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news
Near Miss of the Day 17 - Met Police pciture via Lucullus on Twitter).JPGNear Miss of the Day 17: Close pass ... by a police car
A close pass in Richmond Park in south west London is, sadly, not a rare event - there are a lot of motorists and cyclists looking to share the roadspace, after all. But here's one made by a police officer, driving a Metropolitan Police Service vehicle.
The cyclist on the receiving end was road.cc reader, Cycling Embassy of Great Britain campaigner and Richmond Cycling Campaign member Tim Lennon.
Hello @MPSRichmond this happened in Richmond Park yesterday. They passed close enough I could have reached out to touch the vehicle. pic.twitter.com/DAR1A1KgRO
— Tim (@lucullus) July 15, 2017
He tweeted footage of the close pass to the Richmond Twitter account of the Met, and while it has acknowledged the post, it doesn't appear that any action has been taken yet.
The next step will be flagging the incident up on the force's RoadSafe website, he told us.
Whether that gets results is open to question - last year, he notified the Met of this close pass by the driver of a 4x4 on his eight-year-old daughter; no action was taken.
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 contact us via the road.cc Facebook page.
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.
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No chance of that ever being a human being.
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23 comments
Yep, no way I'd be in any position other than Primary cycling with my kid in that situation.
I'd be in primary here. If they want to get past, they can use the other lane.
Re. cyclist and poor overtake by police vehicle. I'd have been tempted to ride in a strong secondary position here. Cyclist a little close to the verge - not that it excuses any poor driving.
I'm not at all surprised by the 4x4 - I've been close-passed and even left-hooked with my 3-year old daughter in a bike seat on the back of my bike. If we hadn't been on the way to a swim lesson at the time, I'd've chased the left-hook, as they turned down a road with speed humps and parked cars, so weren't going to get too far in a hurry.
Coming home from swimming on Saturday, I come up a section of road with roadworks with big red signs saying the cycle path is closed and "Do not overtake cyclists" - which no-one seems to read and I got close-passed yet again with a bike seat on. Annoyingly, the driver was lucky and just got through the temp lights, so no chance to catch them.
We live in a 20 zone and even have a nice little speed indicator by our house, alerting approaching road users of their speed as they pass us and the school nearby. Most regular 30mph+ offenders? Rozzers and buses.
Talking of buses, what has happened to the standard of bus driving recently? It has noticeably deteriorated; the standard of driving in London is absolutely shocking compared with even just five years ago. All so they can get to the next bus stop a few seconds faster.
More and more are being driven by people with European and other licences where things aren't quite so....thorough as here. Found myself on a bus in London not that long ago being driven by someone from somewhere in Eastern Europe, and I'll swear he was learning as he went.
Watch this space (tomorrow, probably)
On the London news tonight actually. No specific mention of danger to cyclists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40628616
GPS in all busses. Can't be late
Perhaps I have become too conditioned, but it didn't look that bad to me.
It wasn't, but more by luck than judgement - brilliantly timed it to make sure all 3 passed at the same point. Anything could have happened with that sort of incompetent driving.
Well it did to the Tesco Van driver as they slowed right down to avoid a collision... and it's an 8 year old wobbling quite a bit, probably requires a bit more margin for error than your average MAMIL?
I was referring to the first film. Fair comment for the third film, which I hadn't watched until now.
Not sure her wearing a helmet would have prevented that Range Rover from being a tw@.
Perhaps he should improve his daughters safety by getting her a helmet.
*Grabs popcorn*
Sweet, salt or buttered? The debate never ends.
...because everyone knows that helmets are all fitted with SUV repelling force fields, don't they rich-s who's only posted once...?
It's probably farty with a new log-in. Don't they run sumer camps during the school holidays any more?
I was really pleased to see someone on a bike wearing normal clothing. No body armour, no hi-viz tabard, no flashing lights, just normal everyday clothing like THE VAST MAJORITY OF CYCLISTS WEAR, ALL OVER THE FUCKING WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!
"And, we're off ladies and gentlemen in this the 8023rd running of the Helmet Debate Guineas...."
The thing is that it's a massively integral part of cycling, cycling safety and cycling freedoms. When those that point at plastic hats, hi-vis et al as items that should be worn it not only erodes everyones freedom AND importantly safety and even justice. it absolutely takes people into the direction of victim blaming and from that putting the onus for safety/not being killed on the vulnerable.
This erosion doesn't happen overnight but you only have to look at how cycle training forces kids to wear helmets and hi-vis(though I know some instructors whom don't wear helmets when doing the training and explain why when questioned), schools forcing kids to wear helmets otherwise they're not allowed to cycle to school, helmets forced onto people riding sportives, charity rides and even forcing people in bike clubs to wear plastic hats otherwise they can't take part.
A discussion recently on CUK forums highlighted this were a club member fought against the club president to not have hlemets forced on all the members for rides due to 'health and safety'. The outcome was that they left the club altogether after being a member for several decades.
The discussion should never end because if those arguing against it don't it will be an acceptance that ineffective 'safety' aids should be the norm.