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news
Near Miss of the Day 789: Sensible discussion and apology follows learner close passing cyclist during driving lesson
Today's Near Miss of the Day is slightly unusual as the driver involved is a learner under instruction who close passes a cyclist riding in, what can be best described as, an utterly terrible 'murder strip' cycle lane.
Learning to drive is stressful, nervy and difficult, so it's only fair to show, as road.cc reader Martin did here, calmness and direct any issues to the instructor.
What followed was a well-made point about giving vulnerable road users 1.5m space (even if they're in a 'cycle lane'), an apology and a promise that the situation will be reviewed with the learner. Refreshingly undramatic...
"I don't think I was out of order to chase this driver down," Martin told us. "I wouldn't normally do this, but I figured a driving instructor was maybe less likely to turn violent.
"The cycle lane here is an absolute waste of paint and unless I ride over the drain gratings my bar end is over the line. Then there's the junction which requires attention and then thinking ahead to the mini roundabout where I normally turn right, so I was caught off-guard by the passing car and even more annoyed to see it was a driving school vehicle.
"I followed this up with an email as it was rather easy to track down the instructor and got a sort of acknowledgement and apology so I decided not to take it any further. Hopefully he will no longer advise his clients that the 1.5m Highway Code advice is optional in the event of an oncoming vehicle."
Martin followed up the incident with an email asking the instructor to ensure students keep a safe passing distance and received the following reply: "Thank you for this. I've taken it on board and reviewed the situation with my learner. All the best. Sorry about this!"
Anecdotally speaking, we can't recall having too many (if any) incidents of dangerous driving from learner drivers. Maybe we're just extremely fortunate, and maybe there aren't enough learner drivers on the road for us to notice, or maybe we've sympathetically erased them from memory... but what's your experience sharing the roads with driving instructors and students? Normally pretty cautious, thus often safe?
> 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
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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51 comments
Sure double-yellow lines carry a clearly understood meaning; everyone knows they mean Off-road parking only i.e. park on the pavement.
Or of course that all regulations are voided with the use of BOLAS.
Correct - and Amazon have clearly been giving training as they were in evidence.
It's all moot because there don't seem to be the resources to enforce the rules. That's part of the cycle where "not enforced" or "exemptions" mean "ignored" which mean "everyone does" which mean "de facto we'll mostly not bother enforcing". Take double-yellow ("no waiting") - "You may stop to load or unload (unless there are also loading restrictions ...) or while passengers board or alight. Double yellow lines mean no waiting at any time, unless there are signs that specifically indicate seasonal restrictions."
So this Amazon van was (just now) - take your pick: "loading", "boarding" ... didn't see anyone come or go from it but presumably it was a delivery. On the pavement, opposite a junction, it's been there over 10 minutes now... Note the free parking spaces at top right, you don't need a permit.
This is totally "accepted behaviour" in many places. Similar applies to speeding / RLJ / no tax or insurance (as wtjs points out). You can sometimes add running people over to that "decriminalised" list - including on the pavement (in other threads).
The instructors around here like to stop on DYL around the business park I work on just to have a chat. It's a daily sight when I go for my lunchtime walk. Sometimes the instructor will even has his door open across the pavement.
Maybe I'm just cycnical, but that certainly didn't sound like an honest and remorseful apology to me. He wen from "I don't have to give you 1.5m if you're in a cycle lane", to "what am I supposed to do if there's traffic coming?", and then fell back to a "yeah whatever, sorry" probably just to make you go away.
Keep your eyes peeled, I suspect you're going to see more of the same from him.
if the learner had stopped naturally in traffic, Id have been tempted to then have a direct word, Im not sure Id have wanted to create a situation that made them stop like they did in the video, because they clearly start to get flustered by whats happening with the cyclist, and eventually stop on a double yellow line, which isnt the smartest or safest place to have a cosy roadside chat however polite it was.
and anecdotally yes Ive had close passes from learners, and very few of them seem to understand priorities when their side of the road is blocked with parked cars, I know you are supposed to make allowances for mistakes, and I do, but I remember my driving instructor would call me out if I was about to make a mistake like that, so I have to assume these are driving instructor approved moves on the whole.
A large percentage of qualified drivers also don't understand priorities when their side of the road is blocked by parked cars, or indeed when they're driving on a country road and their side of the road is blocked by pedestrians or cyclists.
It seems the done thing to just force the vehicle with right of way to brake and/or force their way through as close as possible to the vulnerable road users.
absolutely, but Im resigned to losing that battle. Whereas with learner drivers supposedly being taught the right way to drive, I find it disappointing and annoying in equal measure that they still arent being taught to view cyclists as having valid priority on a road, and will still drive at you to force you into the gutter to make space rather than stop, seemingly all without correction from the instructor.
The most concerning thing about this is not the close pass from a learner, but the fact the instructor doesn't know the rules! I wonder if they actually told their student to go for the gap?
Is the footway a shared space? Couldn't quite see from the first few seconds.
No, it looks like it directs you into the road at 7 seconds in.
edit: it looks really weird, seems to direct you onto the pavement just before the traffic light controlled crossing, then puts you back into the road afterwards. Is it just there so cyclists don't have to stop for a red light when pedestrians are crossing?!
Just sends you up there long enough to plough through any pedestrians waiting at the crossing.
Not making excuses for the extremely close pass, but road positioning of the cyclist is terrible. Far too close to the curb, trying to stay in the murderstrip. With traffic the other way thats a ride primary road
"Kerb"
KERB
Please follow the correct case usage policy.
I'm glad I managed to curb my pedantry on this occasion.
I realised after I posted, but couldn't be bothered to come back and change it
It looked to me like, rather than trying to stay in it, they were on or just outside the white lines - can't really tell though, since we don't know where on the bars the camera was.
Looks like he's riding with the wheels just to the right of the Moordstrookje markings, which I think is about where I'd choose there, far enough out to discourage passing in the lane but allowing safe passing in the opposite lane where possible.
at the very least primary through the pinch point, that alone might have been enough to deter an overtake from a learner.
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