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Near Miss of the Day 343: A Christmas catalogue ... of poor driving

Our regular feature showing close passes from around the country ... today, it's Lancashire...

Ah, Christmas. A time of peace and goodwill to all people on earth ... although as one road.cc reader found out earlier this week, that doesn't necessarily apply if you're a cyclist.

In the video above, there's a succession of instances of poor driving encountered in just one ride around Preston a couple of days before Christmas by road.cc reader Jon.

Jon told us: "Before a ride with some club mates I had a very bad close pass on the way to meet them.

"Then on the ride we had the 'I've got a car so need to be in front attitude', then a rider snapped his chain, and all finished off by a left hook.

"Everyone is in a rush at Christmas," he added.

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

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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15 comments

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Griff500 | 4 years ago
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The guy in the red car who cut in before the island should have been reported, and video supplied. But as CXR said, the cyclists should have claimed the lane. Also the white van - video evidence should have made this an open and closed case. Guy in the jag just seemed to be in his own little world, ignorant of everything going on around him. Probably had Wagner playing at full volume on the radio.

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Awavey replied to Griff500 | 4 years ago
1 like

Griff500 wrote:

The guy in the red car who cut in before the island should have been reported, and video supplied. But as CXR said, the cyclists should have claimed the lane. Also the white van - video evidence should have made this an open and closed case. Guy in the jag just seemed to be in his own little world, ignorant of everything going on around him. Probably had Wagner playing at full volume on the radio.

possibly given the way the road was leading out into that mini roundabout a foot further to the right might have been enough to stop them trying anything stupid.

but we shouldnt have to ride like that is the point for me, theres no way people should be overtaking on that road like that, and it means you have to concentrate harder on not just the immediate dangers around you like potholes/slippy surfaces/maybe someone is going to appear unsighted at the roundabout on the left, or someone is going to try and turn right infront of you,but try and predict the next two sets of moves as well, it makes riding a bike unnecessarily fraught and stressful.

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Griff500 replied to Awavey | 4 years ago
3 likes
Awavey wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

The guy in the red car who cut in before the island should have been reported, and video supplied. But as CXR said, the cyclists should have claimed the lane. Also the white van - video evidence should have made this an open and closed case. Guy in the jag just seemed to be in his own little world, ignorant of everything going on around him. Probably had Wagner playing at full volume on the radio.

possibly given the way the road was leading out into that mini roundabout a foot further to the right might have been enough to stop them trying anything stupid.

but we shouldnt have to ride like that is the point for me.......

It's a fair point. When driving, while I am happy to make it easy for somebody who's obviously in a hurry, to pass me, I never feel as if I have to "control" the car behind. On the bike however, it's almost as if I regularly have to control the car behind, claiming the lane on approach to blind bends and junctions, but moving further left when I consider it safe for them to overtake. Sad that so many idiots can't make those decisions for themselves.

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CXR94Di2 | 4 years ago
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The driving was very poor. There is alot the cyclist could do to stop drivers causing potential issues. Where the driver tried to squeeze between the rider and central island. The rider should have taken the lane and ridden central. The other occasion the two riders became separated by 20 yds causing a gap for the stupid driver to get by and left hook the lead rider. If they had ridden two abreast then it less likely the driver would have attempted a pass before the junction.

Don't get me wrong the drivers were not thinking and being safe Driver education needs to be drastically improved. Cyclists can do alot to protect themselves by positioning in the road

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alchemilla | 4 years ago
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Doesn't even look that bad to me, it's just normal driving behaviour here in Hampshire.

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Mungecrundle | 4 years ago
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Starting with a basic inability to look further ahead than the end of the bonnet, which then means an inability to plan and take action not to pass at a pinch point.

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iandusud | 4 years ago
1 like

"big car, big dick" - I think it's probably the opposite!

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CyclingInBeastMode | 4 years ago
0 likes

25th was fine, my time into work at 7:40 I saw two cars, left at 12 and a few more cars but all ok.

Back in work this morning and already the bell-ends were out, couple of not so great but not crazy overtakes and then later on a couple more crappy ones but did have some good patient drivers to sort of balance things.

Sometimes too much space for drivers makes matters worse and agree it's just dangerous driving, there's a choice to give space but they don't, ergo it's deliberate. Whether the intent to ahrm is there or not the end result is the same far too often.

 

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huntswheelers | 4 years ago
4 likes

out on Christmas day...10 close passes on empty roads...lets face it, close passes are deliberate...either due to Cycle hate, Lazy driving or both..... either way yesterday on clear open roads, dry and sunny weather it was totally inexcusable...

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roubaixcobbles | 4 years ago
1 like

The first one, "Not a good pass on a blind summit", is not a close pass at all - the driver has given the rider at least 1.5m - and it's not a blind summit: as we can see from the rider's POV the pass was made well past the crest of the summit with a clear view of oncoming traffic.  The other three are pretty awful though.

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crazy-legs replied to roubaixcobbles | 4 years ago
3 likes

Roubaixcobbles wrote:

The first one, "Not a good pass on a blind summit", is not a close pass at all - the driver has given the rider at least 1.5m - and it's not a blind summit: as we can see from the rider's POV the pass was made well past the crest of the summit with a clear view of oncoming traffic.  The other three are pretty awful though.

Yes and no. The rider has nowhere to go in case of emergency, there's a steel railing fence on his left. The driver shouldn't be crossing the hatched markings (although on a slightly unrelated point, the use of hatchings annoys the fuck out of me because it's basically a huge waste of tarmac). And overtaking on a descent (as the rider is starting the drop off the bridge) is a bloody stupid move too as the cyclist is speeding up so it makes safely judging such an overtake very difficult. Most drivers are completely unaware of how much a bike speed can go up and down on terrain.

Rider cresting a hill (and going relatively slowly), driver behind thinking "bloody cyclist, going slow, MGIF" without ever thinking "hang on a sec, the road starts to descend so the cyclist will speed up and will need increased space in front of them so I'll just hang back a sec while I work out their speed change..."

So for all the above, I'm going with shit pass, completely unnecessary.

 

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efail | 4 years ago
2 likes

The other day, with a friend, crossing an island over the M6 in Cumbria, a car shielded by a lorry, had to pull up dead sharp when he realised there were two bikes in front of him. He apologised profusely through the windscreen. As he went down the road, he gave us a wide berth, and waved again. Further down the road, there was a man standing by a house. It was him. He waved us down and couldn't have been more apologetic. There are some nice people out there.

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crazy-legs | 4 years ago
4 likes

Christmas driving is far worse than normal.

Everyone is in a rush, they're quite often in an unfamiliar area (eg folk visiting family that they only see a couple of times a year), the weather is crap, it's dark, the car is probably full of hyper screaming kids and it's a fair probability that the driver will have had some alcohol recently.

Most people simply aren't used to doing long drives; they do the same old commute/school run for 95% of the year and then suddenly they're on long-distance stuff, blindly following the satnav and in a rush. Basically, fuck everyone/everything else on the roads, so long as I get to Aunty Mabel's in time for turkey.

 

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bike_food | 4 years ago
0 likes

Bellends, I got a seasonal close pass from a lovely person at 5:30 this morning, boxing Day, zero traffic, wide road, I guess a clunge is a clunge no matter the time of year.

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Hirsute | 4 years ago
1 like

Usual shite driving.

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