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Near Miss of the Day 766: “I’m glad I was going slowly” – Driver pulls out right in front of cyclist

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country — today it's Cornwall…...

There can be no excuses for the driver featured in today’s Near Miss, who looked directly at the approaching cyclist for several seconds before pulling out right in front of them at the last possible moment.

The road.cc reader who sent in the video was 70 miles into a century ride through Cornwall and had experienced a number of close passes on the same road, which forced them to ride close to the footpath.

> Near Miss of the Day 765: Driver almost causes collision overtaking cyclist on blind bend

“I’d pulled in to the gutter to let the traffic behind me pass, because they were squeezing through anyway. In hindsight I should have just taken the primary position,” the cyclist told us.

“I couldn't believe he looked me in the eye for ages and then pulled out. I'm glad I was going slowly!”

Unfortunately, the cyclist couldn’t see the motorist’s number plate so was unable to report the incident to the police.

> 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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