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news
Near Miss of the Day 36: Driver almost left-hooks cyclist - but spots him in nick of time
Our latest Near Miss of the Day video will be familiar to anyone who cycles in a city – trying to filter up the inside of a lane of queued traffic past vehicles that haven’t left any space, then a near-left hook from a motorist that leaves you wondering how on earth he or she didn’t see the rider?
Luckily, the motorist belatedly noticed the cyclist as he rode along Bury New Road in Greater Manchester and stopped before cutting across his path.
It was submitted by road.cc reader Steve Turner, who posted it to YouTube under the user name, Mark Smith; judging by some of the other videos of the poor motoring he encounters on his commute we’ve seen, we’re guessing there must be mornings he arrives at work totally wired.
Commenting on the video, he said the driver had tried "to overtake and then turns left across my path. I'd passed it seconds before, it wasn't signalling and I was directly in front of it so the driver must have seen me."
The footage wasn’t submitted to the police, with Steve telling us: “Greater Manchester police don't investigate or allow online reporting. You have to phone 101 and report over the phone. But the service levels on 101 are atrocious and their investigations are even worse. So no, not reported.”
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.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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12 comments
Steve Turner/Mark Smith, two very generic names for one person. Not suspicious at all.
Manchester; Mark Smith; Totally Wired!
Boom!
Ha, yes, spotted that subtle reference.
I suppose if he had been hit he would have needed a trip to Mr Pharmacist.
I watched that several times thinking what on earth was wrong with that until realising the car in question is only in the absolute last couple of seconds!
I'm going to stand up for GMP here, I worked for them for 14 years until two days ago. Operation Considerate is taken very seriously and they WILL prosecute anyone deemed to have committed an offence caught on bike cam.
Think you ought to read the earlier article I linked to.
Blatant example of dangerous driving,nearly wiped out a cyclist in broad daylight and reg. number of offending vehicle was never in any doubt. Yet GMP took no action whatsoever.Most commenters agreed this was a totally inadequate response.Pathetic in fact.
So how many prosecutions have they launched from the countless bike-cam submissions? Would it be a number suspiciously close to zero?
Or do they just watch all the videos and "deem" that no offences are happening? That is a superb example of taking an operation seriously.
Or maybe, just maybe, they don't take it seriously, don't watch any videos unless someone is hospitalised or killed, and in private, have the opinion that Operation Considerate is an excellent PR excercise but is not intended as anything other than a PR exercise.
If you know different, please reveal the list of prosecutions.
This. I submitted a close pass a while back. The process was smooth and efficient (except for the need to edit the video and the slightly inappropriate witness statement form). Since then, I heard nothing. I don't mind if GMP decides not to do anything in that particular case if it was below threshold but I'd like to know if only so that I can delete the original footage from my camera... And if it is worth submitting further clips or if it's just lip service...
Spots him in the nick of time. My arse!
GM Police actually do allow online reporting, and allow you to upload video via Dropbox. Whether or not they do anything about it is another matter, but at least you don't have to go to the police station with a DVD any more.
http://www.gmp.police.uk/live/Nhoodv3.nsf/section.html?readform&s=F3BDE4...
It's mainly a PR exercise to make them look like they care about road safety, when in fact they don't...
As evidenced a while ago; http://road.cc/content/news/227952-near-miss-day-28-driver-turns-across-...
What a fecking moron. They're far over enough to get past the cyclist, what did they think was going to happen next? Scotty was going to beam him up out of danger?