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news
Near Miss of the Day 556: The squeal of brakes one
Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day Series illustrates how, sometimes, cyclists don’t know how close they have come to having a motorist knock them off their bike.
The driver here – who road.cc reader John suspects may have been distracted, maybe using a mobile phone – slammed on the brakes just before rear-ending the cyclist.
It was only after reviewing the footage, shot in Buckinghamshire, that John realised what a close call it had been.
“I didn't even realise this was as severe until I watched it afterwards,” he told us.
“I just heard a screech behind.
“I thought it was a wheelspin as they tried to overtake me and then abort.”
> 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
- john_smith 1 hour 53 min ago
Straight into the sun is perhaps an exaggeration, but at that time it would be about ESE, and there are bits of the road which head roughly SSE, so...
- john_smith 2 hours 2 min ago
7 October was just a bit of harmless fun until the "msm" ramped it up.
- hawkinspeter 2 hours 3 min ago
It's not censored if you just pirate it
- stonojnr 3 hours 7 min ago
an example of Kesgraves "best cycling infrastructure in the country" https://maps.app.goo.gl/GsCMbzDUTPdq59qS9
- ktache 3 hours 11 min ago
They are not going full gas at every point. They would destroy themselves. And tactics, they save themselves for when effort is really needed....
- wookey 3 hours 15 min ago
It turns out that that is national police policy. We found out from this process that there is national 'secured by design' policy which causes...
- mtbtomo 3 hours 55 min ago
Been available for quite a while, full GRX mechanical 12 speed. Probably around the same time as 105 mechanical 12 speed if I were to guess.
- TheBillder 4 hours 1 min ago
Less harmful citrus degreaser is easy to find at £8 or less for 5 litres. Works ok for me, even diluted up to 4:1. Both paraffin and white spirit...
- Veganpotter 4 hours 6 min ago
Nope, it's to keep your straps down and quieter. Plus most sunglasses are polycarbonate and aren't going to shatter like glass anyway
- Steve K 4 hours 37 min ago
And, more seriously, where's the coverage of the closure of the cycle lane which forces you to cycle on the Totton bypass.
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16 comments
Maybe I'm being rosey glassed, but rather than the usual agressive driving, it looks to me like the van just didn't see the cyclist until too late and had to brake harshly... Following the heavy braking they kept well back until the road cleared, and the eventual overtake seemed nice and wide, and not excessivley fast? Maybe the toot was even their way of an apology? Without seeing the drivers face/hand guestures I guess we'll never know...
Now yes, the not seeing the cyclist bit is an issue with a number of potential causes but hopefully this is a lesson learned and the driver looks further ahead/drives slower round bends next time!
Van driver, not van.
And if someone is driving a vehicle and can't see or isn't looking, that is a major concern.
This is the problem. To me that isn't a 'just' (i.e. somehow it's ok then). Another split second before seeing the cyclist and he's dead or seriously injured. So while this could be true, it's very much not acceptable, to me not particularly rosey glassed and doesn't make me feel any more positive towards the driver.
Absolutely. It's the driver sympathy which always outrages me - saying they 'just didn't see' is an appalling admission that they 'just weren't paying enough attention' or observing the road ahead to the standard that should reasonably be expected of a licence holder.
All too often this appalling excuse is accepted, as has been demonstrated by freetime101. It's cultural - there is an societal acceptance of below reasonable standard of observation on the part of drivers. Why? Because the majority are guilty of it at some point and sympathise.
Driving is seen as a convenient mode of transport and even the pretty limited driving test standard is very soon dropped once someone has passed their 'for life' test. There is no ongoing, developmental training to achieve excellence. There is very little monitoring of standards - it is only if you are caught and charged with an offence that you may have to receive some remedial training in order to regain the privileges of your licence.
The courts seem spectacularly lenient when it comes to driving offences, even the most serious where individuals are killed or suffer life changing injuries. They listen to the pathetic excuses and victim blaming and show undue leniency because any sanction would have 'such a detrimental effect' on the perpetrator.
And why is that? Because the driving standard is so low that they can all visualise themselves being in such a position, as they have all 'had a close one' where they never saw (because they weren't observing properly) a cyclist, or pedestrian or even another bloody car in similar circumstances.
The driving standards accepted by society will forever remain at an appallingly low level. There is no political will to drive them up - that will lose votes, not gain them as the hard done by drivers will once again bleat about how unfair it is if ongoing training and testing were to be implemented. As the vast majority drive they are unfortunately a very loud voice.
Well, look at the illegal number plate and it's fairly obvious that this driver doesn't give a shit about law-breaking, whether it's phone use / speeding / drug driving / nearly mowing down cyclists.
The police need to educate these people that it's a road, not a race track.
I'm not sure that was an appropriate comment to this video. I didn't see the driver racing anything. He didn't look like he was driving at excessive speed. It merely looks like he wasn't observing the road ahead and therefore did not see the cyclist until the last minute which then required almost an emergency stop to avoid a collision.
If he was 'racing', surely he would not have waited behind for so long before overtaking once he had rectified his first fault?
PP
I bet he was on his phone.
Judging from the video the driver in question appears to be doing ~40mph on country roads with high hedges, and clearly isn't paying attention. I stand by my original comment.
The admonitory toot at the eventual overtake tells me you can bet your arse that the van driver has a story about another idiot cyclist "all over the fuckin' road" who is only alive now due to their superb reactions and driving skills.
Definitely on the phone or something based on the initial reaction and then that they had to recover themselves as well because there was plenty of times they could have passed afterwards but didn't. Was it Reported as definitely careless driving / due care and attention if the Pol wanted to bother themselves.
One of those drivers that floors it everywhere. I reckon he misjudged your speed, thinking he could gun it past you before the oncoming vehicles got there.
Was that a honk of the horn as they finally passed you as well?
With reactions like that, they were probably on something. I've noticed an increase in the number of cars and vans passing me recently that reek of weed.
The passing white van that stinks of weed at 7am in the morning is almost becoming passe. Drug driving is the new normal.
Just as the van driver emerges from the blind bend (prior which they should have slowed), they had atleast 3 secs to have realised and you to come into their view and for them to moderate their speed to a safer level, rather than dangerously not paying attention, leading to late and heavy breaking.
The van came into sight before he rode around the bend, the rider had been in visible to an alert driver 10 seconds before the heavy braking
I don't like the term blind bend, it implies no visibility, the visibie distance is reduced, and hence speed needs to be so that stopping distance matches visibly clear distance, what most refer to as a blind bend is simply going to fast
Exactly. Limit points - You're supposed to be able to stop on your own side of the road - there's no way that van driver would have been able to.