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Close pass with car approaching

Near Miss of the Day 277: Unsafe and illegal close overtake of cyclist with car approaching

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's Surrey...
by Simon_MacMichael
Mon, Jun 10, 2019 17:39
10

Highway Code rule 163 tells motorists  to "Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so," and that they should "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car."

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

> What to do next if you’ve been involved in a road traffic collision

Today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series, though, shows the opposite - a driver squeezing past a cyclist on a narrow road despite the fact that there is a car coming in the opposite direction, making it unsafe and illegal, and with the rider given just inches of room.

Surrey Police's Roads Policing Unit, as you may know, regularly call out drivers on Twitter over their ignorance of the law, including setting straight misconceptions over what cyclists can and cannot do, but this close pass happened on their patch, near Weybridge.

It was filmed by road.cc reader Bryan, who told us: "I was out cycling and I caught this close pass ahead. The cyclist in front is an unknown and to be honest, I don't think he even knew how close the car actually was.

"I heard the car was behind me and unsure if was still approaching until it was beside me, I also saw the gap closing with the oncoming car.

"It goes to show, these close passes are probably a lot more common than we all realise," he added.

> 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.

Near Miss of the Day
NMotD Surrey
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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10 comments

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growingvegtables | 5 years ago
2 likes

Sh!t driving.

 

And I'm not accepting any amount of "blue lines",  casual "I don’t think that was  particularly close, I’ve seen much worse", or any other piss-poor excuses for a piece of piss-poor driving. 

Avatar
CXR94Di2 replied to growingvegtables | 5 years ago
1 like

growingvegtables wrote:

Sh!t driving.

 

And I'm not accepting any amount of "blue lines",  casual "I don’t think that was  particularly close, I’ve seen much worse", or any other piss-poor excuses for a piece of piss-poor driving. 

 

It was extremely poor standard of driving.  There are techniques which can reduce or eliminate certain incidents from happening. Positioning is a vital one, put yourself in the correct part of the road and these squeeze by passes are vastly reduced. 

Eg when riding down a road with lots of central road furniture, the best place to ride is absolutely central to discourage drivers from making a pass whilst at the pinch point, but also between pinch points.

My default position is now the 'Blue line' unless there is a continuous cycle way. 

Avatar
danhopgood | 5 years ago
2 likes

I think the Corsa driver saw the first cyclist, but wasn't  looking properly and didn't take account of the second cyclist, or the one coming the other way.  They committed to the first overtake and got caught out.  I think they were trying to keep away from the cyclists - very close indeed against the big 4x4 thingy. 

There are lots of inexperienced drivers out there who are going to make mistakes like this and "get away with it" as the law currently stands.  Driver training about planning and loking ahead would help with this, but learning to drive is long and expensive enough for most of society already....

Avatar
CXR94Di2 | 5 years ago
3 likes

Again riding too close to kerb. 

Ride 1 to 1.5metres out from edge. 

It would significntly reduce stupid passes like above and give rider a bigger area to move into 

Avatar
redrobot | 5 years ago
0 likes

cyclist had enough room tho driver was going too fast and was much closer to car on other side of road. also, car over took on a bend. also road markings show someone thought it was ok to overtake on a bend when you can see cyclist and car coming other way. so possible scenario = legal overtaking of 2 cyclists on bend by 2 cars  = head on collision. you can understand rush hr drivers getting frustrated by cyclists holding up traffic and doing something aggressive (understanding is not approving). british roads werent meant for cylists and cars. by the same token british buses take up more than a lane of the city in which i live so they are constantly squeezing cars onto the other side of the road. why is this legal? cant someone build a narrower bus? 

Avatar
Judge dreadful | 5 years ago
1 like

I don’t think that was  particularly close, I’ve seen much worse. It wasn’t great, but the intent from the driver seemed to be to not squeeze the rider unnecessarily. I think it was a case of misjudgment rather than malice. A ‘scare letter’ from plod would probably wake him / her up enough.

Avatar
CXR94Di2 replied to Judge dreadful | 5 years ago
1 like

Judge dreadful wrote:

I don’t think that was  particularly close, I’ve seen much worse. It wasn’t great, but the intent from the driver seemed to be to not squeeze the rider unnecessarily. I think it was a case of misjudgment rather than malice. A ‘scare letter’ from plod would probably wake him / her up enough.

 

You are correct, there was no intent to deliberately injure by overtaking.  But, their stupidity could of caused a very serious incident. 

Riders needs to position themselves more central, eliminate the thought to the driver,   'Can I squeeze by'?  

That would of offered far better protection to the cyclist.

I would be holding the Blue line.

Avatar
jh27 replied to CXR94Di2 | 5 years ago
1 like

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Judge dreadful wrote:

I don’t think that was  particularly close, I’ve seen much worse. It wasn’t great, but the intent from the driver seemed to be to not squeeze the rider unnecessarily. I think it was a case of misjudgment rather than malice. A ‘scare letter’ from plod would probably wake him / her up enough.

 

You are correct, there was no intent to deliberately injure by overtaking.  But, their stupidity could of caused a very serious incident. 

Riders needs to position themselves more central, eliminate the thought to the driver,   'Can I squeeze by'?  

That would of offered far better protection to the cyclist.

I would be holding the Blue line.

 

Yep, a lot more people are killed or seriously injured by stupidity/misjudgement than by intent.  Holding the blue line, you will get the occasional idiot who is triggered by this (like the Mercedes driving BMW driver on the live blog) - but the effect on most drivers is to cause them to think more before attempting to overtake.

Avatar
kil0ran | 5 years ago
5 likes

Impressive - three cyclists, two cars, and a lump of road furniture put at risk in one pass. Gotta love them Corsaboyz

Avatar
Rick_Rude | 5 years ago
1 like

I'm sure it will receive the usual 'not enough evidence' or 'not in public interest to persue' if passed to the police. 

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