Near Miss of the Day 919: Driver makes shockingly pointless close pass on cyclist... and is found not guilty in court

A cyclist who submitted footage of a close pass to the police has been left disappointed after the driver responsible was found not guilty in court.

The video [below] shows the moment the cyclist was overtaken by the driver of a people carrier on Bath Road in Bristol, the motorist impatiently squeezing past the rider, apparently in a hurry to get stopped in traffic a couple of seconds sooner.

At the time of the incident the driver would have passed a vehicle waiting to turn right across the left-hand lane. The overtake risked pushing the cyclist towards a parked car at the side of the road, and a collision was only just averted.

road.cc reader Tom reported the footage to Avon & Somerset Police and the case was taken to court, the driver pleading not guilty to alleged offences of driving without due care and attention, as well as failing to give information relating to the identification of the driver.

At Bath Magistrates' Court last week, the driver was found not guilty, Tom telling us he "can only really speculate as to why" but guessing "because they couldn't prove [the driver] was behind the wheel".

By the time the driver was found not guilty it was the afternoon and Tom had gone home, the case originally scheduled for 10am but delayed for multiple hours as the defendant was late.

We've contacted the court to confirm the details. Avon & Somerset Police chose not to comment for this article.

Figures revealed late last year show that there have been more than 200,000 video submissions of dangerous driving and other incidents on the roads of England and Wales that have been made through Operation SNAP's online reporting portal since the start of 2021.

Avon & Somerset was the top region for reports, with 19,949 across the three years and slightly ahead of West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

> 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