Near Miss of the Day 911: Campervan tourist narrowly squeezes past cyclists, forcing oncoming driver to brake heavily – but escapes punishment after returning to Italy

Most of the time on Near Miss of the Day, when a driver manages to escape punishment – or get away with a mere slap on the wrist – for close passing and narrowly avoiding a cyclist, it’s usually down to a questionable, or sometimes completely non-existent, approach exhibited by the local police force towards the safety of people riding bikes on the road.

This time, however, it’s because the close pass motorist simply returned home to Italy.

road.cc reader Stephen was cycling the Hebridean Way, a spectacular 190-odd mile route through Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and a magnet for touring cyclists over the past decade, earlier this month when he and another cyclist were close passed on their return leg through Skye by a fellow tourist and campervan driver, in a highly dangerous manoeuvre that forced an oncoming driver to almost come to a halt to avoid a collision.

> Near Miss of the Day 910: Cyclist "let down" by police response to shocking close pass by speeding driver

“Most of the tour went well and I was treated considerately by most of the drivers on my travels,” Stephen told road.cc. “Unfortunately, the few exceptions were the foreign campervans and motorhomes, driven by people from Germany and, surprisingly, the Dutch – who I thought were a cycle loving nation!

“My return journey involved a couple of days’ ride back through Skye before catching the ferry back to Mallaig on the mainland,” Stephen said of the incident, which took place as he was riding on the A87 approaching Broadford, in the south of Skye.

“I was heading to catch the ferry back to the mainland, and the conditions at times were awful – rain and strong winds. So I had my camera on and rear light, the other rider also had a rear light and hi-vis markings but no camera.”

After reporting the close pass to Police Scotland the day after he returned from his trip, Stephen was told by an officer on Wednesday morning that “nothing can be done about the offence because the client who rented the motorhome, according to the rental company Just Go, was Italian”.

“He has now returned home where the police cannot pursue the incident further, I’m told. This was a somewhat expected outcome but still very annoying,” Stephen added.

> Near Miss of the Day 883: Lorry driver shoves cyclist off the road, but police cannot do anything as the truck is registered in the Netherlands

However, despite the lack of police response (for international reasons), Stephen did at least extract an apology from Just Go, who rented the motorhome to the offending driver during his holiday in Scotland, after the cyclist also sent the company footage of the close pass.

“We do respect your concerns and do press strongly to our guests to drive with care and in the interest of others,” a Just Go spokesperson told Stephen. “We will refer this to our guest and inform them of your notice to Police Scotland.”

“They were glad I contacted them and apologised for the incident,” Stephen says. “And even though they offered to pass on the images of the offence to the client ‘to educate’ them, they obviously couldn’t be held responsible for how the vehicles are driven.”

> “Long lines” of cyclists arriving on cruise ships – including groups containing 50 riders – causing havoc for drivers on roads, locals claim

As we’ve reported on over the past year, while Stephen was on the end of some inconsiderate driving in Skye, residents and the authorities on Scotland’s other islands appear intent on clamping down on tourists riding bikes on their roads.

In April, we reported that locals in Shetland were up in arms over “long lines” of cyclists arriving on cruise ships, allegedly causing havoc and frustration on the archipelago’s roads.

On one Shetland-based Facebook group, locals complained that the size of the groups disembarking the AIDAdiva cruise ship with bikes – described as “long lines” of cyclists – were making it difficult for motorists to overtake safely, with some also raising concerns about the safety of oncoming drivers.

One member of the group claimed that a bunch of cyclists they encountered on the roads contained around 50 of the cruise ship passengers.

Shetland Islands Council’s environment and transport committee chair Moraig Lyall responded to the complaints by arguing that it was positive that more passengers were pursuing active travel options and getting around by bike – “but ensuring that this doesn’t unacceptably impact on other road users is important”.

> Councillor urges police to charge "tourist cyclists" coming on cruise liners and "running around unsafe”

The online backlash to cycle tourism in Shetland came seven months after a councillor in neighbouring Orkney called on the police to deal more sternly with cyclists believed to be behaving in an “anti-social” manner while staying on the islands during cruises.

The Fair Warn campaign was introduced in Orkney last year to deal with inconsiderate driving behaviour (such as that exhibited by our Italian campervan driver) – but councillor Melissa Thompson argued that it should also apply to “people who are on push bikes who are running around unsafe at the moment and coming off cruises”.

> 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