Near Miss of the Day 399: "For a terrifying second I thought they'd got us"

Police forces around the country have reported that many motorists are taking advantage of relatively quieter roads to break the speed limit - and in today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series, a father and son out cycling were nearly hit by a motorist overtaking a lorry at speed on a road in Suffolk.

The video was sent in by road.cc reader Jon, who said it happened on the Orford Road near Woodbridge last Thursday 16 April at around 1pm. 

"It was like standing on the edge of a train station platform while an Intercity goes through without stopping," said Jon, who told us that the vehcle's wing mirror almost brushed the arm of his 16-year-old son, who was riding in front of him.

"I normally let close passes go as they are fairly common and I know police are busy, however it is my view that unless the driver is educated, they will end up killing someone.

"I'm an NHS nurse practitioner. I worked in A&E for 12 years so have some experience of witnessing tragedy. 

"For a terrifying second I thought they'd got us. The car crossed the safety chevrons painted on the road (which are there to protect users of our lane as we were about to turn right onto a roundabout) and drove at us, head on, at speed.

"The police have thanked me for uploading the footage and 'on this occasion have dealt with this by means of a formal letter outlining the issue and offering words of advice'.

"Hopefully the lesson is learnt ... my hospital colleagues have enough to do at the moment without dealing with the carnage of speeding motorists."

> 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