Near Miss of the Day 236: Close pass with BMW driver (includes swearing)

Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows a BMW driver in West Sussex overtaking a cyclist without leaving sufficient room. The rider points out that yes, he was riding out from the kerb due to road defects but even if he hadn’t been, it would still have qualified as a close pass.

It happened yesterday in Felbridge and was submitted by road.cc reader Phil, who said: “I was getting bored training on the turbo so decided to dust off an old mountain bike.

“I was travelling at about 25mph in a 30mph zone on a rough bit of road moving around more than usual to avoid the pot holes and ironwork, the first two cars clearly saw this and gave me loads of room but the third didn't or didn't like my road position and left me no room.

“If you pause the film at 19/20 seconds you can see me leaning away from the car to avoid a collision.”

Phil continued, “Some may say I was too far out and I accept that,  but if you look at the position of the BMW relative to the white lines, even if I was next to the kerb it would be a close pass.”

“PS,” he added, “I’m back on the turbo now.

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

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.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling