Near Miss of the Day 408: NHS worker's everyone-back-to-work birthday gift

Just like Near Miss of the Day 407, today’s near miss occurred on Wednesday – the day that the government urged people to return to work (without taking public transport).

The incident occurred heading east on Tooting Bec Road/the A214 between Tooting Bec and Streatham, in South London, just at the entrance to Tooting Bec lido.

Laurence writes: “I work for the NHS and have been working through the lockdown period. A silver lining has been the much reduced traffic on the roads during my commute. So on Wednesday the May 13, with the government recommending people start to return to work (but not take public transport), the roads were suddenly much busier than the preceding weeks.

“I'd noticed quite a few care share/pool vehicles on the road – I guess as people decided to avoid public transport. But it makes me wonder if some of those drivers are a bit out of practice at driving, as we see in the video.

“Pulling out into an adjacent lane from stationary, without indicating or (apparently) checking mirrors, a motorist nearly hit me.”

The car involved was a Zipcar – a car-sharing service.

Laurence continues: “My 650b gravel bike was fully laden with panniers – even some medical textbooks lashed to the rear rack – so my disc brakes didn't stop me as sharply as they might have done otherwise.

“The driver and occupants of the car did all take a good look at me after I yelled and stopped, but seemed entirely unconcerned. They moved off fairly quickly. I easily caught them in traffic but didn't want to antagonise or make trouble.”

Laurence adds that it was his birthday.

“About ten minutes later I was drinking a cup of tea and eating birthday cake which my wife and daughter had baked for me.”

> 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