Near Miss of the Day 359: Cyclist uses bus CCTV to get taxi driver prosecuted

A quick-witted road.cc reader who found out his helmet camera hadn’t caught footage of a London taxi driver undertaking him managed to obtain CCTV footage from buses that did capture the incident, resulting in the driver being prosecuted.

Joel told us: “A very scary incident with a taxi undertaking me on the approach to Euston Station, and then edging me out into the oncoming traffic lane, I discovered to my despair that my helmet camera hadn't been working.

”Fortunately my rear camera was, and although it caught very little that would show quite how horrific the driving was (I had flashbacks for a week afterwards), it did show me a couple of London buses that had a clear line of sight on the incident.

”Taking advice from some helpful bods at Stop Killing Cyclists and the London Cycling Facebook group, and armed with info from the incredible bus safety campaigner Tom Kearney, I was able to swiftly file a police report and then use the incident reference to place a follow-up Subject Access Data request to the bus companies to provide any relevant footage from the bus CCTV.

”This was ultimately successful and Abelio provided the Met with footage showing the incident - which I don't have, as they will only provide it to the police.

However, the driver was prosecuted and received 3 penalty points and a £100 fine,” he continued. “In retrospect it feels quite light for what was easily one of the most dangerous and terrifying incidents I've had in 15 years' cycle commuting through London - especially when it's now min 6 points & £200 for being on a phone, regardless of whether any direct danger to life.

”But it's better than nothing,” he added.

> 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