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news
Near Miss of the Day 579: Bus driver overtakes cyclist into oncoming traffic (includes swearing)
The incident shown in today's Near Miss of the Day video resulted in action being taken against a bus driver who overtook a cyclist despite oncoming traffic, even though licence plate details could not be identified from the clip.
The footage was shot last year by road.cc reader Robert who told us he had submitted it to Devon & Cornwall Police via their Operation Snap.
He said the force "took action against the driver (probably fixed penalty notice) - even though the registration number could not be seen in the footage, they used the unique identifying number on the bus and time of day to track down the offending driver."
We know from the experience of some road.cc readers that some other forces may not have gone the extra yards to identify the vehicle, if they'd decided to take any action in the first place, so credit where it is due on this occasion.
> 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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Drive through steak house?...
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22 comments
The bent forces, such as Lancashire, will go to a lot of effort to forgive offences like this. It's routine for Lancashire to just ignore stuff like this below which is on a bridge with a right hand bend just ahead, so I now have an extensive database of ignored cases including blatant passing of traffic lights at red. That's what my present mega-complaint is about. I'm taking it to the very end, but am still at Lancashire Constabulary pretending to investigate Lancashire Constabulary stage- last time they came up with the ludicrous dodge that they needed video from the grossly offending vehicle. That's how useful this first stage of complaining is!
Well done D&C Police. When drivers expect to get fined as a minimum for any incident of dangerous driving, in the same way they expect to get fined when caught by a speed camera we will hopefully see more consideration from those drivers towards other road users. Every close pass video submitted to police should result in the driver being contacted by the police, and the minimum action should be a warning that their next motoring offence would result in a fine that is doubled.
Indeed, I have so far submitted 2 videos to Northumbria Police and both times it has resulted in action being taken against the driver. The most recent (less than two weeks ago) was a very similar situation to this with a lorry driver doing exactly the same, overtaking on a solid white line into the face of oncoming traffic, resulting in both me and the oncoming car having to take evasive action.
Reply from Northumbria police states "I am satisfied that this can be pursued through our fixed penalty process. Due to this you will only be contacted in the event the driver elects a court hearing for the matter."
My last 2 submissions, and I know it's subjective but I don't submit but the very worst stuff, got nothing more than letters, better than no action for sure but it feels at the moment I'd have to be knocked off my bike to get a NIP issued. So I wouldn't have bothered sending in a video like that above as I don't think my local force would do anything with it and its good to see D&C felt otherwise.
It seems to be an absolute Postcode Lottery as to whether or not the police will do anything about it. I used to live in the South of Scotland and submitted footage multiple times with no action ever taken.
The two worst incidents I can recall, the first was the driver of a car, tried to overtake me on the approach to a pedestrian island, pulled level and barged their way in so I had either to ride right in the gutter or get knocked off my bike, and the second was a driver on a mobile phone, pulled out on to a roundabout without looking, I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting the side of his car, the car had no Road Tax and No MOT...... and nothing was done about either incident.
They tried to tell me in both instances I needed a clear picture of the driver otherwise it would be worthless talking to them as they would just not admit who was driving, and neither was "dangerous"
They tried to tell me in both instances I needed a clear picture of the driver otherwise it would be worthless talking to them
This sounds like a ridiculous Lancashire Constabulary dodge, although in this case it isn't. I hope they don't read road.cc, because they're definitely daft enough to try it over my present 'thorn in the side' campaign over them letting drivers off crashing through red lights on the A6. You have to have the stationary camera pointing at the lights to prove the offence, and they would love to insist that you have to have the camera pointing away from the lights to get 4K filming of the driver. They would love this because there would never be sufficient evidence of any offence, and they could just drive around all day switching the na-na s on and off.
On second thoughts, I hope they do monitor road.cc (subversive organisation endangering national security)- give it a try, lads!
Call me a cynic, but I fully expect that the "fixed penalty process" includes the whole range of 'penalties' that can be directly applied by the police, including the truly terrifying "warning letter", the moderately more substantive "driver improvement course", as well as the fine or points.
As they note, they will only actually tell you anything more if the driver rejects one of the latter three AND it is then both referred to and taken up by the CPS.
Is it me, or is there no rear number plate? Maybe that's why the police were interested. I'm hoping this was reported to the bus operator as well.
I think it might be under the top window but the reflection obscures it.
A quick look of images shows a few buses with number plates in the middle of the rear.
Rear number plate is high up, left of the route number.
Is that so it doesn't show up on cyclists' vids?
Whether something shows up is a function of speed, picture quality, frame rate, FoV and angle.
And, presumably, shutter speed (or whatever the equivalent is for these devices). If the shutter is open for the entirety of the 1/30 second frame period, that would allow a significant amount of motion blur through both subject and object movement. But I never find shutter speed listed in the specs.
That's the frame rate. I can have 1080p at 30 fps or 720p if I want 60 fps.
Other cameras may allow 1080p and 60 fps.
Crossed a solid white line also and so did the following car. Wait 30 seconds and you can pass legally. Morons.
MGIF!!!
Apparently cyclists don't count when it comes to double white lines. I've been overtaken by police cars over solid white line even when doing 30mph+ in a 50 limit.
There was one (nmotd ?) where the police response was that the driver could not know the speed of the cyclist !
Of course. How could the driver of a car possibly know that the cyclist in front of him (could be her, but IME mostly him) is doing more than 10mph ...
There is a half mile stretch of double solid white lines on my commute to school ... my record is being overtaken by 14 cars in that one short stretch (and this is not a busy road). Given that it is at the bottom of a gradient, and I rattle through there at around 50kph, they clearly don't care that it is illegal.
I am sure they do understand since on those occasions where a police car is coming down that way, I don't get overtaken by anyone until the solid lines end.
There is a half mile stretch of double solid white lines on my commute to school ... my record is being overtaken by 14 cars in that one short stretch
These days, we have police-made law, not Parliament-made law, and the police have decided that much of the Highway Code including the 'must/ must-not' bits is a load of namby-pamby liberal-wet tripe from which they must protect respectable motorists. I declined to take part in that worthless 'consultation' a year or so ago because of this- there is no merit in laws about close passing when the police openly boast that without lots of blood on the road they're not paying any attention to the HC.
There is a fast downhill stretch near me, with a middle lane for the uphill vehicles only to overtake, double whites to the downhill side. Its perfectly clear-sighted. I would rather people pass me safely there instead of queuing up behind then having to pass futher on where it is less safe for everyone.