Near Miss of the Day 784: Another close pass driver refuses awareness course... only to get £1,152 fine and four points in court

If you've been caught on camera in the wrong, it's probably best to cut your losses, take your medicine and accept your place on a driver awareness course...

Today's Near Miss of the Day has shades of Sunday's now-famous edition — Near Miss of the Day 783 where an aggressive close pass driver was offered a speed awareness course, declined, and ended up with a £2,460 fine and six points after losing two appeals.

No effing and blinding in today's, and a slightly lesser punishment in court, but another motorist who should probably have just taken their £85 slap on the wrist and run.

road.cc reader Dave was riding near Bridgend in Wales last September when he was close passed by the driver of the Audi Q8 in the video above.

As with Sunday's Near Miss, Dave sent this one in via Operation SNAP, prompting the police to offer the driver a place on an awareness course. Instead, they turned it down, taking it to court and ended up with a rather hefty bill.

A fine of £1,152, surcharge of £115, £620 court costs, and 4 points on his licence. That awareness course is looking quite appealing now, isn't it?

"From all of my correspondence with South Wales Police they have been great with dealing with close pass videos," Dave told us. "They have provided good feedback on most the videos and are quick to respond if they need more information."

> 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