Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series doesn’t merit that description – the motorist overtaking the cyclist passed him so closely that they struck him with the passenger side mirror.
It was submitted by road.cc reader Dave – a past contributor to this series – who told us: “Yet another Northamptonshire “close pass”, the driver was so keen to pass me at the traffic lights the mirror hit me and folded back.”
Fortunately, Dave was able to stay upright and in control of his bicycle, but given this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a rider struck by a vehicle as the motorist overtakes, it does reinforce the case for a minimum safe passing distance.
While the Highway Code tells motorists to give cyclists “at least as much room” as they would when overtaking a car, the wording (if not the picture that accompanies Rule 163) is vague.
The distance of 1.5 metres that West Midlands Police and other forces have adopted as the measure they use to judge whether an overtaking manouevre is safe or not leaves no room for ambiguity – and means that if all motorists did try and adhere to it, even if they did at times stray inside, incidents of the type shown here would be far less common.
> 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@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
12 thoughts on “‘Near Miss’ of the Day 130: Overtaking driver clips cyclist with wing mirror”
Wing mirror actually folded
Wing mirror actually folded in as a result of hitting the cyclist! Outrageous. What will Northants Police do about this one?
This is not a near miss, this
This is not a near miss, this is a collision, did the driver stop at the scene, did they report it.
I hope hope the police hav been informed.
EK Spinner wrote:
This, 100%. If it were a car that’d been hit, etc..
don simon wrote:
Whilst I agree this needs to be reported I disagree about “If it were a car…”
The police are unlikely to show any interest in a car on car wing mirror clash and would just refer it to insurance.
OnTheRopes wrote:
Depends on the circumstances, but sure that you’re right OnTheRopes. Wing mirror to wing mirror, drivers exchange details; nothing to report, nothing to see.
You CAN HAVE collisions which don’t need reporting (to the police) where there is no damage or injury to anyone/object/vehicle/certain animals, because they are non reportable under the Road Traffic Act. They are just collisions or contacts, whatever you want to call them. However, if there IS damage then the DRIVER must provide details to the ‘injured party’, but isn’t required to report to the police (unless the ‘injured party’ can’t be traced. Any injury, (except only to themselves), then MUST report every time.
That’s a very brief summary, but I hope it makes sense. It’s not that straightforward, which is how the police can fob cyclists off.
Definitely time there was a
Definitely time there was a minimum passing distance, which gets bigger the faster the speed limit, but at least a metre, along with automatic prosecution if you hit a cyclist.
Check out the victim’s
Check out the victim’s YouTube channel – some absolute shockers on what appears to be regular route/commute.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzOWQvlLYUX0QLFvQOqsXQ
Welcome to East Northants!
zero_trooper wrote:
Some very near misses on that page
This is my bike after I was
This is my bike after I was clipped by a wing mirror. It’s actually the yellow thing next to the bike. Car hit me that hard the whole unit snapped clean off
I know someone who got a
I know someone who got a contact from a wing mirror, just like this. He whipped out an empty CO2 canister that he had in his jersey pocket, and fired it straight at the rear screen of the offending vehicle. The vehicle then stopped and the cretin driver got out to remonstrate. The rider’s response was “oh now you can see me can you?”
I was hit by a van’s wing
I was hit by a van’s wing mirror a few weeks ago. Contact was hard enough for the wing mirror to come off. Had it all on video, but police didn’t want to watch it as there was no injury or damage (because I was capable enough to ride it out). It’s frustrating to have such an outcome-based system, policing the effects rather than the crime. The same action could easily have caused serious injury or worse.
The funny part of the story is the van driver chased me down to demand payment for the damage I caused, only to realise I had pulled into a police station.
I was clipped by a wing
I was clipped by a wing mirror a few years back when I was on the fixie and ended up in a ditch. The driver to their credit stopped and waited for the ambulance which only really needed to check me over but what was annoying was the police accepted the excuse of the driver she’d forgot her sun glasses and the sun was low and bright :-/