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Near Miss of the Day 247: Motorist pulls alongside, remains alongside, imagines that cyclist has dematerialised
Today’s near miss is only a miss in the sense that the cyclist wasn’t actually knocked off. After driving alongside for a period, the driver in question moves to turn left and makes contact.
The incident occurred on January 27, just before 3pm, at the Barrhead Road/Hurlet Road junction in Glasgow.
The driver begins to overtake as the two approach a junction. Both turn right and then the motorist squeezes the cyclist, Surf Dog, to the kerb as they start to move into a left turn lane without indicating.
“Notice the scratch left on the rear panel of his car,” writes Surf Dog in the video description – implying that this was as a result of the collision.
> 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
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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23 comments
This is about 3 miles from me.
As Giff77 says, that's a horrible junction from every direction and the short section of dual carriageway that takes you towards Paisley is simply horrific.
The driver seems to not give a damn where the cyclist is, I'm guessing because they haven't even looked to see where the cyclist was - possibly on the assumption that the cyclist was turning left given the positioning to the left of the road in the run up to the junction, but equally possibly because they have no idea how to drive around cyclists and are just a tosser.
Unquestionably terrible driving, but in this case, also not a great example of positioning by the cyclist who should have been in at least primary if not on the right hand side of the lane they were in.
Interesting that both Renfrewshire NMotDs have been right at famous West of Scotland cycling bunch meeting points. This one at the Hurlet and a previous at the Renfrew bogs. Quite a coincedence - or is it...
Nah. Renfrewshire drivers are shit and don’t give a toss for anyone else. I’ve a full CD of incidents between Renfrew Bogs and the Barsculle Bridge and the triangle round the airport. It’s really quite depressing.
I kind of get where you're coming from as either way I usually end up being the one that's pissed off. On the otherhand I do tend to wave a bit of a "what the fuck was that" arm in the air or if they're not off in the distance show them an inch using the fingers.
The only alternative I see is that they think their idiocy is acceptable and don't even consider it...
How much risk can you assess your way out of? I presume everyone that has died on the roads is inferior to you and would have survived the speeding drunk driver if they only had more roadcraft?
That’s a particularly nasty junction. Always busy and no matter what direction you approach from it’s an absolute bugger. Like others have said I would have been right out there on the run in to the lights. That lane takes you into Paisley with the option of peeling off for Barrhead. Either way you’re then covered for whatever route you want. The motorist most likely is local and knew exactly what they were doing. I despair of drivers in the Renfrewshire area at the moment. Their road craft has been shockingly abysmal over the last couple of months.
STOP RIDING IN THE GUTTER.
Couldn't agree more
From the video it seems fairly obvious what the twat driver was going to do; I'd have dropped back and let them.
agree but its shouldn't be always the vulnerable road user that has to react to over entitled/ignorant driving - in reality that how it works because serious injury or death is the alternative outcome...I'm old enough and experienced enough to see it coming and react but often after I've had a close encounter that I've reacted to and gone on to get home I wonder what would have happened if one of my now top end teen kids had to work out what they needed to do to avoid a trip in an ambulance
Would that have been whilst doffing your cap and bowing to your motorised overlord?
You are absolutely in the right and, at your funeral I'm sure everyone will be proud of you. "He could have braked and avoided the 10 ton truck; but stuck to his principles shouting, "don't you know the Highway code" they were his last words; the driver clearly didn't".
I've always admired people who would die for a principle; usually buried at Bell End.
So you feel its better to just let drivers who know the law but couldn't give a f-, or drivers who don't even know the law, just get on with it? I disagree. No, I certainly don't want or intend to die any time soon, and I'm sure at my funeral nobody would be proud of me, but what do you suggest? If you just back down every time, slow down, move over, get off the road, even if it is your priority, then how will these p!llocks ever learn?
You crack on and teach them a lesson, clearly God (if there is one) is on your side! With a bit of luck my 42nd year of riding the road will allow me to continue assessing risk as successfully as I have in the past.
Short of adopting the Croydon Zombie Knife Approach these fuckers aren't going to learn off some bloke on a bike. Their minds are closed and they simply don't care. No amount of discussion is going to change their minds and their attitudes.
Having said that, when the adrenaline kicks in after a close pass like that I'm completely with you. I set a New Year's Resolution to try not to rant at drivers whilst I'm out on a ride. Lasted until 2pm on NYD when I picked up my first insane close pass of the year through a mini-roundabout. Woman in a Porsche Cayenne decided she'd have a go at kerb-hopping the bump in the middle whilst passing me at the same time. Things haven't improved since.
Fixed it for you.
So what do you suggest, Brooksby?
Honestly? No idea
BUT I don't think that simply taking avoiding action in every single circumstance ("it seems fairly obvious what the twat driver was going to do; I'd have dropped back and let them" - Legin) and just letting them get on with it is The Answer.
Obviously I'd really rather not die, but (excepting a case where Death or Serious Injury is the only alternative, when I probably would back down) I'm afraid that I do try to assert myself - my position on the road, my right to be on the road - and I hope that by not simply backing down, cap in hand, every time, it will make them think a little. Maybe a very little.
Cyclists have the right to be on the road. (edit:) We are not simply licensed to be on the roads.
And I don't intend to be forced off the road by some small-d!cked tw@t in a leased rep-mobile
(sorry - mixing metaphors a bit there, I think).
A tank
Failing that a paving slab.
This has happened to me a few times, and it seems that once you are out of the driver's eyeline, you don't exist; you are literally not important enough to think about.
You are nothing, zero, zilch, you are just not there.
But it wouldn't be dangerous or careless driving, would it? They just forgot you exist.
Just like the government.
The sun was in my eyes.
Let's face it: there are some motorists who think that if the cyclist is behind their eye line then they've successfully passed them...