*Warning: Video contains strong language, viewer discretion advised*
The lack of an online road safety reporting portal by Police Scotland has been highlighted by many cyclists, with several being featured on our Near Miss of the Day series, but yet the issue has gone unaddressed as another cyclist barely managed to avoid being hit by a driver who either failed to see him, or chose to ignore him and decided to make the turn anyway.
James was riding on Drybrugh Road in Wishaw, a town just south-east of Glasgow when a driver, waiting to join the road from Waverley Drive suddenly drove in front of him and turned right onto the road, forcing the cyclist to slam on his brakes to narrowly avoid hitting the car.
He told road.cc that he was just 10 minutes away from his home and this was his first close pass experience on this stretch of the road. However, he added that he’s not going to upload footage of the near miss as there isn’t any portal to do so.
“I never reported it to police as I do not think I can send the footage here in Scotland. I would have to go to the station I believe and then give them my cards etc. I am not sure how it works and even if they are going to do anything about it,” James said.
Scottish cyclists currently have to use the Police Scotland Online Reporting Form, which is time-consuming and inconsistent, with how an incident is handled often depending on the attitudes of different police forces and officers.
> Delays to introduction of online road safety portal putting cyclists “at risk”, says Cycling UK
In March, Scotland’s police force came under scrutiny for not having a portal where cyclists can submit their close passes — unlike England and Wales where cyclists and other road users can submit video evidence of road traffic offences via Operation Snap and other police reporting portals, with road.cc reader Stewart criticising Police Scotland for making him go through a much lengthier process of providing evidence after suffering a dangerous near miss.
While a Digital Evidence Sharing Capability is being piloted in Dundee ahead of the expected national roll-out next year, it is not believed to be as strong or functional an option as the cancelled National Dashcam Safety Portal.
Last year, the charity Cycling UK said that delays to the introduction of an online road safety reporting portal are putting cyclists in Scotland “at risk” — after Police Scotland took over a year to report an alleged hit-and-incident which left a rider “unable to sit down for a week”, leading to the case being dismissed.
Just two months ago, Police Scotland was once again under fire after the force said that while they run close pass operations with officers riding bikes, they don’t “tend to operate” on A roads — where many people ride their bikes regularly — as there’s a “safety element involved towards police cyclists”, after a cyclist, who was close passed by drivers several times, raised it with the police and asked them what do they intend on doing about the dangerous driving on such roads.
> 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@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
39 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 915: Cyclist slams on brakes to avoid driver who ignored him and turned across… but says “no point in reporting” due to Police Scotland’s lack of online close pass portal”
What a pissant.
What a pissant.
Even if you did go through
Even if you did go through all steps required, I assume the police would send a letter at best.
Why is Scotland making its own digital portal when a UK one already exists? Is it a massive waste of time and money?
bikes wrote:
Presumably the SNP government think that with independence just around the corner its a waste of time and money to use an English system 🙁
Hopefully they will get voted out in two years time!
The SNP didn’t really have a
The SNP didn’t really have a say. They only released funds after much lobbying from cycling bodies. Polis Scotland rather than use a proven portal opted to reinvent the wheel after dragging their heels. I’m nearly sure at one point they were stating that the funding was insufficient.
Backladder wrote:
The SNP were happy to go along with the Greens – that’s why the “10% of the road budget for active travel” got in. A few of them are pretty good on active travel.
… but not enough – witness the 20mph motion get torpedoed (albeit via a committee where a few people with anti- views may have swayed it).
And once they fell out with the Greens (some of the SNP have not felt very civil about the partnership for time) I think much of the previous “progressive” stuff was seen as a liability.
However – if you think the Conservatives , Scottish Labour or even the Lib Dems would do much better for cycling I’m not sure you’ve been following things carefully…
Oh and I’m convinced Polis Scotland must train with Lancs Police, such is their understanding of and concern for cyclists and harsh stance on law-breaking drivers…
Backladder wrote:
If you think the current snp are interested in independence then you haven’t been following Scottish affairs.
Presumably the SNP government think that with independence just around the corner its a waste of time and money to use an English system 🙁
Hopefully they will get voted out in two years time!— bikes
bikes wrote:
At least part of the reason we don’t have a portal is that Scots law doesn’t allow the police to issue FPNs, etc. based on video footage the way English police forces can. Obviously the solution to that is to change the law, but nobody in Holyrood seems interested enough to bother. Likewise the absence of any eScooter rental trials in Scotland; Glasgow signed up for one but then discovered it wasn’t legal and abandoned it.
As a matter of intrest, does
As a matter of interest, does it matter which police force you report an incident to? If Force A thinks, yes this is worthy and crime has been committed, don’t they have a responsibility to pass the information onto Force B.
Aw, that’s so sweet that
It’s massively variable.
It’s massively variable.
Generally better in E & W, S & NI are nowhere yet – in S you still have to make a report then a policeman has to come and interview you and take a statement aiui.
Very variable across forces in England.
The people to pressurise are Local Councillors, Police & Crime Commissioners and Regional Mayors, especially where a local Active Travel Commissioner or Bicycle Mayor exists eg Adam Trantor in the East Midlands up until recently, or Dame Sarah Storey in Greater Manchester.
The people to pressurise are
The people to pressurise are Local Councillors, Police & Crime Commissioners…
You, or most of you, will find that the PCC just bins your complaint,report etc. with the catch-all phrase: we can’t interfere with operational decisions of the police. It transpires that everything you want to complain about (close-passing, ignoring reports of mobile phone use while driving, RLJs by drivers, white line offences, vehicles without MOT or VED for many years etc. is an operational decision of the police
Report it. You can’t
Report it. You can’t criticise them for doing nothing if you didn’t give them the opportunity to do something. Then there’s the driver of the vehicle approaching on the right hand side, who narrowly missed hitting the vehicle that cut up the cyclist, they may have reported it too.
That was a bit disappointing.
That was a bit disappointing. The warning before the clip had me looking forward to some really colourful expletives. I wonder what was going on in the driver’s mind though. Did he not see the cylist at all? Did he misjudge the cyclist’s speed or his own? Did he not care? Or did he see the cyclist, but far too late, and then panic and keep going in the hope that things would somehow sort themselves out?
Van, so probably did not give
Van, so probably did not give a damn.
mattw wrote:
Car.
My mistake – sorry.
My mistake – sorry.
I watched another clip in between.
It looks as though the car
It looks as though the car driver was concentrating on traffic approaching on their right.
They timed their pull-out for when the silver SUV passed by.
Either –
1. The cyclist was completely masked by the silver SUV – the car driver wasn’t aware of the cyclist at all.
2. Car driver knew cyclist was approaching and pulled out regardless
Suggest – respectfully – cycling more defensively by anticipating bad driver decisions.
newbankgyratory wrote:
Physically the first isn’t true as you can see the car from the bike. It may be *harder* to see a bike (motorists looking for *cars*…) but in this case they could have missed an oncoming motorbikes or car.
So the first should be rephrased as “the driver did not make sufficient observation so they weren’t aware of the cyclist at all”.
How should they cycle “more defensively” – they managed to avoid a collision here despite the driver’s error?
Should they send a man ahead with a red flag to alert drivers? Only cycle at walking pace? But that is also not “defensive” – perhaps a driver was following the cyclist, or planning an overtake (anticipate bad decisions, remember?)
There’s only so much defensive cycling you can do short of not cycling at all. Because you have to balance the potential bad decisions of ALL drivers.
chrisonabike wrote:
I’ve had two of these recently. Yesterday some girls in an Audi suddenly appeared from a parking space on my right. They hadn’t seen me (or even looked properly) – fortunately I had seen them and managed to slow-down and let them out. A week or so ago I had another one where an SUV exited from a parking space on my right, again they appeared suddenly and I was able to stop and let them out. (We were both going to the same Christening party and the driver apologised “I just didn’t see you”.
In both cases my car (small estate) had been masked by an on-coming car at the decision-point of is-it-clear-for-me-to-pull-out-or-not.
Unfortunately you have to anticipate these kind of situations when driving – and – I respectfully suggest – when cycling.
newbankgyratory wrote:
You’re correct and we all do but a) we shouldn’t have to as cyclists with the new Hierarchy of road users and b) the driver should be held accounatble for their error of judgment. Just because it’s how things are doesn’t make it right.
I imagine every cyclist reading this would have avoided a collision but it’s those cyclists who haven’t had long experience of cycling on the road who would suffer in situations like this through no fault of their own.
newbankgyratory wrote:
The only way the cyclist could be more defensive in that situation would be to ride more slowly and cede priority to all cars at every opportunity even when the law and the Highway Code indicate otherwise, something that can bring its own problems: in the last month I had a driver tell me it was my fault that they left hooked me because I was going too fast and should have slowed to let them overtake and turn ahead of me, Mrs H had a driver tell her that it was her fault they left hooked her because she was going too slowly and if she’d been going faster she would have cleared the junction before they got there. The rider in this video was cycling in a straight line at a perfectly reasonable speed in broad daylight with clear sightlines when confronted with an appalling bit of driving. Suggest – respectfully – that suggesting they should have been cycling more defensively to prevent this situation is victim blaming at its finest.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Not victim blaming – poor driving is poor driving. This specific instance masked the approaching cyclist so that the driver couldn’t see them at the important decision-point of is-it-clear-for-me-to-pull-out-or-not.
I am sorry about your’s and Mrs’s left-hook experiences – bloody-minded MGIF mentality is baffling. However, diifferent instance to being masked by oncoming vehicles.
i wouldn’t consider it appalling driving – more typical driving.
newbankgyratory wrote:
These are not mutually exclusive things.
newbankgyratory wrote:
Apologies for extra post but disagreeing about the “decision point”. Perhaps you’re being descriptive but no-one should get a pass for this. Not a driving instructor but I would have expected to fail the test here. The “decision point” cannot be “after a vehicle has just passed me, blocking my view to the left”. You should have been viewing the direction before that, and if in any doubt make another check after the vehicle has passed.
Unless you think that it’s OK when driving to give yourself less than a second to check if a road is clear to pull out – and / or just not bother checking in one direction?
We all know that drivers “look but do not see” or “don’t see the cyclists” and that there is commonly poor driving on the roads. It is unfortunately on cyclists to take extra care – but most cyclists do, most of the time. None of that makes this something we should just accept (like people going well over the speed limit etc.).
I suggest – respectfully –
I suggest – respectfully – that you STFU until you have something valid or constructive to add!
Dicklexic wrote:
Thanks for the advice.
I’ve commented on this particular NMOTD because it appears to be very similar to a case where the cyclist – keen lady club cyclist – was going downhill along a tree-lined road and a driver crossed in front of them and killed them.
In that fatal case the cyclist was masked by an on-coming car at the is-it-clear-for-me-to-pull-out-or-not driver’s decision point.
NB I spent quite a long time last night searching for the article that covered this but couldn’t find it.
newbankgyratory wrote:
I assume that was the deceased’s fault as well?
As per the comments by Rendel and Chris, there is only so far “defensive” cycling can go. If you ride (or drive) like you are literally invisible and assume no-one has seen you ever, you would never get anywhere.
In this instance, the turning driver has ample opportunity to see the cyclist – the cyclist was clearly visible for several seconds (if the driver had bothered to look), whilst being hidden for fractions of a second whilst the oncoming car passes. I can’t see any “signs” that the cyclist could have used to anticipate what the car was about to do – no initial movement of the car or similar to indicate the car was about to pull out at that moment. And of course the cyclist was travelling at a speed that enabled them to avoid a collision, despite the car driver pulling out at pretty much the worst possible time. So all in all, not sure exactly what you think the cyclist should have done differently, beyond not leave the house. Or perhaps would that be your preferred solution – no pesky cyclists on the road?
It wasn’t the case in the
It wasn’t the case in the NMOTD, I’ve no idea where the crash newbankgyratory refers to happened, BUT there are some circumstances and in particular road layouts which make failure to observe more likely (and proper, timely observation more difficult). A good article on one such is here:
https://beyondthekerb.org.uk/collision-course/
It also suggests mitigation – which should be basic knowledge for our designers and assessors. Some of this is “legacy” but I’m not convinced our risk assessments are always taking cycling into account. Roll on Sustainable Safety…
OnYerBike wrote:
That is quite a dirty statement.
In none of my comments have I laid blame on the cyclist – I think they were cycling along correctly. However, they were/could-have-been masked by the silver SUV – the tallness of the SUV is a factor here – and the exiting driver couldn’t see them – almost resulting in a collision – saved by the cyclists ability and quick reactions.
I should have been more plain – if you are approaching a side road with motor vehicle about to emerge then – plan for and anticipate:
A. Them not seeing/caring and pulling out on you
B. An on-coming vehicle – especially large ones like lorries, vans, coaches, SUVs, pick-up trucks, etc – masking your approach.
Basically, if B happens and you cannot see the emerging car yourself then prepare for A by slowing down.
i’ve picked up on this NMOTD because the demise of the lady cyclist in the similar situation at the cross-roads has been on my mind. (Please someone find the article and cross-link to it here.)
You are clearly implying that
You are clearly implying that both incidents could have been avoided if the cyclists had cycled in what you consider to be a more prudent manner.
In this instance (I don’t know about the other case you refer to) I see no evidence that the cyclist was “masked” by the silver SUV. I certainly wouldn’t expect the cyclist to entertain the possibility that the driver hadn’t seen them soley based on the fact that the line of sight was blocked for a fraction of a second, having been clearly visible for an extended period before that.
It appears to me very much like the driver had already looked to their left decided it was “clear”, and planned to pull out straight after the silver SUV had passed, and therefore was probably watching the SUV. I’m not sure what the driver thought by “clear” – maybe they looked but entirely failed to see the cyclist; maybe they saw the cyclist but misjudged the cyclist’s speed; or maybe they saw the cyclist and just didn’t care. In any case, I don’t think the driver looked again between the SUV passing in front of them and starting to pull out.
newbankgyratory wrote:
… for less than a second, having had all the time in the world to observe them before that, in good clear conditions, on a straight road…
The problem here isn’t the car impeding the motorist’s view – they are an incompetent driver (that’s generous – it could be “they can see I’m going to turn so they should avoid me”). The only problem with that is it blocks the cyclists’ view…
… but in fact on planning “A. Them not seeing/caring and pulling out on you” is exactly the issue – no need to invoke “B”. I have had a couple of near-hits when I’ve approached a side-road on my left where drivers have been looking straight at me but pulling out anyway. No masking needed…
Left and right have different issues but “just slow down” is not a panacea – a car behind you may well attempt to overtake might just run into you if dozy (wouldn’t the turning driver see them? Turns out not everyone can see cars either).
Other road users will not expect this level of defensiveness because mostly everyone gets away with it. But they’re protected by doors / maybe have a side-impact protection system. If I pre-emptively slowed for many side-roads because “you just can’t tell” in a car would that be a driving test fail? Will I start hating my cycle because of the beeping from behind / abuse as people pass?
The ultimate solution is of course far more cyclists about (so “look for cyclists” is normal) and a bit more awareness from drivers (and regularly removing the worst – might focus people!). Unfortunately that’s chicken and egg and there’s very little motivation for change in our current system.
Give your head a wobble;
Give your head a wobble; nothing he’s said is wrong. Typical of roadcc that no cyclist can do anything wrong/ incorrect or could do better.
It’s poor driving, but vulnerable road users have to be more defensive – no good being right if they end up in hospital or a wooden box. This cyclist simply wan’t alert enough……
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Er, except they were – that’s why they were able to take action to prevent the driver causing a collision.
I can’t see what the cyclist
I can’t see what the cyclist did wrong/ incorrect or could do better on a clear road with good visibility. The only person at fault is the driver.
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Such a useful phrase, it saves masses of time because as soon one sees it one knows it’s not worth reading the rest of the comment as it’s guaranteed to be stupid.
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Being defensive is very important – but also is far from a guarantee of your safety. As discussed with the other poster here hindsight can often be applied to a specific situation but it doesn’t always give you a good general pattern you can apply, because the suitable “defensive cycling” can turn out to be different in different cases.
Here someone was cycling – if not in primary position then far from the gutter so “defensively” – in broad daylight (but no “low sun”…), on a straight road, with perfect mutual visibility (except for under a second – after the driver had plenty of time to observe). They were “aware” enough and travelling at a suitable speed so they avoided a collision.
As discussed at length just how “alert” do you need to be if you have to guard against the possibility of “drivers throwing themselves in the road”? (After all, even not cycling and just walking on the pavement won’t save you from being run over, nor staying in your house…) And will “alertness” help you anyway as unfortunately for road use to be practical some measure of relying on other road users to behave within normal parameters is required? * Consider – the observation of this driver was so poor / non-existent that it’s possible they wouldn’t have seen a truck (which almost certainly would have gone badly for them).
“Beware of being hidden from view of other road users” is sensible – only that will happen all the time (and in every position relative to the viewer). Further I’ve had several occasions where it’s clear that “make sure you have made eye contact” is far from a guarantee that you’ll connect with someone’s awareness…
Going at any speed (as Rendel noted) can cause issues. Slowing down when you are expected to maintain speed and (because bike) you can only indicate this to following road users using the special flappy gesture (which they probably will be confused about) is not without problems either.
* There are of course better and worse infrastructure designs and rule sets. The Dutch have gone further than the UK in looking at “human factors” and gathering evidence on how systems fare in practice and feeding that back to make designs that are safer even when people go wrong.
Velophaart_95 wrote:
I would argue that the cyclist was alert enough as a collision was avoided. The point that needs to be made is that, if I’ve understood the hierarchy of road users correctly, cyclists shouldn’t have to be alert to mistakes by drivers as drivers bear the responsibility for taking care around cyclists just as cyclists have responsibility for taking care around pedestrians and horses.
Obviously that’s the ideal and as things stand any road user needs their wits about them with the standard of driving as it is and vehicles designed to protect occupants rather than the people they hit. What is needed here is the driver being held to account for their incompetence, not to blame the cyclist or to make excuses for the driver.
Since this commentor didn’t
Since this commentor didn’t get back yet I thought I’d have a re-watch, just to see where they thought “cycling defensively” would help.
But first – the “but the cyclist was hidden”. Er… no. Straight road, good mutual visibility. Even with the rubbish resolution of the video the blue car is clearly visible at 4 sec in (and the cyclist would have been, if driver was looking / moved their head in case of side pillars). Probably for longer. See the screen grab showing this “invisibility” at about 6 sec – cyclist was “there to be seen” for the entire length of the clip before that…
Cyclist disappears behind silver car for less than a second. Hard to tell but it looks like the blue car had only just started pulling out when the cyclist reappeard from behind the silver car. If they’d been looking, they’d have had a second in which they could have aborted (putting them in the path of the white vehicle – but that’s on them…)
So – “defensive cycling”?
Awareness / speed: as mentioned my first post the cyclist was going at a speed and observing sufficiently to deal with the situation (unlike the driver) so in this sense “they did their bit”.
Position: it’s not clear where the camera is so the cyclist could have been “in the middle of the road” or slightly to the left. In this case that would have made zero difference to their visibility because they were “there to see” for several seconds. And in fact in “primary” they are more likely to have been hit.
Observation: unless they are very tall and can see over the silver vehicle the cyclist likely couldn’t see the driver start to pull out as they started that while behind the silver vehicle.
Prediction: I would expect the blue car to have seen the cyclist because conditions were perfect. However there is always that risk (and “eye contact” is no guarantee – I’ve nearly been hit while staring into the face of drivers – they were “looking but not seeing”). The white car following the silver car is visible to the cyclist. I guess that’s a judgement as to whether you think “another car is coming so the driver won’t pull out” or “they’ll see a gap and go for it”.
This is a carbon copy of a
This is a carbon copy of a near miss I had about eighteen months ago.
Very little traffic on the road, good visibility allround. A driver waiting to emerge from a junction on my right, clearly waiting for a car coming from his right to pass. As the car passes the cyclist is temporarily masked and the driver pulls out.
At the time I did not anticipate the situation and I do not think most cyclists would either, the motorist was clearly in my view for about 10secs beforehand. It was only when I viewed the video that I realised that blindsiding was a possible explanation.
Either way “Failed to look properly” or “Driving like a ****” the driver is completely at fault. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and put it down to incompetence.