Near Miss of the Day 634: Rider gets very close pass ... by police sign telling drivers to give cyclists plenty of room

Yesterday’s item on our Live Blog about Leicestershire Police putting up signs reminding motorists to give cyclists plenty of room attracted plenty of comments – as well as prompting one reader to send through a clip of an extremely close pass his wife received from a motorist as they were passing one of the signs.

> Police install 'give cyclists room' signs...local asks for 'cyclists single file' version

Be on the lookout for new signage popping up in the lanes aimed at all road users with a view to protecting the most vulnerable. They will be in areas used frequently by cyclists, horse riders and pedestrians. Every road user has a responsibility to #ShareTheRoad pic.twitter.com/dq4EtwX62d

— Leicestershire Police Specials (@LeicsSpecials) September 5, 2021

Kieron, the reader who sent the clip in, told us: “My wife and I were cycling through Blaby in Leicestershire, when we were both close passed by a white Jaguar.

“What makes this close pass ironic, is that seconds prior to the close pass, there is clearly a notice from Leicestershire Police, telling drivers to give cyclists space.”

The comment of one reader, Gareth Roberts, to yesterday’s Live Blog story proved prophetic, given the footage.

He changed our original headline, “Police install ‘give cyclists room’ signs ... local asks for ‘cyclists single file’ version” to read “Local asks for ‘cyclists make it easier for me to scrape by you’ sign.”

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-7-september-2021-286161#l...

Another reader, Mark, said: “A better deterrent would be if the police acted on incidents with meaningful prosecutions/fines/licence withdrawals instead of the usual soft-touch improvement courses.”

Given that Kieron has submitted the footage to Leicestershire Police, we’d be interested to find out how they handle this one.

> 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