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news
Near Miss of the Day 334: Tractor driver attempts to overtake cyclist through narrow roadworks
We've had a few videos in our Near Miss of the Day series featuring tractors, and they can be very intimidating vehicles for cyclists to share the road with, given their size - especially those wheels - and whether the driver has seen you in the first place.
Then, there's the fact that encounters with tractors often take place on narrow country lanes, meaning there's very little room for manoeuvre.
The road in today's video may be somewhat wider than many country lanes - but it is artificially narrowed due to roadworks.
That does not however prevent the driver of the tractor shown from trying to overtake the cyclist despite there being no room to do so - an attempted passing manoeuvre moreover which could have put the cyclist in serious danger with the tractor driver immediately turning left.
The video was shot in Bromeswell, near Woodbridge, Suffolk at the junction of the A1152 and B1084 by road.cc reader Pete, who described it as “Sort of a close pass, but a scary ride all the same.
“Approaching some road works, lane narrowed to one vehicle, no room to pass with 1.5 metres or even 0.5 metre clearance, yet still they try and pass, to want to turn left on me at the last minute.
“The scary bit was seeing the big front wheels by my ear.”
In the description to the video on YouTube, he added: “Unfortunately no front number plate on tractor to report them, I wasn't going slow either.”
> 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.
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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25 comments
I really see nothing wrong the tractor stayed behind the cyclist went on the outside to miss a sign and so he can make the turn with the trailer. Sure there noisy and have big tires but I don't think he was purposely trying to scare the cyclist just trying to get about his day he even had his singal light on
Really?
Stayed behind the cyclist - he was practically on top of the cyclist immediately before the turn, and you could argue 'alongside' rather than behind.
To miss a sign - the sign for the beginning of the roadworks had been passed some time before the incident in question, plenty of time to pull back into the lane - the shallow angle of that junction didn't really require him (or her) to be that wide. Anyway, the fact the tractor driver was way out of the lane is not the issue, it's the fact he got far too close to the cyclist.
He even had his singal (sic) light on - not sure what you mean by this? Indicator? I did not see any indication, although the quality of the video may be to blame for this. If you mean the flashing lights on top of the tractor then so what? He could have been festooned in flashing Christmas lights it wouldn't have made any difference to the fact HE GOT FAR TOO CLOSE.
Thanks Kendalred, my thoughts entirely.
HGFTC is the new MGIF
.
Would love to know the driver's explanation for that 'manoeuvre'.
Weird and frightening!
Would take some balls to 'take the lane' through the roadworks, with that thing behind you.
my assumption based on experience of that road, is the tractor driver was probably thinking got to overtake quickly if the cyclist turns left, which is a fairly common left hook move there, vehicles can go deeper into the junction to turn across you as you tend to ride to the shallower line around, and then the road narrows and it becomes increasingly difficult for vehicles to overtake you safely, next to impossible for a wide vehicle
but as soon as the driver realises nope cyclist isnt going that way they dont have to bother with that move anymore so drop back
this is that junction looking forward https://goo.gl/maps/Lr2GYkT8gGiuG2Dp7
Both 50kcommute and Wardy74, if the tractor is so difficult to control, why tailgate the cyclist?
If it had stayed back there would have been absolutely no problems, no?
I wasn't saying he was right. They are not difficult to control, just that he wasn't very good at doing so.
Not defending the tractor driver, he was too close, especially knowing he was turning off, but he was probably using a hand throttle. Designed to stop you bouncing up and down with your foot on the accelerator you just leave it where it is like cruise control and may account for the disparity in speed if, as mentioned, the cyclists was running out of puff.
I'm not sure he had much intention to overtake.. Just going through the gears to keep momentum up and knowing he was going to slow to turn, got as close as possible.
Not great driving and obviously fearful for the cyclist, but I'm not sure anything worth castigating a driver for.
That's 20/20 hindsight.
We're looking at a video-it's hindsight by definition.
But what you saying is the driver's action was ok because we know what the outcome was thereby ignoring what happened in real time and what the cyclist experienced and feared might happen.
Are you really saying if they did they on a driving test it would be ok ?
It's much different from an 8 year old kicking a footioball indoors and saying it was ok becasue 'you saw nothing got broken'.
I didn't say it was ok- On a test it'd be a fail-"Follow too closely" My only objection was the use of the word "Hindsight"
Sorry I can't get outraged at a lot of this footage (only the very worst of it). I was a part of so much of this shit for so long it seems normal to me.
If you followed the posts, the original claim seemed to rest on having seen the outcome was ok, rather than viewing it as it went.
Rather like the virgin media van man who told me it was ok for him to pull out of a side road and not give way to me 'because he had seen me'. As if I were psychic.
It may have been in the tractor driver's head it was all ok, but that was not evident at the time.
Tautology is tautologous.
https://xkcd.com/703/
honor_societies.png
When a tractor gets that close,you'll think it's literally right on top of you, you wont waste a split second to glance back to double check & take its actual measurements from you,its more than close enough.
But I know that road that's where the road splits between Snape & Orford routes,nasty junction at the best of times its NSL normally,& its actually on a long steady incline riding that way as you are climbing out from the river level & by the time you reach that junction you tend to be flagging abit losing momentum and inevitably you always get left hooked where the tractor went if anyone is remotely near you. I suspect the tractor only didn't overtake when they realised the cyclist was carrying on to take the Orford road,as the Snape road then immediately inclines steeper and the road narrows and then starts getting twisty, vehicles have a real dislike of getting stuck behind cyclists there,hence why there were so keen to try to overtake I suspect.
Bloody scary - mainly because it means your ear was somewhere off the back of the rear rack.. troubling mental image...
I mentioned the intimidation, but ‘close pass’ - I think not. Like I said, not the best driving in the world but I’d be highly surprised if any action would be taken if reported. I am NOT defending the driving by the way.
PP
Strange one this. There seems to be no attempt to overtake - only at the very last second does the tractor driver get alongside the cyclist then immediately turns off. Why? A deliberate attempt to intimidate?
Well, he sat behind for the majority of the clip. He closed and looked like he was ‘going’ to commit a close pass, only to think better, back off and then turn off.
Not the best driving in the world, maybe it constitutes trying to intimidate, but in the end he sat behind until the very end, then closed, presumably realising he wasn’t going to get through in time to turn left and ultimately backed off and made the right decision. Or am I missing something?
PP
Putting myself in the rider's position I see a long vehicle making concerted attempt to o/take inappropriately on an unsuitable stretch of road, with a low speed differential. The noise and proximity would have been intimidating in itself
We can see that a pass didn't happen because we watched the video. This hindsight was unavailable to the rider at the time.
FFS when I'm driving my i10 I hold back with a good stopping distance until I can pass safely. Tractors are dangerous industrial machinery, and should require a licence to operate in the public space.
So yes, I think you are missing something.
Oi can't read and oi can't rite but I can drive a track'er
Saviours of the Countryside and Salt of the Earth. Or something.