- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
near miss of the day 783 screenshotNear Miss of the Day 783: aggressive close pass driver offered speed awareness course ends up with £2,460 fine and 6 points after losing two appeals
WARNING: VERY STRONG LANGUAGE BELOW
If you've done wrong and got away with a relative slap on the wrist, it's probably advisable to take what you're given and move on... however, it appears the aggressive driver in this clip from road.cc reader Miché doesn't grasp this concept, seeing an original £60 fine and the offer of a speed awareness course grow to a £2,460 fine and six points on his driving licence after losing appeals at magistrates' court and eventually Crown Court.
Miché told road.cc that after being knocked off his bike by a driver in June 2020, he bought a camera along with his new bike to record bad drivers after he had regained enough confidence to get off the trainer and back out on the roads. It was shortly after making this decision in July 2021 that the incident shown above occurred in North Wales.
We see Miché ride through some temporary traffic lights, after which the driver of a white Ford estate car passes him with inches to spare with traffic on the other side of the road.
Miché shouts, and the driver gets out of the vehicle saying: "Don't f**king shout at me like that, I've got my f**king daughter in the car."
Miché submitted the footage to Operation SNAP and North Wales Police, and says the driver was offered a £60 fine and a driver's awareness course for the close pass and threatening behaviour.
Sounds pretty lenient, right? The driver appealed, and a date was set for the case to be heard at a magistrates' court.
Miché added: "The driver did not attend court because he was bitten by an animal (squirrel).
"The magistrates found in favour of the prosecution. He was prosecuted for driving without due care for other road users, costing the driver £1,690 and six points on his licence.
"He appealed the magistrates' decision as he could not defend himself as he didn't attend court. There was another court date set and it was escalated to Crown Court,
again I attended as a witness to show my evidence.
"The driver again did not attend court.
"The Crown Court found in favour of the prosecution and with the added Crown Court costs took the driver's fine to £2,460 and six points on his licence."
> 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
Arriving at road.cc in 2017 via 220 Triathlon Magazine, Jack dipped his toe in most jobs on the site and over at eBikeTips before being named the new editor of road.cc in 2020, much to his surprise. His cycling life began during his students days, when he cobbled together a few hundred quid off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story) and bought his first road bike - a Trek 1.1 that was quickly relegated to winter steed, before it was sadly pinched a few years later. Creatively replacing it with a Trek 1.2, Jack mostly rides this bike around local cycle paths nowadays, but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking - the latter being another long story.
Latest Comments
- eburtthebike 5 min 15 sec ago
“Please take a moment and think before you park.” NI Department of Infrastructure....
- OnYerBike 39 min 37 sec ago
Definitely an improvement. Although the section on the "Potential law changes" makes no sense given the context. Illegal e-bikes (i.e. electric...
- rookybiker 42 min 39 sec ago
Todmorden With a name like that (literally death-assassination) expect some morbid local opinions.
- rookybiker 48 min 1 sec ago
I think you are being too harsh. With the right protocol you can get an extraordinary amount of information with limited means (search for Chung...
- Oldfatgit 1 hour 41 min ago
1 hour battery... unless you use an external ......
- mark1a 1 hour 42 min ago
Finally, as a control check, and the absence of any bad chainrings in my fleet, this is a chainring I took off my brother's bike a few months ago...
- brooksby 1 hour 50 min ago
I'm sure I saw a stand-up routine or something, some time ago, involving asking where the toilet was on Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane…
- mitchibob 1 hour 59 min ago
Cyclists aren't complaining of starting a culture war... people that ride illegal bikes are.
- Jules59 5 hours 53 min ago
How on earth does this attract only 6 years?
- Rendel Harris 5 hours 56 min ago
Many people buy jackets of the colour that they would like to wear off the bike or in daylight and then chuck on a reflective/fluoro Sam Browne or...
Add new comment
56 comments
.
Oh, you must be related to Ashley.
.
What you've got here is the sort of person who comments when Road.cc posts these things on FB - an absolute refusal to accept that close pass motorists are in the wrong. Hence it going to the Magistates and then the Crown Court.
It demonstrates that educating these drivers isn't the solution. Just prosecute, fine, points, eventual ban. Doesn't matter whether the message gets through when they're off the road. They can whine to their idiot like minded mates down the pub.
Quite right, those people are the motorist equivalent of filltre bubble hermits. Absolutely impenetrable to any information, devoid of empathy for fellow road users.
Well done to the magistrates for issuing a realistic fine, and for the judge in the crown court too.
This hard-working family man should be shown some magnanimity by readers here, and we should start a whip round to help pay his fine. It is clear that he was in such a hurry to get his daughter to her elocution lessons that he didn't have time to stop and argue with a sweary cyclist, who might undo all her tutor's good work.
Round of applause for the squirrel. Could HP ensure that the next one is rabid please?
Sorry, squirrels don't carry rabies. You need someone like (na na na na na na na) batman.
Not all heroes wear capes.
MOT expired 4 months prior to this incident - but I guess he got away with that.
I doubt the points will bother him and I expect he wont pay the fine anyway.
I hope he doesn't pay it and that he endures years of fearing every knock at the door in case it's the bailiffs.
Agree with the sentiment but given his previous I don't think he'd worry. It sounds like if bailifs turned up he'd just abuse them, get into an altercation, claim they provoked him.
Isn't non payment of court issued fines taken quite seriously by the justice system. Less bailiff, more police and incarceration?
And this one went to crown court...
A quick scan of the CAB shows that nonpayment can result in bailiffs paying a visit. Other ways is your wages/benefits being raided. They can also place it on your credit history. If they give you a summons to explain yourself and think you are refusing to pay rather than pleading poverty they can toss you in prison.
By not turning up, he lost the opportunity to haggle the fine down to a fiver a month for the next 40 years. If he can't afford an MOT surely they wouldn't expect him to pay a fine? How unreasonable.
Good result, but what about the assault (threat of harm from vehicle and person)?
I suspect the fine and 6 points rather than 3 were because of the aggravating factors.
However it only went that high BECAUSE he decided to not take the offer of a course. So initially the Police were not bothered about charging him with the threats, only the stupid close pass.
Made my day. Thanks.
In enough of a hurry to risk the life of the cyclist over 1-2 seconds, but had enough spare time to get out and argue.
If he'd have waited another second or two, he'd have had a whole free lane to move into.
And the objecting to swearing because of his daughter, whilst swearing.
He's a definition of irony...
The squirrel bite is almost funny. HP, do you know anything about that?...
Yeah, doesn't want his daughter to be exposed to swearing but perfectly happy to spread a maimed cyclist over her side of the windscreen.
I was nowhere near there at the time of the incident and besides, the squirrel was a wild one (not one of my carefully trained ones) and he was provoking it at the time of the alleged incident and even if I was involved, no-one can prove it.
Boris is so proud of you.
Anyone thinking of Vinny Jones' character Big Chris in "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"?
Talking of timing:
The driver was out of his car within 2 seconds of the cyclist's first full swear word*; and that was 5 seconds after the pass itself. He's stationary 4 seconds after the pass.
This guy was spoiling for an argument from the outset.
(* I'm not taking the first abortive expression of shock, which was interrupted by his own follow-up.)
Well done that squirrel!
I wonder what he was doing to the squirrel to cause it to bite him?
Probably climbed a tree to shout at it for some imagined offence.
Pages