Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day series comes from Norway and shows the driver of an electric car pretty much all over the road as they try – unsuccessfully – to get in front of a cyclist.
It was filmed in Stavanger by road.cc reader Stuart, who lives there. He told us: “Heading downhill sitting pretty much on the 30km/h limit and a Zoe (I hate electric cars sneaking up on me too) decides she wants to try to pass, over the speed humps, with an oncoming cyclist, heading into the right hand bend where 90+ per cent of all traffic on 2 and 4 wheels makes a left turn (including me).
”Pretty sure her left rear tyre mounts the opposite kerb too taking the junction totally on the wrong side,” he added.
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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.
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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.
33 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 296: Poor driving in electric car”
Electric cars suck. They do
Electric cars suck. They do actually sneak up on you. I was out thinking I had nothing behind and there was one of those mini BMW things up my arse.
Apart from that i don’t how they make any economic sense at their current price point and with nonsense like battery rental at £70 a month. I don’t even spend £70 on petrol a month.
Rick_Rude wrote:
And neither do they save the planet, having a lifetime CO2 footprint between 80-109% of an ICE car. But there is some great marketing out there, persuading the gullible that they are so, so green. They don’t do anything for congestion, tyre and brake dust, danger, or anything much apart from local pollution from exhaust gases.
burtthebike wrote:
And neither do they save the planet, having a lifetime CO2 footprint between 80-109% of an ICE car. But there is some great marketing out there, persuading the gullible that they are so, so green. They don’t do anything for congestion, tyre and brake dust, danger, or anything much apart from local pollution from exhaust gases.— Rick_Rude
If you only look at lifetime CO2 by assuming a worst case scenario for electricity generation, no recycling of batteries at the end of their life and ignore the environmental cost of extracting oil from the ground, refining it and transporting it to a fuel station before even putting it through your ICE.
Brake dust? Most electric vehicles make use of regenerative braking, so much less.
Reduction in local pollution? As in: Nitrous oxides, PM10 and smaller, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and other exhaust gasses? That is hardly of trivial benefit considering the estimated 50,000 early deaths a year in the UK attributed to local air quality and the millions of people exposed to a lifetime of air pollution.
Tyre and road wear, congestion and drivers not killing other road users require different solutions. Those I will concede.
Maybe it is you being suckered in by the climate change deniers and their corporate sponsors.
burtthebike wrote:
And neither do they save the planet, having a lifetime CO2 footprint between 80-109% of an ICE car. But there is some great marketing out there, persuading the gullible that they are so, so green. They don’t do anything for congestion, tyre and brake dust, danger, or anything much apart from local pollution from exhaust gases.— Rick_Rude
If you only look at lifetime CO2 by assuming a worst case scenario for electricity generation, no recycling of batteries at the end of their life and ignore the environmental cost of extracting oil from the ground, refining it and transporting it to a fuel station before even putting it through your ICE.
Brake dust? Most electric vehicles make use of regenerative braking, so much less.
Reduction in local pollution? As in: Nitrous oxides, PM10 and smaller, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and other exhaust gasses? That is hardly of trivial benefit considering the estimated 50,000 early deaths a year in the UK attributed to local air quality and the millions of people exposed to a lifetime of air pollution.
Tyre and road wear, congestion and drivers not killing other road users require different solutions. Those I will concede.
Maybe it is you being suckered in by the climate change deniers and their corporate sponsors.
Mungecrundle wrote:
And neither do they save the planet, having a lifetime CO2 footprint between 80-109% of an ICE car. But there is some great marketing out there, persuading the gullible that they are so, so green. They don’t do anything for congestion, tyre and brake dust, danger, or anything much apart from local pollution from exhaust gases.
— burtthebike If you only look at lifetime CO2 by assuming a worst case scenario for electricity generation, no recycling of batteries at the end of their life and ignore the environmental cost of extracting oil from the ground, refining it and transporting it to a fuel station before even putting it through your ICE.— Rick_Rude
Which bit of “lifetime” did you misunderstand?
Rick_Rude wrote:
I’m sure pedestrians sometimes feel the same about bikes which silently materialise in some situations.
They make sense to anyone
They make sense to anyone prepared to pay the premium as an early technology adopter. If a few enthusiasts had not spent fortunes on early flat panel TVs then the rest of us could not now buy ridiculously nice lcd panels for a few £hundred. TV might not be your thing, but the same argument holds for pretty much any modern technology including fancy carbon bicycle frames and components made from exotic alloys.
My brother has just taken delivery of a Tesla III. Yes it was expensive, but he generates all the power he uses from solar. Incidentally the performance is staggering, all the more so for being virtually silent.
As for being silent, I see this as a positive. I was actually pretty vexed when that legislation was recently announced about electric cars needing to make a noise. Surely that just plays into the idea that the driver is not responsible for making sure they don’t run pedestrians etc over. If for some reason a driver needs to alert another road user to their presence then electric cars like any other have to have a horn. See highway code for details.
Elon Musk is the PT Barnum of
Elon Musk is the PT Barnum of the automotive industry. Tesla are still losing £700m a quarter and the company was literally just subsidies at ones point.
Early adopters are generally either rich or stupid or both. You usually get the worst version of the tech at the highest prices. I remember my mate buying a 42inch plasma for some stupid amount of money. A few years later it was viewed as laughably shit and also worthless second hand. A bit like current older electric cars whose batteries may need replacing at great cost . I still think electric only cars are just a stop gap technology until something better comes along.
Electric cars are heavily
Electric cars are heavily subsidised in Norway with tax breaks available, and the Norwegians generate nearly all their electricity using Hydro power (Electricity in Norway is more expensive in the summer as the reservoirs are not as full) so they probably make slighty more sense (CO2 wise) over there than in the UK where we still burn a lot of carbon.
gmac101 wrote:
We hit 50% of UK electricity from low carbon/renewables last year so we’re getting there.
I saw some figures recently suggesting an electric car in the UK has the same CO2/km as a very good hybrid once you consider manufacturing etc.
As our electricity supply gets greener and electric car manufacturing gets more efficient the numbers should get better every year.
Tragically, as they currently
Tragically, as they currently exist, electric cars just continue the paradigm of established internal combustion cars, heavy armoured over powerful vehicles that are for that reason inherently inefficient and hazardous to other travellers. Every watt hour of renewable generation capacity expended on electric vehicles is not available for substituting for fossil fuelled space, water heating and other power uses, hence it is not as carbon emission free as people would like to claim.
I was harassed recently on
I was harassed recently on Pitfield Street (a 20mph limit cycle “superhighway”) by the driver of an electric car, for taking the lane. The instant response offered by an electric powertrain made it even easier to drive the car like a prat than an ICE model, the driver speeding up, cutting in front of me and brake testing much more easily than they’d be able to if driving your average ICE-powered car. I was actually quite taken aback by the way the thing (a BMW i3) built and lost speed, despite having driven one myself a few times.
I do wonder about the ‘whole
I do wonder about the ‘whole life’ environmental costs of electric cars. I’m not presuming what the answer is, but batteries in general are a problem in a lot of different ways. Though these calculations always seem horrifically complicted – I guess you’d have to balance it against the costs of producing and distrubuting gasoline.
I don’t think there’s much doubt that if they become affordable that’s what the majority will go for, as opposed to having to engage in any physical exertion. And the roads will continue to be dominated by badly-driven and selfishly-parked motorised vehicles and I’ll continue to regularly mutter the c-word under my breath when cycling or walking.
Infrastructure seems a bit of a problem, though – I already see electric leads draped out of third-floor windows and across pavements. More motorist-lawbreaking that gets ignored.
From a selfish point of view,
From a selfish point of view, I’m a fan of electric vehicles just to reduce the exhaust fumes. I also like the idea of quiet vehicles – pedestrians shouldn’t need to hear a vehicle in order to not be struck by it (though the iZombies may get a few surprises if they walk blindly into roads).
However, they do perpetuate the massive-box style of transportation which isn’t so good for cities, but then electric scooters have their own issues.
Oh listen to you bunch of
Oh listen to you bunch of whinging losers.
I drive a Tesla Model S and with the great tax breaks I get to drive a 100k euro car for just 3k per year, with performance that blows the doors off any other car on the road. Nothing about being an eco-warrior believe me!
As for sneaking up on cyclists, true up to about 25kph but above that the tyre and wind noise is the same as a normal car so it isnt an issue (unless the cyclist has earplugs in- very common here in Holland).
The poor passing attempt in the video has nothing to do with the car being electric, its the nob driving it.
Expatpat wrote:
Is that
Expatpat, Vice President in Charge of PR, Tesla Corporation?
It’s only a 100K car because
It’s only a 100K car because that’s what the sticker on it says. Other 100K list cars are much better looking and better built. Like you, nobody pays that much to drive it. You’re actually driving a 30K white good and paying the appropriate monthly.
Nope, it is a good looking
Nope, it is a good looking car and easily outperforms whatever gas guzzler you aspire to, so curb your jealousy.
Would even blow the doors off Mike Spence on a Nantucket cyclepath.
Expatpat wrote:
“Someone doesn’t like my expensive thing, they must be jealous!”
You’ve no idea what’s in my garage – suffice to say, I’m about as jealous of your Tesla as I am of your washing machine.
I realise that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but good looking? Compared to what!?
srchar wrote:
I actually have a Miele washing machine which you would be totally jealous of too.
And I do have an idea what’s in your garage- probably a Skoda Yeti or a Seat Mii.
Expatpat wrote:
Good grief. Go jerk off over your washing machine if you’re so proud of it…
vonhelmet wrote:
I actually have a Miele washing machine which you would be totally jealous of too.
And I do have an idea what’s in your garage- probably a Skoda Yeti or a Seat Mii.
— srcharGood grief. Go jerk off over your washing machine if you’re so proud of it…— Expatpat
Freud would have a thing or two to discuss with you…..
People who don’t understand
People who don’t understand electric transport and energy sourcing would do well to keep quiet and not expose their ignorance. Best to leave it to those who know 😉
25,000 miles in the last 12 months and I’ve burnt zero diesel aswell as saving a lot of money, also my electricity is all renewable. My battery is not leased and has an 8 year warranty. (BMW top tech bods think the batteries will last way longer than they had originally hoped.) Electric car batteries will be upcycled or recycled as the technology process evolves.
(I can’t really commute 43 miles into London each day, especially with a fully ruptured achilles. And well, I can’t afford a £6000 per year season ticket for the shite
publicprivate transport system that boils people to death in summer and has the worst pollution in London, along with taking longer than driving/cycling when it does actually work properly.)As to the video, properly sh!t driving! (The Zoe is not quick.)
No amount of hyper-ventilated
No amount of hyper-ventilated “hype” about electric cars in the UK can survive a few basic figures. Basic numbers, folks … sorry!
“to meet UK electric car targets for 2050” (yup … that’s the UK; ONLY the UK!) “we would need to produce just under two times the current total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production.”
From https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html
Repeat … that’s ONLY for the UK’s targets.
Yeah … I know I’m shouting.
But remember the fantastical “selling” of bio-diesel a few years ago … as the “solution” for climate change? There was just a minor problem … that bio-diesel as a “solution” required eight planet earths … entirely fertile, and entirely devoted to growing sugar-cane or whatever. Duuuh.
Kinda makes some of the contributions so far … look just a little short-sighted?
growingvegtables wrote:
Yeah, because battery tech won’t change at all between now and the year 2050 :facepalm: whilte continuing to burn the seemingly infinite resources of dinojuice is the way forward.
Also, I didn’t know there was a UK target for building a certain number of (electric) cars?
ChrisB200SX wrote:
I expect there is an implicit target for cars, as we have a target for emissions.
As to batteries, the reason people are skeptical is we see very little progress in mobile phones. All that has happened is bigger batteries that charge faster, we are not seeing any jumps in efficiency and how long a charge lasts. If the sort of changes we need are not seen in millions of phones, it’s a bit of faith to hope it will be fixed by 2050.
Yeah , Can’thelp but Think
Yeah , Can’thelp but Think that the rich elite , who propound saving the planet are missing a trick here . Why is Al Gore still living g in his 24 bedroom mansion , jetting around in a private plane while telling us ordinary folk to watch out carbon footprint – he’s not alone amongst the elite – one rule for them, one for us – issue number limits to their jetsetting flights , don’t put taxes up on the people . The elite are coining it out of this – are you listening Gore – Yeah , I know the answer already !
Quote:
Reduction in local pollution? As in: Nitrous oxides, PM10 and smaller, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and other exhaust gasses? That is hardly of trivial benefit considering the estimated 50,000 early deaths a year in the UK attributed to local air quality and the millions of people exposed to a lifetime of air pollution.
Sadly, electric cars dont do enough to reduce pollution, because they also produce tyre dust and road dust. Here’s UK air quality advisor Prof. Frank Kelly:
“while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/04/fewer-cars-not-electric-cars-beat-air-pollution-says-top-uk-adviser-prof-frank-kelly
“Electric vehicles emit no NO2 but do produce small particle pollution from the wear on brake discs and tyres and by throwing up dust from roads. A recent European commission research paper found that about half of all particulate matter comes from these sources.”
matthewn5 wrote:
Electric cars do have a very powerful regererative braking capacity, if drivien sensibly. This reduces or practically eliminates the need to use the compound (Friction) brakes, hence reducing particle pollution and noise as well as the generation of waste heat.
Prof Kelly probably would like if all of us only cycled and produced no emissions to acheive his nirvana, but for most, electric cars reduce emissions at the points where it is important, congested cities. Also as renewable energy sources grow, there will be less reliance on fossil fuels.
Lets keep hoping that there will be further advances in battery tech which reduces the reliance on rare minerals and such.
The new Porsche Taycan will,
The new Porsche Taycan will, I suspect, leave everything else for dead in the sector. Hopefully there will be a trickle down of tech to other parts of the VAG range.
Congratulations to Expatpat
Congratulations to Expatpat on having an expensive car and washing machine.
Jackson wrote:
Wanna know what bike I ride too???
I have always found that
I have always found that electric vehicles have made large amounts of road noise and have never had one behind me that I had not noticed.
Teslas seem especially noisy, louder than some small petrol driven cars.
And Expatpat, I really don’t care what you feel that you have to stuff in your garage.