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Near Miss of the Day 710: Double close pass, blaring horns, and dangerous manoeuvre by van driver… but careless driving charges dropped for both motorists

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's Glasgow.....

Despite road.cc reader Andy describing this double close pass as “probably the worst case I've been involved with yet”, both motorists saw charges of careless driving against them dropped.

The footage, taken in January 2020 (ah, the fast pace of the law), shows the cyclist filtering through traffic on a dark and miserably wet night in Glasgow.

Andy then turns right at the lights onto the Barrhead Road, where he is soon greeted with a long blast of a car horn, a close pass from a 4x4 and a particularly frightening manoeuvre by a van driver.

“I've only just found out the result after chasing up the Procurator Fiscal,” Andy told road.cc.

“Despite the police actually doing a good job here and charging both drivers with Careless Driving, the PF have thrown it out as No Further Action.

“No idea why, as it's probably the worst case I've been involved with yet.”

> 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

Ryan joined road.cc as a news writer in December 2021. He has written about cycling and some ball-centric sports for various websites, newspapers, magazines and radio. Before returning to writing about cycling full-time, he completed a PhD in History and published a book and numerous academic articles on religion and politics in Victorian Britain and Ireland (though he remained committed to boring his university colleagues and students with endless cycling trivia). He can be found riding his bike very slowly through the Dromara Hills of Co. Down.

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13 comments

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BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP | 924 posts | 1 year ago
0 likes

that was just plain vindictive by both motorists. 

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zero_trooper | 891 posts | 1 year ago
0 likes

I'm not up on Scottish law, but the PF really should have explained their decision to the victim.

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giff77 | 2130 posts | 1 year ago
2 likes

This decision only highlights how desperately Scotland needs to implement Driver/Speed Awareness Courses. This is something that the govt finally agreed to in principle nearly 7 years ago when they set up a consultation. They have yet to finalise something in conjunction with Police Scotland regardless of the fact that there's a fully functioning model across the rest of the U.K.  In the same way there is reticence to establish an electronic reporting portal for submitting VTs.

The only reason that the Fiscsl has made this call is to alleviate the pressure on the Sheriff's Court and the police officer who has produced the report and crossed his t's and dotted his i's to ensure it is water tight will have wasted their time. 

The implementation of a portal will free up resources as two officers are no longer required to visit you to take a statement and a Driver Awareness Course could be offered rather than use court time which is something the Fiscal seems to want to avoid. 

There seem to be strict guidelines and requirements with a DAC with the risk of automatic points if you cock things up within three years. Insurance companies are now asking if you have such a course on your record. Also there's a bigger financial hit. Course fee, time off work and possibly hotel and travelling costs if you need to go to another region. 

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wtjs replied to giff77 | 3077 posts | 1 year ago
1 like

Course fee, time off work and possibly hotel and travelling costs if you need to go to another region

Rather depends on whether your local force has decided on the no-inconvenience-to-drivers super-joke online driving course. As Lancashire has, unsurprisingly

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giff77 replied to wtjs | 2130 posts | 1 year ago
1 like

Even if you have to attend an online course due to distance or current pandemic guidelines.  You still have to pay the course fee and take time off work.  

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HoarseMann | 2535 posts | 1 year ago
7 likes

Shame the van didn't rear end the 4x4, that would have been instant justice.

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brooksby replied to HoarseMann | 12211 posts | 1 year ago
1 like

HoarseMann wrote:

Shame the van didn't rear end the 4x4, that would have been instant justice.

It did get pretty close to that! 

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FixTheBloodySite | 8064 posts | 1 year ago
0 likes

Van driver assaulted the cyclist but nfa.
CBA or worse.

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FrankH | 401 posts | 1 year ago
0 likes

The van driver was punishing the cyclist for jumping the queue.

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swldxer replied to FrankH | 279 posts | 1 year ago
14 likes

As I used to say, "If I had wanted to be in a queue, I'd have used my car".

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Flintshire Boy replied to swldxer | 590 posts | 1 year ago
0 likes

And what do you say now?

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ktache replied to Flintshire Boy | 5918 posts | 1 year ago
14 likes

Door mirrors!

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chrisonatrike replied to ktache | 6825 posts | 1 year ago
3 likes

A nervous chapeau!

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