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news
Near Miss of the Day 734: "What are you doing?" — Driver ignores cyclist at roundabout
We must have missed the part of the Highway Code which says you can ignore the road user already on the roundabout if they're riding a bicycle...
road.cc reader Lyndon said this one is "another example of how some people are just bad people."
"This happened before 7:00am on my way to work. As I entered the roundabout I made eye contact with the driver approaching on my left, and he made eye contact with me.
"However, he proceeded to drive straight through the roundabout without so much as slowing down, forcing me to swerve right and hit the brakes. The cherry on the top of this terrible excuse for driving was the prolonged and soulless glare from the driver, window down, as he barrelled past me.
"Just another absolutely pathetic, small angry man in a 2 tonne weapon. I have not reported this to Thames Valley Police as I was not killed this time and therefore their matrix will deem the driver is completely innocent. I have uploaded enough footage far worse than this that has not so much as raised an eyebrow."
Thames Valley Police appeared on road.cc recently, after a reader sent us a video of a frightening incident involving a land rover driver using their vehicle to push a cyclist towards the kerb, moments after shouting abuse for not using the cycle lane.
The driver, after the report was twice downgraded, was only sent a warning letter.
> Motorist drives into cyclist moments after shouting abuse for not using cycle lane
Yesterday we published an update to this story as, following a complaint, Thames Valley Police insisted the driver would have been prosecuted but, "due to staff absences", the two-week deadline was missed.
> 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
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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29 comments
Was this a case of the driver perceiving from the cyclists position that the cyclist was going around the roundabout?
I've had this a few times over the years, where you see a car coming from the left, so instinctively you move further right to give you some playing room - in case the motorist is stupid enough to carry on. The motorist, with their blinkered perspective of 'might is right', or 'must get in front' etc. sees your movement as either confirmation that you are going around, or more weirdly, that you are somehow letting them up your inside. Is this confirmation bias? They want you to not be going their way or hold you up, so will see any remotely ambiguous action as confirmation to proceed.
Always ends up with me shouting and the motorist looking at me like I'm some kind of weirdo!
Basically, I'm saying that it may be that this driver wasn't consciously being a c-nut, rather achieved c-nut status merely by his actions.
That driver certainly seemed to have the attitude he had more right to the road than a cyclist, although it doesn't help that the road he came from had two lanes marked prior to the roundabout but the roundabout has only one lane.. very stupid.
Not stupid; two lane roundabouts are much more dangerous.
if only one driver can go round the roundabout at a time safely, why imply that two can enter it together?
The left-hand lane, as can be seen from the rear view camera, is specifically for left-turning traffic only, so it does actually make sense; the design of the roundabout is such that the left exit is virtually contiguous with the joining lane, effectively left-turning traffic doesn't really join the roundabout at all.
Bottom line is: ride safe. We don't need another hero.
We don't need to know the way home
Had a driver beep their hown at me, because I was on the roundabout and they were forced to slow down and give way for me, the other day. totally perplexed. Do some drivers really believe they have priority in situations like this?
Yes.
The Thames Valley PCC is holding a 'road safety summit'. Although I don't hold out much hope, given the 'all lives matter' tone of the opening paragraph...
https://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/people/special-safety-summit-announced-to-help-cut-deaths-on-the-roads-in-milton-keynes-and-bucks-3610855
The article is quite positive, and it looks like the PCC is doing something about all the cyclists who've complained to him about TVP. Just make sure you go along to the summit and get your point across.
Might be worth asking if you could show some of the most egregious close passes and other illegal behaviour by drivers, accompanied by what action was taken by TVP.
I'm not sure I would be able to attend. It says "groups representing cyclists", so maybe a rep from a cycle club and hopefully CyclingUK - maybe road.cc could send someone?! Outlay the problem with a few NMotDs as you say, then present a case for improvement of the situation with some opinions garnered from this site.
The only way to be certain that your views are represented is to be there. Perhaps some cycling groups are going, but the voices of individual cyclists who experience this failure of driving and enforcement every day will be personal and powerful. I'd go if I could.
It's not clear that you can just turn up, though. Pretty thin on detail, but the tone of it suggests it'll be invited groups, rather than open doors.
Can I just point out that, while I agree with the general tone of the comments in that the driver was awful and totally unsuitable to drive a motor vehicle, can we please stop with all the 'gammon' and 'lard' rubbish? We are literally being no better than people who name-call cyclists. Be better than them, don't stoop to their level.
I agree. The driver was an idiot, but name calling and criticising his appearance is not the right way to go about it.
I have frequently called out he who shall not be named for their comments about fat shaming and I would be hypocritical if I didn't do the same in response to the comments made here.
Can we all keep it civil please
The suggested next video on youtube (for me at least) has an uncanny resemblence...
With that excess weight, he looks like he's overdue for an arrest of some kind. He needs to get a bike.
OMG, I'm sounding like Nasal Forage.
oo that crap makes me mad. What a g@mmony pig faced little turd that guy is.
what a hunt.
I had a very similar situation except I ended up flipping over the bonnet. Driver claimed the just didn't see me. Police told me it was "just one of those things that cyclists should accept". Institutionally anti cyclist
Same here. Broke my left leg. Driver went on to claim I just fell off.
Unfortunately, the driving shown in the video is all too common at roundabouts (& elsewhere).
And Road CC's favourite force (I wish they would stop their stupid love-in) - Surrey Cops - did nothing when I sent them similar (not the leg breaking case).
Point taken, but a Honda Jazz-box-o-car probably weighs to around 1.2 tons of tosspot driving
Yes, but they were including the driver which makes 2t.
Mmm, TVP, there must be a fair few different ways that could be interpreted.
I'll start with "Totally Valueless Pricks".
Any others?
As for the driver, this is a common occurrence for me and it's nearly always a honda jazz or nissan note being driven by a bovine-eyed mouth-breather that thinks passing within a foot of you is ok as long as they do it 1 or 2 mph faster than you are going. Afterall, it's only 2 mph so what harm could be done? I seriously had this said to me one day by a piss-reaking octogenarian after he close-passed and then left-hooked me to get on to a garage forecourt.
In the late 80s I had a wicked veggie chilli recipe that used Textured Vegetable Protein as its main ingredient. I always think of it when reading TVP, and that force seems about as useful as the meat substitute for enforcement of road law.
That driver is just about peak gammon as can be.
That's not gammon, it's rancid lard.