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news
Near Miss of the Day 644: Skip lorry driver almost hits two cyclists
The video featured in our Near Miss of the Day series today shows the heart-stopping moment when a pair of cyclists are confronted with the driver of a skip lorry coming the other way on a narrow road with cars parked on the near side of the vehicle, squeezing both riders between the lorry and a hedge and somehow not hitting either of them.
The incident, filmed by road.cc reader Cyclocelestial, happened in Mortimer, Berkshire on 7 October.
“The driver started to overtake the parked cars before the two cyclists came into view but could have applied the brakes and moved towards the gap on the left,” Cyclocelestial said.
“It was not reported to the police but I reported it to a manager at R. Collard in Reading who agreed to speak to the driver about it.
“However he did not want to see the video as ‘we have a camera in the cab’.”
Incidents of this type often attract comments along the lines of how the cyclists should perhaps have anticipated the approaching vehicle and pulled over to let it past.
It’s easy to take such a view when you watch the footage, but in a live scenario things are seldom that clear-cut.
For example, while the camera is facing straight ahead and recording what’s happening, that may not necessarily be what the cyclist is seeing in real time, and they may not have seen the lorry straight away.
There’s also the fact that in this instance the cyclists are riding at a decent clip and by the time the situation has been assessed and a decision made over what action to take, it may be too late, not to mention too dangerous, to try to brake in time for the skip lorry driver to clear those parked cars.
> 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.
Latest Comments
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Not quite the same scenario, but has some similarities......
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no one cares enough to fix it...
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I won't be getting anything on Friday...
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It's in the land of the sidewalk, for better or worse, that driving 'right of way' does exist. . . and many other things they can keep as well!
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CHPT3 is in receivership. Their website replaced by this notice. https://chpt3.com/
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93 comments
I used to live in this village until recently. The road name "the street" hill has 3 bends and a 30mph zone with a school a bit further down after where the skip lorry emerged - at peak times it is very busy with parked cars for the school etc. Also at the bottom of the hill is overflow for the train station that is all day parking & restricts width of the road.I've ridden up & down this road over 300 times either on the commute, solo or group rides.
West Berks council see that allowing parking is traffic control!!! (fact)
Using the road regularly you're aware of vehicles on the wrong side of the road and to make allowances to mItigate speed or maybe even stop, can be tricky when wet as there are 2 large metal covers to avoid before and after 2nd bend. What you're also aware of is the possibility of speeding vehicles behind or not due care and attention.
The stretch of road is particularly hazardous with no help from the local authority permitting parking or enforcing hedge cutting of private land owners.This is also a route to school for children walking with narrow footpaths & overgrown vegetation.
Plus more & more traffic always in a hurry.
Going up the street was frustrating when vehicles would overtake then stop immediately in front to give way to oncoming vehicles!
Come on west berks highways sort this road out. Consider Safe route to school, venerable road users (a high usage), promote non vehicle reliance & get traffic flowing by prohibiting parking.
What also doesn't help anyone, is the lazy council has let the bushes grow wild.
They may trim them straight once every decade. But they should be cut back in height and depth.
I'm willing to bet you'd gain nearly 1m of extra road surface. if cut back.
If you cut them down to 1m height, the cyclists and truck, in this case, would have seen each other earlier.
All it needs is a tractor with the right cutting equipment.
Councils are under a lot of pressure following covid and adult services provision. It is not surprising that there is not much spend on low priority stuff.
Apparently the country wants a low tax regime.
FTFY
Almost all local authorities contract out such maintenance so I presume it's equally reasonable to claim that a "lazy private sector contractor has let the bushes grow wild".
You could argue the claim but the point is who will make it right for me? If it is the responsibility of a local authority it's their responsibility to respond to complaints, check up on their contractors and get them to redo it / penalise / not use them in future / see them in court. Because that's what we are all collectively paying them to do.
My knee operation has been postponed again, that must be because the NHS are "lazy".
Good luck for getting the operation sooner rather than later. My mother-in-law is waiting on a knee operation that's been postponed a couple of times, so it's not just you.
In chrisonatrike's defence, their comment wasn't so much endorsing the description of it as 'lazy' as it was resisting the suggestion that the council can pass the responsibility off to a contractor. As the responsible authority, the buck stops with them (even if there are understandable reasons why they are unable to discharge all of those responsibilities).
Couldn't have said it better - so I didn't.
Hopefully Mary gets the knee sorted sooner. I think she's being provocative - as per the council example we can both know "the way things are" and question if we're getting adequate service and value for money from those who are responsible for those services.
Even when not on a bike, I see this situation all of the time...
1/ Increasing number of cars parked on the road, reducing the space for passing vehicles
2/ Increasing numbers of drivers who seem to have no sense of danger to themselves, never mind others, and just keep on driving, despite oncoming traffic and and obligation (on their part) to yield (or even slow down a wee bit)
These two things are really dodgy on a straight road, never mind on a bend, where vehicles will find themselves on the wrong side of the road, and unsighted.
To think that cyclists are thought of as entitled ***** who think that they own the road, is laughable when you consider these two types of behaviour (before we get started on the massive list of other despicable behaviour, that comes to mind)
Should be sat up taking primary eyeballing the driver if they want him to yield, make it harder to overtake, hugging the edge and keeping rolling is just inviting him to move out and squeeze through when there isn't much space, better still just stop and assume the truck will just go ahead anyway, that second rider is pretty lucky he didn't get smacked on the head by the wing mirror.... yes the truck could have waited but it's the cyclists taking all of the risk by not being cautious. Being right or having a camera doesn't help you much if you are under the wheels of an HGV.
The cyclists were not "hugging the edge" as is clear on the video. Of course they moved to the left when the driver failed to slow or stop because they would have been killed if they hadn't.
My point was that this happens, whether the oncoming vehicles are bikes, or not, so why you chose to (incorrectly) criticise the cyclists, in the context of my comment, is slightly perplexing
167
DO NOT overtake where you might come into conflict with other road users. For example when you would force another road user to swerve or slow down
163
Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so. You should give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road
There was a break in the line of parked cars so the driver was required to utilise that opportunity. The idea that the driver was committed to the overtake is just wrong. The driver failed to stop overtaking when it was not safe and should have given way at least by slowing down. The cyclists would have been able to slow down to a safe speed had he done so. The driver could have slowed down or stopped easily while the cyclists going downhill were far less easily able to do so and had priority.
Call me old fashioned but the Cyclist should have ceded priority to the vehicla that had already begun overtaking a row of parked cars.
You would't have continued driving at that truck in a car; so why cycle towards it?
The reality is that most drivers would have ended up doing an emergency stop as hazard perception is poor and they would have barreled on at 30+ mph.
That said, I think the cyclists were slow to react to a potential situation.
More like prehistoric than old fashioned. The cyclists had priority and the driver should have stopped. There was a gap in the row of parked cars which the driver ignored. Do you seriously think cyclists can stop as easily as a car driver?
Yep, common sense dictates that lorry versus bike and rider is a very unequal equation. Barrelling on regardless is dangerous, whereas stopping would have meant a greatly reduced risk of potential injury and a 2-3 second stop.
The only danger would have been the rider behind ploughing into the back of the person in front, in which case I fully support the decision of the front rider in whether to continue forward.
Slight righteousness and maimed or dead is not a good look.
Or... a skid and going down right in front of a lorry which someone has shown no inclination to stop?
The cyclists were going fast downhill and could not just stop, unlike the driver who could have done so easily. The driver was on the wrong side of the road, not the cyclists.
As you say, "Barrelling on regardless is dangerous, whereas stopping would have meant a greatly reduced risk of potential injury and a 2-3 second stop."
So why didn't the driver do that?
I do wonder if any of those blaming the cyclists have ever tried to stop in 2 seconds when travelling down a steep hill. This is supposed to be a cycling forum but you would hardly know it from some of the comments.
If the cyclists were going so fast around a blind corner that they could not easily stop then they were riding dangerously.
What if there had been a pedestrian in the road?
What if the lorry had been wider and had taken up the entire road with no room at all to pass?
The lorry driver should have stopped when it became apparent that the cyclists were unable to.
But the cyclists should never have put themselves in a situation where they were unable to stop if needed.
Yes. This is where the basic "road user" legal responsibility rests and I'd hope everyone would cycle / drive like that. And again far from the most worrying NMOTD.
I think the argument is expressed by the contention that because both should have controlled their speed this was "six of one and half a dozen of the other". I can't agree - there are other factors beyond this. The lorry driver is not vulnerable here, is in control of something vastly more dangerous to others, presumably doing this as part of their job and is essentially "overtaking" (eg. on the "wrong side of the road"). Arguably the driver inherently has "more control" also e.g. can accellerate and probably decellerate at this speed more quickly than cyclists and being elevated may have a better view in some situations.
However as others said the root issue is allowing people to store their cars in the road - even when they have garages / driveways. Beyond that the road design here may be inappropriate to the speed / volume of traffic. I haven't checked the location but if conflict is regular a lower maximum speed or even a separate cycle track might help.
I know this road and conflict is never a problem here going downhill. The main problem is drivers passing uphill and then slamming on their brakes. I agree the real problem is that drivers are allowed to use the Public highway as a free car park despite the inconvenience and danger they cause to traffic.
As much as I dislike inconsiderate parking, it's not the parked vehicles that are causing the danger although they do potentially cause a hazard. Drivers have to account for parked vehicles much like they should account for poor road surfaces and conditions - they shouldn't just assume that they can proceed at their usual speed without taking into account the reduced width of the road etc.
The lorry driver is legally allowed to overtake parked cars if the road ahead is clear.
If they can see the cyclists coming then they absolutely should not have overtaken, if they cannot see the cyclists and the road, as far as they can see is clear, then they can overtake legally.
Once they have begun their overtaking manoeuvre quickly pulling into a space is not without risk especially on a vehicle with limited visibility (whether such a vehicle should even be on the road is another matter entirely).
From the video it appears to me that the cyclists would not have been visible to the lorry driver when they began their manoeuvre and it was therefore an entirely legal manoeuvre.
The cyclists should have been able to stop in time and done so once they saw the lorry overtaking.
The lorry driver should have stopped once it became clear the cyclists were not going to stop.
The lorry driver began overtaking legally but then continued on the wrong side of the road despite the oncoming cyclists
Applying the brakes and pulling over to stop is hardly risky. Indeed it was far easier and safer for the driver to stop than for the cyclists.
Plainly the cyclists could have stopped if the driver had not continued to drive at them.
The lorry driver was completing the overtake of the parked cars.
Stopping is not risky.
Pulling in to a space without being 100% sure it is empty is.
You do not know if the cyclists could have stopped. That's just conjecture.
If they could have they should have.
If they couldn't have they were going too fast regardless of the lorry drivers actions.
I think those cars parked on the road are mainly to do with the construction site behind the hording, than the houses with drives and garages. (in this case)
Good spot. It might be nothing to do with the householders. However it often seems that once someone's engaged builders whatever happens until the owners take possession of the site is "not our problem".
Parked cars here but it's often the footway / cycle track that gets blocked with vehicles or is used to put signs in. That needs to change - alternatives here [1] [2] [3] [4]. The construction companies need to sort their act out but it's entirely within the power of those hiring them to say "and only leave your stuff within the site." Obviously sensible exceptions apply (e.g. bringing in major bits of kit e.g. by crane) but we already have means to deal with that.
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