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Near miss of the day 35: Cyclist hugely grateful for physical protection provided by painted white line
Writing on Twitter, Bike-Riding Motorist said that this bus felt “uncomfortably close” when it passed him in Bolton.
He reported the incident to Greater Manchester Police but was told that they would not be taking any action, “based on the fact that you are in your cycle lane and the bus is not encroaching near to or into your cycle lane.”
Bike-Riding Motorist clearly disagrees, initially making his point via a screengrab with the white line removed.
Another interesting example. 21mph. Feels uncomfortably close to me. But there's more to be revealed about it later + video. @GMCycling pic.twitter.com/xMs69yjN4X
— Bike-Riding Motorist (@MrHappyCyclist) October 2, 2017
He said he had measured the cycle lane and the centre of the white line is 1.1m from the kerb.
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 (link is external) (link is external).
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.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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25 comments
I agree with all of you that think this type of cycle lane is dangerous/a waste of paint etc. Here in Germany the same type is used and my experience is that many motorists are convinced they no longer need to move over when passing. In my home town of Newark, years ago, they painted a cycle lane on the pavement to Balderton and painted Give Way signs on the ground at every side road! Beggars belief that somebody can sit at a desk, dream these solutions up and actually think they have done a good job.
Btw, a misoginyst hates women, a misandrist hates men, does anybody know if there is a term for somebody that hates cyclists (apart from bunt, that is)
I think the official term is Transport Minister.
This is a very common problem but until local authorities or government make changes to the roadway laws nothing is going to change. But cycle paths in some parts of the country are far too narrow for safe usage by cyclists.
Oh is this utterly pointless nonsense column still running? Yet again another totally unremarkable pass that happens a thousand times a day.
I really have to agree. What on earth was there to see in that clip?
An unacceptably close pass encouraged by inadequate infrastructure. A perfect example of where poor infrastructure is worse than none. If you can't see that you are being, in the words of Andy Defresne, obtuse.
Honestly, maybe I've been conditioned by years of commuting, but that's one of the least noteworthy things I've ever seen.
I guess some people have never driven on a motorway where close passes and poor lane discipline are the norm, often at a lot higher speed. Until the MGIF/impatient attitude is changed this will be “accepted” by drivers.
Segregated lanes such as Leeds cycle highway are not the answer as that has made things even more dangerous. Section I just on the bike is next to a shop with a parking bay marked on the road. Alongside is a marked door zone. People now park across the cycle lane and door zone forcing cyclist in the flow of traffic. Further on as a driver turning left I often have to take avoiding action as cyclist ignoring the red light as they are use to going with the flow of the traffic.
It's in its lane. That's what motorised traffic tend to do, repeatedly. I'd say strip out all street furniture and signage or markings.
That wasn't close for Bolton, but it does show the inadequacy of the Bolton cycle paths. Just a bit further up is possibly the worst bit of cyclepathery in the world.
Love Bolton
Hate cyclists
Isn't this an established phenomon?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2009/sep/11/bike-lanes
I love the cycle lanes near me which have spaces for cars to the left of the lane and so the cycle lane is in the door zone. Not worth the paint. I mean the people who think of these waste of paint ideas, do they even ride?
A main road near me has just been resurfaced and they've removed several bits of road furniture and put painted cycle lanes in.
Result is that I've had more near misses and abuse in a couple of months than in all the previous 7 years of using it.
The lanes are narrow, full of leaves and debris but come out of them and you get beeps and gestures to "use the fahkin cycle path"
Use the lane and drivers just assume that the white line is 6 inches to the left of where they need to drive. It's a disaster all round.
I'd be in primary in this situation. Would probably get beeped and threatened with violence, but it would stop this happening.
These cycle lanes are worse than useless - they make it more dangerous.
Stating the obvious but the problem is that these roads were not originally made with a cycle lane. They were made to be wide enough for motor vehicles and the cycle lanes have been squeezed in after without widening the roads. So they are not wide enough for both at the same time.
people can always wait, can't they?
If only....
FTFY
Maybe some roads were even put down before the motor car!!!
Agree with the first post, drivers often decide it's just a lane, if they're in their line all is fine.
And not victim blaming and certainly not the case here, but what do we as cyclists do with these lanes. If I 'undertake' using such a lane and leaving 0.5m gap, can I then expect the driver to overtake giving 1.5m?
Shite infrastructure that causes conflict.
As I'm sure you know, it's a totally asymmetric situation with regards to weight, material and speed, so a bike passing a slow/stationary vehicle with only a few cms gap is not the same as a car passing with only a few cms gap at 30mph.
I absolutely get that, I'm hardly going to take out a car. Just thinking what is acceptable to me and to them. If they've sat patiently behind me, made a safe overtake and 30 seconds later we hit traffic and a hundred metres of painted lane, I feel a bit of an arse going past them. Also, if you take speed etc. into account, they could argue in many instances they are re-overtaking at a relatively sedate pace.
At what point do we expect them to magically jump into the middle of the road?
The Met have a different view and recently encouraged me via Twitter to report a close pass where a bus squeezed a number of us in to the kerb.
Discrepencies in attitude between police forces turns justice in to a post-code lottery and is something the APPG for Cycling should pick up with the Association of Chief Police Officers in my view.
Be careful what you wish for there. Don't assume that removal of local approches in favour of a national one will always favour the approach you want. One of the benefits of police forces being localised is that you get a range of initiatives and then hopefully the effective and better ones becoming the benchmark. If say West Midlands reduce cycling casualties with their approach then other forces come under pressure to adopt it or explain why not. A national approach isn't going to give you that.
This happens all the time. Drivers think the white line marks the area up to which they are allowed to go. We would be better off without such facilities, except that less confident cyclists would probably be less likely to cycle without the "protection of the paint".
Those same drivers also seem to believe cyclists aren't allowed to cross that white lane.