Near Miss of the Day 534: Motorist justifies bad driving by telling cyclist "You don't pay road tax"

A motorist excused her poor driving by telling a cyclist "You don't pay road tax" - even though no such thing exists, and if people on bikes were required to pay Vehicle Excise Duty, as it is correctly known, they would do so at the same rate as drivers of electric cars, ie zero.

The clip, filmed in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was sent in by road.cc reader Lyndon, who said it happened on his commute home from work.

"The lady in the vehicle came up very, very close to me at a red light," Lyndon said. "Her reasoning became clear later when she explained since I don’t pay road tax, her behaviour is justifiable.

"I doubt the police would even send her a warning, even with video of her justifying her own bad driving."

A couple of days earlier, Lyndon had sent us a compilation of close passes, telling us: "I went out for a ride today for 3 hours, and the following clip shows what happened during that ride.

"It’s becoming clearer to me that a small minority of drivers actively attempt to pass as close as possible, or intentionally put cyclists into dangerous positions with their driving.

"I rarely react anymore, I don’t bother telling drivers to be more aware at traffic lights. Today I cycled alongside a man driving with his elbows while eating a Big Mac. I tapped my helmet to say 'what are you thinking' to which he accelerated and sped off.

"It’s a feeling of being numb, this is what’s not only acceptable, but normal. I’ve been hit twice by cars, and hospitalised once, with countless near misses.

"Is it a matter of time before i am seriously injured or worse, just so a driver can check their phone or get to the red light three seconds faster?"

"It’s utterly dumbfounding that during a national lockdown there is so much 'essential' bad driving," 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