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news
Near Miss of the Day 215: A trio of near misses after the clocks went back
A bumper haul of near misses today, all experienced by one Edinburgh cyclist in two days after the clocks went back.
Gordon said the first one was when he was on his way to the railway station. “The second car is clearly fixed on the bin lorry behind me didn’t notice my many flashing lights.”
The second appears to be a driver assuming that Gordon was going left on the roundabout at the top of Leith Walk. “Thankfully they were going slow enough and didn’t plough on not caring what way I was going.”
Gordon feels the third incident “highlights the stupidity of the positioning of a cycle lane between traffic and on-street parking. Stationary traffic waves the parked car out, oblivious to several cyclist coming downhill at roughly 20-25mph.”
> 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
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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29 comments
Is it me, or does this story seem to have brought a lot of trolls out from under their bridges...?
mga2's probably one of the drivers, using a rather feeble dead cat strategy. Not even 3rd-rate trolling.
This is what Top Trolling looks like:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nigel-farage-brexit-worst-deal-ev...
Nope, I cycle every day in Edinburgh.
There's someone on the crossing. Traffic in both directions has stopped to let them cross.
WRONG, the pedestrians have ALREADY CROSSED! If you'd bothered to watch the video the person and their child had their backs to the road.
HTH
Capture.JPG
There are a parent and child on the far side of the crossing, just reaching the pavement as the first cyclist goes through at 1:21. Good luck arguing that the cyclists behaved illegally in a court of law. Hint; they didn't.
Might have been advisable to stop the clip before both riders went through the zebra crossing illegally...
It didn’t look like anyone was actually on the crossing at the time they went through.
Illegal? Why?
"Mirror? Nah, fuckit, Signal, Manoeuvre"
Also, what about some action against the Openreach vans parked in the compulsory cycle lane and on double red lines? Super fast fibre maybe, not that quick at driving away from where they are illegally parked.
They're not parked on double reds, they're in a loading bay. The vans are in a bus lane and there is an on-pavement cycle lane to the left of the vans.
Presumably the big White bicycle graphic means bikes are also intended to be ridden in that bus lane, so I'm not entirely sure what point you're making?
I'm also sure you're aware of how rubbish "on pavement cycle lanes " generally are, and why someone might choose to exercise their right not to use one...?
The point I was making is that the vans are not parked on double reds as you stated. Also, that the lane is not a compulsary cycle land as you stated.
even if they were parked on double reds I believe Openreach have the same dispensation that Royal Mail have in terms of being allowed to park where they need to, to access their equipment. Even if they didnt have the exact same dispensation as Royal Mails is to do with handling the monarchs mail without impediment, its still possible to get parking permits off local councils, for the exact same reason ie park where you want, to access streetside equipment, the only difference then is traffic wardens usually ignore the permit, issue the ticket, which you then contact the council who immediately cancel it.
so dont always assume some vans are ever illegally parked
I strongly suspect that dispensation, assuming it is as you say, is frequently abused. Much like the concept of a 'loading bay' when 90% of the time you see a vehicle parked in them there is no visible 'loading' going on.
Roundabouts seem to be hotspots for crap driving.
It's as though drivers' brains are overloaded with 'roundabout factors' to compute, and there is no processing capacity left to make sure they don't run over a person on a bike.
I think the cyclist could have been better positioned for going ahead. Too far to the left and drivers think you are going left. I couldn't tell if the car came from the right or from behind in left hook mode.
Classic 'follow the car in front without use of the brain' in the first incident.
I agree, in fact how the exit lane is positioned you would want to be in the right hand lane to control what's coming behind you and remove their options/thinking how they can bully past. However as we know because motorists can approach open rdbts at speed getting into the right lane can be a whole world of pain to start with.
The right lane does take you through quicker too so shortening exposure time on the rdbt itself and meaning less steering so you loose less speed. Also you're not toward the esge of the carriageway so are avoiding the usual pile up of shit and debris on these curves that accumulate so less skid and puncture risk also by straightening the manoeuvre out.
It might be good to contact local highways and get them to assess the lane designation for straight on and left to filter left, particularly if that's what the majority do already.
"oblivious to several cyclist coming downhill at roughly 20-25mph" - the speed limit for traffic is 20mph so I think it's sensible not to exceed it on a bike. Others might disagree.
Fixed that for you, also a guess at speed and you're immediately making out it's beyond that for motorvehicles. Well fr a start off police won't prosecute even at 24mph IF they were even bothered to do so. Also two wrongs NEVER make a right, it's encumbent on you in your car to not just put others at risk of harm because you think they might be doing something that you don't agree with. In this case the cyclists were doing nothing wrong.
You know full well that a speed limit of 20mph means most motorised vehicles will be doing 20-25mph. Stop feigning ignorance for passive-aggressive anti-cyclist purposes, you aren't fooling anybody.
E.g.
https://www.allstarcard.co.uk/this-matters-fuel/fleet-news/do-20-mph-zon...
"according to The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA), 81% of car drivers exceed the speed limit on 20mph roads and 44% exceed 25mph."
"Figures released by the Department for Transport show that 81 per cent of cars recorded at nine sites across the country in 2016 broke the limit, with a handful - 15 per cent - travelling at more than 30mph."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/03/drivers-ignore-20mph-speed-l...
I always stick to the 20mph limits in Edinburgh when I drive. As a pedestrian and cyclist it would be good if all other road users did so too.
Why? They don't apply to 'road users', they apply to motorised vehicle users. Who, in any case, generally ignore them and are in efffect allowed to do so by official declared police policies of not enforcing them.
So cyclists are neither legally obliged to stay strictly under 20mph, nor would they be in line with the rest of the traffic if they did so. So I'm not clear what point you are trying to make.
Particularly as we aren't even speaking of every single cycle trip (I don't believe most cyclists are that fit, we aren't all Strava obsessives), the subject was one particular road which happens to be a hill, leading to higher average cycling speeds. Why is creeping over the (generally ignored) limit for motorised vehcicles of any great import?
“highlights the stupidity of the positioning of a cycle lane between traffic and on-street parking" - true, but the cylists also don't use the new cycle lane situated between the parked cars and the pavement just prior to the last incident, probably because they'd have to slow down to use it safely.
And... is not using the new cycle lane (which appears to be about 300 m long on Streetview) good or bad behaviour by the fast riders? Hint - in motoring terms not using it it may be analogous to not diverting onto 1 km of motorway when you're on a fast A-road and travelling 10's of kilometers.
I'm not saying it's bad behaviour but it's a bit strange to criticise (in the text of the Road.cc story) the positioning of cycle lanes between parked cars and traffic whilst not using the one that is positioned between parked cars and the pavement.
Does changing the clocks increase risk in the following few days, and has anybody collated the data? Given that most collisions are caused by dozy drivers, and they are likely to be even dozier with the time change, it seems likely, but I thought the whole point of the change was to improve safety.
I haven't got any data, but I drive a lot for work and dread the week after the clocks go back. People seem to be unaware of how their lights work, lane discipline and other vehicles. On a positive they seem slower.