The star of today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series isn’t a motorist at all – instead, he’s a rather potty-mouthed van passenger who unleashes a string of four letter words after a cyclist remonstrated about the close pass that the driver had done on him moments before.
It was filmed by road.cc John, who called out “Moron” and the van overtook him, leaving minimal space and with the cyclist also approaching a row of parked cars.
The passenger, who would have heard him through the open window, turned around and said, “You what?” with the rider replying, “Keep your distance.”
Much of the subsequent exchange is a bit muffled, but it’s easy enough to get the general drift – and John got the last laugh in the end as he sailed past the van, now stuck in heavy traffic, shortly afterwards.
"I didn’t report this to the police although I was quite tempted,” said John. “I did contact the firm whose van it was but didn’t get a very satisfactory response from them.
> 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
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10 comments
Kelly Services responded to me within 48 hours back in 2015, when I made them aware of this passenger's apparent belief that screaming at cyclists is funny:
https://youtu.be/lEEN8loUHzM
Their response was that this sort of behaviour wasn't acceptable.
For me, the matter was closed. But the passenger actually contacted me in the 'comments' section below that video, a year later, to tell me he had lost his job because of the video, and that if he ever saw me on that road again, there'd be 'karma'.
After a lot of arm-twisting, the Met got his name and address from his former employee and went to have a word in his ear.
But at least he got to the back of the traffic queue a couple of seconds sooner.
An excellent advertisement for this company, and I'm sure all cyclists will be rushing to buy from them. I myself have already placed a substantial order.
Have dropped them a line to let them know what a good advertisement their employees are for their company...
top tip, if you are going to gob off and drive without due care and attention best not do it in a works sign written van, remtards.
I'm bigger than you, so it's my right to get in front.
And my dad's bigger than yours.
Absolute Interiors, but I feel there may be a word missing in the middle.
It’s a typo, the t in Interiors should have been an f. That’s the most polite I can be.
What jerks ;-(
I've just emailed the co. with a link to this.
Just retweeted the clip to them too.