Near Miss of the Day 738: Close pass driver claims to have been ‘racing cyclist’ – but gets fined £100

A driver who made a close pass on a bike rider told police that he always drove considerately around cyclists, despite video evidence to the contrary, and claimed he had been a “racing cyclist” himself, and had been knocked off his bike while riding at the same location.

The Transit van driver had made what road.cc reader James described as a “super close pass” – and despite setting out various excuses in his defence, was fined £100 and had his driving licence endorsed with three penalty points.

“Interestingly, the officer responsible for dealing with it sent me a copy of an email the driver sent him, stating various mitigations for the pass,” James told us.

“The officer wanted to know if I wanted him to proceed with the FPN given the mitigation. Here are some of the driver's comments from that correspondence" [with James’s observations afterwards]:

I did notice as I passed him he moved out from the kerb towards me and was a bit unbalanced

“Baloney as can be seen in the video.”

As an experienced cyclist myself, I've raced and been in a few teams and ridden in many countries over a 40 year period. I'm a very patient and considerate driver when it comes to cyclist at all times.

“As evidenced by passing on the approach to traffic lights and a roundabout, and into oncoming traffic.”

I've been in many situations with close passes myself over many years as a cyclist. I've had  two major crashes on this very road.

“Yet still chose to pass in a place where his offside wheels barely crossed the centreline.”

I'm in no way saying I don't have responsibilities as a road user in general but feel being handed a fine and points a bit unfair.

“Maybe he should reflect on why that has happened?”

James added: “Suffice to say that once I had reviewed the footage to make sure I had not misremembered I asked that they proceed with the FPN.”

> 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