Near Miss of the Day 682: The full of festive cheer edition (no, really)

We have some seasonal cheer for you in our Near Miss of the Day series – with a  moped rider who moves of on his machine on a dead-end street in Oxford just as a cyclist approaches apologising to him when their paths crossed a few minutes later.

Dave Nash of Oxford Cycling Club – whose son Frank edited the footage – said that the interaction between one of the club’s members and the moped rider was “a (positive) twist on the usual Near Miss of the Day videos.”

The action starts at the Queen Street End of St Ebbe’s Street – nowadays a cul-de-sac on the edge the city’s main shopping area as far as motor vehicles are concerned, but which can be used along its entire length by cyclists.

As the cyclist rides down into St Ebbe’s Street, the moped rider to the right – perhaps not expecting anyone down the street from the direction it is blocked in, given he his looking the other way – moves off.

“Oi! Don’t you even look?” says the rider, getting an inaudible response from the moped rider, who heads straight down the hill towards Littlegate Street, while the cyclists turn right into Pembroke Street.

That seems to be that – except shortly afterwards, their paths cross again on Folly Bridge, which leads to the Abingdon Road.

Coming up from behind, the moped rider beeps the cyclist – often a sign that something bad is about to happen, but happily not in this case.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “Forgive me? Forgive and forget? Sorry, I apologise.”

“That’s alright,” says the cyclist.

“Alright, my friend, have a lovely day and I apologise,” adds the moped rider.

“That’s very kind of you, mate,” says the cyclist.

“Have a nice Christmas,” the moped rider says, gaining the reply, “And you mate,” as he heads off … and the video goes into some seasonal music.

“The general feeling from our club members was that it was such a refreshing, unprecedented turn of events and contrition is such as admirable quality,” Dave added.

“Gives us all hope!”

> 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