Near Miss of the Day 577: Motor scooter rider in very close pass – on junction where one of London's Cycleways takes a detour

If you live in London, or indeed any big town or city, you’ll be well aware that recent years have seen an explosion in the number of motor scooters on the road – or indeed often parked at right angles towards the kerb – creating yet another hazard for urban cyclists with many food delivery riders weaving in and out of traffic on their way to a pick-up or drop-off.

Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows the moment one scooter rider zooms past a cyclist – who wishes to remain anonymous and did not send the footage to the police – at the junction of St George’s Circus and London Road in South London, leaving just inches to spare.

One thing worth noting here is that the roundabout lies on the route of the mostly segregated Cycleway 6 – indeed, the cyclist has just ridden down Blackfriars Road towards Elephant & Castle.

The problem at this particular junction, though is that instead of heading down London Road, which leads straight to the Elephant – as plain a desire line as you’ll find especially for anyone who is heading on to the New Kent Road afterwards – Cycleway 6 takes a bit of a detour in its final section.

Take a look at the map here, which is centred on St George’s Circus and you’ll see how Cycleway 9 – the green line that comes down from the top centre of the image – veers off course before turning back towards Elephant & Castle, bottom right.

> 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