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near miss of the day 783 screenshotNear Miss of the Day 783: aggressive close pass driver offered speed awareness course ends up with £2,460 fine and 6 points after losing two appeals
WARNING: VERY STRONG LANGUAGE BELOW
If you've done wrong and got away with a relative slap on the wrist, it's probably advisable to take what you're given and move on... however, it appears the aggressive driver in this clip from road.cc reader Miché doesn't grasp this concept, seeing an original £60 fine and the offer of a speed awareness course grow to a £2,460 fine and six points on his driving licence after losing appeals at magistrates' court and eventually Crown Court.
Miché told road.cc that after being knocked off his bike by a driver in June 2020, he bought a camera along with his new bike to record bad drivers after he had regained enough confidence to get off the trainer and back out on the roads. It was shortly after making this decision in July 2021 that the incident shown above occurred in North Wales.
We see Miché ride through some temporary traffic lights, after which the driver of a white Ford estate car passes him with inches to spare with traffic on the other side of the road.
Miché shouts, and the driver gets out of the vehicle saying: "Don't f**king shout at me like that, I've got my f**king daughter in the car."
Miché submitted the footage to Operation SNAP and North Wales Police, and says the driver was offered a £60 fine and a driver's awareness course for the close pass and threatening behaviour.
Sounds pretty lenient, right? The driver appealed, and a date was set for the case to be heard at a magistrates' court.
Miché added: "The driver did not attend court because he was bitten by an animal (squirrel).
"The magistrates found in favour of the prosecution. He was prosecuted for driving without due care for other road users, costing the driver £1,690 and six points on his licence.
"He appealed the magistrates' decision as he could not defend himself as he didn't attend court. There was another court date set and it was escalated to Crown Court,
again I attended as a witness to show my evidence.
"The driver again did not attend court.
"The Crown Court found in favour of the prosecution and with the added Crown Court costs took the driver's fine to £2,460 and six points on his licence."
> 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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56 comments
the idiot in the car clearly did the close pass so as to start an argument. smack the mathafaka in the face and he will never attempt this again.
There's no way he had his seatbelt on either the speed he jumped out of the car.
What a lovely example for his daughter.
Risk the lives of others and then threaten them.
I hope he's on their radar now and checking up on him.
The driver has shown that they are simply not fit to be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, firstly by the fact that they appear to have breathtaking anger management issues.
Secondly by the fact that they had the audacity to appeal and miss the appeal becuase they had been bitten by a squirrel...... I suppose it's one step up from the dog ate my homework.
Thirdly the fact that they appealed again, on the basis that they were not able to defend themselves at the first time of asking, then decided not to turn up again. Personally I think the Crown court Judge should have just doubled the penalties levied by the Magistrates court..... play stupid games and win stupid prizes and all that
As someone else posted, what was he doing to the squirrel to be bitten by it. The only time I've seen a squirrel attack is on Christmas Vacation. Oh and Rick and Morty but that was only because Morty was listening in on the plans to control the world and I doubt this guys Grandpa is that clever to make a similar device.
It's been a while but did you forget this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45150298
[ Has one of my favourite story lines ever - "The squirrel was taken into custody after it abruptly fell asleep." ]
Just because it's gone quiet it doesn't mean the squirrels signed a truce.
A couple of clicks later I got to this, and I'm never looking at them the same again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm
Seems like the start of the zombie apocalypse ought to have been a bigger story than a few canicidal squirrels.
There was a massive story which was just about to break, but it was eaten by a squirrel.
"You f***ed with squirrels, Morty! We've got a good five minutes before they're back and up on our ass, Morty! We have to pack up and move to a new reality, Morty!"
At the risk of stealing HP's thunder, I just came across this on the interweb. Maybe the squirrel wasn't sufficiently caffeinated?
I don't recommend feeding squirrels any caffeine as they've got plenty of energy already. Also, squirrels have no self-control so it inevitably leads to other psychoactive substances
There's a kids' film, 'Over the Hedge', and in one of the later scenes they make the squirrel drink a can of energy drink - it distorts how fast he can move and space/time and stuff and he can just wander around like the Flash with everything else apparently stationary...
"I've got me daughter on the car"...
All the more reason to drive more carefully - so she doesn't have to witness you killing somebody.
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Or the swearing.
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Poor daughter to have a dad like that.
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"I've got my f***ing daughter in the car", to be precise (allowing for *** within the tolerance of precision).
I wonder if "f***cking daughter" is his way of differentiation. Perhaps he has another one just for looks, bit like Donald Trump.
[I've had my libel lawyers look at this, and they said something about arkell v pressdram]
And the cyclist actually said "What the fuuuu OIIIIII" which caused the initial braking. So didn't actually fully swear before the brakes were slammed on. He followed up with swearing which the daughter would only hear because hurrying driver was no longer in a hurry.
Although apparently having your kid in the car with you counts as mitigation if you ever go to court...
Indeed, as the killer of Tony Slatterthwaite ably demonstrated - oddly considering the victim being a father didn't seem to count in the weighing of punishment (not that it should). Myself, I would have subjecting a child to a horrific experience should have been an aggrevating factor, not mitigating.
That's the one I was thinking about, thanks.
Did the cyclist only upload footage from a single camera? (You know where I'm going with that!).
Don't fucking shout at me like that, I've got me fucking daughter in the car and now I'm setting her the example that you should not only drive like a prick but look for a fight the second anyone challenges you. What an absolute spanner.
naaaa , spanners are useful things. He is about as much good as a septic tonsil.
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Yup. Spanner is as spanner does!
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Once I set the driving aside that quite made my day.
Is he related to Ashley? Would have got away with it if he'd given a friendly toot.
Edit: And it's cheered me up even more now I've thought about his insurance premium and petrol costs.
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Yes, yes, I see now - this guy is JUST like Ashley.
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And you, Sir, are William Shakespeare.
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I claim my £5 prize.
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It's either him or Jason Statham.
The silhouette on the right, though... He doesn't want anyone to find out about this in case it costs him his teaching job*
*Michael Berryman, Weird Science (1985)
I'm curious if he'll learn from this experience or start whining that cyclists are a menace, rather than accepting that his driving is the problem. As other have pointed out, it's ironic that he criticises the rider for swearing and then follows up with more.
There are going to be four possible responses to something like this:
I do wonder what proportion of drivers that get caught fit into what categories. I suspect a large number fall into the last two...
I don't follow it now, but it was quite instructional reading Pepipoo forum posts for drivers who were seeking help as they'd just been caught speeding again when they had 9 points on their licence. The general sentiment was it was entirely unreasonable to expect a driver to stick to the speed limits even when people gently pointed out that avoiding a potential ban was entirely within their own control.
As a reformed speeder myself, it really makes very little difference to journey times on a typical journey whether you drive like James Bond or Jasper Carrott's mother-in-law.
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