Near Miss of the Day 448: Transit van driver in very close pass

There was a good blog post that gets linked to here on a semi-regular basis (I can't find it at the moment but maybe another regular knows the one I'm talking about) on how to get the police to take things like this seriously.

It boils down to you (the victim) have a right to have the crime properly dealt with, and if justice has not been served you have the right to complain. It might not change anything in this particular case - if statuatory time limits have passed etc., but it might mean cases in future are taken more seriously. Part of the argument was that "near misses received by cyclists" is not a statistic that police are routinely measured on, but number of complaints is.

Don't click on them then?

I have great interest in road safety and have learnt a lot from viewing NMOTD. 
It gives me a greater understanding of just exactly what depths some drivers will sink to. And an awareness of what I might do as a cyclist, if faced with similar circumstances.  I also like to show my solidarity to the cyclists affected by these acts.  Perhaps other people are expecting something else from it - but I value it

In terms of the incident - what was the driver thinking. A complete lack of foresight as they just ricocheted from one close call to the next, putting Derrick in danger totally unnecessarily. Van driver should take a few days off work, and let the gentlefolk of Somerset go about their business in safety

cm2white wrote:

These posts are so boring and pointless. I hope that when your Subscriber feature is launched we'll have the option of removing this trash from our news feed on your main page. Thanks.

Um, so don't post them. Thank you.

I hope that when the subscriber feature is launched we can block pointless posts from people like you

Will someone with 9 posts actually subscribe? We'll see.

As far as I saw, the van close passed them both but was slower then the first. I suspect he came off the island with speed and saw a slow bike and slow van and wanted to get ahead. The oncoming cars and lack of a turn off for more room was the only reason he didn't squeeze past the second bike in the same manner. 

Or he realised how shit his driving had been initially and decided to not be as much as a dick. 

often encountered that scenario myself, Ill have been passed close enough that it feels like they are trying to shave the handle bars but the next cyclist along suddenly gets 2metres, my very unscientific assumption is Derrick just looks more like a sporty cyclist when on a bike vs the next cyclist along who is just a guy on a bike.

Whether its deliberate in that drivers treat you worse because you look/ride sportier, and its those cyclists they dont like because we ride faster,take prime more often etc etc, or they give you less room because they believe you are less likely to need the room,vs a slower cyclist who often looks like they might weave or fall off at any moment, I dont know Ive never caught up anyone who did it to have a chat about it. But I certainly feel looking sportier on a bike tends to lead to closer passes on the whole.

It still looked a pretty poor pass on the second cyclist - it just seemed relatively tame in comparison to the terrible first one. I don't think the driver was particularly giving either of them any consideration - they were coming past both come what may, and the road just happened to open up a bit as they reached the second pass (which obviously meant they should then floor it away down the road).

absolutely you wouldnt hold it up as an example of how to overtake a cyclist and yeah the van driver seems to be focussed purely on flooring it everywhere as quickly as they can, so maybe its unreasonable to believe theres any thought going into their driving at all.

its just noticeable that it happens like that quite alot for it to be more than coincidental IMO, if the driver truly gave no consideration to cyclists at all, both passes would have been equally poor & he'd have boxed the 2nd cyclist in behind the parked car as theres nothing then blocking them coming towards them, but instead moves across & nearer to the cars stuck going the other way which actually gives the 2nd cyclist some space.

1st cyclist in lyrca - therefore not human?

I suspect a dozy van driver and the need to immediately brake after the first close pass perked up his awareness enough to make a vague effort for the second close pass.