Near Miss of the Day 847: Careless caravan close call causes cyclists concern

It's been a while since we shared a Near Miss of the Day, but not for a lack of submissions, bear with us while we work through your videos...

Today's comes from a reader in the New Forest who suffered a close call with a driver towing a caravan on Boxing Day.

> Near Miss of the Day 846: Motorist escapes punishment for extreme close pass and deliberately reversing into cyclist

"As we were approaching the town of Lyndhurst on the Lyndhurst Road this Land Rover towing a caravan came flying by at 50 mph," road.cc reader Laurie told us.

"Gave us quite a fright and almost sent my friend into the gutter. Needless to say, we turned back to the New Forest gravel paths as quickly as possible! Reported to Hampshire Police. Fingers crossed they do something."

Those with good memories might remember a shocking incident we reported back in the summer which prompted an investigation from Dorset Police after footage emerged showing a collision involving a motorist towing a caravan and a cyclist near Bournemouth Airport.

The collision came at the end of the video, moments after one of the other cyclists in the group's rear-facing camera had recorded the driver apparently sounding their horn as they overtook the group, who were travelling at close to 40km/h.

As the group filtered to the front of the queue at the traffic lights, and past the motorist, one rider could be heard saying "I got him on video", while someone else is heard saying: "F****** idiot".

Then, as the group rolled away from the stop, the driver continued forward closely behind the penultimate rider, hitting their back wheel. Dorset Police confirmed the cyclist suffered minor injuries but did not require hospital treatment.

In the footage, after colliding with the cyclist, the caravan-towing motorist was seen driving over the rider's bike and out of shot. It is not clear if the motorist stopped at the scene of the incident.

> 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