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news
Driver ordered to pay £1,300 after cyclist close pass Near Miss of the Day 904: Driver ordered to pay £1,300 and gets six penalty points for cyclist close pass
A driver of a company-branded vehicle who close passed a cyclist — almost hitting the rider with the trailer the van was towing at the time — has been fined £700, ordered to pay more than £600 in costs and received six penalty points.
The road.cc reader who filmed the driving reported it to Merseyside Police in July last year and was informed in March that the case had gone to court, the driver being fined £700, ordered to pay court costs of £350, and a £288 victim surcharge, the total sum coming to £1,338, as well as their driving licence receiving six penalty points.
"This close pass happened in July last year near to Southport," the road.cc reader explained. "I'd forgotten all about it until I received an email from Merseyside Police about the verdict from the court case in March of this year.
"In the video you can hear me swear because of the closeness of the pass, plus two weeks before this I arrived 10 minutes after a cyclist had been run over by an HGV [being driven] near the Trafford Centre in Manchester, where members of the public were doing CPR on the casualty. Sadly, the cyclist died. It was an horrific sight and so this was in the back of my mind.
"I sent the video to the police and noted that the vehicle also had no MOT. The driver received a £700 fine, 6 points, £288 victim surcharge and court costs of £350. This is the first time that any of my submissions have gone to court. It has usually just been a warning letter or driver awareness cause."
> 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
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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31 comments
What is missing here is a serious compensation payment, imo.
And the Careless charge is a sick joke. It is at least Reckless.
Reckless doesn't exist as a charge in the UK, it's either careless or dangerous.
When are they going to start fining bikers for all their crazy manovers
You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkCpA91NqBw
One of those where you think "c'mon mate, gimme some space"... and then have the chilling moment where you realise there's a trailer to come too.
Some people - even so-called "professional" drivers - just really aren't very good at handling a trailer (or caravan, or any other "thing being towed"). I remember having the front bumper and one wing taken off my car by the trailer of a lorry, years ago.
Do you have to do a separate test to be allowed to tow or can anyone just go ahead and do it?
You can tow a trailer up to 750 kg behind a car, or a trailer of more than that weight provided it doesn't exceed the unladen weight of your vehicle, on an ordinary licence, you need an extra test for larger trailers. Which seems to me quite absurd, having nearly been taken out by inexpertly managed trailers a number of times (once even when waiting on the pavement as a pedestrian to cross at a junction when a trailer swung over the kerb) it appears patently obvious that it's a skill that has to be taught and properly tested for people to undertake it safely on the roads.
what do we think a horse box with a horse inside weighs? more or less than a typical SUV?
When I was nearly killed by a trailer it was oncoming on a narrow lane, I was right at the edge of the tarmac, and the car passed quite close to me. The trailer was wider and I had to dive for the verge not to be flattened. The thought that this person would have had to pass some sort of enhanced test and still did that is concerning.
remember folks be kind to horse riders when passing them, as they totally will reciprocate.
Just checked the codes on the back of my licence (only passed a standard car test in 1988) and can drive a car up to 3500kg with any weight of trailer as long as its within the vehicle towing limits (passing post 2013 is trailer limit of 750kg), and any larger vehicle with trailer up to 8250kg (pre 1997 7500kg + 750kg). So I think Oldfatgit is right, if you passed a car test back in the old days, there's grandfather rights. I don't think I'd take on 7.5t without some extra tuition even though I am permitted to do so.
That's right. My license goes back to the eighties so I can tow the higher weights mentioned. In the same way I can drive a 15 seater minibus as opposed to the 12 seater and actually drove both for about 10years. I can also operate a rigid lorry up to 7.5 tonnes. Mind you I've no desire to do any of these any longer. If I need to shift volume I hire a transit as I don't like the feel of a totally independent attachment to the car.
I have moved countries several times and so have had drivers licenses converted between many jurisdictions (all without ever having to redo the test). At some point I picked up the right to drive tanks and similar vehicles (but only small ones) despite never having done so. Sadly now I won't get the chance because the last time I had to change my license they apologised and said they didn't actually have a category for that on a civilian license.
Is that like "pygmy blue whale" - or one of these?
My granny started driving before driving tests were implemented. When they were, she was grandfathered (grandmothered?) in, and she ticked all the boxes on the form, so she was licenced to drive everything and that carried through until she stopped driving in her nineties after a bad crash.
The answer to that is very dependant on when you passed your driving test as the classes of vehicle covered by the basic test were changed in Jan 1997 to remove trailers and heavier vehicles, though I think some may have been reintroduced in 2021 (not sure on that bit)
The heavier vehcles part then also changes once the driver turns 70 as it needs to be applied for seperatly when reneing licences and requires a medical certificate (this catches out quite a few older motorhome owners)
Checked up, they didn't remove the ability to drive a trailer on a normal licence in 1997 but it was limited, further changes were made in 2013 but apparently since 2021 anyone can drive pulling a trailer up to 3.5 tonnes on a standard car licence without any training or testing, which is ridiculous.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-rules-for-towing-a-trailer-or-caravan-wi...
I always thought trailers were covered under grandfather rights.
But then, I also had a C+E, so it would have been really absurd to be done for towing a 5ft single axle when I'd normally be towing something 9 times the size.
I was born in Southport which was in Lancashire at the time. I couldn't remember when it became part of Mersyside so I googled it and came up with this link.
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/should-southport-rejoin-lanc...
I wondered how wtjs would advise cyclists to vote.
I wondered how wtjs would advise cyclists to vote
I don't have a view on this, other than to commend Southport as the northern terminus of the excellent Merseyrail. The PCC is up for election here so I voted, of course, anti-Tory as always- even though I'm opposed to PCCs as useless police mouthpieces
I was implying that if Southport were still in Lancashire then this would have beene NFA and the driver would carry on putting cyclists lives in danger. I thought you may have a view on that.
I was implying that if Southport were still in Lancashire then this would have been NFA and the driver would carry on putting cyclists lives in danger
Fair enough. I am absolutely certain that if Southport was still in Lancashire, the offence would have been NFA'd immediately, just like this one by a Stagecoach 42 driver will be, by the expletive deleted-expletive deleted Lancashire Constabulary expletive deleteds, and just like all the other Stagecoach bus offences
https://upride.cc/incident/px62cea_stagecoach42_uwlcrossclosepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/px12eez_stagecoach41_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/px12dne_stagecoach42bus_closepass/
Or offences by other buses and lorries
https://upride.cc/incident/yj60kgzar12way_brethertonsarchwaybuses_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/yn67mvj_sainsburys44tonner_closepass/ etc. etc
And just to emphasise how I obviously need more 'training' on how to avoid such incidents- I should pay more attention to the helpful Stagecoach warning on the back of the bus
What a weird illustration of a bike, looks like a time trial Moulton! Perhaps nobody has explained to the drivers what bikes actually look like so they don't see you…
Extra shit points for doing it when there was zero traffic coming on the other side of the road.
What's happening recently? This cyclist even swears yet the driver gets convicted and everything...
In Merseyside that's just an everyday greeting 😉
Flipping hopeless driver - what a pillock! Pure incompetence! A solid hit to the wallet is a win.
The fact that this went to court assumedly meaning the driver thought this driving was defensible?
Exactly what I thought
He held his line. Not his fault there was a kink in the road.
It would still go to court even if there is a guilty plea in advance of the hearing. This is because the magistrate needs to see the evidence and hear any mitigating circumstances before setting the penalty.
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