- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Near Miss of the Day 858: Lorry driver overtakes cyclist in “worst case of Must Get In Front I’ve ever had”
A classic of the Must Get In Front (MGIF for all you acronym aficionados) genre here, as a lorry driver just had to nip in front of the cyclist a matter of yards away from a crossroads – forcing the impatient driver to then dangerously stop at the junction in the wrong lane.
road.cc reader Paul encountered the MGIF motorist on his commute home from work earlier this week on the rural Clarehill Road, part of the relentlessly grippy and twisting Red Hills, located between Dromore and Magheralin in Co. Down, Northern Ireland.
As Paul told us, the lorry driver’s poorly-timed MGIF manoeuvre was made all the more dangerous by the presence of a large barn on the right hand side, which blocks the view of road users travelling from Magheralin and preparing to turn left onto Clarehill Road.
> Near Miss of the Day 848: An overtake worthy of the 'must get in front' title
“Quite possibly the worst case of Must Get In Front I’ve ever had,” Paul told us. “It was lucky there was nobody on that road behind the barn about to turn left.
“I turn right at that junction so tend to keep to the centre of the lane as traffic coming from the right swings wide due to the barn on the corner. The truck literally stopped at the junction in the wrong lane so it’s lucky there was nobody turning left.”
> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling
Paul says he did not report the lorry driver’s perilous overtake, citing the current absence of an online portal in Northern Ireland (though the PSNI told Sustrans last month that such a portal is on its way), and the present “hassle of reporting close passes in the middle of nowhere as the current system asks for a house number and post code.”
Well, at least the lorry driver’s only punishment will be his place in MGIF infamy…
> 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
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- neilmck 8 min 48 sec ago
Do you cycle? Sitting at the front of the traffic lights on a bicycle you can often see the lights for the other directions that you would not see...
- chrisonabike 12 min 43 sec ago
Wait - have those wafers been upgraded to chocolate wafers now (or maybe those pink ones?) Or is it all the sugar in the communion wine?
- mdavidford 15 min 7 sec ago
"Credit expired - please insert another 50p in the blind eye meter."
- chrisonabike 18 min 43 sec ago
Council: the project will bring about “a greener, more accessible, liveable and safer town centre, which meets the needs of people walking,...
- Scribe Cycling 57 min 13 sec ago
Hi username983, thank you for the comment, and it's great to hear you rate the wheels. The new models have a slightly different design which come...
- wtjs 1 hour 18 min ago
I'm pleased to say I didn't 'do' Latin, but I was also pleased to learn the origin of 'laconic'
- Surreyrider 1 hour 22 min ago
Looks like Specialized dusted off their blueprint for the Tarmac circa 2012-14 to 'create' the Aethos.
- Tom_77 1 hour 29 min ago
Was looking for things to do in Winchester and came across this - Adrenaline Comedy Bike Tour Experience at B3335...
- whosatthewheel 2 hours 1 min ago
A re-offender too, having been disqualified for speeding in the past. I don't believe in the "reaching for a chewing gum" bollocks either. More...
- chrisonabike 4 hours 12 min ago
Of course this kind of stuff is entirely to be expected from humans where mass motoring exists. The con is we don't factor this in sufficiently...
Add new comment
24 comments
Deliberate traffic violation + professional driver = immediate driving ban.
Like many (but certainly not all) of these incidents, poor road positioning and/or awareness by the cyclist makes things worse than they need to be.
Approaching such a junction with a large truck (or any vehicle) behind me, I would have eyeballed the driver, signalled my intention to turn right and moved to primary position way back before the start of the clip. There is no indication throughout the clip that the rider did any of this (hands always on the hoods, stayed in secondary throughout, no wobble suggesting a look behind) so was he even aware the truck was there until it was alongside?
Ahhh right ...
It's all the cyclist's fault then that someone driving a 45ft articulated truck decides to overtake with less than 2 clear vehicle lengths from a plainly visible STOP sign.
Go away and boil your head. This is solely on the so-called 'professional driver and nothing to do with anything the cyclist did.
.
Hey, great to chat with you!
.
Seems like you are having a wonderful Sunday.
.
Long may they continue for you.
Best.
FB.
.
I'm not admonishing the driver at all and regardless of the obstacles put in our way, all incidents such as this should be reported and followed through to a conclusion with the police (here in Scotland the promised Dashcam Safety Portal is still no nearer delivery).
My point is, we should stop making it easy for drivers such as this by riding more assertively.
In my experience, no amount of road positioning or indicating will stop drivers from pulling such stupid moves - there were plenty of reasons to not do it, but the driver went ahead anyway.
I had a stupid overtake, from a bus driver, on Friday and when you consider that the driver must negotiate that particular blind bend at least a handful of times, each shift, there is no way that a moderately competent/considerate driver should have contemplated it.
Totally, and utterly the drivers fault, and totally and utterly nothing to do with the cyclists behaviour.
That word does not mean what you think it means.
I think it probably does but they meant to say "the cyclist" rather than "the driver".
The driver gave the cyclist space. (The cyclist should perhaps have been more central in the lane when approaching a junction) But it really was a pointless overtake.
Pointless overtake, but the worst close pass ever ?
No, that's why it says worst MGIF.
There are plenty of worst MGIFs than that
English! Worserer, please.
Meh, potato, potahtoe. We go from millimetres from death to meters of nothing, doesn't feel in the same ballpark.
It's been a long time sinc I was in school, and I know language is evolving, but I'm reasonably sure there is onle one WORST MGIF.
Although I agree it probably isn't this one.
Everyone's a critic, look I specifically used "worst mgif" like that because that's how this pass has been labelled and it made sense,to me, to keep it that way even if i was extending the comparison beyond the singular example here . Maybe I should have air quoted it "worst mgif".
The statement was well qualified if you read the article. If Paul had said that "Conor Dunne is quite possibly the tallest person I've ever met," would you believe him? He doesn't need to have met the tallest person alive.
“Quite possibly the worst case of Must Get In Front I’ve ever had,” Paul told us.
"...it’s lucky there was nobody turning left"
Aside from the senselessness of the overtake at that point, anybody turning into that road has themselves to blame if they turn in without seeing that their path is clear.
For sure, but guess what evasive manoeuvre they would make when they eventually realised their predicament, especially if there was oncoming traffic bearing down the main road.
You turn onto a side road with the hope of a clear road but the expectation that you may have to stop if there's something blocking your path. Nobody (driving or cycling) would expect a lorry coming at them on the wrong side of the road.
while when you turn into a side road you should be able to stop in the distane you can see to be clear, because you don't know what may be parked or broken down there (or roadworks or debris or skip etc etc.
In the case of someone driving on the wrong side of the road, you have o be able to stop in considerably less space, becaus after seeing the HGV, it will travel a significant disance before stopping.
there ar good reasons wy overtaking close to juctions is banned.
The only sense I can think for the idiotic manoeuvre is the driver thought the cyclist was going into the little lane too, where it would have been impossible to pass safely and chose here to overtake 😐
yep, it amazes me how many drivers will just swing into a side road without checking it's clear. Happens to me most days, as I have to emerge on almost the wrong side of the road due to illegally parked cars.
Particularly these days when a driver will have to stop and give way to a pedestrian looking to cross a side road.