Near Miss of the Day 86: Overtaking driver cuts in on cyclist to avoid oncoming car

Today’s near miss sees a BMW convertible driver overtaking in the knowledge that an oncoming car can easily be avoided simply by steering towards the cyclist.

The incident occurred in July 2015 on Cumberland Road in Bristol and is a fairly classic encounter within the ‘well the driver in front overtook, so I may as well just follow’ oeuvre.

It’s not always easy to see how close these things are on video, but the driver coming the opposite way clearly feels they need to hit the brakes in response to the situation.

Mark, who recorded the footage, sounded a familiar refrain when he said that he didn’t report it, “because previously when I tried they weren’t interested.”

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.