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Near Miss of the Day 754: MGIF driver closes passes on school run – only to be followed by cyclist for next minute

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's south east London...

Today’s Near Miss features one of the most pointless overtakes we’ve seen in a while, as the motorist in question spent the next minute mere metres in front of the cyclist he so desperately needed to pass on a tight, busy school street.

Dylan, the road.cc reader who posted the video to Twitter, says the police issued a Notice of Intended Prosecution to the motorist, but the case was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service which claimed that there was “no evidence that the driver had driven his vehicle far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver”.

The cyclist notes in the video that the motorist’s car was centimetres from his handlebars, that a van was approaching from the opposite direction and, in any case, the character of the road, featuring a number of bends and traffic-calming measures due to the presence of a school, rendered the extremely close pass particularly unnecessary.

“If that is that standard of driving/enforcement we can expect around our schools then God help us,” Dylan wrote.

“This particular road is a nightmare, and the daily examples of dangerous behaviour around this crossing are shocking. But there is no enforcement of any kind. It is a matter of time before there is an accident on Churchfields Road because of impatient drivers and rat running at school times.

“The letter from the CPS assumed I would be disappointed, and I was. But I don't want to go to court, I don't want the stress and time of having to report bad driving. But when there is no police presence on the road, it is the only option.

“When the CPS will not follow through on third party reporting, the law becomes useless. Maybe I'm wrong and there is nothing wrong with that driving.”

> 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

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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18 comments

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Flintshire Boy | 1 year ago
2 likes

Vid didn't mention the offending car also stopping in a yellow box!

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brooksby | 1 year ago
8 likes

This sort of thing happens all the time...  The motorist thinks that they must get in front of the cyclist, just in case the cyclist slows down or just in case road conditions change so the motorist can put their foot down.  Nine times out of ten, they end up just sitting there in front of you (but at least they have put their inadequacies to bed for a bit...).

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GMBasix | 1 year ago
9 likes

Frustrating that the reason for dropping the case is apparently that the driving did not drop far below the standard expected.  That is the threshold for dangerous driving, not careless driving. Disappointing.

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wtjs | 1 year ago
4 likes

The letter from the CPS assumed I would be disappointed, and I was. But I don't want to go to court, I don't want the stress and time of having to report bad driving

If you follow these topics, you find that the police/ CPS (that's really just a way for the police to blame someone else- it's all done by private agreement) have only a limited number of tactics which they use over and over again to do nothing. They always write 'we understand you are disappointed...'. Apart from the few worthy exceptions like Sheffield NW NPT, the police think any passing when the cyclist wasn't actually hit...wasn't actually close enough. Don't worry about having to go to court- with most forces, you never will

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lonpfrb replied to wtjs | 1 year ago
3 likes
wtjs wrote:

...the police think any passing when the cyclist wasn't actually hit...wasn't actually close enough. Don't worry about having to go to court- with most forces, you never will

Avoidance is clearly better than the effort and uncertainty of reports after the incident. Thus a 1.5m plastic pipe perpendicular to the seat post serves to get attention, wider passes, and if hit be that evidence of collision required for prosecution when combined with a video (audio).

Ten 'oi mate, you've got a pipe stuck in the Bike' are so much more convenient than a trip to A&E..

Photo and audio evidence of pipe collision are so much more obvious than a bad-word-cos-I-feared-for-my-life.

Yes, you can ride two abreast in one lane as allowed obviously with another cyclist who knows why you have fitted it.

Your milage may vary but so far it works for me typically outside metropolitan roads, sometimes in bike lanes.

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Flintshire Boy replied to lonpfrb | 1 year ago
1 like

.

Sounds good. Please post a photo.

.

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yupiteru replied to lonpfrb | 1 year ago
2 likes

Did a similar thing a few years back when commuting, but used 25mm plastic conduit, was less than a meter long in my case, with a pivot on the rear rack so that I could swing it out of the way when I got home/work.

I fitted 2 Cateye flashing lights on the end and one on the seatpost and it proved to be very effective, especially at night.

Removed it in the end because it reduced my ability to filter through traffic.

Toying with the idea of making a telescopic version.

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Numptonian | 1 year ago
6 likes

And am I right in thinking you can only stop in a hatched area if you're turning right - which this muppet so clearly wasn't.

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Hirsute replied to Numptonian | 1 year ago
6 likes

Yes, 174
Box junctions. These have criss-cross yellow lines painted on the road (download ‘Road markings’). You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right.

I believe the war on motorists will extend to LAs being able to penalise hard working, tax paying, law abiding drivers for yellow box offences.

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ktache replied to Hirsute | 1 year ago
6 likes

Otherwise law abiding...

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Hirsute | 1 year ago
9 likes

I'm pleased that they made so much progress after overtaking you

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Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
7 likes

Multiple instances of utterly shite driving there. 
I suspect this is more a case of CPS dropping cases due to the mess the current Govt has of the criminal justice system. 

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jaymack replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
0 likes

You assume correctly I'm sorry to say.

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Awavey replied to jaymack | 1 year ago
1 like

Instead of the more logical conclusion that the CPS simply reviewed the evidence once the driver had decided they needed to go to court to challenge the prosecution and the CPS realised they had only a tiny chance of success, and simply went for the percentages outcome.

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Flintshire Boy replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
0 likes

.

More logical, sure, but that would stop these knee-jerkers from criticising 'those who can do no right and who do everything wrong'.

.

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belugabob | 1 year ago
9 likes

I can't help but think that so much of the bad overtaking, that we see, is down to impatience, caused by the sheer amount of on-road parking that exists (some of it dodgy, in it's own right) reducing the amount of safe overtaking opportunities.
Ultimately, there are simply too many vehicles on our roads, and not enough safe places to park them.

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Velophaart_95 replied to belugabob | 1 year ago
5 likes

Absolutely!! And my biggest bugbear; people who have a driveway/path - but decide not to use it, and park on the road. Why??

Why do people think they can leave personal property on the road? 

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chrisonabike replied to Velophaart_95 | 1 year ago
1 like

Because they can.

Here's this morning's collection from looking out the window.  (Bonus - the postie's having a fag break there on the double-yellows where delivery drivers / driving instructors normally park up).  Note the "double-up" combo - this is very popular hereabouts * .  Despite there being marked bays they've managed to block footway and nose into the single lane road.  There are more free bays to the left round the corner and a big ol' mostly empty carpark 60 metres to the right.  (There's another huge one at the top - empty because you have to pay - a tenner a month I think).  There were another couple of folks doing the same thing this morning; the only oddity was there are normally several other cars fully on the pavement.  And yes - when I've noticed there has always been at least one bay free.

Now this isn't exactly blocking the ambulances - it's all dead ends and a residential area.  But it's a marked "home zone" (meaningless) and this happens everywhere in Edinburgh.

* I'm ignorant of the reason - is it to stop thieves or done by the thieves / shady types to block recovery vehicles?

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