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Near Miss of the Day 851: Transport for London launches investigation after “unacceptable” close passing bus driver squeezes cyclist into kerb

“Driving that endangers cyclists or pedestrians is unacceptable and far from the required standard of our bus drivers,” says TfL’s head of bus operations

Transport for London says it has launched an investigation after one of its bus drivers pulled in while overtaking a cyclist, squeezing the rider into the kerb, in a manoeuvre described by TfL’s head of bus operations as “unacceptable and far from the required standard”.

The frightening incident, which took place in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea last Wednesday, was captured by cyclist and road safety campaigner Lauren O’Brien, who nevertheless insisted that the “horrible experience” won’t stop her cycling in London.

“Tonight I got home and bawled my eyes out,” O’Brien wrote on Twitter. “It was a horrendous commute home, with this being the icing on the cake… But you know something? No matter how many times I get bullied off the road, be it bus, car, whoever, it won’t stop me cycling.

“The moment I let these horrible experiences affect my decision to choose to cycle, the vehicles have won. I can’t let that happen. Cycling is a brilliant, eco way to get around the city. And no matter how many bad experiences I have it isn’t going to stop me riding my bike.”

> Near Miss of the Day 827: Bus driver “bullies his way into a gap that was never there”

Transport for London’s head of bus operations, Rosie Trew, has told road.cc that the government body and RATP, who operate the route on TfL’s behalf, are currently investigating the incident.

“Driving that endangers cyclists or pedestrians is unacceptable and far from the required standard of our bus drivers,” Trew told us.

“We are working with RATP… to investigate this incident and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

TfL added that all London bus drivers are currently undertaking a Vision Zero training course, which aims to teach them new skills in hazard perception and to provide them with a better understanding of the risks to cyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and passengers, along with ways to prevent driver fatigue.

TfL says the course is “designed to create the safety culture and attitudes” that will help the body achieve Vision Zero for London.

> 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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25 comments

Avatar
wtjs | 4 months ago
4 likes

This is a new version of dimwit sad git trolling- opening up cases from long ago and writing stupid anti-cyclist things about them.

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chrisonabike replied to wtjs | 4 months ago
1 like

You're right, I'd responded before I'd noticed the date. It's not just a bot or revenant back from the ban, they're bringing ancient articles with them!

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EngFan | 4 months ago
0 likes

It is difficult to get the full picture of events from the video.  If there are no cyclists behind her then the bus should have waited. 

There was a bicycle three-quarters of a bus length in front of her.  What if there is a permanent series of riders distanced 8 metres apart for the whole length of the road, preventing the bus from pulling into the bus stop?  Then what does the bus driver do?  Just park in the middle of the road and wait five minutes for a gap in the cyclists?  Even with this scenario, the bus did wrong, but you can appreciate the difficulty that the bus experiences.

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hawkinspeter replied to EngFan | 4 months ago
3 likes
EngFan wrote:

It is difficult to get the full picture of events from the video.  If there are no cyclists behind her then the bus should have waited. 

There was a bicycle three-quarters of a bus length in front of her.  What if there is a permanent series of riders distanced 8 metres apart for the whole length of the road, preventing the bus from pulling into the bus stop?  Then what does the bus driver do?  Just park in the middle of the road and wait five minutes for a gap in the cyclists?  Even with this scenario, the bus did wrong, but you can appreciate the difficulty that the bus experiences.

Obviously the driver should have waited. There's no length of wait that justifies dangerous driving and nothing in the Highway Code about a maximum waiting time.

Even if there's a continuous line of bikes which seems unlikely, the driver could come to a stop and indicate left. Approaching cyclists are not going to want to undertake a bus that's indicating left and will either overtake the bus or wait behind.

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IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
4 likes

I wish we had a stunt man could ride these routes for a few days and take some spectacular falls (without actual harm). The YouTube comments justifying the driving would still be spectacularly wrong.

One of the problems is that most cyclists have a strong sense of self-preservation and unless impossible, will mitigate the problems, making serious incidents appear trivial. Of course, there are less able riders who don't grasp the tricks of the trade who are exposed to this driving.

A police test for driving without due care is causing another road user to slow or change direction. They don't use it enthusiastically enough in cycling incidents.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
4 likes

The twitter thread is a bit depressing... 

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Karlt replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
8 likes

It's appalling. There are clearly many people out there who have no business operating motor vehicles as they're unable to understand the responsibilities that come with it.

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Dicklexic replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes

Exactly. Very depressing, maybe even a bit scary. And sadly also very predictable.

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NotNigel | 1 year ago
2 likes

I've only ever had this happen to me once, a bus driver decided to cut us off to pull up to a none set back bus stop with a high rise curb.  'Luckily' I was on a BMX and managed hop up the curb and give the driver some adrenaline fuelled abuse.  Dread to think how it could have ended, me being on a road bike, clipped in.

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Car Delenda Est | 1 year ago
0 likes

Trams good buses bad

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chrisonabike replied to Car Delenda Est | 1 year ago
8 likes

Hundreds of Edinburgh cyclists want that paragraph qualified.

http://www.spokes.org.uk/documents/public-transport/tram/

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Rome73 | 1 year ago
7 likes

A 'full investigation' is fairly meaningless. As commentators below have noted an investigation should take 10 minutes - you know the bus, time and location therefore you know the driver. It is what happens next that is important.  Probably not a lot - perhaps a mild reprimand and some joshing about 'bloody cyclists' in the bus depot. Who knows?
Bus drivers should be under the same levels of scrutiny and responsibility as HGV and tipper drivers. 

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ShutTheFrontDawes replied to Rome73 | 1 year ago
0 likes
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:

A 'full investigation' is fairly meaningless. As commentators below have noted an investigation should take 10 minutes - you know the bus, time and location therefore you know the driver. It is what happens next that is important.  Probably not a lot - perhaps a mild reprimand and some joshing about 'bloody cyclists' in the bus depot. Who knows?
Bus drivers should be under the same levels of scrutiny and responsibility as HGV and tipper drivers. 

I disagree. A full investigation is very necessary. Was this an isolated incident, or indicative of this driver's general behaviour? Is this behaviour restricted to just this driver, or is it typical of their drivers in general?

There may be an anti-cycling culture that needs to be cracked down on.

Hopefully by performing an investigation, they will find out and take action. If they are serious about Vision Zero, an investigation is the best initial action to take.

But you're absolutely right in that immediate action should be taken against the driver, preferably by the police (if they give a soft turd of course, which they won't).

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wtjs replied to ShutTheFrontDawes | 1 year ago
1 like

Hopefully by performing an investigation, they will find out and take action. If they are serious about Vision Zero, an investigation is the best initial action to take

No they won't and no they won't. They aren't, and it would have been if they had been serious about it. The object of the 'investigation' is just timewasting while the heat dies down. Then it's back to business as usual, waiting for a 'proper KSI'

We're not told if a report has been made to the police. If it was Lancashire, such a report would have been binned immediately- London may be different.

https://upride.cc/incident/yj60kgzar12way_brethertonsarchwaybuses_closepass/

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ShutTheFrontDawes replied to wtjs | 1 year ago
1 like
wtjs wrote:

Hopefully by performing an investigation, they will find out and take action. If they are serious about Vision Zero, an investigation is the best initial action to take

No they won't and no they won't. They aren't, and it would have been if they had been serious about it. The object of the 'investigation' is just timewasting while the heat dies down. Then it's back to business as usual, waiting for a 'proper KSI'

We're not told if a report has been made to the police. If it was Lancashire, such a report would have been binned immediately- London may be different.

https://upride.cc/incident/yj60kgzar12way_brethertonsarchwaybuses_closepass/

Well, in that case they'd better not do an investigation. They're so much more likely to take action that way. The logic of some on here continues to astound.

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Backladder | 1 year ago
8 likes

I think after an awful pass like that I would be using the emergency stop switch to turn the engine off in the absence of any other method of disbling the deadly weapon I was being threatened with!

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PRSboy | 1 year ago
7 likes

For a start, as part of Vision Zero, all bus drivers should spend time cycling around London. 
 

Perhaps if the driver of this one had endured a similarly thoughtless and dangerous bit of driving he/she might do better in future. 

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open_roads | 1 year ago
9 likes

It's very noticeable that few if any of TfL's buses stick to speed limits.

In my part of London the buses consistently do 25 to 35 in the 20 zones and regularly close pass cyclists.

I've complained about specific close passes to TfL (including one in which the driver told me I should have got out of the way because he had right of way over cyclists at all times) and have never received a proper response.

If Will Norman is serious about improving road safety one of the things he could do is have his team pull the telematics data from buses and then compare vehicle speed with the permitted speeds in the same areas.

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VIPcyclist replied to open_roads | 1 year ago
4 likes

It really doesn't matter what meally mouthed weasel worded policy a company produces, if the drivers think it's bollocks they will not comply.

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Awavey | 1 year ago
6 likes

a better take on what its like riding Londons roads and I bet wont get a fraction of the publicity, maybe Lauren should tag Vine in the tweet to get it rolling.

tbh though my instant reaction to it is, yeah its snafu, been there, done that, got the tshirt, dont like riding near buses much, next day and repeat.

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wtjs | 1 year ago
5 likes

Transport for London’s head of bus operations, Rosie Trew, has told road.cc that the government body and RATP, who operate the route on TfL’s behalf, are currently investigating the incident

The victim should expect no worthwhile outcome from this 'investigation'- what are the police doing? A real investigation would take 10 minutes- the driver is guilty. What takes the time is cutting and pasting 'the usual' into the response: we take this incident very seriously and will be taking it up with the driver - subtext: but we won't be telling you what we did. The only the thing that will make any difference is punishment. In this case, paradoxically, the generally worthless sanction of the 'driving course' (apart from the super-joke online ones) would be of some value, because it would be difficult for the police to 'happen to not notice' the course on a future occasion with a PSV driver.

We are working with RATP… to investigate this incident and ensure it doesn’t happen again

'Ensure' nothing!- it will happen again. It's even worse when it happens at speed, and all you can do is concentrate on staying on the bike and not under the wheels- and when the police can be relied upon to ignore the offence

https://upride.cc/incident/ua5013_kirkbylonsdalecoaches_closepass/

 

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Owd Big 'Ead | 1 year ago
7 likes

Woeful driving, yet all to familiar from supposedly professional drivers. I get at least one of these a week in my neck of the woods, where might is considered right. Many bus drivers are the worst versions of entitled drivers.

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jaysa replied to Owd Big 'Ead | 1 year ago
1 like

Not to take away from Lauren's experience, but in SW London, I've found bus drivers really good around cyclists. Just being fair ...

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Owd Big 'Ead replied to jaysa | 1 year ago
1 like

I'm sure they are.
Unfortunately, I live 130 miles away from London, so my experiences might be different.

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vthejk | 1 year ago
10 likes

I think it's fair to say that, as O'Brien went 'No, no.......for f***'s sake,' each of us did so too. It's this same fear and anxiety I feel deeply when riding on urban roads, and needs to not happen.

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