Near Miss of the Day 128: Driver follows up close pass with a punch

Today’s near miss video features a particularly unpleasant denouement with the driver responsible seeing fit to exit his vehicle to launch a punch at the cyclist.

The incident took place on Portswood Road, Southampton on March 26.

Dan stopped at a pedestrian crossing and a driver overtook him as he pulled away, passing sufficiently closely that Dan first waved to warn him and then tapped his car when that had no effect.

“That's what upset him,” said Dan.

Some 30 seconds later, the driver pulled into a side road and got out, walked up to Dan and punched him as he passed.

Dan says Hampshire Police told him it was “not in the public interest” to do anything and his personal conclusion is that the force doesn’t have the resources to take action.

“My view is that the level of police resource ought to be provided by the government to be able to take action in a case like this. I wrote to my MP, Caroline Noakes, making that point and whilst I got an offer to take the matter up with the police, I received no response on the matter of resources.”

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

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.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling