Near Miss of the Day 614: “Maybe he actually needs to put me in the hedge” asks cyclist as police send warning letter to close pass truck driver (includes swearing)

“Maybe he actually needs to put me in the hedge?” is the question posed by the cyclist who received the close pass in Warwickshire featured today in our Near Miss of the Day series, with the flatbed truck driver involved getting nothing more than a warning letter from police.

It was filmed by road.cc reader Lewis as he rode to work from Hinckley to Rugby, and reported to Warwickshire Police.

He told us it happened on Mere Lane, which he said “is the quieter rural road that runs parallel to the A5,” and is “a 60mph road but has long straight stretches where drivers can safely pass.”

Lewis continued: “As can be seen in the video the driver of the Ducato had plenty of time to observe the road ahead before making the decision to overtake and would have seen the vehicle coming in the other direction.

“Operation Snap have reviewed the footage and are going to send a warning letter to the registered keeper regarding the offence of inconsiderate driving.

“I'm not sure how much closer the driver would have to be to me to be considered for prosecution. Maybe he actually needs to put me in the hedge.

“Unfortunately the vehicle didn't have any company livery on it because the video would have been sent to company directors, which I have done in the past and sometimes get a more satisfactory outcome than reporting to the police,” he added.

> 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 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