After a summer break, our Near Miss of the Day series returns with a double bill of close passes which led police in Kent to only issue warning letters in each instance.
road.cc reader Andrew Wills, known on this site as Jakrayan, got in touch in July with footage of a couple of videos that make for uncomfortable viewing. He takes up the story here:
“First up is a caravan towing driver on the B2068 Stone Street near Canterbury. On a very short straight they decided to overtake my wife – she’d dropped back a little as it was a short, sharp downhill – forcing 3 oncoming drivers to brake hard, the 3rd one coming to a complete stop (albeit arguably too close to the vehicle in front).
“The driver swung back in and almost took her out, forcing her to take evasive action into the verge. Fortunately no kerb, the outcome could have been very serious. The driver then overtook me seconds later, also where there wasn’t enough room ahead and swung in early.
“Unfortunately I didn’t have a forward camera at the time, but it was close. The idiotic thing is that Stone Street is an old Roman Road so there are long, straight stretches just along the road. Kent Police merely sent a warning letter. Appalling in my opinion.
“Second one is a Stagecoach bus driver on the A28 from Sturry into Canterbury – a great example of why cyclists don’t use the bike lane, though I was trying to be considerate by at least cycling on the white line. The lane is narrow – certainly narrower than a pair of MTB handlebars (though I was on a road bike) – has drain covers, puddles, grit and is usually overgrown.
“The second bus driver shows how it should be done, and I gave them a thumbs up after they passed me! Police action warning letter sent to the company, didn’t even identify the driver despite the video clearly showing registration and route number plus the time of the incident.
“I now no longer bothering reporting these, as what’s the point of wasting 20 minutes filling in the website form when they don’t even ask to see the video – no Operation Snap in Kent. I also no longer cycle along the A28, too many close passes or people yelling at you to move over if you’re not in the ‘bike lane’.
“Fortunately, the vast majority of drivers around here are courteous and considerate when I’m on my bike, though of course it only takes one idiot to ruin your day. Or worse.”
Our thanks to Andrew for his submissions. As you may have noticed, submissions to NMOTD don’t have to be hot off the press, in fact we prefer to wait until we have an outcome from a police investigation, be it a warning letter, a fine or ‘No Further Action’. At least Kent Police still issues warning letters…
> 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">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
16 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 947 and 948: Warning letters issued after two close passes on busy, narrow roads”
You did well to get any result from Kent Police. I gave up after reporting a couple of incidents and not even getting a request to submit video evidence. They don’t seem to care about roads policing. Well done for getting these 2 actioned.
Another great example of how dangerous these token ‘bike lanes’ are. The magic white paint relieves the driver of any obligation to leave a safe distance.
@bikeclips Famously, these painted lanes have been shown to be more dangerous than no lane at all.
If it doesn’t have bollards, it isn’t infrastructure
@bikeclips A slight correction, in the driver’s imagination it relieves them of any obligation, under the Highway Code guidance that only applies to a completely segregated lane, the same instruction to leave 1.5 m applies whether the paint is there or not.
@bikeclips When you see how narrow that cycle ‘lane’ is to begin with its ridiculous councils think they are satisfactory. But as the clip moves along, how many puddles, patches of debris etc has narrowed that path? And when you have a large vehicle inches away from you, where are you supposed to go? It also , in both clips, shows how other drivers can get by safely if you just have some patience. The driver of the Fiat at the start was waiting to pass for a while but they were safe and probably only held up for around a minute. Why do people feel so ready to take risky overtakes just to save literally minutes?
@Smoggysteve Perhaps we need to treat drivers like the toddlers so many of them are. If they think that bike lanes remove the requirement for 1.5m then lets play along. Every bike lane must be at least 2m wide so that they can be sure that when they aren’t in the bike lane they are 1.5m from cyclists.
@Smoggysteve And when you have a large vehicle inches away from you, where are you supposed to go?
In the opinion of drivers and the police: Away. Somewhere else. Anywhere but here. To the devil. To the mortuary.
@bikeclips Last week, I was almost thrown out of a meeting because I was swearing under my breath while I read the ‘Lydney Cycle Improvements’ document, which includes such gems as:
“The Lydney Cycleway improvement scheme was completed in spring 2020 and has improved access and increased connectivity by creating a pleasant, safe and accessible network of pathways around Lydney…..”
The ‘improvements’ are almost entirely narrow, on-road bike lanes on narrow roads, where two cars cannot pass without going into the bike lanes. They don’t increase connectivity, they aren’t pleasant, or safe or particularly accessible, but hey, why quibble over irrelevant details?
“The scheme was developed with the aim of promoting cycle usage and reducing car journeys within Lydney.”
Since 2020, car journeys have increased but cycle journeys haven’t.
Have a guess how much it cost. Go on, have a guess.
£1,000,000. Entirely wasted.
Advice letters are worthless junk designed to appease the gullible, as the offenders are fully aware that the police don’t possess the the wit or the willingness to find out whether the driver has received a joke advice letter for the same offence in the past- and that’s even within the same force. Imagine the vanishingly low probability that they would trouble to find out about offences in the jurisdiction of a different cyclist-hostile force, and refusing to look at the video unless the cyclist has been KSI’d is pretty hostile- wait till they catch onto the Lancashire technique of just binning everything that comes into OpSnap from cyclists! Kent has clearly been on the Lancashire Stagecoach course:
ttps://upride.cc/incident/sk19evu_stagecoach42_closepass/
ttps://upride.cc/incident/px12dmy_stagecoach40_closepass/
ttps://upride.cc/incident/pk05opm_freelander_closepass/
The last one is the latest ignored routine Lancashire driver attack. These are minimum field of view videos- they would look even closer if I used wide angle like the OP
The Range Rover driver is either purely an arrogant twat who doesn’t give a shite about any other road user or he is just totally incompetent when it comes to not having the comfort of following a vehicle at their desired speed. The timings of the overtakes, what I’m assuming is down hill, and the risk to the cyclists and the oncoming motorists is shocking. Arrogance or incompetence, either way it would be safer if they weren’t on the roads.
“Police action warning letter sent to the company, didn’t even identify the driver despite the video clearly showing registration and route number plus the time of the incident… I now no longer bothering reporting these, as what’s the point of wasting 20 minutes filling in the website form when they don’t even ask to see the video – no Operation Snap in Kent.”
I’m confused – does this mean that these two got warning letters based just on a written complaint from (presumably the two) of you, without police viewing the footage?
I would like / not like to see the front facing footage from your wife – I’ve only had that once, but the experience of thinking “**** that was close”, and then realising there’s a trailer coming too is terrifying. I hope the second, sensible bus driver gave the first one some words of advice when they got to the depot, that was ridiculous.
Too many drivers towing caravans or trailers still drive as though they aren’t towing! The number of times that I’ve nearly been taken out by a caravan is lots, IMO drivers should have to take a course before being allowed to tow anything and that should show on their licence.
With regard to painted cycle lanes, I refuse to use them for the reasons stated, I’ll ride out from the kerb and painted lane and if it pisses drivers off so be it…
I despair at the cycling provisions in most parts of the country, cycle paths ending by main roads, short paths, painted narrow lanes, etc…
I went once to a cycle planning meeting for Somerset County Council in Taunton, they had loads of boards showing the (disjoined) cycling lanes… I stood up and asked the 25 or so councillors and various other planners, “how many of you cycle regularly in Taunton?”
Guess what?
I was the only cyclist there🤣
@sclarke3@talktalk.net The scariest close pass I ever experienced was an SUV towing a trailer.
The idiot forgot that his trailer was slightly wider than his wankermobile.
I cycle that section of Stone Street too. Not my favourite road to cycle on – a means of connecting much more pleasant roads – but actually I find most of the passes along there to be nice and wide, albeit typically at high speed. My guess is that the driver imagined they could just zip past, completely failing to allow for the slow acceleration of their vehicle under load, the length of the caravan, and you and your wife’s own acceleration on the downhill gradient. All in all, abysmal judgment by the driver. It’s deeply sobering to view as an onlooker how dangerous our hobby is when watching video of someone else put in danger on a road I travel regularly.
Something I’m very intrigued by: how did you get Kent Police to request the video? I’ve tried pretty much everything in my written descriptions (keeping it concise vs going right to the character limit, keeping it dry and factual vs explaining how I felt, listing the laws being broken etc etc), and yet for the last 5 years or so nothing has induced them to request the visual evidence. Also, how did you find out the consequences for the drivers? Did Kent Police actually enter into email correspondence with you?
@KentRider how did you get Kent Police to request the video? …how did you find out the consequences for the drivers?
Very important questions! The last thing the police want is indisputable evidence, and their most valuable and most often wielded weapons are refusal to respond to reports and refusal to look at evidence- often disguised as ‘we’re so busy, we don’t have the time’. Police inaction has far-reaching consequences: the NW Traffic Commissioner is supposed to supervise Lancashire Stagecoach and other bus companies, but as far as he’s concerned if there was no police action, there was no problem and he follows the ‘head in the sand’ solution. Police officers really are the main enemies of cyclists.
ttps://upride.cc/incident/sk19evw_stagecoach42_closepass/
ttps://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/
I’ve just asked this on their Facebook page message link. If everyone did the same we might get them to realise that we’re not just silent about this.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19cqAKgXRQ/
Hi
Can you point me to your public statement about the actions of your driver of this Stagecoach bus YNIG WYN as shown in this video? I am assuming that you would agree this is utterly dangerous driving, and does not meet the standards of a professional bus driver, let alone one driving for a premium firm such as yourselves.
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