Near miss of the day 40: A close pass of a club training ride

For today’s near miss, we have front and rear footage of a close pass on the outskirts of Belfast. The white van driver responsible seems reluctant to cross the central white line, even if failing to do so means skimming a whole bunch of riders out on a club run.

Here’s footage from the front of the bike.

Video uploader Trevor said: “This took place during an evening club training run on the periphery of Belfast. We are all experienced club riders and used to cars passing our group.

“On this occasion, the van in question made an intentional threatening close pass which was extremely dangerous – you can see the rider behind me pulling his elbow in to avoid contact. Beyond that the road ahead was clear but the van barely crossed the white line to pass us.”

Trevor has forwarded the footage to the police who are currently investigating.

Following a successful pilot in Belfast, plain clothes officers have since July been going out on local club rides around Northern Ireland with radios and cameras as part of an initiative similar to the close pass operation pioneered by West Midlands police.

The #seethecyclist campaign also involves prominent use of a distinctive camera logo on cycle kit to warn motorists that they may be being filmed.

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.