Near Miss of the Day 865: Cyclist forced off road as motorist overtakes tractor and almost causes head-on collision

A cyclist says he feels “lucky to be alive” after being forced to take evasive action when an oncoming motorist almost caused a head-on collision while overtaking a tractor.

road.cc reader Paddy was riding on Tuesday near Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan, Ireland – just south of where stage four of the iconic Rás Tailteann is passing through today – when the clearly impatient driver began barrelling straight towards him, forcing him to quickly dive into the entrance of a house.

*Warning: the following video contains strong language*

“Thankfully, I was alert and had somewhere to go,” Paddy, who has reported the incident to the police, told road.cc.

“I saw him coming with the indicator on and pulling out. He looked at me, hesitated, and then floored it.

“I was wearing a bright red jersey and had a white flashing light on the front. No question he saw me and went anyway.”

> Near Miss of the Day 849: Warning letter for taxi driver who close passed oncoming cyclist while overtaking queue of traffic in wrong lane

The shocking overtake is strikingly similar to one experienced earlier this year by cyclist Kate Ball, who was riding with her daughter on the Uttoxeter Road, a residential road with a 40mph speed limit in the Derby suburb of Littleover, when a taxi driver – overtaking a very long line of slow-moving traffic, right indicator blinking the entire time – narrowly passed them head-on at speed, causing Kate to emit a startled ‘whoa!’

However, the taxi driver was only handed a warning letter for his potentially dangerous manoeuvre, as Derbyshire Constabulary believed that a conviction was “not realistic” and that prosecuting the motorist would not be “proportional”.

> 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