Close pass of the day - unhelpful, divisive and off putting

What 'disappoints' me is how so many of the Close Pass of The Day look completely 'normal'. I.e. just another day on the bike. 

There is / was a feature in a pilots' magazine called "I learned about flying from that". Pilots who had made mistakes were encouraged to write in anonymously and tell a story that could be instructive for others. This is the closest we have, and as others have said, sometimes comments do help give the benefit of their knowledge of roadcraft.

On and off, I've been road cycling for 40 years (with quite a long break in the middle) but the regular commuters on here are still way ahead of me and I have plenty to learn. Nowhere else (that I know of in the UK) does this so I think it would be a shame to lose it.

To be fair, most of the general news at the moment increases my stress levels.

I think that having at least some media coverage of this issue helps raise it's profile with the authorities. I certainly thought it was useful to tell police the clip I submitted had been published - therefore arguing it was 'in the public interest' for them to do something about it.

I don't think it's road.cc's job to fight the cause, we've got Cycling UK etc. for that. Although it would be interesting if they managed to interview a police spokesperson to get their response to the inaction that some forces are demonstrating.

Maybe a feature of the subscription could be a 'hide NMoTD' setting?!

Having submitted a couple myself, I appreciate the feedback, even those that are critical of my own actions.

As Nelson Mandela once may have said. "I never lose, I either win or I learn."

If I can learn from other people's experiences then even better, and far less risk to my own scabby carcass.

Downside is that it can give the impression that cycling is more dangerous than it actually is, but personally speaking, in decades of motorcycling and driving a car I have never been put in a life threatening situation by another driver. On a bicycle and certainly in the last 3 years or so, I feel that drivers are far more likely to put me in harms way due to incompetence, lack of care or outright aggression. A camera is now basic self defence.

I find it instructive and you get to think about different scenarios and what/if there was anything you could have done. ie defensive cycling/roadcraft (not the same as victim blaming).

It's good that different opinions are given and in a few cases, you can point out errors and poor judgement by the cyclist.

I don't find it puts me off, as I know these incidents are infrequent but it shows how you should not be complacent.

I think they are useful feature, both to air and share our own experiences of similar situations, but to learn from mistakes we can all make and gain from the road craft of others.

its incredibly naive to think close passes arent a regular fact of cycling on UK roads so pretending they dont happen by not publicising them is actually a far worse position to take.

I just don't look at those posts at all now: I *know* there are loads of terrible drivers out there and I don't need to see the videos or I'd never ride on the road again.  I don't really see that these articles do anything to reduce close passing, perhaps they encourage sales of video cameras?

I agree with others on I use them to educate myself on the hazards. I normally prefer the ones with less upfront info in the title of the article/ video so I can try to guess where the hazzard might come from. And sometimes they show cyclists mistakes causing these as well like the Farmer Giles one the other day. 

I had a very closs miss yesterday when a car decided to come out of a junction a couple of meters ahead of me on a dual carriageway. However because of these I was more anticipatory of it happening and was ready to change lanes if needed (and it was). Unfortunately it turned out my camera hadn't been switch on otherwise it would have been a Police Submission to ignore. 

I find them useful, definitely for thinking , "what could I have done in that same situation?", and it makes me more aware of hazards to watch out for when I am out cycling. 

Lot of them get good responses from others and advice on what to do, or how they could proceed, even being able to work out the numberplates, if the car is taxed/MOT'd etc, the model of car, the name of the company written on the van, etc to help bring the careless driver to account. And its worked, you see it in a lot of the follow up comments.

I am glad Road.cc publishes them, other cycling media outlets like GCN or Bikeradar seem to paint a perfect world of cycling, which just isn't true.

I think without them being published, you wouldnt see so much momentum towards the new press guidelines for reporting on cycling in the press, or the whole "witness/victim" thing being debated and fed back to the justice system on.

Hopefully closs passes are going to be frowed upon as much as drink driving one day.

It's a bit of a double edged sword.

As Hawkinspeter said they can be useful for improving your road craft but at the same time they also help to exaggerate the danger of cycling.

Several of the frequently regurgitated articles on this site are written with beginners in mind so it's likely that many new cyclists stumble upon this site via Google etc.

I can't imagine that NMOTD is particularly inspiring to said newbies.

It gets clicks and engagement though and for that reason it will continue.

it's your call - other sites are available. 
"I for one will never subscribe to Road.cc until 'close pass of the day' is withdrawn."

I think there's a fair bit of truth in that, although i'm sure they can also have some use or educational value. One thing that grinds my gears is that in all the time they've have been posting them, I don't think i've ever heard any road.cc representative actually talk about maybe doing something about it, e.g compiling them or presenting them to a cycling, police or government body, helping organise readers to do similar, provide collated data/resources.
Arguably readers should be doing these things as well (and some do) but it seems a bit off to me to have this obvious revenue line and safety issue and seemingly do nothing to actively improve things... perhaps they do, somewhere, in the background or wherever, but can't say i've noticed anything. 
Meh. More coffee.

On the other hand, they highlight poor roadcraft and can be instructional. As a submitter of a couple of them, it also provides an outlet for discussion and lets you get the opinion of other cyclists - sometimes it helps to talk about possibly traumatic experiences out on the road and provides a sense of community (i.e. you're not alone in getting close-passed).

Sometimes, I'm not in the mood to watch them, so I simply ignore them - I get what you mean about making you anxious about cycling on the roads.