The latest edition of our Near Miss of the Day series — highlighting the poor standard of driving and dangerous behaviour cyclists face on Britain’s roads — comes from Perthshire in Scotland where a father and daughter riding perfectly legally two-abreast had two drivers blare their horns while passing, the first, by a motorist towing a caravan, so close one of the cyclists “could have touched it had it not been going so fast”.
It happened recently, on the 14th September, as road.cc reader Jonathan and his daughter cycled in Aberargie. They were riding two-abreast, as the Highway Code points out “can be safer to do so”, when a caravan-towing motorist blared their horn and overtook closely.
“We were two-abreast on a good quality, wide road, just exiting the 40mph zone for the village, when a Ford van [driver] towing a large twin-axle caravan approached us from behind at speed beeping their horn and presumably wanting us to get out of the way,” Jonathan recalled. “They then passed us at speed, very close. I could have touched the caravan had it not been going so fast despite us squeezing over to the left to minimise the risk of being hit or sucked towards the large vehicle. I have no doubt the close pass was intentional.”
The driver of the Mercedes car following the caravan then “aggressively” blared their horn at the cyclists too, even if their overtake was less dangerous.
“It is frightening to experience this sort of driving – there was no reason or it,” he continued. “The road was clear and wide and they could easily have passed safely.”
“Reported to Police Scotland, but based on previous experience and the reports of others I have low expectations that they will take action. However, it is important we all continue to report this sort of driving as the incidence of ‘cyclist-hating’ seems to be getting greater all the time.”
> 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
12 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 937: Cyclist riding two-abreast with daughter close passed by driver towing caravan who blared horn at riders”
The most frightening close
The most frightening close pass I had was from a car pulling a trailer. The driver had forgotten or had never realised that the trailer was wider than the car.
Looks very similar with this caravan
But blowing the horn is an excellent way of reducing danger while passing cyclists who have nowhere else to go, except the hedge.
Maybe it was the driver’s way of asserting that the cyclists (who don’t pay road tax or have number plates) are very much in the wrong by riding two abreast on a road?
I had a few close passes on
I had a few close passes on my LEJoG last year. Only one from a driver of a BMW was obviously malice. The others were all from drivers pulling caravans who attempted overtakes they didn’t have the room to complete before oncoming traffic or a blind curve, and just pulled back over early.
Agreed. Most of the time,
Agreed. Most of the time, drivers towing trailers have no idea where the fucking thing is on the road. It’s ridiculous that no specific training is required to tow a trailer (not that it would make any difference in practice).
Did the driver tell you they
Did the driver tell you they forgot they had a trailer attached or are you guessing?
Forgotten that his trailer
Forgotten that his trailer was wider than the car.
I am being kind. It is more likely that he was just an inconsiderate twat.
Tossers, just tossers.
Tossers, just tossers. Unfortunately, such arrogant, ignorant, dangerous people exist in our society, and we can’t deport them to somewhere more suitable for their personalities, like the USA or North Korea.
Send them all on driver
Send them all on driver education course where they are made to ride around large car parks whilst cars continuously close pass them while blowing their horns
“… whilst drivers
“… whilst drivers continuously close pass them…”
Ha! The irony of a
Ha! The irony of a caravanner getting annoyed at being held up.
Its hard to say, but is the
Its hard to say, but is the horn coming from the Merc after theyve had to switch lanes :-/
I take it most people know
I take it most people know that a caravan being towed by a Ford Transit isn’t going on holiday!
Now where could these driver
Now where could these drivers have got that idea from?? 🤔
https://road.cc/content/news/ashley-neal-divides-opinion-use-horn-290765
Seriously though, I had similar a few weeks ago – an initial good wide pass, but then a blast of the horn as they cut in with the trailer, nearly taking me out. I did report it to Thames Valley police, but as usual,
it’s a one-way black hole of information.UPDATE: This morning I received a letter from TVP informing me the driver had paid for and attended a “What’s Driving Us?” course. My mild criticism of TVP in this case was unwarranted. I’m happy with that.
Whilst the driver did beep and shout a threat out of the window, you could only just make out that they were shouting something, the threat was not clearly heard enough on video for a more serious charge to be brought.