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news
Near Miss of the Day 791: “Careful lad,” says van driver parked in bike lane… as another driver pushes in front
“Careful, lad”: Not a remark any cyclist wishes to hear following a close call with a motorist, but especially not coming from a driver brazenly parked in a cycle lane…
Pulled up on the bike lane, on double yellow lines, and blocking the entrance to a car park (just for bonus points), the van driver in this clip forces road.cc reader Pete out of his lane and almost into the path of a passing motorist.
“He then had the cheek to say ‘careful lad’ to me as I passed him, as if I was in the wrong,” Pete tell us.
The incident with the wise-cracking van driver wasn’t Pete’s only close call that day.
Earlier in the afternoon, a motorist decided to pass him right on a speed bump just as another driver, coming the opposite way, moved slightly into the other lane to avoid some parked cars, causing the overtaking driver to pull in sharply, narrowly avoiding Pete’s front wheel:
A pleasant stress-free day on the bike, then.
Pete declined to send either of the videos to the police, “as they rejected the first video I took to them around ten years ago which was a severe left hook causing me to go from 24 miles an hour to an almost skidding stop to avoid a collision.”
> 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
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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23 comments
contact them for a sign that states 'don't block bike lanes'.http://www.vitalsigns.graphics/
I've just had a look at this (a little late) and the roads are very familiar, right on my old commute. The cycle lanes along Keighley/Bradford Road (safety conscious (NOT!) van driver) are frequently blocked with parked vehicles, and travelling in the opposite direction there's a parade of shops with a dedicated parking layby, bus lane and another lane. Guess how often the bus lane is blocked by double parkers? I often have to pull out to pass cars that are double parked even when there are easily accessible parking slots available...'cos who would go to the trouble of reverse parking when you can just have everyone else change lanes to drive around you?
The second one is uncannily familiar, I was being overtaken impatiently by a mini cab just 20m further on when a car wanting to pass the row of parked cars on the right couldnt wait for me and minicab abreast of each other. I was squeezed into the grass verge and both cars suffered a clash of ...door ...mirrors. Only one stopped, but I wasn't about to offer witness or sympathy. One fuckwit passing you is bad enough, but when fuckwit #2 arrives at exactly the same time you've no chance.
What the hell did the Qashqai warrior think was going to happen next as they blundered through with their completely unnecessary overtake?
Last time I went past there it was the Branch pub and the Unit 4 cinema was still there but what is clear from early observation is that the rider will need to be out in the road as soon as the traffic lights were cleared. I think I would have been out in primary much earlier.
The second up Avondale Road the same really, it seems the rider is not wanting to go over the bump, more trying to sneak along the side ramp. Going up hill in a 20 with speed bumps I would be asserting my position rather than giving impatient drivers an opportunity to try and sneak past, especially as the drivers are likely using it as a rat run to get to Morehead Lane and therefore probably not inclined to wait.
That said after the first I would have been turning right to go to the police station rather than up Avondale and if I hadn't I would certainly have turned around to go back down to Manor Lane after the muppet in the blue tractor took the piss.
Do people need to wait until they are punted off to seek police intervention?
"Careful lad, don't scratch my paint."
not alot you can do to ride that differently imo,others are free to disagree,but I do wonder if the van drivers call out is more to do with the fact he was about to open his door, because why else is he sat in the driving seat like that...who knows.
but thats a classic car driver who is more focussed on passing the cyclist, rather than judging the road & obstacles ahead properly
It was ten years ago Pete, why not give the police another chance?
All we are saying is give police a chance.
Because they are more useless now than they were ten years ago? They certainly are in Lancashire.
WMP did the first Op Close Pass and started the pilot to allow cam footage to be used in evidence in 2015/16. You have Andy Cox in Lincoln and Kev in Sheffield / South Yorks as well now. The recent one with the close pass where the twat challenged it was in Wales. Times have changed for some forces so unless Pete is in Lancs, it is worth a shot for at least the second one.
I think it was filmed near Shipley, so it would be West Yorkshire Police?
It was only after posting I noticed the Bradford bus.
Kent too
I've long since given up riding in cycle lanes, at least as they exist near me. Too much 'frogger' for my licking, as well as the drains and other general road crap that gets pushed into them. Just plain dangerous.
Nothing wrong with a bit of frog licking.
True - it's toad licking that you want to avoid
Cane Toads and American Bullfrogs are the same animal. In fact, there is no scientific distinction between toads and frogs, they are just two different words for the same type of amphibian.
I'm guessing you are of the ilk that thinks there's little difference between man and ape; there's a huge difference between cane toads and garden frogs.
Plus the foliage like briers, nettles, thin/thick branches etc, pedestrians or runners that step out to avoid others by not looking first.
Not supposed to overtake through traffic calming.
But as I'm a cyclist, I don't know the highway code, as I haven't passed a bike test.
I don't normally be that chap, but the potential reduction of occurence for both of those incidents might have been to ride further out and take a primary sooner. For the first one, taking primary as soon as the lights caused a narrowing would have reduced the speed of the car behind and would have meant you could have controleld him until passed the van. However I'm also aware it is easier said then done, especially if on inclines and /or a much slower bike. The white car driver made the situation worse by slowing down to a crawl where if he had gone passed at his initial speed, the space would have been there. The second driver had no excuse though and could and should have held back.
As for the vans positioning. It was fine as he had his BOLAs on AND had put a bit of reflective material out the stick on the back door. Nothing unsafe about him.
Also, unless you live in Lancs, most Police are more acceptable of viewing and prosecuting on Video uploads then they were 10 years ago so at least try again with these.
I disagree he was well placed in both. In the first the car effectively herded him out the way.
In the first, there was a pinch point even before the Van which is where I might have been more likely to take primary to discourage an overtake as there is no cycle lane at that point. (not that paint is a protection). Then would have stayed out there with the van.
Obviously we cannot see when/if he signalled, only that he obviously looked over his shoulder before manouvring at which point the white car was already beginning the overtake. The white car then did exasperate the situation by initially overtaking instead of holding back and then slowing instead of completing the overtake leaving both cyclist and driver in a no mans land of indecision. But I suppose it is one of those questions of does the changing lane priority work for cyclists leaving a painted lane to join the car lane.
Also, unless you live in Lancs, most Police are more acceptable of viewing and prosecuting on Video uploads then they were 10 years ago so at least try again with these
As you imply, OpSnapLancs doesn't even try. You can submit all you like, and they will just bin it. This No MOT/ NoVED/ No insurance vehicle was first reported by me 6 weeks ago. Here it is parked at the Old Garstang Police Station, and I even have a good photo of the driver, carefree on the open road. Still LC is not roused from its Terminal Torpor. However, I keep on collecting evidence