Near Miss of the Day 824: Driver exiting golf club cuts up cyclist

The ​cliché ‘cycling is the new golf’ has been around for more than a decade now – but clearly the driver of this car in Altrincham, Greater Manchester didn’t get the memo as he exited a golf club forcing a cyclist to stop to avoid being hit.

Rule 170 of the Highway Code gives drivers a clear instruction to “Take extra care at junctions,” and that they “should watch out for cyclists,” among other classes of vulnerable road users – something that is also reinforced under Rule H2, introduced in January this year, which establishes a Hierarchy of Road Users that makes those using the road in larger, more powerful modes of transport responsible for ensuring the safety of the more vulnerable.

The incident was filmed by road.cc reader Bob, who told us: “The longer version of the video was submitted to the police, as per Greater Manchester Police policy they will not tell you the outcome.

“So, I tried a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which they promptly ignored, a reminder of the FOI request was then ignored, but finally I got an answer, they have the information but will not release it!

“So, someone tries to run you off the road, you submit evidence but cannot find out if the police took any action. How do we know if there is any point submitting videos to GM Police?”

Bob continued: “The video was taken on Oldfield Lane in Altrincham, there is access to the Golf Club and a couple of houses, but after then aa planter makes this a traffic free route down to Dunham Massey.

“On that day this car just came out of the golf club without any care for me on the through road. If I had not stopped I would have been run down,” Bob 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