Near Miss of the Day 55: Overtaking driver’s near miss with oncoming car

Today’s near-miss is a curious one. Rather than passing within an inch of the cyclist, as is the convention on British roads, the overtaking driver for some reason opts to pass within an inch of the car travelling in the opposite direction.

As long as someone’s life’s in danger as a result of your inexplicable driving – that’s the main thing.

The incident took place in September between the Northamptonshire village of Pytchley and Kettering. Chris, who provided us with the footage, tells a familiar tale.

"I’ve had a few like this and it’s nearly a weekly occurrence,” he said. “I’ve raised a different one in the past to the police. They said they would speak to the driver but never got back to me, so I don’t bother going down this route any more.”

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.