Today’s near miss takes us to Oakley Street in Chelsea, London, where a Zipcar driver decided to tailgate a cyclist through a 20mph zone before overtaking far too close — and at a visibly higher speed — as the rider approached a zebra crossing with oncoming traffic and pedestrians crossing the road.

The incident was captured by London resident and long-time road.cc reader Rendel Harris on his regular morning commute.

*Video contains profanity, viewer discretion advised*

“I was riding down Oakley Street in Chelsea, London, on my usual morning route when a Zipcar driver started tailgating me about 50cm off my rear wheel, presumably impatient that I refused to move out of primary position into the door zone in order to let him pass,” Rendel told road.cc.

> “I’ve got a cyclist here!”: Bus driver who tailgated cyclist tries calling the police for “getting on his nerves”

“Not only would I have had to put myself in danger to do so, but, as you can see on the video, I was keeping up with the car in front, and we were both travelling at or around the speed limit for the road (20mph).

“I gestured several times for the driver to back off but they didn’t, then as we approached a pinch point before a zebra crossing they close passed me at a speed considerably in excess of the speed limit then dived across me into the zebra crossing which had only just been cleared by a jogger whom you can see moving across on the right-hand side.

“There was also oncoming traffic in the opposite lane. What made this manoeuvre even utterly pointless was that a few seconds later we all arrived together at the junction with Chelsea Embankment, where we all had to stop for a red light.”

The close pass, captured clearly on Rendel’s camera, appears to breach multiple sections of the Highway Code, including recommended safe overtaking distance and approach to pedestrian crossings.

According to Rule 163, drivers should give cyclists “at least as much space as you would a car” — 1.5 metres, as a guide. Meanwhile, Rule 195 reminds drivers that they must “give way when a pedestrian has moved onto a crossing”.

“All in all, some spectacularly bad, aggressive and dangerous driving that could easily have caused a serious incident, breaking at least two traffic laws and easily, one would have imagined, meeting the criteria for careless driving at least,” Rendel said.

“I sent the video to the police on the day and was pleased to receive an almost immediate response saying that further action would be taken, but, as is standard (and disgraceful) with the Metropolitan Police, I would not find out anything else unless the incident was taken to court.”

When road.cc contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment on the case, and to try to find out the outcome, a force spokesperson said they were unable to search for it as they did not recognise the crime reference numbers.

> 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