Near Miss of the Day 913: "Heart-stopping" moment as cyclist barely manages to make through gap after oncoming car driver follows overtaking van, ignoring cyclist

A cyclist had a "heart-stopping" moment as he barely managed to make through the narrow gap when coming down at speed from a steep hill in Cheltenham, as a van spilled into the other lane to overtake parked cars on the road, and then a car driver followed the van through, which led to the cyclist believing that the driver either saw him and chose to ignore, or didn't check for any oncoming when following the van.

Richard, the road.cc reader told us that he submitted the footage to Gloucestershire police and just found out this week that the force decided not to take any further action in the complaint.

He was riding into Cheltenham on Harp Hill road, which he described as having "very poor" surface. "I wasn't going too fast but it certainly wasn't slow," he said. "As I was approaching the bottom a van pulled out onto my side of the road in order to pass a parked car.

"I slowed a little and thought I had judged it to perfection as I only had to slow down and adjust my road position slightly to avoid it but as I moved left a bit I could see a car was following the van through. A heart stopping moment but I managed to get through the gap although it was a bit too tight for my liking especially considering the poor road surface."

"The driver of the car had either seen me and come through anyway or the driver was just followed the van assuming the road would be clear neither of which should happen.

Richard pointed out that the car driver following him had to stop because of the oncoming driver as well. He added: "I reported it expecting some sort of action as my life had been put in danger and the fact that a car had been forced to stop to avoid a collision but it wasn't to be, yet again."

> Near Miss of the Day 902: “I can’t believe I wasn’t hit”

Previously, the cyclist had told us that he had changed the way he approached a roundabout in Gloucestershire after receiving two close passes, saying “I can’t believe I wasn’t hit” when the driver of an SUV subsequently made a very close pass on him at the same location in Bishop’s Cleeve, just north of Cheltenham.

Just as with the two previous incidents, no action was taken against the motorists involved other than a warning letter being sent to one driver, and also gave us some more detailed background of his experience of dealing with police when sending them videos of close passes.

“After a year of hearing nothing from my OpSnap reports to Gloucestershire Constabulary I’ve started asking for the outcomes of my reports after a year has elapsed,” he said. “After a short delay and chasing up for the first one I've been getting speedy responses to my requests.

> Cyclist criticises police car driver for “dangerous manoeuvre” while passing due to oncoming driver not moving aside or slowing down

Recenly, Gloucestershire Constabulary had also come under fire after a cyclist criticised the force's car driver for passing him dangerously with its emergency lights on after he slowed down and pulled to the kerb, but didn’t come to a full stop because of not managing to unclip his pedals in time — however, an oncoming driver didn’t move aside and allegedly didn’t slow down as well.

He told road.cc: “The police car had both its lights on and siren going. As soon as I knew that it was coming from behind, I pulled over to the side of the road as quickly as I could, but because of the speed of the police vehicle there wasn't enough time to fully unclip from the bike.

“I am an experienced cyclist with thousands of miles cycled using clips, so I was able to maintain an upright position despite still being clipped in and despite the bow wave that hit me from the police car driving so close at such a high speed.”

> 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