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news
Near Miss of the Day 608: Overtaking lorry driver forces cyclist and oncoming motorist to swerve
A lorry driver making both the cyclist being overtaken and a motorist coming in the other direction to take evasive action features in today's video in our Near Miss of the Day series.
What's more, it happened on a road with double solid white lines, with the Highway Code stating under Rule 129:
Double white lines where the line nearest you is solid. This means you MUST NOT cross or straddle it unless it is safe and you need to enter adjoining premises or a side road. You may cross the line if necessary, provided the road is clear, to pass a stationary vehicle, or overtake a pedal cycle, horse or road maintenance vehicle, if they are travelling at 10 mph (16 km/h) or less.
As the display on the video shows, the cyclist is travelling at 10mph – but the road is certainly not clear, and moreover there's the issue of Rule 163, which among other things says that drivers should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car.”
The footage was filmed by road.cc reader TriTaxMan, who told us: “I was cycling into Harlow Hill outside of Newcastle, when a Tarmac Lorry committed a dangerous overtake into the face of oncoming traffic against solid white lines forcing both me and the oncoming car to have to take evasive action to avoid an accident.
“There are two overtakes in the video by Tarmac Lorries, the first was fine, but the second was the dangerous one. All to save a few seconds as I was signalling to turn left about 20-30 metres further along the road.
“The footage was sent to Northumbria police, and I was advised that the incident would be dealt with via the Fixed Penalty Notice process.
“I attempted to contact Tarmac by e-mail to advise them of the incident, and attached screen grabs from the video and advised them that the footage was being submitted to Northumbria Police,” TriTaxMan added.
“I never received any response from Tarmac, not even an acknowledgement of receipt of the e-mail. However, the process of contacting Tarmac is not a straightforward one as there is no one specific head office e-mail address.”
> 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
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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27 comments
Terrible bit of driving but TriTaxMan can you tell me why you used that road ? I live around there and avoid the Military Road at all costs it's an absolute death trap, there's a few others in Northumberland I could mention that are the same, people driving far too fast, blind summits and corners. As others have mentioned he'll be a contract hauler but that doesn't allow Tarmac to wash their hands of it. Remember the lady who petitioned Cemex after her daughter was killed ? She bought Cemex shares and asked questions at their AGM, action was taken, maybe we should be all buying shares in companies that operate fleets of vehicles ?
I appreciate your wanting to point out the many risks with cycling along this road - but why should a cyclist have to avoid particular roads. The road itself is not a "death-trap" ( unless it has massive potholes, or precipitous edges ). Rather it is individual/human vehicle drivers that are causing the danger, by their poor driving and decision-making. And the remedy is to take action to ameliorate that dangerous driving, not retreat away to other roads that they are perceived less likely to use. ( Motorways aside ) there are no no-go roads for cyclists.
Meanwhile, back in the real world .....
It's not a lot of use being 'in the right' when you're involved in an accident with a vehicle.
If some roads are narrow, very busy, etc - it might just be sensible to avoid them.
No road is dangerous; only the drivers that use it.
You've never watched Ice Road Truckers
Unfortunately you seem to have a very different view to me as to what constitutes busy. I have just rewatched the full video for the time I was on the "Busy" road. I was passed by 18 vehciles in total in the 14 minutes I was on that road.
There were more vehicles coming the opposite way maybe 30 odd. I wouldn't class that as a busy road. It might be busy during commuting time, but that video was shot at about 3pm on a Thursday afternoon.
Maybe Baz's view was that at commuting time it is dangerous but it is not a busy dangerous road all the time.
And I might be being facetious, but if I am reading your comment correctly basically as cyclists we shouldn't be cycling on any roads, because in the vast majority of cases roads tend to either be narrow or busy
I'm sorry but there are "no-go roads" for cyclists whether we like it or not, you have to be pragmatic about avoiding roads like that one, in the event of being hit you will be lucky to survive. As an example, I commute into and around Newcastle nearly every day. From where I live you can pretty much do the whole 10 miles off road on decent cycle paths and segregated infrastructure but I regularly see bloke's (always blokes) chugging along on the busy A road and dual carriageway next to the cycle path. It's mental, no other word for it. It might be slightly slower on the cycle paths but it's totally stress free. I would love to know why they're doing it. Have they not seen the cycle path ? Are they proving a point ? Do they actually enjoy it ?
I'm not advocating cyclists taking unnecessary risks. But why is the road perceived to be inherently dangerous. At 4:00am it is probably totally fine. But as the day progresses, something happens that causes the danger: individual motorists driving too fast ? too close ? too distracted ? Each such driver has made a choice whether to drive like that, or to drive safely. It is that which should be rectified.
My point is society should address the danger (more police action ?) and cyclists should reject it by continuing to cycle there if they choose to.
We should not simply accept the danger is inevitable and that cyclists must find somewhere else to cycle. Would we do that in the face of an aggressor with any other aspect of life.
Baz are you trying to victim blame because you wouldn't use the road in question? I have ridden the Military Road quite frequently and that is the only incident of note that I have had. Yes it is a fast road but it is an old roman road which is straight hence the reason for some drivers going fast. The vast majority of time people give you plenty of space, sometimes it is less than ideal but only very rarely that there is something that is dangerous.
I could say the same about virtually every road in the UK where drivers drive too fast and where there are plenty of blind corners and blind summits do you expect every cyclist to avoid them too because you deem it not safe? And the vast majority of those roads (like the Military road) don't have cycle lanes taking me where I want to go or perhaps the cycle lanes are all pan flat and I might have been training for an event which involves lots of elevation gains.
In all honesty I have far more close passes and downright dangerous driving in urban situations where there are no cycle lanes..... or where the only cycle lanes are the painted lanes to the side of the road where car drivers will skim by you with milimeters to spare because I am in the "cycle lane" and they are in "their lane" so they don't have to give me any space at all.
You mention cycle lanes and segregated infrastructure. You mean like the Keelmans Way - closed between Wylam and Clara Vale because of a landslip that wont be fixed? Or NC Route 72, through Tyne Valley Country park which is so clogged with pedestrians and dog walkers who generally don't give a hoot about cyclists? And those particular cycle lanes are in general designed for hybrid/tourer/mountain bikes as they are for large stretches compacted hardcore paths which mean you need larger puncture resistant tyres to ride on.
I'm not victim blaming TriTaxMan, it's a shit bit of driving full stop. I find roads like that very intimidating and unenjoyable to use and hence avoid them, the road between Hexham and Bellingham being another notable one. I don't mind riding in urban traffic as I can be more in control of the situation around me due to the lower overall speeds and can only recall one scary incident in all my time whereas when I'm out in the country I probably encounter at least one bit of terrible driving every time I go out. As for painted cycle lanes, don't get me started 😆. Stay safe👍
When you see this screen grab after the first lorry has overtaken me, you can see the width of the road in relation to a lorry and a car. And given that both the lorry and the car are essentially skimming their respective road edges at that point, there is not enough room for another car to go between them.
Given that the car in the picture is an Audi A3 (1.96m wide), the lorry is Scania Tipper at 2.49m wide it means that the total width of the road is approx 6.5m total. Take when you factor in the width of my handlebars (0.4m wide), and leaving some gap between the car and the lorry overtaking maybe 0.3m it left me with maybe 1.3m of gap.
Given the fact that, as I pointed out before, it was a relativelty steep hill and I was weaving a little that passing gap could have been potentially fatal.
But remember..... that the big "Blind Spot Take Care" sign on the side of the Lorry makes it all ok
given that both the lorry and the car are essentially skimming their respective road edges at that point, there is not enough room for another car to go between them
These considerations don't bother Lancashire drivers! They can manage 3 vehicles abreast by ignoring the cyclist between them. The guilty-as-sin villain here is the driver of black Citroen Dispatch CA70 MKC
Don't email these places, tweet them. Tends to get a much quicker response .. partly because it's public, and partly because these channels are typically serviced by PR/brand/comms specialists rather than operational folk.
Don't email these places, tweet them
Don't waste your time with either! They never respond, because they think it will all go away. Then you have to pursue it against the police desire to find some reason to ignore the incident. As for heavy lorries...yes, it did go on to crash through the red light at 50+
I'd agree don't waste your time tweeting them, unless you are Jeremy Vine levels of followers they'll simply ignore you.
I even had one haulier respond to a polite request i made to them about a dangerous close pass, by blocking me,so just report it to the police & hope they deal with it.
Yeah it was reported and a Fixed Penalty Notice issued. The e-mail to them was supplementary as I had suspected they would just ignore it
Great result. Thank you for taking the tme and effort to report it.
Watched this first without reading the text, and thought "are we looking at the same video?" Then came the second Tarmac lorry...
Same here. Paused it on the Tarmac Lorry to come down to post why is this in NMotD, then saw your comment about a second lorry and went and continued the video.
Must be something with Tarmac drivers as I had a flat bed van of theirs decide to closs pass / overtake on the exit from a Roundabout the other day.
I'm very glad you mentioned this, as i was thinking that first one wasn't much of a close pass.
The dodgy overtake is around the 50 second mark in the video, the preamble was there for reference because it is a relatively steep hill (average gradient around 5 or 6%) and I was quite tired as this happened late on in the ride so I was doing a bit of weaving on the road as a result of the climb.
And I know that one of the first comments will be I was riding too close to the edge of the road (I was probably riding around 50cm from the edge of the road for most of the time). But I heard the lorry on approach behind me and could tell from the engine noise that they had no intention of slowing down. When I saw the car approaching the other way I decided the best course of action was to put myself as close to the edge as possible to avoid becoming a statistic
Tarmac have in livery contractors, as a cost saving/flexibility measure, for a lot of their work. The truck will be owned & operated by a sub contractor, with a separate O licence
Some in livery operations continue the practice, originally a legal requirement, from the days of horse & cart, to display the operator details in 1" block lettering on the left side of the vehicle - still a requirement for buses & coaches. Howver the chain of command still places the directors at the end of any prosecution for their failure in the duty of care to not cause harm through the activities they control.
I'd note also the VERY common detail in fatal crashes involving 4-axle rigid tipper trucks - the driver who kills is driving the the rear vehicle in a 2-truck convoy (Holborn, Wigmore St, Mile End Road, immediately come to mind), plus a near immediate move by the directors of an operators involved, to apply for a new O Licence or operating base, as 'insurance' against being closed down when the crash is investigated - I lead the work that closed down the 'Drummonds' operation which killed Alan Neve, but failed to stop Haley Drummond taking over the operation and killing again at Chelsea Bridge...
Hope your report secures a prosecution
PM me with any detail on 'chaser' convoys etc
Just FYI, I don't think road.cc has a PM function...
Indeed you are correct, when I contacted Tarmac I specified that it was an independent contractor, as the original HD Footage I was able to identify the contractor from a freeze frame.
It is a sad state of affairs that poor haulage firms can simply recreate themselves with different directors and a new operators licence to avoid any blow back from an accident.
Equally bad is presumably you had already signalled to take the turning, so had they just eased off for all of 5 seconds you would have been down the minor side road and well out of their way...
"All to save a few seconds as I was signalling to turn left about 20-30 metres further along the road."
had they just eased off for all of 5 seconds you would have been down the minor side road and well out of their way...
They just don't bother with, or care about cyclists, and their only thoughts are about the tiresome effort of relaxing the right foot and turning that wheel. The total space between mirror and kerb allowed for the cyclist scum is less than 170 cms