Near Miss of the Day 904: Driver ordered to pay £1,300 and gets six penalty points for cyclist close pass

A driver of a company-branded vehicle who close passed a cyclist — almost hitting the rider with the trailer the van was towing at the time — has been fined £700, ordered to pay more than £600 in costs and received six penalty points.

The road.cc reader who filmed the driving reported it to Merseyside Police in July last year and was informed in March that the case had gone to court, the driver being fined £700, ordered to pay court costs of £350, and a £288 victim surcharge, the total sum coming to £1,338, as well as their driving licence receiving six penalty points.

"This close pass happened in July last year near to Southport," the road.cc reader explained. "I'd forgotten all about it until I received an email from Merseyside Police about the verdict from the court case in March of this year.

> Near Miss of the Day 903: Driver's punishment pass while blaring horn at two-abreast cyclists earns £300 fine and six penalty points

"In the video you can hear me swear because of the closeness of the pass, plus two weeks before this I arrived 10 minutes after a cyclist had been run over by an HGV [being driven] near the Trafford Centre in Manchester, where members of the public were doing CPR on the casualty. Sadly, the cyclist died. It was an horrific sight and so this was in the back of my mind.

"I sent the video to the police and noted that the vehicle also had no MOT. The driver received a £700 fine, 6 points, £288 victim surcharge and court costs of £350. This is the first time that any of my submissions have gone to court. It has usually just been a warning letter or driver awareness cause."

> 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