Near Miss of the Day 440: Skip lorry driver undertakes cyclist

Today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows a cyclist riding in the correct lane to go straight ahead - only for a skip driver, who also intends to go in the same direction, moving into the left-turn lane to undertake him, and making a dangerous close pass at the same time; the footage is about 2 minutes into the video above.

It was filmed by road.cc reader Peter, who also supplied rear-view footage (skip to 2 minutes 10 seconds), and who told us: “I'd been going around Clifton Downs and was aiming to follow the A4018 down towards Bristol (the hill is known by another name, but maybe that name should fall out of use).

“Usually when I go along there, I use the left lane though that is for left-turning traffic down Clay Pit Rd (the trick is to take primary before the turn to avoid left-turning traffic).

“This time, I thought I'd use the straight ahead lane and was basically keeping to the white line to allow overtakes (for some reason I really struggle to cycle that section - could be the head-wind or that it's towards the end of a ride or whatever other excuses I can think of).

“This left me feeling a bit precarious but I wasn't getting grief from drivers so I went with it. What I didn't expect was a skip-carrying lorry to undertake me using the left-turn lane and then move back into the straight ahead lane. 

“Of course, the lorry driver didn't make any difference to his journey time as I filtered past him further down the hill (that must not be named).

“Meanwhile, a pedestrian was crossing right in front of the lorry, so I used my brakes as soon as I saw her, but she saw me and stepped back so I carried on in front of her. It's worth remembering to take care crossing in front of big vehicles and similarly whilst filtering past them,” he added.

> 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