Near Miss of the Day 527: Land Rover driver passes between cyclist and fuel tanker

Today’s near miss involves a driver who can’t wait for a fuel tanker to overtake a cyclist and so decides to pass between them.

The incident occurred on the southbound A38 at Almondsbury in South Gloucestershire in September.

“The tanker in the outside lane meant there wasn't enough space for a safe pass, but this driver chose to squeeze past anyway,” said James who submitted the footage.

“It was reported at the time to Avon and Somerset Police, but I know nothing of the outcome save that a warning letter, fixed penalty or prosecution resulted.”

As we’ve previously reported, while many forces provide updates on such incidents, Avon and Somerset Police are among those who effectively treat close passes of cyclists as a “victimless crime” by regarding those on the receiving end as merely witnesses.

The upshot of this distinction is that it does not provide information about an investigation in compliance with the Victims Code of Conduct.

Cycling UK has previously said that in treating a cyclist submitting evidence as only a witness, the implication is that their report isn’t been taken seriously.

It doesn’t quite qualify as a ‘spate’, but this is actually the second close pass by a Land Rover driver near Bristol that we’ve reported this week.

> 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