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news
Near Miss of the Day 856: Taxi driver almost hits cyclist — licensing body says no indication rider had hi-vis or lights
The ol' hi-vis and lights 'excuse' coming to Near Miss of the Day? Who'd have thought it?
Today's submission comes from a reader in Liverpool who was using this zebra crossing near Sefton Park (note the road markings before mentioning Rule 81 of the Highway Code regarding riding across crossings) when they were almost hit by a taxi driver.
Following a brief back and forth both parties continued on their way, the rider passing the footage on to Sefton Taxi Licensing Enforcement.
The response?
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Having viewed the footage, the camera is extremely poor quality. Also there is no indication as to what hi-vis clothing you were wearing, or whether you had lights on your bike, to show motorists you were there. We will make a log of the incident, but as you say, it will be impossible to identify the driver
> 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.
Latest Comments
- wtjs 14 min 18 sec ago
a licence, helmet, insurance and all the crap the average Daily Mail reader calls for...
- hawkinspeter 14 min 33 sec ago
For a start, the speeds involved are a lot less and obviously due to cyclists not weighing 2 tonnes, any collision will be far less harmful. Also,...
- Hirsute 22 min 50 sec ago
But the photo shows a ticket issued that you would place on the dash. What is the point of the ticket given it forms no validation of a stay given...
- Creakingcrank 25 min 48 sec ago
There were probably fewer people than you think involved in the (bad) decisions. Might only have been one person. I think Green Oil is a very small...
- two20 30 min 56 sec ago
It's tragic that the Ponent Mar hotel was owed a vast amount of money as they treated you incredibly well. I stayed many times as a Stephen Roche...
- Sriracha 36 min 36 sec ago
They should be forced to have number plates so that the drivers could be held to account.
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Yup, Kristen Faulkner was DQ´d for wearing a Libre CGM. You´re right that the UCI has a blanket ban on such technology, although it´s not clear why...
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Yes, he claims to have been a copper over here and then moved to Australia; he frequently displays a total ignorance of the law which presumably...
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They've got some changes planned for further along Queens Road too - that looks very different from the current roundabout. (https://maps.app.goo...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 6 min ago
It's been a long time since I travelled in either. I should go back and collect some fresh data. All I can say now is that Belgian infra a decade...
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20 comments
Any driver who approaches a pedestrian crossing should be on the alert and prepared to yield. That the driver wasn't shows the driver was not driving correctly.
But they're crossing on a crossing! They have priority!
(As others have said, is that their response when they nearly run down a pedestrian on a crossing? No, I didn't think so..).
I can't believe they think the camera footage is insufficient (poor quality?). Is this the next stage in victim blaming? - "Sorry Mate, I saw you, but your camera doesn't look like it got a good shot of me, so I thought I might as well run you over"
Do you know what I think was going on there... the cyclist was crossing on the designated cycling lane. That part of the crossing doesn't have the stripey lines like the pedestrian bit. I reckon the driver was making a point that the cyclist was not using the actual crossing so therefore had no obligation to stop.
Was probably thinking the cyclist had no right to be using the crossing in the first place.
A lot of anti-cyclist feeling comes from a position of ignorance.
As it's a parallel crossing, the driver does of course have exactly the same obligation. Though I think perhaps you are being ironic.
HWC195.
No irony here at all.
I'm not justifying, I'm looking into the potential mindset of the driver. My suspicion is that the driver's actions were based on a mis-understanding of how these crossings work. In this case;
"Fecking cyclists, riding on the pavement, using pedestrian crossings... well, he's not actually on the crossing, so feck that little scrote... I'll show him"
As I mentioned, ignorance is a great foundation on which to build hate. Deal with the ignorance. This is a great example, these crossings didn't exist when I passed my driving test. If I didn't cycle, what reason would I have for learning how they work? Another reason why ongoing testing / assessment / monitoring of motorists can only be a good thing.
How complicated is just dont drive into people to master ?
Do you honestly believe this drivers quibble here is about him passing his test using an "arcane version" of the highway code, and not that he just doesnt give a fxxx about anyone but himself.
Yes, I honestly think this driver feels empowered to make a stand against what he wrongly sees as a cyclist taking the piss due to his outdated understanding of road laws.
The stand he takes and the self validation of his views probably is because he's a self absorbed c-nut.
I got into a lovely pantomime debate with a couple the other week who were adamant that cyclists have to give 1.5m when passing, just like cars. To that couple, everytime they see a cyclist legally filtering, they earnestly believe they are watching willful law-breaking. That ignorance is actually very dangerous in the wrong hands.
If only taxi drivers had licence plates and insurance. Bet the driver wasn't wearing a helmet and I know he hasn't paid road tax!
I was out yesterday - cloud and rain. We were all lit up. I was looking at what people were wearing and it was a variety of things. I also could see walkers and pedestrians. One walker in particular had a very dark green outfit.
What occurred to me was just how visible black is in the gloom against a wet road, and how we saw walkers a long distance away, as in as soon as it was physically possible to see them even though invariably they were wearing dark and dowdy outfits.
Driving the other evening in the dark, I noticed a lot of pedestrians walking on the pavement - all totally visible from well before I even needed to contemplate what they were up to.
The main place I think bright clothing can make a big difference is shaded country lanes where rapidly changing light defeats the eye.
Of course, decent lights at night is a must, and I do see some people, often middle-aged men on Apollo MTBs, riding on pavements in black with no lights going into their shifts at Land Rover, and the inconsistent street lighting makes them harder to see, but in the end I still see them to say "look at that idiot with no lights riding on the pavement!" - the idiot bit being them passing across entrances and junctions oblivious to the thought that something might pop out.
I thought it was a legal requirement for zebra crossings to be lit by street lights so that people crossing could be seen without the need for high viz and lights. Certainly the one 50m from my front door is one of only two sections of road through the village that has street lights, the other being the mini-roundabout at the other end. Sounds like a traditional bit of victim blaming by the licencing authority.
It looks well lit.
And the drivers did manage to eventually see the cyclist, so they can't have been totally invisible.
I have to disagree. I don't like these new style zebra crossings with the bright white lights on the posts. The light they cast is quite dazzling and doesn't readily illuminate pedestrians (or cyclists) wanting to cross and it can actually obscure them sometimes.
The crossing near me got 'upgraded' a while back. It used to have a couple of bright downlighters, just for the crossing, that did a great job of making pedestrians visible. But now, it's got those illuminated posts and the only other lighting is from a street light some distance away.
Compare at this crossing, the before shot, where each beacon has a dedicated streetlight illuminating the crossing:
https://goo.gl/maps/SuhZX7huqMhB17CA9
... with the after shot, the illuminated posts, but only incidental lighting of the crossing from a single streetlamp:
https://goo.gl/maps/9Hn4vyttytRMCExZ6
Doesn't excuse the poor driving, but I know the crossing near me makes it challenging to see pedestrians approaching at night.
Even IF it isn't well lit, motorvehicles have 55W headlights for a very good reason.
Headlights are not that effective in picking out pedestrians, as the white lights on the poles are so blinding.
I approach this crossing at no more than 15mph now and have my foot over the brake ready to stop. But not everyone drives like this - they should do, but some are still of the opinion the pedestrian has to wait for traffic to stop before crossing.
I'm not trying to excuse the driver, just point out that the new belisha beacons, in my experience, are worse for illuminating pedestrians on the crossing.
I rode home in the dark last night and saw a couple of other cyclists wearing dark clothes and with no lights or reflectors. But I did actually see them. And apparently so did drivers. A bus passed me quite closely (not dangerously so but given its size it did feel a bit close for comfort) then gave the "less visible" cyclist in front of me a lot more room!
Neither is there any proof that the cyclist didn't have lights or hi-vis, so at the very best, not proven either way. What is proven is that this was a place where drivers have to give way to cyclists and pedestrians, and this taxi driver failed to do so.
Would they have said the same about a pedestrian?
Person on zebra crossing = pedestrian bike or no bike. Is it the duty of everyone to wear hi-vis and carry lights at all times after dark? Even if there is a crossing marked out with flashing beacons to , ya know, warn drivers of potential crossers.
point of note. At no point is the cyclist facing the way of traffic that would require them to wear either in the time of the incident clip
This highlights a common double standard. The Highway Code does actually recommend that both pedestrians and cyclists wear reflective materials after dark. If it was a pedestrian crossing the zebra crossing, very few people would be questioning whether or not they were wearing hi-viz, and most people would happily consider the driver completely at fault. But because this person happened to be riding a bike at the time, suddenly the driver couldn't have possibly seen them unless they were wearing hi-viz!
We all know that as soon as you sit on a bicycle you become invisible.