Near Miss of the Day 711: Amsterdam bus driver pulls in on cyclist

It’s often assumed that the levels of cycling in the Netherlands means that motorists are more likely than not to also ride bicycles, meaning that they take more care around bike riders – although as this video of a bus driver in the north of Amsterdam almost hitting a cyclist after pulling in too quickly during an overtaking manoeuvre shows, that isn’t necessarily the case.

The clip was sent in by road.cc reader Bernard – you may remember that we featured another of his videos back in December – who told us: “This morning I was on my commute to my work, just a few kilometres outside Amsterdam.  

“Just before the 30km (20mph) zone the bus driver decided to overtake me.

“While overtaking the driver kept barely 1 metre between the kerb and the bus and when starting to overtake the next cyclist, the tail just missed me by inches.

“One stop further I was able to stop the driver, who stated that he had given enough space, but started to whine that I was riding in the middle of the road.

“He saved 30 seconds by overtaking me, the discussion which followed took more than a minute,” Bernard added.

> 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