Near Miss of the Day 500: What kinds of near miss are most common? (+ videos)

Now that we’ve published more than 500 videos in our Near Miss of the Day series, we’re taking the opportunity this week to look at them in more detail to draw out some common themes – starting today with looking at which types of near miss are most common, according to the videos you’ve submitted, and providing examples of each from the archive.

Unsurprisingly, close passes make up the vast majority of submissions we have published – more than two in three, in fact.

Here’s one example of a close pass, made at 90mph, which resulted in a conviction – with the motorist banned from driving for six months, fined £592, and ordered to pay a £59 victim surcharge and costs of £620.

Within that two-thirds figure, however, there are some variations in the type of close pass the driver makes.

For example, around 10 per cent of all submissions either involve actual contact being made, most often with a wing mirror, or in aggression on a motorist’s part after the close pass has happened, including getting out of the vehicle to assault the cyclist – as we see here, although astonishingly, police in Guernsey took no action against the motorist.

Around 7 per cent of the videos published involve what is clearly intended to be a ‘punishment pass’ – often indicated by the driver leaning on the horn just before overtaking the rider.

A similar percentage involve a motorist deciding to overtake a cyclist despite oncoming traffic, putting the rider, the occupants of vehicles travelling in the opposite direction and, of course themselves, at risk.

Meanwhile, around 4 per cent involve head-on close passes – ie where the driver and the cyclist are approaching from opposite directions.

Other areas in which we have seen multiple submissions include near misses on roundabouts, at around 7 per cent of the total, right or left hooks, at 6 per cent, or what is often termed ‘MGIF’ – where a driver ‘must get in front’ of someone on a bike (often turning into a car park or driveway immediately afterwards), which account for 5 per cent – again, examples are shown below.

> 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