Near Miss of the Day 581: “I really did fear for my life” – Driver nearly hits cyclist head-on (includes swearing)

In our Near Miss of the Day series today we have what must rank as one of the closest things we've ever featured in the series – with a van driver who is overtaking a lorry coming straight towards a cyclist with no attempt to slow down.

It happened in Heywood, Lancashire as road.cc reader Graham was going to work at 6am on Saturday morning.

He told us: “I got to within a couple of minutes from my workplace when this incident occurred.

“There was a lorry travelling at speed on the other side of the road and the car behind it decided to overtake and entered my lane travelling at high-speed head on with me.

“I had to stop my bike and hope the car didn't hit me and as you can see from the footage if it had I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. Sadly because of the weather conditions and lighting I have been unable to identify the driver’s number plate.

“I have contacted the police via online form and am waiting for them to contact me so they can view the footage.

“I attended the police station today to hand the footage in but they didn’t take it from me and said I had to wait to be contacted.

“I know there are cameras along this route which may have picked up this incident but by the time the police do something, if anything, the footage will be lost.

“I’ve had a few close passes and near misses but never anything like this before – I really did fear for my life,” he added.

> 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