Near Miss of the Day 863: Motorcyclist zooms into cycle lane from the wrong side and forces cyclist on the road

Cyclists don't get many cycle lanes; when they do, we've seen a number of road users, from bus to car drivers to Amazon employees all try and stake a claim on them. A motorcyclist from Birmingham is the latest to feature on our Near Miss series who wanted to try out the cycle lane in Selly Oak, entering it at a dangerously high speed from the wrong side and almost hitting a cyclist.

Joe was riding in the cycle lane on Bristol Road at 5pm in the evening on May 3, when a man with a black helmet and a black jacket on a black motorbike with no licence plate decided to jump the traffic and come across on the other side of the road into the cycle lane.

"I've seen a few motorbikes in the cycle lane, The traffic is quite bad in the area, so quite frequently instead of waiting, people would come across the opposite side," Joe told road.cc. "But this one just shot into it towards me from the other side of the road."

> Near Miss of the Day 655: Motorbiker almost takes cyclist out

Even when you ride in the cycle lane, there's no escaping the tossers on the road.... pic.twitter.com/HygPEyDcx3

— Your Average Joe (@FrankleyMan) May 3, 2023

Joe added that there was no report it to the police due to the lack of a number plate on the bike. Although, even he could, he said that he wouldn't hold out much hope from the West Midlands Police after seeing the FOI request that we reported on, revealing that 213 reports of careless or dangerous driving around cyclists last year resulted in no further action being taken by the force.

"Previously I've submitted footage to them that have resulted in me having to go to court appearances, so I've always spoken positively about the police. But recently, I sent in a few submissions and didn't hear back from them. That's when I was getting a bit suspicious and then I saw the Freedom of Information report," he said.

> 286 close pass submissions to West Midlands Police resulted in one prosecution, FOI request reveals

Seeing how @WMPolice deal with third party submissions, they'd probably let this one go anyway.... Nobody got injured... #3rdPartyReportingIsAWasteOfTimeInTheWestMids pic.twitter.com/2Z3na2NiNK

— Your Average Joe (@FrankleyMan) May 3, 2023

> 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