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news
Near Miss of the Day 66: Close pass "still makes me flinch when I watch it," says cyclist
Today's submission in our Near Miss of the Day feature shows a close pass in London on a cyclist who, even more than 12 months later, says it "still makes me flinch when I watch it."
It was sent in by road.cc reader Tony, who told us: "This happened just over a year ago, I pulled up to some lights making my way between two stationary cars and waited at the red light.
"The lights changed, and sure enough the car that was to my right caught up and passed so close I might as well have been sat in their passenger seat.
"I passed the details and link to the video to the Roadsafe team at Met Police who judged it to be sufficiently careless that the driver was ordered to attend a driver awareness course. The Met Police kept me informed including notifying me when the driver had completed the course."
He added; "It's still one of the worst overtakes I've ever experienced."
We have to agree with him on that - and it's not helped by the fact it happened so close to that bus stop on the left, which could have made a bad situation even worse.,
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.
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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42 comments
Are we sure thats a bike this time?
fwiw our budding filmaker rode closer to the two cars approaching the lights than the car that went past him. In the interests of equidistant this needs to be noted.
Quite frankly im disgusted with his wanton dangerous cycling
A close pass at speed by a two tonne vechicle is not quite the same as a cyclist filtering between two stationary vehicles.
Maybe you've strayed from the DM and should go back now.
Have you ever walked between parked cars in a car park, to get back to your vehicle? You don't mind walking at 3mph, inches away from parked cars, do you?
Now imagine standing still in that same car park with your eyes closed, as motorists drive past you and your feet at 3mph, the same distance away as you walked past them before. Would you enjoy that?
Excellent analogy.
As already noted by others, you have made a false equivalence here based on the relative outcomes of the cyclist hitting the stationary cars versus the car hitting the in motion cyclist.
Another point worth considering is the relative visibility of their surroundings that each road user benefits from.
Firstly a cyclist has almost 360° vision without blind spots or parts of their vehicle blocking their field of view.
Secondly, a cyclist sits above and central to their vehicle so has good spacial awareness of the boundaries of their vehicle. Generally speaking, motorists in this country sit to the right of their vehicle which makes it more difficult to know where the left of their vehicle is in relation to their surroundings, especially when combined with the aforementioned blind spots. In this case the driver's surroundings happened to be a human being.
Really good point about visibility. Until a year ago, I had a two hour plus commute by car. Since then, I've commuted by bike and only used my car occasionally at the weekend. Frankly, I'm appalled by the lack of visibility in a modern car, yet was utterly unaware of how dreadful it truly is until I got on a bike.
I have to agree with you on modern cars awful visibility with monsterous A pillars and high window lines really screwing up driver sight lines. Car designers have a lot to answer for with the current obsession for lifestyle SUVs and such with technology expected to pick up the slack as driver visibility is reduced to enhance the lines of a car.
Classic trolling behaviour.
Give over! Classic tongue in cheek comment.
Why does no one else understand that this is sarcasm?
I thought that as well. Plus the fact he sits way past the stop line. But it was a very close pass which he shouldn't have had to put up with.
Fuck me: it's an invasion.
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