Unless it ends up in court, typically the cyclist on the receiving end of a close pass will never find out who the driver was who put them in danger – not so in the latest submission to our Near Miss of the Day series from road.cc reader Ali, however, since the motorist turned out to be … his neighbour.
“This is by no means the closest pass I've ever had but you certainly notice it when a tank-sized BMW passes without leaving much space,” Ali told us.
“Even more noticeable about these ‘LOOK AT ME’ vehicles is that they are instantly recognisable.
“In this case, the BMW belongs to my neighbour.
“I wonder how he'd feel explaining to my family that a couple of seconds of his life were more important than the rest of mine.
“It just takes one slip, one pothole, one drain,” he added. “I should take primary more often.”
> 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
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.