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news
Near Miss of the Day 581: “I really did fear for my life” – Driver nearly hits cyclist head-on (includes swearing)
In our Near Miss of the Day series today we have what must rank as one of the closest things we've ever featured in the series – with a van driver who is overtaking a lorry coming straight towards a cyclist with no attempt to slow down.
It happened in Heywood, Lancashire as road.cc reader Graham was going to work at 6am on Saturday morning.
He told us: “I got to within a couple of minutes from my workplace when this incident occurred.
“There was a lorry travelling at speed on the other side of the road and the car behind it decided to overtake and entered my lane travelling at high-speed head on with me.
“I had to stop my bike and hope the car didn't hit me and as you can see from the footage if it had I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. Sadly because of the weather conditions and lighting I have been unable to identify the driver’s number plate.
“I have contacted the police via online form and am waiting for them to contact me so they can view the footage.
“I attended the police station today to hand the footage in but they didn’t take it from me and said I had to wait to be contacted.
“I know there are cameras along this route which may have picked up this incident but by the time the police do something, if anything, the footage will be lost.
“I’ve had a few close passes and near misses but never anything like this before – I really did fear for my life,” 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
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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107 comments
Andrew Snowden has been elected as Lancashire's first Conservative police and crime commissioner, according to the BBC. Mr Snowden said he wanted "more bobbies on the beat" and to "get stuck in to clamping down on anti-social behaviour".
So I suggest that you put him to the test on anti-social behaviour, which this bad driving clearly is:
Tweets from Cllr Andrew Snowden (@A_J_Snowden)
He would, of course, shrug his shoulders and point him to Andy Burnham who, as GM Mayor, assumes the responsibilities for the GM PCC.
"It happened in Heywood, Lancashire as road.cc reader Graham was going to work at 6am on Saturday morning."
It might be Lancashire for the address (county area) but Heywood comes under Greater Manchester Police Force which as GMBasix points out, comes under GM PCC who is appointed by Andy.
someone somewhere must sell some sort of hydrophobic treatment for sports camera optics. ?
Not sure if it would work, but as a swimmer you can buy specific anti-fog spray for your goggles, or alternatively use a little bit of washing up liquid on the lens, rub it in and then rinse it off and dry. That works to prevent fogging in goggles.
Im assuming that would work well on certain cameras (certainly my virb XE) which has a flat plastic lens cover over the actual lens
Rain-X (but only for glass lens)?
Or https://clicklikethis.com/prevent-water-drops-on-gopro/
The same polish that works on glasses should be fine for a camera, however the build up of water is related to the lens shape and surrounding camera bodywork. Slightly convex is best to ensure that the water will flow off thanks to the polish. Typically the lens is protected by a surrounding cylinder that prevents the water flow. Some drilling required!
Of course it never rains so why would product developers test for that...
Watching the video closely you can see the car start to overtake the lorry. When they start the maneuver they appear to be almost touching the pavement on the side of the road where Greystoke was cycling.
You can then see the point where they realise that there is a bike, and that is at a point where they could have braked and safely dropped back in behind the lorry, I reckon that they spotted the bike before the front of their car had a foot (maybe two) of overlap with the lorry.
But what they chose to do was continue on with their maneuver and get as close to the lorry as they could and force greystoke to take evasive action to avoid the collision.
i might have been tempted to suffer their wing mirror hitting my handlebars, after adopting a strong posture. easy to say afterwards, of course.
With a 1.5T coming at you at over 70 kph ? I doubt that is even possible and the expected outcome is fatal.
reasonable rebuttal.
folding door mirror housings are a thing, of course. big chunky metal bar-ends are a thing too.
that's all fine and well, but you know that strong posture you indcate that you would take..... that necessitates holding on to the handlebars which are going to be struck. And your best likley outcome is that you end up with bruised fingers as your hand is struck by the wing mirror.
Alternative outcome is that you end up with broken bones in your hand caused by the impact, and the force of the twisting motion on your handlebars results in signficant soft tissue injuries to your shoulder (possible dislocation or broken collar bone) and you get spat onto the pavement by the force of the impact
No you wouldn't...
unless you know me personally, and i know that you don't, you can't make that claim. back to myspace with you.
Myspace? dunno, never heard of it.
Sorry I assumed that a rational individual wouldn't consider a deliberate head-on collision (however glancing) with a vehicle travelling at 50+(?) whilst they were riding a bike.
My assumptions were off, and the above does not describe you. My apologies....
very gracious. in all fairness, i'm not generally representative
It is of course said that you are infamous....
obligatory frankie howard. as most cyclists feel about car drivers.
...and a grouse. They do have form for standing their ground (or equivocating until too late) in the face of certain destruction by a car. So I'm calling this one for the grouse!
In any case, the driver would obviously have backed off in this scenario, because grouse are out of season.
See NMOTD 520. No where near as fast. Read the comments.
i remember that one.
i've had my offside bar-end clipped by oncoming vehicles on singletrack roads while slowing/waiting in a passing place — where there is more than sufficient clearance for a driver to safely pass. in all cases the driver left the scene rapidly. the inward angle of the bar-end offers some protection for the hand and i've been fortunate that there has never been a more considerable overlap. reporting it is always a waste of time as @polscotrpu aren't interested unless you died as a result, and even then they'll prosecute you for coming back to life without the appropriate approvals.
it was my final motivation for purchasing a helmet camera, which feels like less of a valuable purchase now as i havent had that particular experience since.
You may remember James Cracknell was hit on the head by a truck wing mirror (admittedly bigger) and he very nearly died and was wearing a helmet. I dont like to think what would be left of your hand/shoulder/arm after a collision. Remember water is like concrete at speed. Hard plastic is going to sting!
Ah, but was it a wing mirror?? Correct usage or else swldxxer will come for you!
F@&k me, that has to be one of the scariest near misses I have ever seen. The fact that the police will not take it upon themselves to do anything is beyond belief. It is a shame that the wagon in the clip doesn't have any livery on it as I think that dash cams are becoming far more common in lorries and they may have been able to help.
I wish you all the best in contacting the local businesses along that road to see if they have any useable CCTV footage. But as Sriracha suggests it might be worthwhile scoping out the road around the commuting time to see if they make another appearance.
I really hope you get some evidence to back up your case, and if so that driver needs banned without a shadow of a doubt. It is only a mix of your experience as a cyclist and pure luck that the police did not have a potentially fatal RTC to attend that morning.
I understand peoples comments about the police not being able to do much but they could have at least contacted me to tell me there is not enough evidence to pursue this any further. I do not even know if they have looked at the footage.
I have had many near passes and close shaves on this road another example happened just 3 days earlier to this incident on the same road going in opposite direction at nearly the same spot
https://youtu.be/sfoZCMGODyw (includes swearing - sorry)
This incident was different though if I had been hit I would be dead simple as that and to me this goes beyond a simple near miss but endangering my life and last night having to look at updating my will hit home just how lucky I am.
I am going up there today to try get more evidence from any cctv or cameras near by and will update you all on my progress, if any
Good luck, I hope you find someone willing to help. That toe rag needs to be removed from the road before they kill someone.
Hope you turn something up. Thank you for putting effort into this. It would benefit everyone for something to be done about this driver and sends a signal to other potential miscreants that there's a fair chance of getting caught.
That one is almost as horrific as the head on with the lunatic in the car. Hope you followed it up with the transport company of the lorry involved.
Not knowing that road. how brave you are or the general disposition of drivers along that stretch but you could easily justify a stronger position in the carriageway, if nothing else to ride outside the line of potholes rather than so close to the kerb, where you have no safety margin. Or doing so could get you killed!
Shit driving needs to be tackled for the benefit of all road users not just cyclists and others classed as "vulnerable", hope you keep persisting with your local road safety unit.
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