Near Miss of the Day 510: A gratuitous close pass after a series of wide overtakes

Today’s near miss is a needlessly close overtake, the gratuitous nature of which is only highlighted by the safe, wide overtakes that immediately precede it.

The incident occurred towards the top of Cheddar Gorge at around 9.30am on September 27.

“Most of the cars pass me with good space,” said Steve, who submitted the footage, “but the blue BMW was fast and so close its wing mirror brushed my arm.

“It was obviously deliberate as there was nothing coming the other way and the previous drivers had all given plenty of space.”

The manoeuvre was reported to Avon and Somerset Police who told Steve they would take action against the driver as severely as they are able under their guidelines for such incidents.

Back in August we reported how the force had taken action against a motorist caught on camera making a close pass on a cyclist – with the offending driver being one of their own officers in a marked police car.

> 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