Near Miss of the Day 867: Cyclist gets squeezed out on country road... police's submission email mixup lets driver get away scot-free

A cyclist was out enjoying the sun on the country roads of Staffordshire when a black Vauxhall came at him from the opposite side and squeezed him off the road, almost into the foliage, which was then followed by a case of a mysteriously disappearing email by the police to submit evidence.

In the video, before the incident takes place, two drivers can be seen passing Rob Edwards. "They gave me plenty of room, but then this driver comes up, who should have seen me from 100 meters away, as I did them and they had plenty of room to move over. They just continued on driving as if nothing had happened" he told road.cc.

"I think they probably didn't see me, or wasn't driving with due care, or maybe it was deliberate, who knows," he said. "But what I can tell you is that I feared for my safety in the split second I had to take evasive action."

The incident took place on 6th August last year on Marston Lane, between Hilton and Rolleston-On-Dove, right on the border where Staffordshire meets Derbyshire. As is evident from the video, there is plenty of room to the driver's left for both him in his car and Mr Edwards on his bike to pass each other safely.

After the close pass, Mr Edwards reported it to the Staffordshire Police on the same day. However, since their system didn't provide the option to upload footage at the same time as reporting it, he had to wait for the police to get back to him with a link to add evidence. 

But he never ended up receiving it. After chasing it with them, he did eventually receive the link, the police stated that because 14 days had passed since then, they were no longer able to anything about it.

Mr Edwards then spoke to Derbyshire Police, who he had earlier reported another near miss with successfully, and they told him that if it was reported in time and the delay was because of obtaining evidence, they can still take action.

"They handled a case for me earlier which happened on their turf, so I have a bit more confidence in them," Mr Edwards said.

> Near Miss of the Day 855: Driver dangerously overtakes on the wrong side… is let off the hook by the police because she lives abroad

road.cc reached out to Staffordshire Police to explain their side of things, and they said: "We received a report via our website on 8 August 2022, reporting a driver passing too close to a cyclist in in the Rolleston area of Staffordshire.

"We sent an email to the person who reported the incident on the same day confirming we had received his report and sent a further email to the same address which contained a secure link to our evidence portal website. The email said that the link would expire after three days. The footage had not been received by 12 August.

"After another call from the person reporting, a further link was emailed on 30 August and we received the footage but the 14-day notice of intended prosecution date had expired. We sent an advisory letter to the registered keeper of the car."

Mr Edwards, who works in IT, maintained that he didn't receive any email from them. He said: "It never arrived in my inbox, or spam. These were thoroughly checked.  I suspect either they didn't send it and are covering up their incompetence, or they sent it to the wrong person. It never came to me, emails don't just disappear."

"If they were able to provide proof they sent the email, as in a time stamped copy of the sent email, I might put it down to a mystery. However as anything sent to my inbox would have been seen by me.

"Even if I perhaps deleted it by mistake, it would have sat in the bin for 30 days, as does anything that goes to spam. An extensive search of all email folders around 30th August produced nothing, so concluded it was never sent to me.  Yet when they sent the link to me on the 30th, it came straight away."

> 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