What is it with some drivers who simply Must. Get. In. Front. – or MGIF, as the acronym goes – of cyclists, just to pull off the road seconds later? It’s not the first time we’ve featured such a video in our Near Miss of the Day series, and this time it comes from Devon.
Isaac, the road.cc reader who filmed it, said: “My near miss is by far not the worst I’ve had or has been featured, but I think it’s definitely topical with people driving around during lockdown as they like and roads getting much busier.
“I was cycling on Dartmoor last Saturday, and it was a glorious day for it. Although the roads up to the moors were rammed with tourists (many of them couldn’t have been local given the quality of the driving along some of the narrow lanes), once on Dartmoor it wasn’t too busy.
“In the video, I’m riding about halfway between Dartmeet and Two Bridges on a nice descent on the approach to a narrow bridge.
“Now, pretty much the whole way down the person in the blue SEAT sat behind me, presumably because I was going too fast to overtake or they didn’t want to pass on the cattle grid/approach to the car park (which is pretty sensible).
“However, what I wasn’t expecting was for them to suddenly decide that they were going to go for it immediately before the narrow bridge, and I had started to move towards the centre of the road (obviously after checking that it was safe to do so) to stop them doing precisely this stupid thing.
Fortunately, the bridge wasn’t that narrow, or I would have gone into the side of them, but what was infuriating was they pulled into a car park about 15 seconds later – clearly in a rush to get a spot!
“As tempting as it was to confront them, I decided that it wasn’t going to get me anywhere and would just put me in a bad mood if they got aggressive.”
Isaac added: “I haven’t sent this one in to the Police as it really isn’t that bad compared to some of the passes I receive and do submit (such as the bloke who passed me yesterday within 20cm whilst deliberately washing his windscreen because he took offence to my sister and I riding 2 abreast on our town bikes).”
> 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@road.cc">info@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.
20 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 421: ‘Must Get In Front’ driver overtakes cyclist at narrow bridge … then pulls into car park”
I’ve had the same thing, and
I’ve had the same thing, and I’m sure many have, and I still find it baffling. Why wait behind when there is plenty of room to safely overtake and then overtake at the narrowest point?
This happened to me a few years ago, with a driver staying behind me on a dual carriageway and then he overtook the moment the it reverted to single carriageway. I shouted something utterly inappropriate, and he must have heard me because he slowed up matching my speed, wound his window down and asked why I’d shouted, and unlike most drivers, he really did want to know, so I told him. Hopefully he’s a better driver now.
I’m afraid that whenever I
I’m afraid that whenever I have to endure a close pass or something similar by a driver who then pulls into a car-park/their driveway etc less than 30 seconds later, I always go and “have a word” with them about how they could improve their driving.
I doubt that it ever changes them, but I feel a lot less like killing someone after I’ve been able to put my point of view across.
What sort of responses do you
What sort of responses do you get?
I used to do that, but the
I used to do that, but the responses were systematically hostile (and usually threatening/aggressive), and I’m really too old to be getting into fights in the street.
Now, I just note where they live and pop back later on with some brake fluid.
(note – yes, I am joking!)
It almost always depends on
It almost always depends on the age and gende of the person I’m talking to. 25-50 and male, it’s rarely positive, although the calmer and more polite I am the more likely it is that I can get the point across.
But one day I’ll just hit them to make my point.
Over 65 and they’re usually bewildered. Which is either “what did I do wrong?” or “I don’t thing I did anything wrong, did I?” Which makes me wonder why the hell society puts up with some people who are too old to operate any machinery at work should be allowed out on the roads in charge of such a dangerous machine.
It’s not necessarily that
It’s not necessarily that they’re ‘too old’. Often it’s more that the environment, rules, understanding of safety, and the machinery they’re operating have changed significantly since they learned to drive, and they’ve never been required to update their skills accordingly. (And even if they were, the driving test itself hasn’t kept up anyway.)
A depressing thought, that a
A depressing thought, that a lot of this comes down to who’s going to win at fisticuffs.
doesn’t there come a point where age becomes an advantage? no driver dares take on my mother, 89 in her electric wheelchair, one foot amputated! That’s just not a fight you’re going to win!
there is definitely something
there is definitely something about the “nearly there” / last 200 yards of a some drivers’ journies, particularly when it’s home.
You’re usually just passing by the time they’re getting out and are perfectly positioned to say “random”, or something to that effect. Perhaps he magically knew those sheep would be there on the ascent.
You just gotta hope his passengers noticed – “Dad, you’re so stupid; ohmygod, so embarrassing”. It’s like dog training – if any more than 5 seconds elapse between a good or a bad deed, Fido won’t conect it with the response, be it “good boy”, or “bad dog, no!”
Probably best to just ride on this time, what good is any sort of confrontation going to do?
Assholes have been doing
Assholes have been doing burnouts in the carpark 🙁
Uglyfying a beautiful spot and polluting the air while they’re about it ;-(
“MGIF”, Haha, thanks.
“MGIF”, Haha, thanks. Encountered one yesterday. Overtook me on a completely empty road and while he was, I already wondered why he was going relatively slow. Then he turned right into a small road directly I front of me and I had to slam my brakes to not hit the passenger door. (Germany, so I was driving on the right and the car overtook on the left).
I was going about 35kph and I guess the driver simply misjudged my speed. Not aggressive, just very very bad driving…
I was cycling through Long
I was cycling through Long Ashton near Bristol last weekend. Was doing the speed limit of 20mph behind a car doing the same. I guess I was about 15-20ft behind him as we passed parked cars. A car came up from behind me and decided he wanted to get in the gap in front of me forcing me to slow down. I can’t say I shouted anything polite at him but it did contain the words f**kin’ & idiot. He heard me because he made a hand gesture which I expect was not a thumbs up. He then turned right 3 seconds later.
Cars can’t ‘decide’ anything,
Cars can’t ‘decide’ anything, mate.
Yes and I called the car ‘he’
Yes and I called the car ‘he’. Now who’s the f’in idiot!
Interesting. I’m not sure
Interesting. I’m not sure which is more amusing: the barely-concealed aggression, or the apparent belief that the use of a gendered pronoun somehow explains the use of ‘decide’ when applied to a car.
That, or the apparent case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
Ah, well.
No aggression intended or
No aggression intended or conceaIed. I was actually agreeing with you but being light hearted about it. I was callng myself the idiot!
Notbuilt2climb wrote:
*cough*
That’s all right, then. 🙂
herbie was a he. Chitty was a
herbie was a he. Chitty was a she, according to jeminma.[ look, youve frightened her!]
It is becoming increasingly
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the current perception is that cars are there to get you from A to B as quickly as possible. This needs changing to “as comfortably as possible” or “to be able to carry the weekly shop” or nowadays “to be allowed into the recyling center”.
May be the fact that you can fail the driving test for driving too slowly reinforces this by suggesting that the speed limit is a target rather than a maximum.
May be the test should change to encourage getting from A to B as efficiently as possible to reduce pollution. Drivers would be failed for accelerating and braking unnecessarily. This could cut down on the type of manouvre described here.
I am afraid that until attitudes change we will all carry on suffering.
Bungle_52 wrote:
You are right in that driving too slowly can result in a driving test failure, but it would have to be pretty extreme and involve significant inconvenience to other road users. The number of such ‘fails’ is vanishingly small compared to those who fail for speeding, which rather contradicts your argument.
Candidates are already marked for their ‘eco-driving’ and not observing its principles is recorded as a driver (minor) error.
Isaac is a better man than me
Isaac is a better man than me. I would almost certainly have felt the need to pull into the car park and ‘discuss’ the incindent with the driver. Admittedly this wasn’t the most heinous of close passes but it still demonstrates at best a lack of driving awareness, and at worst a complete disregard for the safety of the cyclist. In the past I have on a few occasions been able to follow a close passer to their destination, and with as much diplomacy and tact as possible, ask them quite what the f they think they are doing, and more importanly WHY?! On one ocasion I ended up getting even more angry as the moron I followed into a supermarket car park pulled into a space, and as he got out was still on the phone he had been using! My antics probably only served to fuel his hatred. Had I relised at the time that my helmet camera wasn’t working I probably would’ve been a little less restrained than I actually was. Other encounters have thankfully been far more wholesome. My approach is usually to try and calmly ask the driver how much they think their time is worth, and whether they honestly feel that less than 10 seconds of their time is really worth my livelihood or even my life.