Near Miss of the Day 590: Bus driver left-hooks cyclist, forcing him onto pavement

We’ve featured buses regularly in our Near Miss of the Day series over the years – they account for around 1 in 20 of the videos published here – and we have another today, as a bus driver in Coventry starts turning left as they are overtaking a cyclist, forcing the rider, who is banging on the vehicle, to jump onto the pavement to avoid being run over.

James, the road.cc reader who sent in the clip, said: “I’m cycling up Cox Street in Coventry to the junction with Jordan Well and Gosford Street when the bus driver thinks it would be good to overtake me and immediately turn left forcing me onto the footway to avoid being run over (I’d say avoid a collision but since I've been thumping on the side of the bus I'd say there's already been a collision).

“I reported this to West Midlands Police and National Express as per usual I have heard nothing from National Express (any enquiry will simply get a ‘protecting the privacy of the bus driver’ type response).

“National Express were obviously reluctant but I did eventually get the video from the bus.”

He added: “Not my first incident, or my last – there's more to come, with National Express another candidate for close pass of the day here.”

> 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