Near Miss of the Day 870: Driver mistimes overtake of cyclist, stalls car... blares horn at rider

In nearly 900 editions of our Near Miss of the Day series, shining a light on the dangerous driving cyclists experience on British roads, today's might just be a first...

Never before have we had an incident like this one, from County Cork in Ireland, where the motorist involved mistimed their approach to a cyclist (possibly not helped by the van driver close behind) and was forced to brake suddenly having realised there would be no safe way past.

> Near Miss of the Day 869: U-turning motorist veers into cycle lane and almost hits cargo bike rider and seven-year-old daughter

Then, the driver manages to stall their car, restarts, doesn't get let out into the second lane by all the traffic formerly behind them, and caps off the display by seemingly blaming the cyclist for their predicament, blaring the horn on the way past.

With two whole lanes, this idiot mistimes his approach, stalls his car , subsequent traffic won’t let him out and he gets the hump with me. Classic 🤣🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/h5PuRncJlj

— Righttobikeit 🇺🇦 (@righttobikeit) July 18, 2023

Speaking to road.cc, the rider 'Righttobikeit', who regularly uploads footage of dangerous driving from their commutes and has appeared on this website previously, said this road, Carrs Hill on the N28 between Carrigaline and Cork City, has been something of a hotspot for close passes.

"I knew the car was there and heard it stalling," they explained. "The horn blowing prompted me to tag the video timeline so I was able to check back later what all of was going on. 

"It's my shortest most direct route to work so I use it regularly but not necessarily every day. I get a lot of criticism for using it but in reality it's not as dangerous as some other routes."

One incident, reported by Righttobikeit, on the same road saw a driver receive a careless driving conviction, €300 fine and five penalty points on their licence.

Informed by Victim Services driver received a careless driving conviction €300 fine +5points . Less than one would think he deserved but a result nonetheless. Best served cold eh? Language alert. @SafeCyclingEire @IrishCycle @sticky_bottle @roadcc @IrishCycle @ciarancannon pic.twitter.com/zTK9Hx48KJ

— Righttobikeit 🇺🇦 (@righttobikeit) April 19, 2023

Admitting "the fact that I've psychologically categorised them says a lot", Righttobikeit has two categories for close passes.

They elaborated: "From experience I categorise close passing into two types. First you have the basic poor driving/judgement etc. for example trying to overtake on a bend and a car suddenly appears and they cut in to avoid a collision. No ill intent but highly unpredictable and dangerous.

"The second is blatant disregard or deliberate intent. This is where there is plenty of space width/distance and good visibility. The driver sees you but just cuts close anyway to intimidate or they just couldn't care less. While these can be scary at the time they are probably less dangerous as the driver is aware of what they are doing and sudden changes in the traffic conditions are unlikely.

"I get a lot of the latter on Carrs Hill which is intimidating but they don't live long in the memory."

Nothing short of criminal from a professional driver fom Emmett Garvey Transport. The sheer size and speed would have made it impossible to abort should he misjudge or something go wrong. @sticky_bottle @roadcc @SafeCyclingEire @IrishCycle pic.twitter.com/D0dODZPoHs

— Righttobikeit 🇺🇦 (@righttobikeit) March 30, 2021

> 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