Near Miss of the Day 736: Taxi driver close pass — no police action

Coincidentally this close pass came on the very same road as Near Miss of the Day 733...small world.

There was no six-month ban for this driver, however. In fact, there was not so much as a warning from Hampshire Police who told road.cc reader Luke, the Crown Prosecution Service would be unlikely to take it forward.

"The close pass was on the bridge crossing over the railway line at Botley Railway Station, Hampshire," Luke told us. "In a weird coincidence, this happened on the same road as the videos in NMOTD 733, although on the opposite side of the village.

> Near Miss of the Day 733: Driver gets six-month ban for failing to give way to cyclist at roundabout

"I had come through Botley, which is quite fast and was then cycling up the hill, going towards Curdridge. Although it's a short hill, I never manage to keep my momentum up (partly as the surface is bad) but I was still doing just over 10mph. 

"You can see a couple of vehicles pass which don't give a particularly good amount of space but then the taxi comes to and overtakes as I come to start on the bridge and the curb starts.

"There is a car coming the opposite way and so the taxi could only pass without leaving the lane. As the taxi was unable to leave the lane, this can be nothing but a close pass.

"In addition, there are double solid lines and so, given my speed, they shouldn't have been attempting to pass on any event.

"It happened at about 10:30am on Saturday 15 January 2022. I reported it on the 18th but heard nothing. I knew that they were taking no action as they hadn't requested a copy of the video, which they do as they say they can't take the video from YouTube.

"I decided to chase it up in order for them to confirm that they had taken no action so that I can make a complaint. The reply I received is attached. I'm not impressed, to say the least. Looking at the number of views that the video has had on YouTube, I'm not even sure that it was looked at.

"I've made a few submissions to Hampshire Police. I believe that they took action in one case as they used my video in a Twitter post but the others (until last week) haven't garnered a reply to request a copy of the video."

> 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