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news
Near Miss of the Day 738: Close pass driver claims to have been ‘racing cyclist’ – but gets fined £100
A driver who made a close pass on a bike rider told police that he always drove considerately around cyclists, despite video evidence to the contrary, and claimed he had been a “racing cyclist” himself, and had been knocked off his bike while riding at the same location.
The Transit van driver had made what road.cc reader James described as a “super close pass” – and despite setting out various excuses in his defence, was fined £100 and had his driving licence endorsed with three penalty points.
“Interestingly, the officer responsible for dealing with it sent me a copy of an email the driver sent him, stating various mitigations for the pass,” James told us.
“The officer wanted to know if I wanted him to proceed with the FPN given the mitigation. Here are some of the driver's comments from that correspondence" [with James’s observations afterwards]:
I did notice as I passed him he moved out from the kerb towards me and was a bit unbalanced
“Baloney as can be seen in the video.”
As an experienced cyclist myself, I've raced and been in a few teams and ridden in many countries over a 40 year period. I'm a very patient and considerate driver when it comes to cyclist at all times.
“As evidenced by passing on the approach to traffic lights and a roundabout, and into oncoming traffic.”
I've been in many situations with close passes myself over many years as a cyclist. I've had two major crashes on this very road.
“Yet still chose to pass in a place where his offside wheels barely crossed the centreline.”
I'm in no way saying I don't have responsibilities as a road user in general but feel being handed a fine and points a bit unfair.
“Maybe he should reflect on why that has happened?”
James added: “Suffice to say that once I had reviewed the footage to make sure I had not misremembered I asked that they proceed with the FPN.”
> 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
- Geordiepeddeler 5 hours 13 min ago
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
- chrisonabike 5 hours 25 min ago
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
- ktache 7 hours 15 min ago
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
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Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
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If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
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As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
- andystow 9 hours 27 min ago
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
- chrisonabike 11 hours 24 min ago
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
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If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...
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21 comments
Can I ask what the camera is and where is it mounted? The rear view looks so much closer than the front view. I'm wondering if this is why so many submissions fail to get action from the police.
They fail to get action from the police because most police forces are lazy motorist appeasers and don't want to invest even the tiny bit of effort on making the roads safer, when it's so much easier to hit targets by trying to prosecute people writing mean messages to others online.
Chilli cam, previous generation, mounted on handlebars using their rotating mount. I point it under my arm to get that angle. On my road bike I have a saddle mount - I do wonder if this is a better place as it really shows the proximity.
That under arm angle is great for the side-on view; having that plus a front and rear camera would really provide the best evidence of incidents.
Another excellent example of why you ALWAYS wear a camera - front and back.
Don't forget. If you are injured by a motorist. It'll be the legal team of his insurer that you'll need to defend your case against. Not so easy when there's no video evidence.
And that is why you always wear a camera - front and back.
I often wonder if these drivers ever see the videos of what they've done?
In an idea world you'd get them to watch them after they've given their first round of excuses to see if they change what they say.
I think he had seen stills from the video, not the moving images, then made up cock-and-bull about me wobbling across the road. I am no great cyclist but I didn't think I wobbled much, even with the transit about 5cm away from my handlebars!
His excuses were truly pathetic.. just a stream of nonsense hoping something would stick and motivate the police to mitigate his dangerous driving.
Which obviously proves the claim untrue, because otherwise it would have been CHF200.
Should also have been charged with lying and false evidence for his statements.
Well done! Once again the 'I'm a cyclist myself' dodge proves to be an excellent discriminant for a bad driver offending against a cyclist
In order to claim 'I'm a cyclist myself', there has to be sufficient evidence, the burden of proof being 'beyond reasonable doubt'. On this occasion, that standard is not met. But don't worry, I'm sure there's something we can do to get you off the hook. All the best, the police.
don't worry, I'm sure there's something we can do to get you off the hook. All the best, the police
They try their best, even with really tough cases. Wonder what they're going to do about this- not only is scaffolder's lorry MX55 YKN crossing the stop line 0.45 seconds after the lights changed to red, but it's listed by DVSA as untaxed since 20.7.09 and never having taken an MOT test. Now you, like me, may well think that this is incredible even for Lancashire! Surely, the Filth must have clocked this vehicle at some stage even though they try very hard not to- so there could be something wrong with the data. The police won't mention it when they send me the infamous 'no-action action letter' which includes the possibility that they might decide to do nothing or give 'words of advice', so it's another one on the list for finding out the actual outcome. Lancashire characteristically doesn't respond to such requests, so I have to keep harassing them. We shall see whether taxation and MOT has been abandoned for certain HGV's in Lancashire.
I misread the headline to mean the driver was claiming he had been racing the cyclist at the time.
It's usually not too hard to win in a van unless you're stuck in traffic.
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Me too.
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That's at least three of us then
Well done getting a result. I wonder which force this is that (begrudgingly) hands out FPN's for careless driving based on retrospective video footage?
Sussex police, reported via Operation Crackdown. First time they've done more than send a letter for my (infrequent) reports.
Thanks. So if the Met and Sussex can do this, I'm going to ask some questions of Thames Valley as to why they can't.
I'm wondering why Hampshire can't do it either.
"I've been in many situations with close passes myself over many years as a cyclist. I've had two major crashes on this very road."
So I thought it is only fair that this cyclist shares my pain, after all it's a collective.