Near Miss of the Day 88: White van driver makes very close pass

Today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows a white van driver in Nottingham making a very close pass at speed on a cyclist.

However, road.cc reader Gary McMahon, who submitted the footage, told us that Nottinghamshire Police had decided to take no action against the driver.

He told us that the officers informed him that reasons behind that decision included that he had not himself taken evasive action in the incident, which happened last month on Porchester Road.

Any cyclist who has ever been subject to a close pass of this nature by someone driving fast will know that there is no time to react,  and  from the footage it is difficult to see how the cyclist might be expected to take evasive action in the first place.

The two drivers who overtook Gary immediately before the motorist who made the close pass gave him plenty of room. 

Another reason he was told that police weren't interested in taking action was that the driver had to pull in because of a car coming towards him.

Close examination of the video shows that the driver of that vehicle had moved out to the diagonal stripes in the middle of the road to overtake a van parked partly on the footway and partly on the road - a common enough problem in the area that one local resident launched a petition last year to try and force the authorities to take action.

Police also said that the incident was not worth following up because the motorist didn't hit the cyclist.

Gary added: "You could not make it up!"

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.