Near Miss of the Day 78: Close passing crane and Jewson lorry drivers

One thing about typical cycle lanes on British roads is that the white strip of paint separating them from the main carriageway does seem  to have a psychological effect on many drivers - and from a cyclist's point of view, it's not a good one.

This video, posted to YouTube by Berkshire cyclist Uphill Freewheeler, gives a perfect illustration of the phenomenon - he's riding in a mandatory cycle lane, and the drivers overtaking him don't encroach on it, but they could not get any closer to the line, or the rider.

That's bad enough when it's a car, but when it's a huge crane, or a builder's merchants lorry, as happens here, it's worse due ro the size of the vehicle and turbulence it causes.

Spend any time riding in one of these lanes and you'll experience the same thing - not helped by the fact that such lanes are often extremely narrow and poorly surfaced as well as containing hazards such as drain covers, all of which means the more room motorists give you, the better, rather than driving as close as possible to that white line.

 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.