Near Miss of the Day 858: Lorry driver overtakes cyclist in “worst case of Must Get In Front I’ve ever had”

A classic of the Must Get In Front (MGIF for all you acronym aficionados) genre here, as a lorry driver just had to nip in front of the cyclist a matter of yards away from a crossroads – forcing the impatient driver to then dangerously stop at the junction in the wrong lane.

road.cc reader Paul encountered the MGIF motorist on his commute home from work earlier this week on the rural Clarehill Road, part of the relentlessly grippy and twisting Red Hills, located between Dromore and Magheralin in Co. Down, Northern Ireland.

As Paul told us, the lorry driver’s poorly-timed MGIF manoeuvre was made all the more dangerous by the presence of a large barn on the right hand side, which blocks the view of road users travelling from Magheralin and preparing to turn left onto Clarehill Road.

> Near Miss of the Day 848: An overtake worthy of the 'must get in front' title

“Quite possibly the worst case of Must Get In Front I’ve ever had,” Paul told us. “It was lucky there was nobody on that road behind the barn about to turn left.

“I turn right at that junction so tend to keep to the centre of the lane as traffic coming from the right swings wide due to the barn on the corner. The truck literally stopped at the junction in the wrong lane so it’s lucky there was nobody turning left.”

> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling

Paul says he did not report the lorry driver’s perilous overtake, citing the current absence of an online portal in Northern Ireland (though the PSNI told Sustrans last month that such a portal is on its way), and the present “hassle of reporting close passes in the middle of nowhere as the current system asks for a house number and post code.”

Well, at least the lorry driver’s only punishment will be his place in MGIF infamy…

> 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