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Double close pass at high speed

Near Miss of the Day 287: Double close pass at high speed

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country - today it's Bristol...
by Simon_MacMichael
Tue, Jul 09, 2019 11:47
11

Today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows a cyclist being subjected to two close passes in quick succession by drivers of vehicles travelling at high speed.

The footage was filmed by road.cc reader Rock, who caught the moment the two motorists overtook a rider to his left.

The incident happened on the A38, and Rock told us: "Two vans crossed from the outside lane into exit lane and close passed another cyclist.

"Reported to the police, first driver is getting an advisory letter, second driver isn't consider clear enough."

Rock added that the A38 in Bristol "is notorious tor close passes," although he went on to say that he had tried alternative routes but hadn't found them to be much better.

> 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 (link is external).

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

> What to do next if you’ve been involved in a road traffic collision

Near Miss of the Day
NMotD Bristol
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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11 comments

Avatar
MonkeyPuzzle | 5 years ago
2 likes

Screw the A38. My office is up Aztec West way and I gladly add an extra mile or so to my journey (plus lose the hill at Filton) by going around to the east and coming up through Sadly Broke rather than face that dual carriageway.

Avatar
AlsoSomniloquism | 5 years ago
2 likes

In a similar vein to the above and one of the recent NMotD, I was several cars behind a fellow cyclist yesterday at some lights. Lights changed, cyclist set off and got across fine ahead of the traffic behind. It was single carriageway with alot of cars coming the other way so no safe "legal" passing of the cyclist (who didn't help matters by cycling in the kerb). 
That didn't stop the WM Police car from forcing past followed closely by a transit van who was only following the example of the people who should be enforcing the close pass law. However credit to the next driver who waited until they had passed the traffic so could give the cylclist room. 

Avatar
Rick_Rude | 5 years ago
2 likes

I couldn't be bothered to cycle through that as a commute. Just looked like two-wheeled stress to me.

Avatar
AlsoSomniloquism | 5 years ago
3 likes

Love the emergency road signage dumped in the middle of the shared use/ cycle lane at 1:17 as well. 

Avatar
toxicchili replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 5 years ago
2 likes

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Love the emergency road signage dumped in the middle of the shared use/ cycle lane at 1:17 as well. 

That's been there a while now.  It's designed so if you are cycling at anything more than 5mph going onto the cycle path, you face plant into it.

Avatar
ktache | 5 years ago
2 likes

That's some damn fine weather you have in that there Bristol.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to ktache | 5 years ago
3 likes

ktache wrote:

That's some damn fine weather you have in that there Bristol.

Every day's a holiday here in Bristol.

I don't usually cycle that route (near Filton, north Bristol), but I'm actually working for three days in Sadly Broke and have cycled along that exact route yesterday and this morning.

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

Avatar
toxicchili replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
3 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

ktache wrote:

That's some damn fine weather you have in that there Bristol.

Every day's a holiday here in Bristol.

I don't usually cycle that route (near Filton, north Bristol), but I'm actually working for three days in Sadly Broke and have cycled along that exact route yesterday and this morning.

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I nearly got hit coming back because a driver was using his phone, he didn't once look up from it while he passed me.  Which is an issue if you want to take the lane, chance are one of the drivers will be on their phone.  I counted 12 on their phones between SGS and the filton round about last week.

Avatar
burtthebike replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
3 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to burtthebike | 5 years ago
2 likes

burtthebike wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

I'm loving that line - I'm going to try to introduce that into as many conversations as possible.

Monkey Puzzle wrote:

Screw the A38. My office is up Aztec West way and I gladly add an extra mile or so to my journey (plus lose the hill at Filton) by going around to the east and coming up through Sadly Broke rather than face that dual carriageway.

I plotted a route on OSMaps and it took me a confusing way (via Parkway station) that would've resulted in me getting lost, so I though I'd go the easy way that I know (straight up Muller Road and along the A38) even though I know how treacherous that road is.

Avatar
burtthebike replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
3 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

I'm loving that line - I'm going to try to introduce that into as many conversations as possible.

Let me know how that goes.  As I know from bitter experience, as a chat up line, it seems to lack something.

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