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news
Driver of RED Driving School car races through red light and close passes cyclistNear Miss of the Day 861: Driver of Red Driving School car races through red light and close passes cyclist
Readers left flabbergasted at a recent Near Miss of the Day from Sheffield, which saw a driver dart in front of a cyclist before immediately turning left, narrowly avoiding the rider, just to “save a few seconds”, may have their questions answered by today’s clip, which offers a rather damning indictment of the standard of driving instruction in the city.
> Near Miss of the Day 859: Driver cuts across cyclist at speed, narrowly misses front wheel
In the video, posted by Sheffield-based cyclist Ann on Twitter, the driver of a car emblazoned with the livery of nationwide driving school Red sails through a set of traffic lights which have just turned red, at a fair lick too, before proceeding to close pass a cyclist, squeezing between them and our oncoming rider and videographer.
The instructor and the learner of this car need urgent advice on how to drive correctly and safely. @REDDriving dangerous driving in #Sheffield @syptweet pic.twitter.com/mDCvrMEZ7A
— GPNGreggs 💙 🇺🇦 🇾🇪 🇵🇸 (@AnnGreggsRN) April 16, 2023
It’s not clear from the clip, captured last week, whether the vehicle was being driven by the instructor or a particularly brazen learner, picking up some handy tips on how to accelerate through amber lights.
Or, as one Twitter user put it, perhaps they were both late for the learner’s practical test…
In any case, Ann tells us she has reported the incident to South Yorkshire Police through their Nextbase submission portal, but is yet to receive a response.
Responding to a request for comment from road.cc, Red Driving School simply confirmed that the company is looking into the matter.
> 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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41 comments
Doh, deleted
I can't see the rozzers doing anything with this.
That looks to be a prime example of someone chasing the lights, and whilst the light in view is clearly red, you can't say for certain that the lights were already red when the car travelled through them at their end.
The pass was obviously close to us, but exactly how close, we can't say.
Awful driving, but from a legal standpoint;
- you can't prove the driver went through a red
- you can't prove the driver was speeding
- you can't definitively say what gap was afforded to the cyclist.
No further action.
Quite easy to select a frame where the bonnet is overlapping the cyclist. You know the road width, car width and car position, so the gap can be worked out.
You don't need to.
It is the drivers' obligation to stop at a set of traffic lights unless the light is green.
The driver must continue to travel only when they have already crossed the white line or that coming to a stop is likely to cause an accident. And it would be for the driver, not the prosecution, to prove that defence.
Highway Code
AMBER means ‘Stop’ at the stop line. You may go on only if the AMBER appears after you have crossed the stop line or are so close to it that to pull up might cause an accident.
The point being you don't know whether the lights you can't see are in phase with the ones you can see. Not all junctions work the same.
And you don't know that they don't.
The local authority could easily clear it up.
But your extract you quoted requires that they are in phase but you haven't demonstrated that.
You're out of your depth.
Speed = distance / time
The video is time-coded.
The distance between road markings can be measured.
I had an incident involving a learner driver under instruction.
Police issued the usual NIP to ask who was driving at the time.
Will be interesting to see if they apply it to the learner or the instructor.
It will go to the pupil. Needs to be quite serious to go to the instructor.
This came up before and there was a detailed explanation given of the why.
I reported a Red driving instructor once. He was driving whilst chatting on the phone. He was going quite fast so I only got a partial number plate. I gave the them the exact location and time. But no video footage. The company replied they couldn't recognise the number blah, blah. Also that I had the model of the car wrong. They didn't really sound that bothered.
Everyones favourite Youtube driving instructor (alright, maybe just mine) Ashley Neal has just posted a video of his first cycling close pass police report. He moves out to overtake a bus and a van squeezes through the gap. Quite a good video and I don't think there is anything controversial that will upset his detractors on here but I wait to be proved wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e54Tnl3S9pg
Its not controversial, but I wouldnt rely on a road markings manual to work out distances because it assumes the people who painted the markings actually followed it.
and Im surprised if thats what he considered a close pass (and not simply an undertake close pass) that in 90mins of riding he still thinks those drivers are in a minority, its been a while since Ive had anyone pass me in that kind of setup, but passes that close are two a penny where I ride, I can hit double figures of those in just a 20-25min ride. For example surely the Merc that followed after the van was just as close, but not undertaking so not noted as an issue ?
Agreed it does seem he's been very lucky if that's the first close pass that was so bad he had to report it. I didn't know you could measure the width of the road using Google maps before watching this video so I might use that in future police reports.
Google earth, especially the desktop version has more useful tools for measuring distance, area, etc.
It can but with the scale a pixel or two out could be a significant distance error when you are only dealing with feet or even metres.
Both of the cars following the van were too close. Along with other HC infringements such as not overtaking at junctions. I think Ashley needs to re-read the HC.
I like how he says that he doesn't report similar things when he's in a car because the risk is much lower. No. The risk to HIM personally is much lower. The level of incompetence demonstrated and therefore the risk to people in general is exactly the same.
You must me new here
It was a slightly tongue in cheek comment 😄
.
Sorry to say, you WILL be proved wrong!
.
Perhaps the fact that he appears to be riding an ebike with a throttle and not pedalling at all, so it's illegal?
I've seen a couple of his e-bike videos and I thought that bike does seems to be quicker than 15.5mph and throttle only at times but he goes into detail about it being UK legal so I assumed it must be the video making it seem that way. It would be strange for him to go into so much detail about the legalities of it then blatantly flout them to everyone who watches.
It certainly would be strange but he does appear to be pretty blatantly riding power only without pedalling at the start of the video you linked.
That bit of road is downhill, he's just coasting. There is a throttle on this bike, but it only assists up to 6kph and the bike is limited to 25kph, so is exempt from the EU regulations and classed as an EAPC.
This model of bike (Himiway Cruiser) is also sold in the US, where it will quite happily do 20mph with full throttle control. I'm sure it's an easy 'mod', but I'm also sure Ashley has not done this. He only twists the throttle to help him get going from a standstill.
But don't assume a throttle only (twist & go) e-bike is illegal, it's quite possible to have one legally in the UK.
Only if it was made pre-2016, isn't it, which clearly the Himiway isn't. I take the point about him going downhill though.
Nowt controversial in that video. He's getting there with the cycling.
The only thing I would say is riding on a big road like that (Rice Lane), whilst you have every right to, will predictably result in encounters with dodgy drivers.
It was an interesting route choice and a classic 'cycling like a driver', taking the road back home that he would use in the car, when there's a quieter back-roads option that appears to be a similar distance (caveat: I don't know if it would take you through a 'no-go' area).
RideWithGPS is doing it's best to avoid it and it usually makes good route choices!:
Round my way they teach them to pass cyclists at pinch points. But it's OK as there is a cycle lane, almost wide enough to fit your handle bars between.
Not reported further as the instructor apologised when I sent him the footage.
Only a few days ago I witnessed a RED driving instructor allow their pupil to drive through a pedestrian controlled light on red. Judging by the grin on their face they were quite pleased about it too.
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