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news
Near Miss of the Day 762: The Friday fun day skateboard rider left-hook edition
You think you’ve seen maybe every possible kind of near miss there could be – and then a reader gets in touch with a video totally from left field, showing a young woman on a skateboard left-hooking him.
Joel, who sent in the clip he filmed in Rugby, Warwickshire, reckoned it would make a good Friday afternoon tonic to the videos we usually feature in this series, and we can’t disagree.
“Why not lighten the mood a little, he said. “A rather unusual left-hook ... fortunately the worst case outcome would likely have been bumps and bruises if I hadn't managed to avoid it ...”
And if you’re wondering which track that was from Co Galway that was coming in at the end, it is Tom Ward’s Downfall/Father O’ Flynn from The Tuesday Crowd – Live At Lowry’s, number 17 on the playlist here.
> 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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31 comments
I had a similar experience this morning on my way to work, although on a much wider residential street with no parked cars. A jogger was running along in the same direction as me, and I moved clear to the opposite side of the road to pass him with a good three metres of clearance, but when I was maybe ten metres away he suddenly cut across the road to turn into a side street without even a glance. I had to brake pretty hard to avoid him then swerve back to pass him on the nearside.
I had not rung my bell because I generally only do that when I'm on a narrow path. Hopefully he doesn't get hit by an electric car one day doing the same move.
The cyclists must take some responsibility.
If I were in that situation , it would have been sensible to pre warn the skate board jockey that I was there.
I see things from both sides , I am a professional driver , cyclists don't do themselves any favours riding like some do , expecting everyone to fall in line. In short don't put yourself in the suitation in the first place.
That's an interesting approach, and as a student of English, I'm very interested in how you could "pre warn" someone of your approach; either you warn someone or you don't, I don't see how you can pre warn them; unless you warn them that you're going to warn them. Is that it?
Is this like "pre-planning" another concept I have immense difficulty with.
responsibility for what? Since the cyclist has efferctively avoiding any collision by reacting to the unlikey actions of the skateboarder.
I'd like to see the video of a kid on a skateboard swerving in front of a car, the driving not hitting them despite this, and comments blaming the driver for not taking more responsibility.
FFS, the whole purpose of this feature is about cyclists informing other cyclists about hazardous incidents that happen on the road, so that others are better able to avoid collisions. How much mroe responsibility do you think they should be taking?
"When I realised she couldn't hear the warning call, I applied the brakes to avoid the collision but didn't even need to come to a full stop. "
Did you even read what happened ?
Ah, a 'professional driver' who is 'shpeaking ash a shyclisht myshelf 🥴' like it gives you some sort of authority. Never encountered one of you before...
And a warm welcome to yet another first time poster saying cyclists are rubbish, are you guys in a club or something? Let us imagine that in your capacity as a "professional driver" you came up to a cyclist riding on the wrong side of the road who was completely oblivious to the noise you were making and who didn't hear any warning you gave before turning sharp left directly across your bonnet. Would you castigate yourself for not taking responsibility and expecting everyone to fall in line?
Interested in knowing what you drive "professionally" and where you park it when you go back under your bridge?
Hmm I think that both parties have to bear some responsibility, the skateboarder bears slightly more responsibility IMHO
From the cyclists perspective the rider of the skateboard seemed to be maintaining a pretty steady path on the right hand side of the available road for pretty much the entire time they were in view, so I am guessing they had assumed that the skateboarder was not suddenly going to turn left. Which is likely why the bike was poised to pass the skateboarder on the left.
Other than the radio it didn't sound like there was any attempt to make sure the skateboarder was aware of the presence of the bike. Which is why I think the cyclist could have done more.
The skateboarder was completely oblivous to the cyclist because of the headphones. Had that been an electric car as opposed to a cyclist the outcome could easily have been a very different one. Moving from the extreme right of the lane to turn left is always a bad plan, in the same way that someone moving from lane 3 of a motorway to the exit lane is a bad plan.
And it's those to factors that lead me to say that the skateboarder has to bear more responsibility than the cyclist. But neither are blameless.
I think that skater needs to swap their airpods for a bluetooth speaker!
Whilst the girl should have looked, maybe cyclist should have decided I don't need to overtake here and can just coast behind. Sniff of MGIF to me.
Tbh I was mainly thinking how nice it was to see someone boarding down a quiet side road
if he had aggressively accelerated and close passed the skateboarder then maybe, but wasn't he just going at a constant reasonable speed? You need to ride defensively and expect anything...but sometimes, it really is the fault of the other person. She seemed utterly oblivious to the whole incident which is bad for her as next time it could be a car or motorcycle
There's no excuse - we're not supposed to undertake in this country unless we're filtering in slow moving traffic.
It was completely unnecessary.
Undertaking is also applicable when going past a vehicle turning right, but it seemed unnecessary in this case. I always think it's best to be extra cautious when encountering scooters and skateboards so I'd only undertake if I'd let them know that I was there ("ding ding") and they didn't change their road position. It's often a bad idea to under/overtake as you approach a junction too, so I'd mark both protagonists as being at fault.
There's a lot of over analysis going on here I think. We were both fairly low speed, it was never going to be a particularly dangerous situation.
I did assume that with my music on she would be able to hear me coming up. There was no indication she was doing anything other than going straight down the road, and there was no possibility to pass on her right. So I gave it a good clearance in case of a swerve or fall and was gliding past.
When I realised she couldn't hear the warning call, I applied the brakes to avoid the collision but didn't even need to come to a full stop.
I was possibly a bit crosser about it in the moment than strictly necessary, mainly irritated because of the obliviousness, but I certainly don't bear her any ill will. I hope my daughter would be happy to skateboard down a road like this when she's that age. I will tell her to use a speaker, or keep only one earpiece in. And to look if she's making a turn across the road. And no doubt she will probably ignore me!
And if she swerves across someone's path like this and has a near miss as a result, I'll call her an twit and say 'I told you so!'
But would I pass again in those circumstances? Yes - but maybe a bit slower still.
I didn't mean it as criticism per se, but it's something that can be learnt from. Scooterists and skateboarders can often treat roads as a playground, so I'm always wary when trying to pass them - it's best to go at a similar speed and give them plenty of room (which you did).
The skateboarder was obviously strangely positioned (maybe to allow a smooth left turn?) and neglected to signal or look before performing a left turn so they're not exactly following the HC.
Yep. Saying that one party or the other was at fault is not quite applicable; one party was traffic, the other was play – and both are appropriate uses of that street.
My understanding is that skateboards have a pretty large turning circle (she probably could have tucked into the turn, to turn tighter, but that'd be difficult when carrying shopping) - they don't have great brakes (as in none at all) so they are going to want to take a corner quite wide so they can look down the street before they are too committed. Equipped with this information, seeing a skateboarder all the way over to one side of the road could be read as a clue that they are about to turn - but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The boarder was riding so far to the right as to prevent a conventional overtake, leaving the cyclist no alternative but to pass on the left, unless he was going to sit behind for some unquantified time. The fault is entirely the boarder's, who at the very least, should have been keeping a sharp eye out for other traffic, not riding along blind and deaf.
Pretty sure if you replaced boarder with cyclist and cyclist with car in your above sentence, you had pretty much done a DM comment word for word.
Of course the skateboarder was riding in a totally unacceptable way, however that does not mean the fault of the near collision was not with the cyclist. It was.
The stupidity of riding along, on the right side of the road, with ear phones in, is only trumpted, by the boarder carrying out a left turn without looking whilst doing the above.
Complete idiot behaviour.
However yes, the correct cycling behaviour would be to sit behind the errant boarder at a safe distance, until either they stopped / turned, or it was clear that they were aware and had ackknowledged the cyclists presence.... no matter how long that took.
Yes, that is incredibly frustrating, and inconvenient and rude of the boarder, but that is life and the cost of being a responisble road user.
Damn Skateborders hogging the road they need to have license plates on.
LICENCE.
If only the skateboarderist had wing mirrors 😉
WHEEL MIRRORS!
But he gets a pass for "Skateborders"?
And for the lack of punctuation.
licence
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