Near Miss of the Day 744 revisited: Cyclist “fuming” after lorry driver who nearly hit him head-on avoids prosecution

Well, no. HiViz is generally a combination of two elements; fluorescents which exploit the UV spectrum of daylight not present in artificial light, and retro-reflecitives which exploit the directional nature of artificial light absent from ambient daylight. Hence HiViz has advantages under both types of illumination.

Unless the ambient light is less than the reflected light from the tapes, you might as well not wear it during the day.
The material surrounding the tapes has no additional reflective properties than any other bright material.

I think you're missing what flourescent materials do. They absorb UV spectrum and re-radiate it in the visible spectrum. By converting incident UV light (invisible) into visible reflected light, in addition to the ordinarily reflected visible light, they do reflect more visible light than would a similar coloured non-flourescent material. So yes, it does have "additional reflective properties" compared to a non-flourescent material, which is why they appear unusually bright. This only happens under daylight as it has both UV and visible light.

“he didn’t see me when he started the overtake"

Of which there is no explanation of why, leaving the reader to deduce he did not look or did not care.

"He didnt see me as significant when he started the overtake"

Is the more likely view he had, he saw the cyclist, but weve all had this experience, simply gone theyll get out of the way as they're just a cyclist, theres room...

Yes, given the ‘the cyclist could have assisted by stopping and moving over’

I think you mean driver, diving out of the way to avoid being a KSI.

It sounds like they took some action, they interviewed the driver, you dont get driver feedback like this as the norm for close pass submissions, but they, or the CPS then chose to go no further with it for some reason, and I dont know how that works, does it turn into a warning, no further action, it seems a bit odd.

But I posted on the live blog yesterday I wondered if, and in line with the drivers comments they would claim to have started a "safe" overtake, because the video evidence is rear facing only, you cant disprove that, and the bit you are trying to prosecute on is only inferred.

Which a "top lawyer" could exploit the doubt a court might have about what exactly happened in the forward view, which might be enough to derail a successful prosecution. And perhaps unlike other forces TVP are less prepared to pursue cases they arent guaranteed of winning.

Exactly that Sriracha. If the overtake wasn't safe to complete before an approaching bicycle, then surely it would have been even less safe with an oncoming car/van/truck moving at a higher speed. Or am I being thick as mince again?

That removals van driver wasn't stopping for anyone.

The third clip (the one used for the thumbnail) has some comments on the twitter thread blaming the SAAB driver as well. "He should have moved across or slowed down as he pushed the blue car into traffic". Erm, blue car emerges into oncoming traffic initially, then tried to bully other driver, and both correctly driven cars were approaching a speed change section so SAAB could have slowed but so did video car so it might appear it didn't.

As long as they have pulled back into their side and are fully over the centre line in good time, then the distance away does not matter.

Well the story the other day showed the court still thinks it should be enough distance that it doesn't cause danger to the oncoming cyclists. 

A similar question could also be applied to riding in murder strips / on dual carriageways with parked cars in one lane. Does the paint line remove the need for 1.5 metres minimum?

I think a head on overtake requires more safe distance (1.5 metres) because the threat of catastrophe is increased. Plus there's the opposing drag.

Only saw a handful

rather more on the lines of "Holy f***ing crapballs. That driver should never ever be allowed to operate heavy dangerous machinery in public spaces ever again."

That seems to be a common attitude of many motorists: they could have easily squeezed past you in a single lane, if only you had had the consideration to *move into the gutter / *bunny hop onto the kerb / *etc...

Ask those people to stand next to the platform edge when a non-stop train passes through.

TBH, if the cyclist had been further over and stayed on his "wheels", there is a good chance that he could have been sucked under the back wheels due to the wind shears generated by highsided lorry doing those speeds. 

Russ confirmed in his twitter thread he doesn't have a front camera, only the rear. And yes youd want justice, if the police take this forward and do anything with it.

But decent quality cameras front & rear arent cheap,they can be double sometimes triple the cost of the bike you're riding.

Incidents like this don't encourage riders to tool up with more cameras, it forces them off the roads completely.