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news
Near Miss of the Day 50 – A capital compilation
Our latest Near Miss of the Day feature shows just some of the hazards that a London cycle commuter will encounter on a daily basis.
Those include pedestrians who are seemingly oblivious to traffic, motorcyclists in bike lanes or passing riders at speed, and buses pulling in too quickly after an overtake.
The video was shot in the space of just one week earlier this month by road.cc reader Andy Thornley.
He told us: “I was recently ill and off work for a number of weeks – off the bike for even longer.
“Getting back in the saddle, I'd forgotten how much London's roads remind me of the wild-west.
“People almost ubiquitously walking in the road, crossing without looking, buses skipping lights, riders swerving in to other riders and wide-spread rule-breaking from motorcyclists, bus drivers using the intimidation of their 8 tonne vehicle to bully other road users.
“London's roads have got the lot.”
Andy added: “This footage was recorded on my 4.5 mile commute to work between 2-5 October this year.”
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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10 comments
Whilst I will accept that a pedestrian or any other road user should not cross a road without looking, surely a pedestrian has as much right to walk along a road as anyone else has to be driving, or riding along it?
Seems a bit rich to criticise drivers for yelling "use the cyclepath!" at us, when we are saying the equivalent "use the pavement!" at pedestrians in cities.
Well, the post I was replying to was making it out that it's acceptable for pedestrians to be so unaware and lackadaisical as to just walk out into the road because they can't hear anything coming. Quite different from walking along one. I wouldn't recommend walking into the path of a bus nor cycling or indeed driving into its path.
Not sure where your second paragraph comes from - I didn't recommend yelling at people to use a cyclepath or a pavement; all I said don't step out without looking.
I was following a bus at about 20+mph this morning, 4 pedestrians were waiting between parked cars as the bus went past, they saw me and deliberately walked out in front of me... I barely managed to avoid all 4 of them. I really was quite surprised by their actions as I wouldn't have been able to stop in time, it was purely a case of grab the brakes and try to weave round/through them.
It's not the norm around here but it was a new experience for me.
Familiar wiht all those routes. At the end of my commute and not the most pleasant riding at all...
The bus jumping the red lights is North end of London Bridge - they do it literally all the time, every phase in rush hour. It's also hell going over London Bridge Northbound (think the motorcyle inthe cycle lane is just on the bridge too), so it's much better & safer to go over Southwark Bridge just a little further West.
Busses trying to kill everyone at Elephant and Castle (think that is where buss cuts across) are also nothing new. New layout of roads basially set Buses and cyclists off at the same time in direct conflict and the busses don't care they will take you out. Much better to take the Princess St cycle lane route to avoid it and that will lead you to the safer Southwark Bridge crossing mentioned above....
tell me one thing: at the end of a pedestrian crossway, right where they meet the normal traffic, what is writen on the road to warn you from which way traffic is expected? look right or hear right? Iast time I checked it is writen "look right and look left" so , that time, pedestrians have to LOOK for incoming traffic, not listen to it!!
what do you do if you're blind?
Go out at night when it's less busy
When pedestrian pop up in front of me in the middle of the road or an exclusive bike lane, I will get a little angy that particular nanosecond, but I can't really blame them, roads have thousands years of history, of which only the last couple of century, wheeled vehicles prevail. And don't forget that a bicycle is very silent compared to motor traffic and therefore pedestrians are not really expecting it. As it make no sense to regard cyclists as a threat to pedestrians fueled lately by the alliston-briggs case, it equally makes no sense to me to regard the opposite as a threat.
Please make peace with pedestrians, don't act like a old grumpy guy, the excessive and ill-mannered use of motor vehicles is what we must fight as it clearly reduces the standard of our living when on and when off the road. On the opposite, when walking becomes carefree and fast, all of us will become happier.
Utter nonsense! It's completely irrelevant for how long roads have existed. The people that use them and walk across them have existed for no more than 100 years, so unless when they were a child mummy didn't say "look before you cross" there is no excuse for walking in front of anything using the road.
As for the lack of noise that bicycles make, why do you think the baseline for one's own safety as a pedestrian is lower than simply looking where one is going?
Most useful bit of kit on my bike in London is the bell. Pedestrians in the road are a bloody menace