Near Miss of the Day 689: “You pr*ck!” – Driver makes very close pass on cyclist at speed

Our final Near Miss of the Day of the year shows a motorist making a very close pass at speed on a cyclist who is heading uphill – moreover, it’s a road marked with double white lines.

Rule 129 of the Highway Code says:

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.

In this case, even if the cyclist is going at that speed, with the road ahead curving of to the left, there’s no way for the motorist to know whether it is indeed clear, and therefore safe to overtake.

Then there’s the fact that the overtake of the cyclist was done at speed, as well as being far too close – close enough that you can see the rider wobble.

However, Kieran, the road.cc reader who sent this one through to us said that when he submitted the footage to Gloucestershire Police last week, he was told that it wouldn’t be referred for prosecution “as they say it wasn’t a dangerous or close pass!”

> 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