Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows not one but two cyclists getting a close pass from the same driver – but as the road.cc reader who submitted the footage has found out before, there’s something of a postcode lottery at work in whether police act on the video.
It was shot earlier this week by Mike, who said: “Here's a video of me and a fellow cyclist getting a dose of impatience from a driver on Tuesday.”
We know that some police forces are hot on acting on videos such as this – West Midlands Police, for example, who pioneered the close pass initiative since adopted by forces across the country, or Surrey Police, who on their Twitter account regularly correct motorists’ misconceptions about the law as it applies to cyclists.
Not so in Mike’s part of the world, however. “I’m not even considering police, last time I enquired with Wiltshire Police they told me unless there's a collision they're not interested,” he told us.
> 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
Most certainly report it to the licensing authority, they may (rather than 'will) take it more seriously than the Police.
Are Strava only using their commute tag to identify commute rides or some form of big data mangling that they use for metro data instead ?...
Well, yes, that's kinda my point. I think stating that "Norway is socialist" is a questionable perspective. I'd say it was a Nordic social...
The Be Calm section - 100% ...
Now, if we're talking gravel bikes, that's a whole different story. Gimme, gimme, gimme! Apologies for the Facebook link....
The police are operationally independent, in fact the regional Police and Crime Commissioners have to swear in their oath of office that they will...
"'Right", said Fred, "we'll 'ave to get a move on…"
IIRC Dutch researchers found that generally banning bikes or removing bans on bikes from pedestrianised streets usually either made no difference...
Thanks for the review. I like that Orbea have included aero extras and wish more manufacturers would stick two fingers up at the UCI - at least in...
Excellent - I think I'll replace my emergency tube that is a real squeeze to get into the little Topeak bottle cage bag thingy....