Near Miss of the Day 727: Motorist overtakes tandem towards oncoming lorry – and gets sent on driver education course for his trouble

Quite often our Near Miss videos are accompanied by laments about how local police have failed to take action when a motorist has committed a dangerously close pass. Today’s submission, however, sees Leicestershire Police praised for their “first-class response” to this particularly foolish overtake, which resulted in the driver having to undertake an education course.

Road.cc reader Joel was on his way home with his daughter on their tandem, when the driver in question decided to overtake them, seemingly unaware of the rapidly approaching HGV. The motorist ends up having to squeeze between the lorry and the cyclists, narrowly avoiding hitting all of them in the process.

As well as earning an accusatory beep from the lorry driver, the motorist was sent on a driving education course at their own expense after Joel reported the incident to Leicestershire Police.

Joel told road.cc that the response from the police was “first class”: “Texts and letters to inform me of the progress, which were well written and considerate – and moreover recognised and acknowledged the distress that this type of incident can cause.

“I only wish that when I cycle the other way from my house, into Warwickshire, that I got a response even approaching this level.”

As for the driver, Joel said: “I hope that they think a little more carefully in future and don't try this sort of thing again.”

> 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