Near Miss of the Day 491: Driver almost hits cyclist head-on – then assaults him (includes swearing)

Today's ​video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows an absolutely shocking incident in which a van driver towing a trailer almost knocks a cyclist off his bike on a narrow country road – and then got out of his vehicle, ran back and assaulted him.

It happened in June close to Eccleston in Lancashire. The rider, road.cc reader Jon, said in the description to the video on YouTube: “This all happened because an angry man in a white van just couldn’t slow down or give me enough room or time to stop to pull over so we could pass each other easily and safely, and he had just passed a passing point on the corner in the road.

“The reason for my response is that if either of us had got it wrong it would have been me bouncing off the van or worse, hooked by the trailer and dragged back down the lane.

“Just through his demeanour I decided to leave and made a couple remarks for myself and set off, which he obviously took offence to and then chased me and assault me.

“As he was walking away he threatened me again that he did not want to hear anything else about it!

“As he was going back to the van I did call the police and he had a visit from them. I was offered the option of moving forward with the possibility of court prosecution or to do restorative justice.

“With a bit of encouragement I agreed to the later, and he agreed to pay for the damage. This nearly changed as he was taking too long to pay, but he did pay and in that process he admits the assault.”

> 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