Near Miss of the Day 61: Featuring a close pass from an Addison Lee driver

We’ve had a few stories about Addison Lee here on road.cc over the years – and now, one of the private hire firm’s drivers has made it into our Near Miss of the Day feature.

It took place yesterday as road.cc reader Richard Beeching headed home to south east London after a “gentle ride.”

He told us: “I’d eased off a little on seeing the squirrel, but then got back to 20mph when the driver behind beeped. 

“No room to pass safely so I held my line, as well as pointing to a 20mph speed limit sign in the road. 

“He then pretty much forced me out of primary position before braking hard at two speed bumps, putting me in real danger (especially with the first braking which was during overtaking).  

“Dangerous, impatient, ignorant, illegal. "

Richard added: “I’ve tweeted it to Addison Lee, and in fairness they replied with this: ‘Hi Richard – I will be forwarding this to our driver liaison team immediately. Thank you for bringing this to my attention’.”

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.