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news
Near Miss of the Day 481: A very scary close encounter with 'Farmer Giles' (includes swearing)
A cyclist who was riding downhill and suddenly encountered a convoy of tractors as he headed under a railway bridge says the incident is “one of the top five near misses I’ve had, filmed or not.”
The incident happened in Houghton near Preston, Lancashire, with road.cc reader Jon, who shot the footage, saying: “On a commute to work in the evening I changed my route so was going downhill and approaching this corner when out of the darkness there appeared a massive tractor taking the whole road – hence the swearing as it was very scary.
“What made all this harder is the poor road surface, people on a pavement and taking a corner so having to lean over so needing more space.
“I’m not blaming the driver it was just one of those incidents,” 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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40 comments
It definitely not crawling along, and relative speed to the surroundings doesn't appear to change noticably, despite significant slowing from the cyclist after seeing the tractor - the trailer still goes by at some speed. The vehicles behind also show no visable slowing as if a vehicle infront had tried to stop, so i don't think its that wild a conclusion.
I am merely pointing out that those that want to start calling out the cyclist for poor riding - well the same is true for the tractor - and the tractor had more reason to be cautious given the potential to cause harm given mass of vehicle and size causing it to be on the wrong side of the road on the approach to a blind bend - this is also what a horn is supposed to be used for - alert vehicles of your presence for the sake of safety - so far i have only come across one driver using there horn correctly in all my time both driving and cycling.
My general conclusion is that both had some blame here, but the tractor had a greater responsibility - which based on what I can see they weren't up to the task of.
I would agree with your last paragraph, and I agree with the heirarchy of resposnibility.
Would disagree about being able to draw any conclusion on the tractor speed.
The second tractor is doing about 19 mph and the first about the same, if a smidge slower.
The road markings are 2m gap 4m line and I count 7 frames between the two points in the image below, works out at approx. 19 mph. Cyclist speed using the same method is approx. 27 mph.
Thanks HM, this sheds some perspective on relative speed
Having done all that, I agree with you that there's not much to draw upon regarding the speed of the tractor. A close pass with a tractor is a hair raising experience at any speed.
Also, whilst the bike was going a bit quick (understandable wanting to carry speed into the upcoming hill), I think even 15 mph would still have resulted in a close pass.
What this is, is the best argument for Daytime-Running-Lights that I have seen.
Also, I'm shocked to learn that tractors only need to have an amber beacon lit if they are on a dual-carriageway. Hopefully the tractor driver will light up for that section next time.
Hopefully, but I wouldn't put any money on it.....
careful...youll get accused of victim blaming
who is the victim?
The poor, hard-pressed motorist
I was beginning to think I was the only one thinking the rider was too fast, middle of the road on a blind bend
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