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news
Near Miss of the Day 887: Bus company launches investigation after driver hits cyclist’s handlebars during overtake
Occasionally, our Near Miss of the Day series features a hair-raising incident that can only, at best, be loosely categorised as a ‘miss’. And that misnomer has arguably never been more apparent than this latest incident from Worcester, which saw an extremely close passing bus driver squeeze a cyclist up against the kerb before clipping the rider’s handlebars as he pulled in – a dangerous manoeuvre that has resulted in police action and the bus company launching an internal investigation.
road.cc reader Nick was cycling on Worcester’s Deansway at the start of December when the bus driver “pulled up next to me in the wrong lane and crossed the ASL into the box at the lights”.
“After the lights the road narrows to a single lane at which point the bus driver just sandwiched me towards the kerb,” he told road.cc.
“I saw the contact coming and moved my hand in on the grip, at which point the bus made contact with my bar end.”
> Near Miss of the Day 882: Cyclist calls out bus company for dangerous overtake at junction
Nick then reported the incident, which almost caused him to lose control of his bike, to West Mercia Roads Police – who he described as “good with Op Snap” – with the police later informing him the not-so-near miss had resulted in action being taken against the bus driver.
“I just don’t know what action was taken!” he says. “I did get a call from a different department a couple of days later asking if I had been injured or fallen off as it would then become an RTC.
“So my next skill to learn is how to fall off gently.”
When contacted by road.cc, the bus company, First Worcester, admitted that they were aware of the incident but had only now launched an investigation having viewed the footage submitted to road.cc by Nick.
“We are aware of the incident after the driver reported it on the day it happened,” a First Worcester spokesperson told us.
“Unfortunately, the incident wasn’t captured by our own CCTV, but now we have seen the footage submitted by your reader we will undertake further internal investigations.
“We take the safety of our passengers and other road users extremely seriously, and we apologise for the distress experienced by the cyclist involved.”
A few of our recent near misses – in fact, three out of the last seven included in the series – have focused on the poor overtaking skills of bus drivers, who swiftly pull across and into the path of unsuspecting cyclists.
And last 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 the one suffered by Nick in Worcester.
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”.
> Cyclist speaks out about "bullyish" bus driving that prompted Transport for London investigation
The cyclist involved in that particular incident added that “bullyish” driving from bus drivers, especially in the capital, 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.
“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
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.
Latest Comments
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"...the beeswax-based covering magically shuns off whatever might be lurking in the corners. Even after multiple rides, when the bars rattled about...
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I've always wondered - why does the one-armed person in the cloak have their hand in the one-armed person with the cane?
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t-boned
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27 comments
Not forgetting this bus driver who thought (and hopefully has been informed she is wrong by now) that cyclists simply have to stop at a bus stop...
https://youtu.be/SF4u42-lx84
The bus driver passed the cyclist then stopped at a bus stop; the cyclist didn't have to stop and indeed didn't, as the cyclist then passed the stationary bus but then chose to stop and remonstrate with the driver. When I cycle in a bus lane, I expect to have buses pass me and then stop at bus stops; I would only remonstrate with a bus driver if they close-passed me.
How much closer a close pass can you get than actually clipping the rider's handlebars? Please stop this cyclist must be in the wrong/making too much fuss trope that you automatically apply to every single incident and actually consider the facts of the matter.
They are talking about mitsky's video not the 887 video.
Not that mitsky's was good driving.
Ah. Apologies in this one instance gr0g, though the spirit of my request still stands good.
Undertrained and overqualified
That looked quite scary. We all have a similar tale to tell I'm sure.
I've had plenty of close encounters with buses, but never contact, yet.
These stories really get my gut. Bus drivers are *the* drivers with the most responsibility for other people on the road. This should never happen and everything should be undertaken that they can do and do their job properly!
Just last week I have been squeezed to the curb by a coach transporting school children myself, having to brake and stop to not be thrown over. I've written to the bus company, I've yet to hear back from them...
I've written to the bus company, I've yet to hear back from them...
If you do, it will be a cut-and-paste job with we take this very seriously and we've taken action, but they won't tell you what it was- because it was essentially nothing
Bus driver prob complained that he had been hit by a cyclist trying to undertake .
I had a similar near miss in Southwick (Trowbridge) a few years back. A huge artic belonging to a nameless well known trucking firm (ok, Gregorys of Shepton) left me nowhere to go after abandoning a very badly conceived overtake. I wish I'd had a camera though. I reported it to the company whom I'm sure instantly binned it, since I heard no more. It was really scary.
'Unfortunately, the incident wasn’t captured by our own CCTV'
Bull, and indeed, Shit.
Well done to Nick for staying upright. It's a shame your skill is rewarded with such a poor response from the police.
I've often been tempted to 'crash' gently after a really close pass but I know I'd cock it up and hurt myself.
Not worth it. I have had positive responses to all the near misses I've submitted to police, but the one time I was actually knocked off, nothing - because there was no injury or damage.
In that case I'm glad I've never tried it.
YEStotheEU.
We take the safety of our passengers and other road users extremely seriously, and we apologise for the distress experienced by the cyclist involved
This is a dead giveaway for doing nothing- it's the standard reply from bus companies which means they 'had a word' with the driver or did nothing. I don't report to bus companies now- the only thing that would help is genuine police action.The police are also trying it on with their usual trick: we took action but we're not telling you what it was. Look at the letter you got: what actually happened was the most minimal of the possibilities offered, including nothing at all if they used the Lancashire 'may include the following' dodge (may alternatively be nothing at all). I so far have not been hit by a bus (to most people this results in 'then stop complaining'), but I was worried about the bus dragging wider straight bars and pulling me under the wheels and I moved to drops where the bus would likely hit my shoulder/ arm first. I am not, below, employing the distorting wide-angle view which makes passing vehicles look closer and faster
https://upride.cc/incident/px12dnu_stagecoach40bus_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/px12eez_stagecoach41_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/ua5013_kirkbylonsdalecoaches_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/yj60kgzar12way_brethertonsarchwaybuses_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/px12dne_stagecoach42bus_closepass/
The clue is in the words as to what actually constitutes an RTC. Specifically the word "collision". If a vehicle has collided with someone or something then it is a collision.
I somehow doubt that this would be in question if the bus had hit a car, whether or not the driver fell out of the vehicle or was injured ...?
Unlikely that the bus would hit a car and not cause a degree of property damage (to the car) necessitating police involvement. I can see that property damage might make a difference.
BUT - being hurt/hitting the deck shouldn't be the threshold for police intervention when a professional driver in a 10 tonne vehicle hits a vulnerable road user when the law defines the mere act of making contact as sufficient to justify some sort of potential action.
Shocking from the police force in question and if police will only take action after the harm is done its no wonder driving standards in this country are so underwhelming
There is probably actual, but negligible damage (small chips or gouges) to that bar, and almost definitely new scratches on the bus's paint.
Yep.
I wonder what they would do if you put in a claim for a crash damage assessment and replacement handlebar parts.
At the end of the day, people claim for cosmetic damage to cars.
That it would probably cost the insurer more to argue the toss than pay out won't help them defend the claim...
Well, having been prompted by this to investigate, it appears that the basis is "The law defines a reportable road traffic collision as a collision involving a mechanically-propelled vehicle on a road or other public area which causes: injury or damage to anybody - other than the driver of that vehicle."
Helpfully this differs to the plain English meaning of the words "road traffic collision", but it does explain why they were asking the question.
It feels like the definition ought to be expanded to include "... or material risk of injury or damage". There's no way that this type of incident should be excluded from the definition of an RTC.
It's worth pointing out that the police did take (unspecified) action against the driver even though they did not treat it as a RTC.
Whilst clearly it was a "collision" in everyday terms, from a legal point of view I can see why the police might not treat it as such. In particular, AFAIK the main relevant piece of legislation is the RTA 1988, and the requirements to give details etc. only trigger if the accident causes personal injury or damage to property. As such, if there is no damage or injury, the Police have no further powers or duties, even if was technically a "collision".
(The RTA does not define "accident" or "collision" - the wording makes it clear that not all accidents cause injury or damage, but those other accidents do not attract any additional legal obligations)
That is exactly why I think it is outdated/inadequate as currently drafted.
I understand and agree with the intention, which is to not waste police time on mandatory reporting of insignificant events such as the time I nudged into someone in the supermarket car park while reversing at about 3mph - neither of us could see any damage to either vehicle. This is absolutely the type of collision that should be excluded.
But a collision such as this where, but for blind luck, someone could easily have been killed - that absolutely should be a mandatory reporting, recorded in stats and actioned by police as a full RTC.
Don't worry, this kind of thing is surely one of the things the Road Safety Investigation Branch is for.
https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/Government-still-committed-to-road-in...
... just as soon as it gets out of the long grass, or the current government is voted out ... so the next government can continue the same policy of not rocking the boat when it comes to the substandard parts of our road systems. 😒
I wonder what the driver told them had happened? I suspect that the driver's story didn't mention the whole 'coming into contact' bit (assuming that they even knew that they had…).