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Record that close pass you suffered on this new online logging toolChris Boardman close pass.png

Record that close pass you suffered on this new online logging tool

Hope is that crowdsourced data could be shared with planners
by Alex Bowden
Sat, Jan 20, 2018 16:22
15

“Fed up and a bit scared” of the number of close passes he had been experiencing on his weekend rides, Steven Piper decided to create an online tool to track and record close passes. You can find it at closepass.cc.

The founder of Southsea-based Si Digital told road.cc that he hopes to gather sufficient data to share with planners and the highways agency.

“There were a few incidents that got me thinking about building the site,” said Piper. “There’s a lovely climb near me, Harting Hill in Hampshire, where I had two close passes during the climb – one by a Lamborghini who didn't want to dent his car against another car. On other rides I've had double decker buses passing me within half a metre – the bus must have been going 50mph.

“As a mostly weekend cyclist, averaging four hours on a Sunday, I typically get one dangerous close pass on every ride, if not more.

“I thought that by collating enough data we may be able to find a trend. Are there particular sections of roads – pinch points, climbs, tight bends – where close passes happen more often? Are there particular times of the day when they are more frequent?”

The tool itself is fairly self-explanatory. You sign up, click on the map to mark the location of the close pass and then enter the time and date of the incident.

Piper says that the tool logs the latitude and longitude of the event. “There are data sources we can then cross reference at a later date where we could look up the road type, speed limit etc.”

The hope is that should enough people make use of the tool, there will be sufficient data to identify close pass blackspots – information that could then be shared with relevant organisations.

It may also be that cyclists might want to use the map to steer clear of certain roads and Piper points out that he has therefore used a map type that shows bike shops, cafes and pubs.

close pass
close pass tool
closepass.cc
Steven Piper
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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15 comments

Avatar
ratsbeyfus | 6 years ago
0 likes

Good idea for a site - be great to get it integrated with Strava / garmin Connect etc, so that a new log in isn't required and you can record the close pass incident when you upload your rides.

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tugglesthegreat | 6 years ago
0 likes

Registered and now logging all the close passes.  I have recently changed my commute into work to more back streets one main section and added about half a mile on to my route and have to tackle some steep sections or road, this is all for trying to avoid close passes.

What would be really good, if this app had some stats so you could see which roads were the ones to avoid.

 

 

 

Avatar
Steven Piper replied to tugglesthegreat | 6 years ago
0 likes

tugglesthegreat wrote:

Registered and now logging all the close passes.  I have recently changed my commute into work to more back streets one main section and added about half a mile on to my route and have to tackle some steep sections or road, this is all for trying to avoid close passes.

What would be really good, if this app had some stats so you could see which roads were the ones to avoid.

Thanks for registering and plotting, please share as well if you could.

We will be to show more stats but we need to gather more data before we can do it.

If you zoom in to the map where you put your markers you will see a heat map. As more data is entered it will be more obvious which roads have a higher number of close pass events.

Cheers,

Steve

 

Avatar
tugglesthegreat replied to Steven Piper | 6 years ago
0 likes

Steven Piper wrote:

tugglesthegreat wrote:

Registered and now logging all the close passes.  I have recently changed my commute into work to more back streets one main section and added about half a mile on to my route and have to tackle some steep sections or road, this is all for trying to avoid close passes.

What would be really good, if this app had some stats so you could see which roads were the ones to avoid.

Thanks for registering and plotting, please share as well if you could.

We will be to show more stats but we need to gather more data before we can do it.

If you zoom in to the map where you put your markers you will see a heat map. As more data is entered it will be more obvious which roads have a higher number of close pass events.

Cheers,

Steve

 

Cheers Steve

Thanks for the info, I'll keep logging. I have already share the link to all my FB contacts.

Good work mate 

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PaulNZ | 6 years ago
0 likes

Is this transportable to New Zealand would be great to provide this to the various counils here to see where the issues are as well.

Would this also factor in forced close passes, aka filtering through traffic because cars have used parking lane (aka gutter is blocked) or cycle lane. This morning I had to adjust a cars mirror so I could get through.

 

Avatar
Steven Piper replied to PaulNZ | 6 years ago
0 likes

PaulNZ wrote:

Is this transportable to New Zealand would be great to provide this to the various counils here to see where the issues are as well.

Would this also factor in forced close passes, aka filtering through traffic because cars have used parking lane (aka gutter is blocked) or cycle lane. This morning I had to adjust a cars mirror so I could get through.

 

 

Hi.

Although we built the site for the UK , the map does work world wide as we only store the Latitude and Longitude.

Cheers,

Steve

 

 

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alansmurphy | 6 years ago
0 likes

Indeed, angle of the lorry suggests it's only going to get closer too!

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alansmurphy | 6 years ago
3 likes

Why?

If I was riding solo I would be in the position of the outside rider...

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to alansmurphy | 6 years ago
2 likes

alansmurphy wrote:

Why? If I was riding solo I would be in the position of the outside rider...

exactly!

That they don't get why is indicitive of why most people continue to take risks and endanger other road users.

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kie7077 replied to alansmurphy | 6 years ago
2 likes

alansmurphy wrote:

Why? If I was riding solo I would be in the position of the outside rider...

I bet he wasn't that close to the other rider when the lorry started over-taking.

But still, I can't see why they shouldn't ride 2 abreast on this road, to suggest they shouldn't is also to suggest that it's OK for vehicles to try and squeeze past whilst there is oncoming trafic because otherwise vehicles could cross into the other lane completely as they should.

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Batchy replied to kie7077 | 6 years ago
0 likes

kie7077 wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Why? If I was riding solo I would be in the position of the outside rider...

I bet he wasn't that close to the other rider when the lorry started over-taking.

But still, I can't see why they shouldn't ride 2 abreast on this road, to suggest they shouldn't is also to suggest that it's OK for vehicles to try and squeeze past whilst there is oncoming trafic because otherwise vehicles could cross into the other lane completely as they should.

Just look at the road ahead . Nobody in their right mind would ride two abreast on that road in those conditions, whether they have the right to is not in question !

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dassie replied to alansmurphy | 6 years ago
0 likes

alansmurphy wrote:

Why? If I was riding solo I would be in the position of the outside rider...

 

Agreed; outer rider is in standard secondary positioning.  The rider on the inside however is pretty much hemmed into the gutter, which I personally wouldn't find much fun.  Despite drivers seemingly having an 'allergic' reaction to cyclists riding two abreast at any time, a small group of riders riding two abreast (circumstances allowing) can be in a much more compact position for vehicles to overtake safely, with the required space, than if spread out in a long single file.

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Batchy | 6 years ago
0 likes

Those guys in the photo need their heads testing for riding two abreast on that road  !

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alansmurphy | 6 years ago
3 likes

Only takes a minute or two to register. My phone picks up my location and I just pick a road and enter date and time.

There's a couple of streets on my commute that always lead to close passes. Hopefully then the planners will use the data or the police!

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brooksby | 6 years ago
0 likes

Just had a quick look: have to register before you can report anything. To be honest, hopefully I'd never suffer enough close passes to have to actually *register* on the site...

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