The driver responsible for this close pass on a cyclist in Essex was offered a driving awareness course to avoid court after the rider caught the incident on camera and reported it to the police.
road.cc reader Tony, who uploaded the video of the incident to his YouTube channel Cykel Tony, said it left him so shaken he had to pull over to “calm down and collect my thoughts”.
“I had gone out for a post-work ride and was cycling up East Tilbury Road in Tilbury,” he explained. “It’s a slight incline but not particularly hard, traffic in the next lane but gaps every now and then.
“Was overtaken by a driver that I felt was a little too close, just after I’ve called out the licence plate for the camera I was shocked by a driver first beeping at me, then forcing an overtake by squeezing between myself and an oncoming lorry.
“The danger caused by this driver left me shaken, so much so I had to stop for a little while, after turning off the road, to calm down and collect my thoughts. Driver was reported to Essex Police the same day, who have since offered the driver the choice of a driving awareness course or conditional offer. Part of me is hoping the driver will challenge the NIP so it ends up in court.”
> 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
17 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 929: “Shocking” close pass which left cyclist “shaken” lands driver with awareness course”
Nice that they are “offering”
Nice that they are “offering” stuff to the driver.
Bless. Hope they don’t upset him.
Not sure that driver if that
Not sure if that driver altered their line at all. Combined with a beep, that can only be a deliberate punishment pass. If that only warrants an awareness course then Essex Police are pretty much admitting that as long as you don’t hit the cyclist, you won’t get points. And even then, they will do their best to find a way to let the driver off.
Essex are terrible at the
Essex are terrible at the moment, been getting plenty of NFAs from them for incidents that a year ago would have been courses/conditional offers.
My local force, and one of
My local force, and one of the reasons I haven’t bothered to get a camera, though much of my cycling is done in the rural lanes of northern Essex so much less traffic encountered than when I head south and into metropolitan Essex / London.
tbf I thought that already
tbf I thought that already was their standing order for close passes, sure Hirsute can comment on it more based on experience
Local cycle group provide
Local cycle group provide this for march
” An improvement to the percentage of reports by cyclists resulting in a notice of intended prosecution (NIP). Is this a result of new guidance or another false dawn – time will tell… “
“Reports by cyclists are less than half that of May 2024 – we believe this is due to a lack of confidence in the service after very inconsistent and sometimes ridiculous decisions over the last year. We hope this month marks a turning point for performance.”
https://bsky.app/profile/colchestercycling.bsky.social/post/3lqnjlyx7ss2z
Credit where it’s due to the
Credit where it’s due to the following driver for not getting sucked in to following the car in front’s line and instead making an exemplary pass. As for the Porsche (? not a car person) if that only deserves an education course then I’m Brent Charleson.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I bloody knew it! These ‘trolls’ are your split personality that you like putting on a show with on here.
Oh bugger, rumbled!
Oh bugger, rumbled!
Nissan 350Z.
Nissan 350Z.
Guess my original video was too nsfw for them, longer clip with lots of swearing.
yep Id have clocked it for a
yep Id have clocked it for a Nissan 350z, but that front bumper is modification from original spec imo either pre or post facelift model
Nearmissan 350Z
Nearmissan 350Z
That was frightening, and
That was frightening, and either staggeringly incompetent or deliberately dangerous. Whichever it was, going on a driver awareness course probably isn’t going to work at changing the behaviour of the driver. One gust of wind, a pothole, even a stone in the road, and the cyclist would have been knocked off and almost certainly injured.
If what is being done isn’t addressing the problem, then it needs to change to something that does: appealing to the driver’s sense of shared humanity would be a waste of time. In this case, the consequences need to be much more serious for the person causing that problem i.e. something that will affect their life seriously, as seriously as it would have affected the cyclist if they’d been hit.
So what would make drivers behave better? A couple of things, but some aren’t legal, so how about stopping the totting up process, and replacing it with immediate removal of licence for a limited period: a week the first time, a month the second, and a year the third. Permanent removal for the fourth.
If someone is sent on a
If someone is sent on a driver awareness course and then is caught doing something dangerous within 3 years or something like that they should immediately get double the points and fine. It clearly didn’t work and they should effectively receive the points and fine they missed the first time around when they were sent on the pointless course.
That was very poor driving.
That was very poor driving. It saved just a few seconds of journey time for the driver probably, while putting the cyclist at risk. This shows how some drivers simply don’t care about others. The driver improvement course sounds like a soft option to me and I’d have thought lots of points and a big fine would be more appropriate. The person in the car behind showed how it should be done.
Not so much poor driving per
Not so much poor driving per se I think. More an ostentatious display of pique toward the cyclist for having the temerity to ride away from the gutter, thus causing the driver a moments potential inconvenience. i.e. ” I’ll teach 𝐡𝐢𝐦 to stay out of my way when there’s oncoming traffic!”
That was one of those passes
That was one of those passes where it’s one wobble and you’re gone