaking through solid whites).
Also, rule 169 relates to holding up long queues, not singular twats.
As it’s a single track road, rule 155 applies. Interesting that you just have to slow down to pass a horse or bike. Might have been ok in the old days before cars became as wide as a bus...
A fine example of arrogant and dangerous driving.
6B6AA288-DE3D-49C6-AE23-C336F4391EEE.jpeg
I can't believe people are actually proposing that the rider should have pulled over.
The driver was delayed for a matter of literally seconds in this instance.
In my opinion, anyone who is on the recieving end of a "Get out of my way!" beep should be given legal immunity to deliver a punch on the nose, or at the very least blow a hand-held airhorn straight in the ear.
I trust those people proposing that the rider should have pulled over are the same people who would politely pull onto the hard shoulder if they were driving along on the motorway and someone came up behind them at speed (rather than, you know, simply expecting that driver to just overtake them as and when it was safe to do so...).
Glad you got a result roots.
I reported the incident to the police who, after viewing the video, believed there was enough to support a dangerous driving charge and went around to the drivers house to give him the good news the same evening.
Thumbs up for Aberdeenshire plod.
Great news! Kudos for Aberdeenshire police!
I do feel sorry for the driver. After all they spent all that money on leasing a truly massive car (2.2meters wide, mirrors width!) and then, just driving along, they get held up by a cyclist! On a country road!
I'm quite sure, that the cyclist did not realise that the driver was spending all that money each month specifically for people to give the driver the respect that spending £XXX a month rightly deserves, that fact probably didn't even cross that silly cyclists mind, if it had they would have pulled over at the first available spot and waved the driver through, probably while thinking how much they'd like to swap places in life..
You forgot to mention "whilst tugging their forlock"!
Wow, it looks like we have the average members of a jury all come out to play!
The driver appears to become irate at the passing points and becomes very aggressive. It's akin to being behind someone in a supermarket queue when you have 10 items and they have a trolley full and waving around knifes and bleach to show your annoyance.
I do feel for the motorist, he/she was potentially travelling at 20mph behind the cyclist for nearly 30 seconds before accelerating into a residential area and using 2 tonnes of metal as a weapon!
ah, the old ‘get out of my way you’re slowing me down’ followed up by slowing down again to antagonise the cyclist. Mind-boggling.
As the driver passes, they are clearly being a pain, but at the same time there are some bits in this video where the cyclist is clearly in the middle of the road.
I know a lot of these videos do show drivers in the wrong - I have seen plenty of times where the cyclist is not being ideal.
Middle of the road or not, the road simply isn't wide enough to pass safely. Look at the positioning of the vehicle when it is moving over to the off side to try and squeeze through, the gap on the near side is nowhere near enough for a cyclist to be positioned safely during a pass. In this situation keeping left would've only encouraged the driver to force their way past. Maybe riding right down the centre pushed the drivers buttons a bit, and perhaps if the rider had stated left of centre it could have seemd less 'confrontational' but the outcome would still be the same. What we can't really tell from the video is the state off the surface. It's possible the cyclist couldn't stay left all the way along. Rural road with pot holes, mud, gravel and all the usual hazards that the 4x4's have no concers over.
What's wrong with the cyclist being in the middle of the road? There's no room for a driver to overtake no matter where the cyclist is as evidenced by the dangerous overtake that the driver performed.
Agreed - particularly given that this road is of poor quality with potholes and what looks like gravel/mud in sections. Why is cycling in the safest position seen as wrong? If you were in a car and kept getting punctures or nearly crashing when you drove right up tight to the edge of the road don’t you think you’d learn pretty quickly that it’s not the best thing to do?
Cycling where the passenger would be travelling in a car is usually a much better road position. Inside of where a cars offside wheels would be but not riding on the crown of the lane.
The road isn't wide enough for the landrover to safely overtake, therefore the cyclist had adopted primary position.
I've made the mistake of allowing space in this situation and had cars fly past inches from my elbow.
In any case the driver was only delayed for a few seconds before the road widens.
Just guessing - the iam in your monicker refers to the Institute of Advanced Motorists? If so, you may wish to consult the IAM's own advice and guidance for cyclists? https://road.cc/content/news/30663-institute-advanced-motorists-launches...
I'd have slowed down and let thim past at the passing place or the road which is just after it. The heavy braking, nah, start to slow without grabbing the brakes suddenly and it seems like you are being decent and letting him past when in reality you are probably delaying him more
Yes the road opens up, but he knew he has another road user behind him. It's never going to go well, your adrenaline starts flowing and his impatience is increasing.
I never know, I might meet this driver one day. We all see it from our side, but we need to see both sides of the argument. Yes it's a 'big car', so what. It's not the car it's the person inside it. I've had atrocious passes from people in Aygo's and Porsches. I wave if I get a good overtake performed, positive reinforcement folks. Not the us and them mentality...
Should have dubbed Jaws music over that.
Not condoning the drivers behaviour at all, to perform a close pass out of sheer badness is not good, but we need to be fair as cyclists too. It was a narrow road, but at 46 seconds the cyclist passes a passing place. He should have pulled in and waved the driver through. When I am cycling on narrow lanes and a vehicle approaches from behind, I will always look for a spot where I can pull in and wave the driver through. In almost all cases I get a wave of thanks as the driver passes.
That was my first impression but the road very soon opened up to 2 lanes, so I suspect the cyclist knowing the road felt that a short delay was not much of a hardship for the driver and preferred not to lose speed.
As a rider in that situation, youve got to decide to stop, stop quick enough safely out of the way, which it looks like a gate access, so could be loose uneven surface,certainly flints to pickup, all whilst youve got 2 tons of vehicle breathing down your neck, who certainly wont have enough time to react if you make a mistake and fall off in front of them...Id keep going frankly in that circumstance especially if I could see and know the driver could also see the road was widening very soon and they arent really losing any time at all.
absolutely if its safe for you to allow another vehicle pass, though dont always expect to be thanked, do so, but dont be bullied out of the way either
That's what I thought at first, but the road widens up a few seconds later, with plenty of room to overtake (if the driver hadn't been a twat) which the cyclist probably knew about, so there really wasn't anything much to be gained in pullling over there.
On a climb or slowish ride, I agree, but this is neither. The passing areas are small and would have required quite significant braking, all before the road opens up shortly anyway.
He's behind for an additional 15 seconds after the dodgy looking farm entrance where he expected to get past, making his journey around five seconds longer....
Pages