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RA07 VHU- Close Pass

Near Miss of the Day 320: Close passes “a near daily occurrence” for this cyclist

Our regular series featuring close passes from around the country – today it’s Buckinghamshire
by Simon_MacMichael
Sun, Oct 20, 2019 17:32
11

The latest video in our Near Miss of the Day series shows a motorist carrying out a dangerous manoeuvre by overtaking a cyclist roundabout, then turning left across him.

It was filmed by road.cc reader Lyndon – we’ve featured a couple of his videos recently, and he told us: “It seems to be a near daily occurrence now, this time in Marlow. After our Saturday club ride today, I was headed back home when a silver coupé was following me into the roundabout.

“Rather than wait, they absolutely needed to get in front and overtook me while turning left at the roundabout, coming extremely close.

“Keeping with the trend, the driver didn't apologise, pull over, or make any effort to take responsibility, simply just driving off.

“Seems not only to be getting more normal, but borderline acceptable behaviour. I won't even bother sending this one to Thames Valley Police – I already know that nothing will be done.”

> 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.

Near Miss of the Dayy
NMotD Buckinghamshire
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
quiff | 5 years ago
2 likes

"I won't even bother sending this one to Thames Valley Police – I already know that nothing will be done"

IME (admittedly of a different police force) the most painful / time consuming part of the process is waiting for the video to upload. If you can be bothered to send it to road.cc, surely you could be bothered to send it to the police? I understand the frustration about outcome, but it's a vicious circle - if you don't make the complaint, the incidents aren't in their crime report stats and there's less imperative for the police to do something about them. 

 

Avatar
Fifth Gear replied to quiff | 5 years ago
0 likes

quiff wrote:

"I won't even bother sending this one to Thames Valley Police – I already know that nothing will be done"

IME (admittedly of a different police force) the most painful / time consuming part of the process is waiting for the video to upload. If you can be bothered to send it to road.cc, surely you could be bothered to send it to the police? I understand the frustration about outcome, but it's a vicious circle - if you don't make the complaint, the incidents aren't in their crime report stats and there's less imperative for the police to do something about them. 

 

Filling out the police online report is very time-consuming. The fact that in the Thames Valley it will not be dealt with in a professional manner means that close-pass drivers are never prosecuted unless there is actually a collision so it is hardly surprising that these incidents are not normally reported.

Avatar
mrmusette | 5 years ago
2 likes

I know its a bit risky to use yourself as a human barricade, but in this clip it's tempting to just stay in the middle of the road for a while to inconvenience this driver. Maybe call the police whilst doing so.

Avatar
Philh68 | 5 years ago
3 likes

If it’s almost a daily occurrence why leave them the room to do it? Take the lane on approach, and stay there until it’s safe for you to ride in secondary position. If you leave the door open you’re going to get uninvited guests…

Avatar
CyclingInBeastMode replied to Philh68 | 5 years ago
2 likes

Philh68 wrote:

If it’s almost a daily occurrence why leave them the room to do it? Take the lane on approach, and stay there until it’s safe for you to ride in secondary position. If you leave the door open you’re going to get uninvited guests…

Well yes, but it should NEVER have to be the actions of the vulnerable person to deter the person with a killing machine not to use it to intimidate/assault that vulnerable person should it? it's all well and good saying do y to stop x, but as we know when you're not in a metal cage it's not as easy as it seems, certainly not for a significant portion of people on bikes AND importsntly isn't for those who would like to cycle.

They would rarely if ever feel like their life is at risk by 'taking the lane' in a motorvehicle so why would they remove that safety to dual it out with 2ton up to 40tons of mass driven at speed that can squish them in an instance? yes sometimes people on bikes can do better, but if we are remotely interested in safety and eliminating this kind of thing we either force government and police to act to stop the actions of those that present the harm or we remove motorvehicles from parts of the highway completely? It's too easy to put the onus on the vulnerable and not an effective long term solution either, there's only so much you can do! 

Avatar
grumpyoldcyclist | 5 years ago
3 likes

I suspect it was a goldfish driving the car - no sooner had the cyclist disappeared from the view out of the windscreen, they were forgotten. Trash driving.

Avatar
HLaB replied to grumpyoldcyclist | 5 years ago
0 likes

grumpyoldcyclist wrote:

I suspect it was a goldfish driving the car - no sooner had the cyclist disappeared from the view out of the windscreen, they were forgotten. Trash driving.

If the unobservant numpty even sawhim in the first place :-o 

Avatar
zero_trooper | 5 years ago
0 likes

Can't work out what's going on.
Either report to cover any allegations of 'cycle rage', or don't report it because nothing really happened?

I take it that Lyndon was not intending to turn left at that roundabout. Did the Peugeot beat him to it? Could he have positioned himself better on the approach? Maybe the Pug didn't allow him the time to do so with that lazy overtake. That's what was going on laugh

Avatar
Legin | 5 years ago
6 likes

Why don't you start a series for people who can be bothered reporting the indicent to the police instead of the one's who can't?

Avatar
StuInNorway replied to Legin | 5 years ago
5 likes

Legin wrote:

Why don't you start a series for people who can be bothered reporting the indicent to the police instead of the one's who can't?

Alternatively send the list of cases where people explain clearly that they are ignored if they report things to the government minister in chare of the police, asking for a written reply as to why there is such a difference in how the same offences are dealt with depending where in the country you are, as the law is the same across the nation.

Avatar
Morat replied to StuInNorway | 5 years ago
1 like

StuInNorway wrote:

Legin wrote:

Why don't you start a series for people who can be bothered reporting the indicent to the police instead of the one's who can't?

Alternatively send the list of cases where people explain clearly that they are ignored if they report things to the government minister in chare of the police, asking for a written reply as to why there is such a difference in how the same offences are dealt with depending where in the country you are, as the law is the same across the nation.

 

There's a good point here.

Now that road.cc is receiving all these videos it's a bit of a shame to just post them up and count the comments.  Could you ask the people who submit the videos a few questions?

1. Did you make a complaint to the police based on this video?

2. Which force?

3. What was the outcome?

4. Please supply the reference numbers of any official correspondance.

You'd soon have a decent sample which could be used to campaign to get the police to take this sort of thing seriously - along with the nice attention grabbing videos.

 

Obviously, IANAL so you might want to take advice on asking the correct questions which would provide the most persausive case without putting people off.

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