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Near Miss of the Day 909: this time it's another cyclist as rider who recorded incident says he doesn't know how cyclist coming towards him "didn't end up in the canal"

This Near Miss of the Day is a rare one, but highlights the need for extra precautions to be taken when cycling on narrow bidirectional paths

While the vast majority of our Near Miss of the Day entries involve drivers of motor vehicles committing close pass offences on cyclists, occasionally we're sent rarer examples of cyclist-on-cyclist near misses. This particular incident comes from a canal path in Sale, Greater Manchester, leaving the cyclist who recorded it amazed that there were not more serious consequences. 

On a weekday morning last month, Bob Sweet was commuting on The Bridgewater Way in Sale, when another cyclist brushed past him with inches to spare. A female cyclist was approaching from the other direction, and somehow manages to avoid colliding with the passing cyclist.  

"How she didn’t end up in the canal I really don’t know", Bob told road.cc. 

"The overtaking cyclist appears to have a helmet mounted camera. Perhaps he will post his version of the video.

"The path is only 1.8 metres wide, shared use, bidirectional, which really is not wide enough."

Bob adds that the path is also shared use and unlit at night: "nice for a leisure ride, but not really suitable for commuting", he added. 

As well as highlighting the need for everyone to take greater care on shared use paths, it could perhaps be said that the clip raises the point that more spacious, high quality infrastructure would allow cyclists to commute more safely in this area. 

The Bridgewater Way, promoted by the Bridgewater Canal Trust, is part of a regeneration project that will incorporate a 39-mile shared use route along the Bridgewater Canal when it is fully completed. 

The Trust says the work will include "improving the canal towpath by creating new access points and, where possible, widening the surface to allow cycling and make the towpath a safer and more appealing route." 

> 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

Jack has been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of the website including tech, news and video, and also contributed to eBikeTips before being named Editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master's degree in print journalism and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it's a long story). 

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40 comments

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Rendel Harris replied to Bungle_52 | 4 months ago
2 likes

Definitely agree on that, although of course the Highway Code does not actually apply to towpaths.

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GMBasix replied to Rendel Harris | 4 months ago
1 like

The Highway Code does apply to towpaths.

It is poor at providing definitions, however it depends for its status on the Road Traffic Act 1988. s192(1) of the Act defines a road as "any highway and any other road to which the public has access". Common law holds a highway to be any way over which any person has the right to pass and repass. There might not be a right of way on a towpath (it varies), but the public does have access to it. I think it woudl be perverse if the HC did not apply as relevant.

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Rendel Harris replied to GMBasix | 4 months ago
1 like

GMBasix wrote:

The Highway Code does apply to towpaths.

The Canal and River Trust, who are responsible for the towpaths, don't think it does (see below). A highway is any route that offers a public right of passage over land at any time without let or hindrance; this does not apply to towpaths as they are not public rights-of-way but permissive paths to which the CRT can block access if they wish.

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mctrials23 replied to John D | 4 months ago
2 likes

Did he nearly hit someone but miss them? Thats a near miss. 

Did he pass so close to the other cyclist that he scared them and nearly hit them? Thats a close pass. 

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mdavidford | 4 months ago
2 likes

road.cc wrote:

brushed past him with inches to spare

Well it's one or the other, but not both. If they brushed him, there were no inches to spare.

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Disgusted of Tu... | 4 months ago
4 likes

Maybe his BMW was in for a service and he was wearing "hi-viz"???

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Mr Anderson | 4 months ago
12 likes

BTW - I don't think road.cc mentioned this, but Ashley Neal has been branded as a Dangerous cyclist.

https://youtu.be/Mf1y2T5o0gA?feature=shared

Welcome to our world Ashley!!

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chrisonabike replied to Mr Anderson | 4 months ago
8 likes

He's nearly there - just needs to embrace his inner vigilante! Commenters there noticed that:

@shm5547 wrote:

Entitled cyclist! Engineering content by cycling in the middle of the road! Just ignore the driver, honestly, it does us proper cyclists no good when you talk back to a driver. Just respect that they're the ones with the driving licence, who pay road tax and make it a non-event. Don't increase animosity between drivers and cyclists, just get out of their way and get on with your day! 😉

(tongue firmly in cheek with that obvs.!) If you ride regularly, this is a regular occurrence unfortunately.

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a1white replied to Mr Anderson | 4 months ago
3 likes

Oooff the way he escalated that by pulling up alongside arguing with her and then making a left turn across the front of her! Can you imagine if another person had sent that to him, how much he would pick apart the cyclist for "antagonising the situation"?

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Mr Anderson | 4 months ago
4 likes

Most likely the cyclist is a regular commuter on this route, so keep a look out for him.

A few years ago on my commute to work, an Audi driver overtook me as I was making a right turn.  A few days later I met him again, on the same road!!

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