Near Miss of the Day 30: VW Beetle driver almost left-hooks cyclist

When we launched our Near Miss of the Day feature earlier this year, we were aware that it might not sit easily with some road.cc readers. By highlighting instances of poor driving around people on bikes, we were making cycling look more dangerous than it is in reality and discouraging people from taking to two wheels was the most common complaint we received.

The fact is, though, that many cyclists who equip themselves with cameras do regularly capture footage of motorists who put them in danger - and it's largely thanks to such videos that traffic officers, following the lead of West Midlands Police and its Close Pass operation launched last year, have tackled the problem head-on and sought to educate motorists about how to drive safely around bike riders.

The latest video in the series serves to reinforce the risks to which drivers regularly expose cyclists - not least since we featured a video by the same rider, who posts to YouTube under the name Westcliff Go Pro, just last week.

That video showed a driver who simply did not see the cyclist as he turned right across his path, braking just in time.

> Near Miss of the Day 29: "Sorry mate, I didn't see you ... "

His latest scare came yesterday morning at 11.30am yesterday morning on Kenilworth Gardens in Westcliff on Sea, Essex.

"After attempting to left hook me and apologising she then almost wipes out my rear wheel," he said.

"This is the second near miss in a week, I just wish drivers would be more observant and judge the speeds of others better."

And that sentiment gets to the heart of why we decided to start this series in the first place - we could pretend these things don't happen, or we can highlight the threat that many motorists pose to cyclists, whether through inattention or something else, and hope it prompts the authorities to take action.

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.