Near Miss of the Day 914: Driver close passes cyclist... then proceeds to pull over and assault him for touching his car

Usually the footage on our Near Miss of the Day series is just that — a near miss, always scary and with the potential to turn into something much more dangerous but fortunately doesn't, and most of the time free from any physical contact, let alone a physical altercation.

Not this time though, as the driver first overtook the cyclist with oncoming traffic with so little space that he was able to offer one of those harmless taps on the car with just a flick of his shoulder. However, the driver wasn't pleased with that, pulling ahead and screaming that he gave the cyclist loads of room, before allegedly committing a physical assault.

The incident took place on Carrs Hill on the N28 between Carrigaline and Cork City in Ireland, where the cyclist 'Righttobikeit' has had a couple of close passes, one of those in July last year on this same stretch of road when the motorist involved mistimed their approach to a cyclist (possibly not helped by the van driver close behind) and was forced to brake suddenly having realised there would be no safe way past.

This clown added an assault charge causing harm to his deliberate dangerous overtake. Waited up ahead and pulled to ground while still on my bike because I touched his car. Justice will come to him . Said he gave loads of room. pic.twitter.com/iWS1vU05XB

— Righttobikeit 🇺🇦 (@righttobikeit) August 13, 2024

This time, the driver was following the rider with his right indicator on, impatiently looking for the tiniest of gaps to overtake in the presence of heavy oncoming traffic. As soon as the motorist smelled half an opportunity, he revved his engine and decided to complete the manoeuvre, barely leaving his lane and scarily close to the cyclist.

The cyclist told road.cc: "He pulled over after around 200 or 300 metres and got out of the car. I had to stop in case he attacked me while moving with so much traffic. He started shouting and screaming at me for hitting his car.

"He then pulled my bike to ground while I was on it causing me to fall over. I pulled out my phone and started calling the Gardai. But he refused to remain at the scene."

He suffered flesh wounds on his leg, noting that they were "just scrapes and nothing serious". He added that the motorist was in his "late 20s early 30s" and was with another woman who managed to somehow pull him away when he got back up to his feet.

He said that he hadn't reported the assault to the gardai yet and was deciding to withhold footage of it until the police procedure had concluded, adding: "It was an assault so I won't be going through our traffic watch system I'll have to go to the station tomorrow and make a statement."

> Near Miss of the Day 903: Driver's punishment pass while blaring horn at two-abreast cyclists earns £300 fine and six penalty points

Loads of room pic.twitter.com/qwmJm765jd

— Righttobikeit 🇺🇦 (@righttobikeit) August 13, 2024

The rider, who regularly uploads footage of dangerous driving from their commutes and has appeared on this website previously, had previously told road.cc that this stretch of road in Cork County has been something of a hotspot for close passes.

Besides the near miss from July last year where the motorist stalled their car while blaring the horn at the cyclist, another incident on the same road saw a driver receive a careless driving conviction, €300 fine and five penalty points on their licence after being reported by Righttobikeit.

> 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