Near Miss of the Day 882: Cyclist calls out bus company for dangerous overtake at junction

This is the second Near Miss of the Day video in as many weeks that has raised concerns about the standard of bus driving in London, today's video showing a cyclist being overtaken at the approach to a junction, the driver then making a left turn across them, forcing the rider to stop.

road.cc reader Rendel Harris caught the incident on camera this morning on Avondale Rise between East Dulwich and Peckham in south London, and was left disappointed by the danger of the driving.

(1/2) 7/11/23 7.15AM Avondale Rise SE15 P13 bus reg YX11AHF

The biggest killer of cyclists in London is large vehicles overtaking them just before junctions and then turning left across them. This bus driver overtakes a cyclist less than 20 m before the junction and forces (ctd) pic.twitter.com/VQtFIKlVcn

— Rendel Harris (@Rendel_Harris) November 7, 2023

"The biggest killer of cyclists in London is large vehicles overtaking them just before junctions and then turning left across them," he said, sharing the video on social media. "This bus driver overtakes a cyclist less than 20m before the junction and forces her to stop, turning left over the top of her.

He tagged bus operator Abellio London and asked: "Can you please ask your driver what the hell they think they are playing at here and perhaps give them some better training before they kill somebody?"

road.cc has also contacted Abellio London but had not heard a response at the time of publication. 

> "I've got a cyclist here!": Bus driver who tailgated cyclist tries calling the police for "getting on his nerves"

Last week, another London cyclist shared footage as part of our Near Miss of the Day series, a bus driver overtaking the rider before immediately pulling into a stop, forcing the rider to stop and leading to, what the cyclist described as, "one of the most bizarre conversations" he's had.

"The driver seemed to think that cyclists approaching a bus stop have to stop and look around to see if it is safe to proceed," they explained. "We all know this isn't the case and might wonder where the driver was taught that. If anything this clearly indicates the driver needs retraining at a minimum."

Back in February, Transport for London launched an investigation after an "unacceptable" close passing bus driver squeezed a cyclist into the kerb in a similar incident to this one.

At the time, TfL's head of bus operations, Rosie Trew, said "driving that endangers cyclists or pedestrians is unacceptable and far from the required standard of our bus drivers".

The cyclist said "bullyish" driving from bus drivers in London is common, and that she is regularly forced to brake in order to avoid a collision.

"That kind of thing does happen quite often," she said. "Where a bus is coming around a cyclist [who] knows they've got to stop. It was probably about half five, so the bus was definitely going to have to stop there and drop people off.

"What [bus drivers] do is get to a certain point where they're sort of halfway past you, then they start indicating, and at that point, you have to make the decision. I don't want to get squished by a bus, so I'm going to have to make a quick decision to brake, get out the way of the bus before I have a collision.

"It just winds you up so much because it's bullyish behaviour, you have no option but to brake or you're gonna get hit by a bus, so they're putting you in this horrible, impossible situation where you've got to just get out their way – which shouldn't be the case at all."

> 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