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Near Miss of the Day 625: “Not all d*ckheads drive BMWs – some ride them instead”

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's Essex...

“Not all d*ckheads drive BMWs – some ride them instead” is the observation road.cc reader Richard made after this shocking incident while he was out for a group ride at the weekend.

“A small group of us were out on a social ride on Sunday (15th August) on the quiet Essex roads and some motorbikes went past,” he said.

“One, riding a BMW, decided it would be fun to try and force us off the road, going particularly close to the 20 year old lady we had in our group.

“It just goes to show that not all d*ckheads drive BMWs – some ride them instead. 

“It might be time for a rear facing camera so we can get the registration number in future,” he added.

We should point out, of course, that not everyone who drives or indeed rides a BMW is a d*ckhead – but it’s a marque that has developed something of a reputation among cyclists over the years given the behaviour of some people who drive its cars, and one that features regularly in our Near Miss of the Day series.

> 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

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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50 comments

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Captain Badger replied to Eton Rifle | 3 years ago
3 likes
Eton Rifle wrote:
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Yep, I would be surprised if anyone would complain about that.....

Indeed. Only a complete arsehole would be that dim, right ?

Simply impossible. No one's that stupid

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Captain Badger replied to Captain Badger | 3 years ago
3 likes
Captain Badger wrote:
Eton Rifle wrote:
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Yep, I would be surprised if anyone would complain about that.....

Indeed. Only a complete arsehole would be that dim, right ?

Simply impossible. No one's that stupid

Oh ......

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Muddy Ford | 3 years ago
3 likes

Hard to tell if that's deliberate or just a shit rider. Most bikers would avoid any potential collision for their own safety, even a rabbit can send you chewing gravel and ruining your bike and subsequent insurance premiums.

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Captain Badger replied to Muddy Ford | 3 years ago
4 likes
Muddy Ford wrote:

Hard to tell if that's deliberate or just a shit rider. Most bikers would avoid any potential collision for their own safety, even a rabbit can send you chewing gravel and ruining your bike and subsequent insurance premiums.

Like eburti take that to be deliberate

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TriTaxMan replied to Muddy Ford | 3 years ago
9 likes

I initially erred on the side of it being deliberate, however, I am now virtually certain it is deliberate.

As a rider, if I am going round a corner I am looking where I am going, what the road surface is like to make sure that I am not going to bin it in the corner.

If you run the video at 1/4 speed the BMWanker is not looking where he is going but actively looking at the cyclists which IMHO means he was aiming to see how close he could get to the cyclists.

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brooksby replied to TriTaxMan | 3 years ago
5 likes

Christ!  Even watching that at normal speed I would put money on that being entirely deliberate surprise

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Zjtm231 replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
10 likes

jog on you c@!$

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Flintshire Boy replied to Zjtm231 | 3 years ago
3 likes

Thank you for your intelligent contribution.

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Flintshire Boy replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
1 like

Agreed, the positioning of the bike rider on the right is simply asking for trouble.

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Rendel Harris replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
4 likes

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Although it didn't make a difference in the case of the near miss

...I'm still going to bring it up anyway because I've found some part of a video showing horrendous behaviour towards cyclists where I can criticise some possibly poor choices by cyclists and trolling this site with my anti-cyclist nonsense is very much my thing.

Gosh you must have been bouncing off the walls during your fortnight's suspension!

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Rendel Harris replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
3 likes

Look everyone, Nige has found the strikethrough button! Isn't he clever? Entirely delusional and staggeringly arrogant, but jolly clever. Have a house point young man and tell matron you can stay up half an hour later this evening.

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TriTaxMan replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
2 likes

Sorry Nige, but you are wrong.  By the time the BMW rider came into view the riders had already moved into the left hand side of the road.  Or did you just watch up until the first bike?  With the exception of the camera rider who is half wheeling the BMW rider wouldn't have had any issue with any of the other riders.

Essentially what you are saying is what a lot of motorists seem to think.  That just because some time in the past they have been wronged by a random cyclist that they can try and take out their potentially fatal revenge on a random cyclist.

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wycombewheeler replied to TriTaxMan | 3 years ago
1 like

TriTaxMan wrote:

Sorry Nige, but you are wrong.  By the time the BMW rider came into view the riders had already moved into the left hand side of the road.  

Essentially what you are saying is what a lot of motorists seem to think.  That just because some time in the past they have been wronged by a random cyclist that they can try and take out their potentially fatal revenge on a random cyclist.

He hasn't argued that the road position was a factor in this near miss, only pointed out that riders should be single file in this location.

However I don't see cyclists riding two abreast, one cylist overtakes the other, we do no know whether or not they were travelling together.

I disagree with him a lot, but on this thread, he has criticised the motorcyclist, and not blamed the cyclist for the incident in any way.

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eburtthebike | 3 years ago
7 likes

The first motorbike goes past and I'm thinking "Nothing wrong with that."  then the twat appears.  That was undoubtedly deliberate, malicious intimidation by a nasty little bully.

Since there was no rear facing camera (I always ride with one) it might be worth posting the footage on local motorbiker sites, see if anyone recognises the moron.

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Mungecrundle | 3 years ago
3 likes

That's just embarrasing, not being able to take a corner like that properly.

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hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
6 likes

That was awful riding - what happened to "two wheels good, four wheels bad"?

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belugabob replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
2 likes

It was consigned to the scrapheap - at least by people who have either read animal farm, or understands that their chosen form of transport has no bearing on whether somebody behaves like an idiot or not

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Velophaart_95 replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
0 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

That was awful riding - what happened to "two wheels good, four wheels bad"?

 

I always like to think we are on the same side, seeing as we're vulnerable road users. This is just poor riding....a weekend away doing Bikesafe is in order methinks. Something that can benefit all motorcyclists.

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HoarseMann | 3 years ago
2 likes

What an utter spanner - all it would take is a bit more gravel down the middle and he'd have slid into several riders.

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anagallis_arvensis | 3 years ago
5 likes

That's fucking appalling, makes me ashamed to be a motorbike rider too.

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