Near Miss of the Day 603: Cyclist squeezed between overtaking driver and parked cars

It's amazing how few riders use the 'shoulder check', as you call it.  A former motorcyclist, I learned it as 'the lifesaver' and I wouldn't move my position on the road without performing one. 

Agreed. As a motorcyclist it was pretty much beaten into me by my Star Rider instructor. I even use it in the car coming off roundabouts and before changing lane. 

But that's a thing of awareness where traffic is around you, its totally something worth having in your toolbox to use so to speak, but it wont stop traffic passing you like that as a cyclist.

The passes by both of those cars in the video clearly didnt take account of the obstacles ahead of them further than immediately beyond their front bumper and the cyclist probably didnt even factor to their thinking, they were focused purely on just driving through that as fast as they could, and a shoulder check by a cyclist just wouldnt stop that.

It becomes a sticking plaster,for others failures to plan ahead properly.

Awavey wrote:

The passes by both of those cars in the video clearly didnt take account of the obstacles ahead of them further than immediately beyond their front bumper

And that right there is the problem.

Motorists (and some cyclists and horsists, I'm sure) only ever seem to deal with one 'problem' at a time: pass the cyclist in front of you but don't look ahead to see the traffic queue ahead of them (so overtake and then almost immediately hit the brakes while the cyclist filters past, for example...).

Constant examples of that abound on my commutes. Normally hits the Must Stay In Lane  crowds as well so even though they could move into the next lane to pass safely, they don't and then have to pull to a stop.

The irony here is that if you had cycled closer to the kerb and the BMW had passed you very closely without crossing the solid white line the police wouldn't have been able to prosecute, at least that's what I got told.

Good luck, I hope the prosecuton is successful and thanks for all the good work you are doing.

The irony here is that if you had cycled closer to the kerb and the BMW had passed you very closely without crossing the solid white line the police wouldn't have been able to prosecute, at least that's what I got told.

The police will always claim that, which is equivalent to saying there is no such thing as a prosecution for a non-contact close pass. This would render all this fuss on here about NMOTD completely useless, which is arguable. It is indeed true that several, if not most, police forces in England are operating a Cyclist Blood on the Road or Nothing! policy. That is what we are fighting against- Police with Total Empathy Failure and Proud of It.

In my opinion this is not a lazy PC. They have taken the time to give me feedback (which most forces don't) when they are very busy and are just following their training. May be the training needs to be changed, may be the law needs to be changed, may be there are more chiefs than indians in the police force like there are in more and more professions nowadays. None of these is this PC's fault.

I am sure there are PCs who could work harder and I don't always get feedback for my submissions but this instance is not one of them. I think we are fortunate to have this feedback as it helps to explain the lack of action in some of the NMOTDs we have seen in the past. I hope it will help to inform Cycling UK's attempts to get things changed. Here are a couple of links if you would like to do something constructive to help. Read the first and act on the second.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/files/document/2021/06/2106_cycl...

https://action.cyclinguk.org/page/85451/action/1?ea.tracking.id=DE

Hi Bungle_52 I take your point and as CUK member have received the links you kindly sent, which I hope other readers will respond to. The point I was trying to make is that the driving demonstrated was either deliberate, in which case it needs to be stopped before someone is seriously injured, or it was poor observation, in which case the driver needs to be educated, which is where a warning would be helpful. If the police consider that the driving wasn't bad enough to merit prosecution surely it would be worth the effort to talk to the driver to educate them. Crime prevention is surely an important role of policing.

I would have thought a warning letter would be appropriate but was told it would take too much time to track down who was driving. I imagine this could be quite difficult if there are multiple drivers and they don't cooperate which I suspect may have happened to this PC in the past.

So:

Shouldn't have been passing a cyclist at the same time as a parked car. 

Shouldn't have been passing so close to the cyclist.

Should be looking at the opposite carriageway for approaching vehicles.

Should be looking at 'own' carriageway for the actions of the car in front.

Should not be drifting towards the cyclist.

Not deliberate in terms of maliciousness but shouldn't be on the road!

Don't get me wrong my point was not to absolve the driver of any responsibility.  It was a crappy piece of driving and the person should be reported to the police and prosecuted for it.

I was merely saying that my first instinct was that it was a deliberately aggressive move by the driver

He's not even passing the car with 1.5m gap, let alone the cyclist in between!

According to my dictionary egregious means outstandingly bad or shocking.

Why does it have to be either of those things before Gloucestershire constabulary consider prosecuting ?

The fact that such incidents fall under 'commonplace' rather than 'shocking' is a huge part of the problem.

It's erm... Shocking

Awavey wrote:

According to my dictionary egregious means outstandingly bad or shocking. Why does it have to be either of those things before Gloucestershire constabulary consider prosecuting ?

This pretty much sums it up:

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q967.htm

If close passes were dealt with via a Fixed Penalty Notice, like speeding etc., then it would be much easier for the police to act.

"Why does it have to be either of those things before Gloucestershire constabulary consider prosecuting ?"

Because that's what the law says. Change the law.

The law says no such thing about requiring it to be a shocking, outstandingly bad or even egregious as an example.

Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says a if a person drives a vehicle in a public place without due care & attention or reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, they are guilty of an offence that is prosecutable.

due care & attention is then defined as being if the manner of driving falls below what would be expected of a competent & careful driver.

driving too close to another vehicle is considered an absolutely valid & prosecutable example of careless driving.

"Because that's what the law says."

No it doesn't.

I agree, on the whole I would be much wider. However, you're sometimes literally stuck between a rock and a hard place as taking the lane in itself feels dangerous depending on the approach of said arsehole!

I would view that as the cyclist being considerate to the blue car and then being that being completely taken advantage of by the second car.  If they had been more courteous the pass wouldnt have happened.