Near Miss of the Day 217: Driver towing horsebox makes VERY close overtake

A video showing a shockingly close overtake on a group of cyclists has gone viral on Twitter with almost 50,000 views – and police say they are investigating the incident.

It happened yesterday on a group ride of Warwick Lanterne Rouge Cycling Club, with the driver of a horsebox just millimetres away from hitting one of the riders with the trailer as they overtook at speed.

One of THE worse close passes I’ve ever seen on today’s Club Ride!! @WMPRHRT this is unbelievable!! Literally inches from a fatality @Warwick_Courier @WarwickCops @WMPolice @ClosePasses #opclosepass @cyclingweekly @WeAreCyclingUK @TakeThatCyclist #wlrcc pic.twitter.com/C59YCR43gK

— WarwickLRCyclingClub (@WLR_CC) November 18, 2018

In a tweet, the club said: The rider was pretty shook up to be honest as it was SO SO close.

It added the horsebox had hit the kerb of a traffic island as the driver overtook, and that the motorist could not have “missed the group as it was on our club ride so 8/10 riders. Just a pure idiot wanting to overtake then running out of room rapidly … easy option other than braking was to nearly kill someone

Warwickshire Police are now investigating after requesting the original footage.

> 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