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news
Near Miss of the Day 883: Lorry driver shoves cyclist off the road, but police cannot do anything as the truck is registered in the Netherlands
Close passes made by a driver behind the wheel of any vehicle can be frightening, but ones made by drivers of lorries are particularly noticeable because of the large size and wheelbase. The driver of this lorry decided to pass so fast and so close to the cyclist that she was forced off the road, however having the truck registered in a different country turned out to be a cheat code as the police "couldn't do anything".
Holly was riding her bike on the A388 in Hatt, just a few miles north-west of Plymouth when she passed by the driver in the articulated lorry. The driver even uses a little horn right when they are passing the cyclist, making the already risky close-pass even more frightening.
Despite dangerously wobbling, she managed to steady herself, but not before having been completely forced off the white line marking the road. She told road.cc that she was travelling at approximately 20mph, the visibility was good and she was also wearing hi-vis clothing.
She went on to report the incident on the same day that it happened, including the name of the haulier firm, the company's email address, and also its physical address in the Netherlands.
After a couple of weeks, she received a call from the police force, but it turned out to be regarding a different close pass case. In the call, she brought up the issue, mentioning that no action had been taken so far on the lorry driver's close pass, to which they replied that they would contact the company and try to "clearly see who the vehicle belonged to".
She was later informed that the police would be unable to do anything as the truck was registered in the Netherlands. She said: "It blows my mind that foreign drivers can risk people's lives and have no repercussions.
"I ended up contacting the company myself and apparently they have 'spoken to the driver'."
> 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 Twitter or 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
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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Looking at the pictures, that's what I think too. Schwalbe could do with putting some more info out on this.
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74 comments
Sometimes there isn't a choice, unfortunately.
Hate to say it but I saw no malicious intent there in the video... sure it must've been nerve wrecking but it is when one rides on an expressway with big trucks and busses...
I don't see the relevence of your comment, malicious intent or not, it still hurts when being driven into by a truck.
What I see is a national speed limit single carriageway road with good visibility, with oncoming traffic. no attempt to adjust the speed of the lorry and wait for a suitable break in traffic to make a safe overtake. the late use of the horn is posssibly a late observation of the rider, or possibly a delinberate attempt to intimidate.
Summary : the cyclists life was in danger because of poor /selfish driving and the politics need to be sorted so that loopholes to enforcment are closed
It's not an expressway, this isn't America, it's a two-lane highway with fairly narrow lanes at that. If you mean by "no malicious intent" that the driver didn't actually intend to kill the cyclist, well isn't that good of them! An HGV driver will know exactly the effect driving at high speed close to a bicycle like that will have; sounding the horn as they did demonstrates that they felt the cyclist shouldn't be there, so we have a situation where someone deliberately close passed a cyclist in a highly dangerous manner, signalling to them that they should get the hell out of the way as they did so. That seems fairly malicious to me.
To be fair to the OP, Expressway is is a term used in Devon too. although I have no idea if this road is considered one.
Isn't the M6 toll road called the Midlands Expressway?
True! And I have now learned 1) There are loads of expressways. 2) There is a special wiki site dedicated to the UK road network. My work productivity is going to suffer.
Expressway may be a description of a roads purpose and design, but it does not designate it differently from any other road where drivers have a responisibility for the safety of vulnerable road users
Careless or reckess driving do not require intent to exist.
Did you miss the bit where the truck driver couldnt be arsed to wait for the opposite carraigeway to be clear before attempting an overtake on a vunerable road user? If not malicious certainly selfish. Also clearly careless driving.
Did you miss the bit where the truck driver couldnt be arsed to wait...
There are at least 2 bogus posters on this topic, each with a single simple obviously-ridiculous 'button push' statement designed to incite outraged response. They're easy to identify and ignore
Watching the video, I wonder if the HGV driver was trying to "encourage" the cyclist to ride on the other side of the white line: did they think that the white line marked the outside edge of some sort of painted cycle lane (edited)?
Unfortunately too many British motorists believe that this white line is a de facto cycle lane rather than the boundary of the carriageway. Had a full scale barney with someone who was convinced that cyclists should be to the left of this line even if there was only three inches of tarmac.
I think that may be the case in France but I'm not sure. That may explain the lorry drivers use of the horn.
Whilst this may be true, in good news, it did not work out well for this driver. TVP took it to court and the prosecutor got him 5 points and nearly £500 of costs and fines.
https://youtu.be/uoz60f-laCs
It's an odd one that A509. The no-overtaking signs technically mean you shouldn't even overtake a cyclist, but the road is very wide there and a safe pass is perfectly possible.
TVP seem to have got better at tackling this sort of poor driving. I was talking to someone a while ago who had been phoned up by the police because their driving had been reported by a cyclist. I said, ooh, that might have been me - was the offence in May? They said no, it was June. Actually, it might be the same person! I'll give 'em some stick if it is when I next see them!!
The police prosecutor phoned me up to thank me for reporting and to tell me the outcome. He also said that he knew he would get the prosecution when he showed the video and the court colectively gasped.
Ok, that could be him then. He's a very decent chap and I think this is a case of not really knowing what is acceptable in terms of passing distance (he's not a cyclist!) and not malicious at all. I think you can be assured that this will result in him driving more carefully around cyclists in the future.
Maybe you would consider editing your post to remove the surname (and maybe the registration on youtube if possible). I know that might sound a bit hypocritical of me, as I'm usually all for name-and-shame. But since justice has already been served, there's perhaps no need for further social shaming, just the video showing the pass and the points/fine would be enough to act as a deterrent to other motorists.
If he'd had an unusual name I wouldn't have posted it at all. Regardless happy to remove it.
Appreciate it. In return I will lecture him on all matters cycling next time I see him!
While I can appreciate that the driver will change how he drives after this, it really doesn't seem like the most efficient way of educating drivers. If only there could be some kind of well publicised rule for how much space to give a cyclist or even, as a last resort, several other drivers in front of him to give guidance on how much space to give.
I was having this exact conversation with an officer at TVP. It's so bad, that almost every ride results in a dodgy pass, sometimes more than one. It's not efficient for me to report every single one. Educating a driver one at a time via an extremely lengthy and expensive process is not the answer.
What they need to do is prosecute a few drivers, then do a publicity campaign, showing how to pass safely and the consequences of getting it wrong. There should have been a lot more educational content rolled out from the DoT when the highway code updates were introduced. They left it to the media, who made a right hash of it and probably made things worse!
There are a lot of drivers out there who think it's ok to skim past a cyclist at 60mph. I had to tell my Dad a while back that his overtake of a cyclist was way too close! There are even some cyclists who think a close pass is ok. At my last place of work, there was a chap who used to cycle the 1 mile from the village, in the gutter, at 6mph, who stated on the company notice board in a discussion about passing cyclists, that he preferred drivers to 'just get past quickly', 'it's the idiots who don't keep to 60mph who cause problems as it takes too long to pass'. Quite unbelievable really.
My preference would be for a short driving ban (3 months?) to be given out to close passers so that the drivers can then explain why they're not driving to everyone that they know. That would also have the benefit of reducing road congestion and possible improving air quality.
The down side would be the time taken for paperwork and possibly court time which is why I think the police should be allowed to hand out short bans without having to jump through lots of hoops. The drivers should be allowed to contest the ban if they think they've got a strong case, but a disincentive could be to quadruple the ban time if the police decision is upheld which should be fairly obvious if there's video evidence.
plus they have to rent a bicycle for that period and complete Bikeability before they get the driving licence back!
I ride on this type of road all the time and do everything I can to stay to the left of the line when it i do pick up extra punctures. Yes it marks the road boundary and we should all be able to ride safely on the road but my self preservation trumps any need I might feel to ride on the other side of the line just because we can. Life is precious and I'm safer out the way. I don't see the point of standing up for our rights if it's going to get me injured or killed. We all need to use the roads so if I can give heavy vehicles more room I will. As for the punctures, getting home each day makes 5 minute repairs seem very worthwhile.
Probably yes, the driver probably tried to instruct to use the space behind the white line.
To be honest, I would try to squeeze myself in that space, but I don't know whether the road narrowed down later as in carlosdsanchez video where he got an very intimitading close pass with no other options left.
Every big vehicle driver should face some close passes from big vehicles under controled conditions before taking driving license
I'm sorry to inform you 3 members of your family were killed by a truck running them over. And sorry we can't do anything as it's registered in Holland.
doubt this would ever occur
Brexit dividends!
Nothing to do with Brexit, I used to work for a distribution company 2008-2013 where Dutch trucks used to drop to us, their transport managers had boxes full of speeding tickets and parking tickets as if they were keeping score
https://youtu.be/20j-3Mlldkc?si=_u4h8pTE1qXJNASC
Had something similar from a Dutch lorry. Didn't bother reporting it because I assumed that nothing would be done. I did contact the company and got an apology from the MD though, so hopefully words were had with the driver.
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