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Near Miss of the Day 813: Audi driver passes oncoming cyclist at speed on narrow country lane

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country – today it’s Norfolk

Today’s Near Miss bears more than a passing resemblance to the infamous Land Rover versus group ride confrontation, which saw the motorist fined over £1,000 for his careless driving – this time, thankfully, no cyclist ended up in the ditch.

These clips (which contain a light bit of understandable swearing) were captured on front and rear bike cameras as road.cc reader Paul was cycling on a narrow country road, on his way home from work.

“I saw the approaching car and slowed a little so that the car would arrive at the passing place before me,” Paul says.

“They could have slowed and moved over, just like the previous cars I'd passed. They chose not to do that though and instead just barrelled past me.

“I use a 360 degree camera, so you can see from the [below] photo looking downwards at my front wheel how close this was.“

Near Miss of the Day 813 (2)

Paul continued: “Unfortunately, I didn't get a clear view of the number plate, so I can’t report it to Op Snap. Police force is Norfolk and generally they’re pretty good, although at the moment they seem to have a bit of staff shortages which has resulted in all the videos I submitted last week exceeding the seven-day window they give.”

> 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 in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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24 comments

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IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
11 likes

One thing this, and the previous, now private, close pass on narrow lanes brings up is that drivers are unaware of the constraints on cycling safely that cyclists have.

Cars ignore loose surfaces and small potholes, indeed will risk driving at speed along verges, especially when they believe they have an off-road capable vehicle.

As cyclists, we cannot safely ride on gravel, we have to circumvent potholes of any depth, and grooves and edges catch the bike and throw us off balance. So motorists assume we will take a direct line to safety, when we have to examine and plan how to deal with an oncoming car. What might appear to be a nice pull in point for a car is a booby trap for cyclists.

So any vehicle that does not slow and make allowances for cyclists to safely negotiate an oncoming car in their own time should be prosecuted. There needs to be more education on this.

I had a bit more detail about a crash of a friend, the root cause apparently was gravel across the road (no doubt generated by cars taking to the verge, breaking down the road surface and dragging it back onto the road - look how wrecked the verges are in the above video with debris across the road from it - a nightmare in the wet), due to being overtaken at the vital moment, my mate felt he could not take a line around the debris and rode through it and couldn't maintain control. The driver would be oblivious to the constraint on the cyclist they had created.

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mdavidford replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
6 likes

IanMSpencer wrote:

As cyclists, we cannot safely ride on gravel

Someone should tell the bike industry that.

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IanMSpencer replied to mdavidford | 1 year ago
4 likes

OK, given I have a gravel bike, I'll take that one. Cyclists on roiad bikes can't ride safely on gravel.

(Goes off for a sulk).  3

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eburtthebike replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
5 likes

IanMSpencer wrote:

One thing this, and the previous, now private, close pass on narrow lanes brings up is that drivers are unaware of the constraints on cycling safely that cyclists have. Cars ignore loose surfaces and small potholes, indeed will risk driving at speed along verges, especially when they believe they have an off-road capable vehicle.

Drivers.

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Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
10 likes

Got lucky on my 2nd guess.  AP19CXU. Audi Q8. (90% sure checking the MOT location for a fee would add more certainty)

https://cartaxcheck.co.uk/free-car-check/?vrm=AP19CXU

 

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Rendel Harris replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
3 likes

Good work! I gave up on AB19CMJ...

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carlosdsanchez replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
7 likes

Thanks for that, think you got me the name of the Dutch lorry that nearly got me a couple of months ago as well.

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mctrials23 | 1 year ago
4 likes

I imagine that without youtube compression butchering the video you will be able to get the numberplate quite easily. 

Audi drive though so what do you expect. Its almost required that you drive like a complete **** when you are in an audi. 

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carlosdsanchez replied to mctrials23 | 1 year ago
2 likes

I've frame by framed through the footage directly from the camera and it's not clearly visible in any frame. Think combination of bumpy ride and low light defeated the camera a little.

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onlinejones | 1 year ago
0 likes

The Police should be able to get enough of the plate number from the rear cmera footage to make an identification.

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Bungle_52 replied to onlinejones | 1 year ago
0 likes

Sometimes if you through one frame at a time you can make out different parts of the plate and build it up from there.

Do we know what camera was used?

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Awavey replied to Bungle_52 | 1 year ago
2 likes

it will be an Insta360, same one as Jeremy Vine uses, the issue isnt the quality of the footage. The Op Snap in Norfolk (and Suffolk because its the same team who deal with them) set a 7 day time limit on dealing with submissions, not the usual 14, and because a good chunk of the Norfolk road police team were out helping WMP at the Commonwealth games last week, it sounds like they hadnt got enough resource to review footage last week, so it goes down as NFA at best or marked as not meeting the submission criteria due to timeout, which might explain why 2/3rds of submissions get marked not meeting the submission criteria in Norfolk & Suffolk.

and Id say "generally they were pretty good" on this stuff,  not are anymore, as for the past two years the only outcome Ive seen is them sending warning letters or NFA, so whats the point wasting your time submitting this stuff especially if now you have to hope they have enough officers around to review it ?

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Jimmy Ray Will replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
2 likes

General thought... if the local forces put such ridiculosly limiting criteria in place, why bother with a camera at all? It just brings additional focus and enables riders to re-live these episodes in a way that can't be healthy.

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Awavey replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 1 year ago
0 likes

especially when they can often take 4 to 5 of their 7 days just to send you the link to upload the clip, but the stats they publish, although they dont consistently publish them, claim they do prosecute some people, but about 2/3rds just get binned, which Ive not seen other forces have that high a drop off.

but really I treat my camera more as its there just in case now, I wont ride without them but its not remotely about wasting my time submitting close passes to them anymore.

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carlosdsanchez replied to onlinejones | 1 year ago
2 likes

For Norfolk at least, the number plate has to be clearly legible to the officer reviewing the footage, so I don't think they'd accept it.

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NOtotheEU replied to onlinejones | 1 year ago
2 likes

I used to go frame by frame with my submissions to WMP to get a clear pic of the number plates as I thought it might help save them some time. They asked me not to bother as they could do a better job with their own equipment! 😂

I tried very hard not to be offended.

Is it my imagination or is NMOTD getting more and more frightening with how close the last few have been?

 

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
4 likes

That driver should thank their lucky stars that the licence plate is unreadable, as that is dangerous driving and could have been prosecuted.  What staggering level of entitlement does it take to put someone's life at risk because you just can't be bothered to slow down for a second?

Never mind, I'm sure that this will receive the usual social media comments about the cyclist being at fault.

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IanMSpencer replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
6 likes

From experience, driving like that is not "can't be bothered" but deliberate intimidation. I've often seen a raged expression on a motorist driving at us - incensed at the simple existence of cyclists. 4x4 Ford Rangers and Raptors and similar seem especially prone to it.

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Awavey replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
3 likes

its a mix of both I think, the road ragey ones only go really crazy when you challenge them ahead of what they are about to do, the rest of them its a mix of indifference of get out the darn way cant you see cars are superior to you, to cant be bothered to give you the room as youll get out of the way unless you are suicidal.

its a very common move especially from Audis or 4x4s in the region on those roads, theyll pass even bigger passing spots than that rather than slow down for you, let alone give you space.

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IanMSpencer replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
10 likes

I have nearly perfected the hopeless cyclist wobble if I see a car far enough away that has the body language. If they can't convince themselves they'll miss you they are inclined to slow down - don't want to mess up their "detailing". The more incompetent you appear, the better.

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NOtotheEU replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
10 likes

IanMSpencer wrote:

The more incompetent you appear, the better.

I'm winning at life then!

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Awavey replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
5 likes

I tried it once, but instead of slowing down, the daft old nit just turned into the verge at about 40mph and the car jumped up and I suddenly had visions of this car flipping on its side, and then having to explain to an officer why this car had crashed, loose nut behind the wheel, but somehow felt Id still get the blame for it. So I just play chicken with them for as long as I dare, Im not convinced all of them appreciate how messed up their detailing would be if we actually collided in any way.

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HoarseMann replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
5 likes

Awavey wrote:

I just play chicken with them for as long as I dare

same, combined with a manic smile. Seems to at least get them to slow down, might get "you're in the middle of the road" yelled out of the window.

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makadu replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
2 likes

Hmm bit optomistic about prosecution, I think the head on passes are also subject to variation from force to force.

I regularly ride on single track across the North Somerset levels - very few drivers slow down or stop even when I am riding in the centre of the lane to make it obvious.

I have reported to Avon and Somerset police via their portal and whilst they often inform me that some action has been taken for same direction close passes, they have stated no further action for all head on submissions.

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