If it’s not enough that you have to worry about all the cars and lorries, today’s near miss was delivered by a fellow cyclist.
Henry was about to turn left after leaving Greenwich Park when he was undertaken at speed.
“I was indicating to turn left and there was lots of room to overtake on the right so I don’t know why this guy did this,” he said.
“While we complain (rightly) about close passes from motor vehicles, what can be done about cyclists who behave like this?”
> 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">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
17 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 235: A cyclist undertakes at speed”
Now if only he had a
Now if only he had a registration plate to make him traceable, then obviously the police would have him traced and charged within hours 🙂
Stop……
STRAVA TIME!
Stop……
STRAVA TIME!
Why not just overtake on the
Why not just overtake on the outside?
HawkinsPeter wrote:
Depends where the camera is situated left/right of rider, but as the rider went through the gates it looked to me like there was more room on the left, imperfect road positioning but nothing more, certainly doesn’t invite a high speed undertake.
I might pass on the inside if there is a bigger gap, but anything unconventional like that still requires me to be 100% sure that I have enough margin and fallback plans to avoid anything unwanted happening.
I think the question should be why not overtake at a more sensible speed or exercise caution. I think an experienced and sensible rider could see it wasn’t a smart place to pass (gates, pedestrians, slow rider, shoulder check).
We all know there are plenty of idiots on the road. I’m sure some of them ride bikes AND drive cars. At least this overtake wasn’t highly likely to end in death or serious injury.
ChrisB200SX wrote:
That makes sense.
I wouldn’t trust undertaking a cyclist as most wouldn’t bother checking their inside before turning left (I rarely do unless there’s a big gap).
I’d argue that the undertaker
I’d argue that the undertaker did the undertaking because the turner moved towards the right hand side of the lane (probably in readiness to turn), and in doing so gave the approaching cyclist no option to overtake on the right. the gate stopped the approachign cyclist from using the other lane in good time.
That doesn’t explain why the undertaker didn’t just slow down. This was either a demonstration of poor decision making on their part, or a lack of, or ambiguous, signalling on behalf of the turning cyclist. Maybe a bit of both.
You see similar all the time at roundabout too… with cars going up the left of lorries who are in fact turning left but have moved towards the right hand lane in order to set up for the left turn.
Seemed as if that cyclist was
Seemed as if that cyclist was moving faster than his brain could make a decision about how to react to the headcam guy preparing to turn (so ended up with the sub-optimal choice of ‘whizz past on the inside’). He either needs to cycle slower or learn to think faster.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
that seems correct to me. He has come down the hill from the top of the park as fast as gravity, his legs and his gears will allow. It’s an exceptionally dangerous place to do that.
That happened to me a few
That happened to me a few months ago. Cycling along a road towards four way junction, cyclist in front moves across to right, I’m going straight ahead so overtake on the left, and the fecker decides to turn left, without a hand signal! Very lucky not to collide with him at speed.
Best not to swing out right to give yourself a bigger radius, just slow and turn left, because moving to the right – as in this video – is very ambiguous.
matthewn5 wrote:
Or you could try not undertaking, especially at a junction. There is a good reason why the Highway Code tells you you must not do either. I’m sorry but if you had crashed in that situation it would have been your fault.
John Smith wrote:
Quite right, but I’d assumed from road positioning that the other guy was turning right, because he swung right. Lesson for me, and I’ve been cycling 53 years.
matthewn5 wrote:
It’s worth bearing in mind that a swing to the right before a left turn actually sets you up better to make the corner. In motorcycling, countersteering is something many experienced riders will be able to explain. Basically, you push the bars the ‘wrong’ way to make the bike lean into the curve. Countersteering is something an experienced car driver will do too. There’s no reason why an experience cyclist who understands the laws of motion wouldn’t do this too. The rider overtaking on the inside is simply stupid.
OldRidgeback wrote:
Sorry this is wrong. Moving to the right, gives you a more open corner to take – the racing line! The counter-steering you are talking about for motorcycles – and bicycles, is because gyroscopic progression causes the wheel to “fall down” in the direction you want it to. If you tried to steer the handlebars in the same way as you would when going slowly, say like you were on a bike with stabilisers, you will fall off! Counter-steering in a car is only used if you’ve got to the point that the slip angle at the rear exceeds the slip angle requried to take the corner – opposite lock, drifting, Scandinavian flick, etc.
One word: Lifesaver*
One word: Lifesaver*
* Like wot motorcyclists is taught.
I do this route every morning
I do this route every morning. 50%+ of cyclists will be turning left here (to avoid the nasty town centre gyratory).The cyclist undertaking looks like he speeds down here every morning (bearing in mind he has just passed over some dodgy cobbles with massive gaps inbetween) and is basically a numpty and should know better.
#twatonabike
#twatonabike
It’s not a race, but if you
It’s not a race, but if you are going to corner as it were then check the inside and don’t leave the door wide open.
There’s no reason to take the racing line in this sort of situation, it just confuses and impedes others.