Near Miss of the Day 535: A new twist on the classic left hook

Today’s near miss is a variant on that timeless classic, the left hook. Rather than merely turning across the cyclist, forcing him to slow, this driver starts to turn but then comes to a complete stop in his path.

The reason for this – as you can see – is a pedestrian crossing a side road.

We have clearly uncovered the precise level of urgency of this motorist’s driving. They are in enough of a hurry that they’ll merrily turn across the path of another road user, but not in quite such a rush that they’d drive straight into a child.

The incident occurred on September 3, 2020, on Constitution Hill Road in Poole, Dorset.

“A case of I'll just left hook the cyclist or run the child down,” said Gary who submitted the footage.

> 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