Near Miss of the Day 364: Beeping bus driver in New South Wales

A video in our Near Miss of the Day series earlier this week showing the driver of a Mercedes leaning on his horn as he overtook a cyclist in a deliberate close pass reminded one road.cc reader in Australia of his own experience.

It's also an incident that reinforces something else that crops up repeatedly in the feature - bus drivers being deliberately aggressive towards cyclists.

The video was sent in by road.cc reader Theo, who said : "Honking and intimidation of cyclists is perhaps one of the most cowardly things a person can do to another human being so I understand perfectly just how Mike feels.

"As its one of my pet hates I'd thought I'd share with you this video of a bus driver honking and deliberately close passing me just north of Coffs Harbour, Australia.

"As I was already up against the barrier I had nowhere to go and when the last driver made this close pass, this was, and still is, the closest so far I have felt to death while out riding a bike.

"Of course I reported the driver to the police and they were very good about it and followed it up immediately with the local bus company.

"When presented with the footage of course the driver lied and said he had done nothing wrong.

"The driver was fined for the close pass but I have to admit I was just a little disappointed that the driver was not also fined for the illegal and unnecessary, intimidating honking, but, small mercies and all that.

"The bus company was good about this as well as they were not impressed with this driver either, especially considering they had three perfectly good examples of responsible driver behaviour immediately before this particular nut had his turn.

"After this and one other incident I searched the internet and luckily found the CyclingSavvy and other videos. Now I always take primary at the appropriate times," 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