Near Miss of the Day 555: Driver nearly left-hooks cyclist; rider who filmed shocking footage says it underlines need for safe infrastructure

An Edinburgh cyclist who filmed another rider coming within a whisker of being knocked off his bike by a left-turning motorist says the shocking footage highlights the need for safe cycling infrastructure in the area of the Scottish capital where the incident happened.

Dr Mark Hartl was riding on West Harbour Road, Granton, when the driver of a black hatchback cut across the cycling in front of him, barely missing the rider who was forced to brake and unclip his left foot.

Dr Hartl told road.cc that he spoke to the other cyclist afterwards. “He was a bit shaken, but unhurt, as he managed to stay on the bike,” he said.

While he was able to note the motorist’s registration plate, he said that since “no-one was hurt or worse, I did not consider reporting it to the police.”

With the footage going viral on Twitter after he posted it to the social network, and the story picked up by local media, Dr Hartl said that he “would rather see the publicity used to expedite the installation of a cycle path along that route.”

Highlighting “the lack of a safe cycle path between the Lower Granton Road cycle path and the Silverknowles Esplanade that leads to Cramond,” he added that “the road surface is very poor, ground up by heavy HGVs and is now since the lockdown becoming more popular with cycling families.”

> 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