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news
Cyclist forced off road as motorist overtakes tractor and almost causes head-on collision (credit - Paddy Cycling France, YouTube)Near Miss of the Day 865: Cyclist forced off road as motorist overtakes tractor and almost causes head-on collision
A cyclist says he feels “lucky to be alive” after being forced to take evasive action when an oncoming motorist almost caused a head-on collision while overtaking a tractor.
road.cc reader Paddy was riding on Tuesday near Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan, Ireland – just south of where stage four of the iconic Rás Tailteann is passing through today – when the clearly impatient driver began barrelling straight towards him, forcing him to quickly dive into the entrance of a house.
*Warning: the following video contains strong language*
“Thankfully, I was alert and had somewhere to go,” Paddy, who has reported the incident to the police, told road.cc.
“I saw him coming with the indicator on and pulling out. He looked at me, hesitated, and then floored it.
“I was wearing a bright red jersey and had a white flashing light on the front. No question he saw me and went anyway.”
The shocking overtake is strikingly similar to one experienced earlier this year by cyclist Kate Ball, who was riding with her daughter on the Uttoxeter Road, a residential road with a 40mph speed limit in the Derby suburb of Littleover, when a taxi driver – overtaking a very long line of slow-moving traffic, right indicator blinking the entire time – narrowly passed them head-on at speed, causing Kate to emit a startled ‘whoa!’
However, the taxi driver was only handed a warning letter for his potentially dangerous manoeuvre, as Derbyshire Constabulary believed that a conviction was “not realistic” and that prosecuting the motorist would not be “proportional”.
> 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
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
- grOg 2 sec ago
Funnily enough, I do just this at my large workplace which has a very large carpark, but zero facilities for cyclists; I have an old van on...
- grOg 13 min 2 sec ago
Is being left-wing a requirement to cycle? I missed that memo..
- grOg 29 min 26 sec ago
Hilarious; in Australia, only sworn police officers can enforce traffic laws; local government/councils can only enforce parking laws.
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The bike industry really had prices that were too low for too long to sustain retail stores. The pandemic accelerated inflation to really where...
- ktache 4 hours 2 min ago
I was gutted when too late to order a ReLoad bag, they are moving on to better things. So already a couple of other manufacturers suggestions for...
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Can't speak about the utility of these glasses, but one thing I do know: Everysight is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons...
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I haven't seen much evidence that there are many (if any) Conservative MPs with a conscience or sense of public duty....
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Isn't it really a landscape photo? A bit like the upsidedown building that was on Blackfriars Rd, London?
- Jack Sexty 4 hours 48 min ago
* grvl.cc
- ktache 5 hours 58 min ago
Last Thursday for me, a few, minutes coughing my guts up. How do the pros manage?
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23 comments
There's a response from Blackburn Council, saying 'they're investigating'. They don't say anything about the driver not being included on the taxi driver register. We'll see!
Yes, good method of yours! I see there's a 3354, a 3355, a 3358 and a 3359- but no 3356 or 3357. There won't be any response at all by Lancashire Constabulary, but the passenger seat was occupied by somebody wearing a Lancashire County Council HiViz, so it will be more difficult for them to claim he wasn't 'working' and had just forgotten to take down the taxi signs- so therefore it's nothing to do with Blackburn Council at all
I find oncoming vehicles much less willing to give way to a cyclist than they should be. Very often I'll be riding down a narrow road with cars parked on both sides and a car will just be barreling towards me at 30 mph leaving me to squeeze through a tiny gap, when they should be stopping and allowing me to pass them as they are driving on my side of the road.
Also we've got a few places where the council have installed chicanes to slow traffic down, with signs that either say to give way or give priority - never will a car stop for a cyclist when they should be giving way, again expecting me to squeeze through a tiny gap as they drive towards me at 30mph.
Terrifying.
Dont know Irish traffic regs. But are they allowed to cross the solid white line in the centre of the road?
No – it has the same meaning in Ireland as in the UK.
does the UK have a solid white line down the centre of the road ?
double white lines (either both solid or one dashed) are they only ones I am aware of, or single solid lines for mandatory cycle lanes (misleading name for many) and bounding boxes for some hatched areas
either way round I think it is an international thing that you don't dross a solid line
Good point, yes of course we have double white lines; in Ireland their function is conflated into a single white line which nobody may cross from either side. Obviously the basic principle, that you may not cross a solid white line, remains the same.
the basic principle, that you may not cross a solid white line, remains the same
Ho! Ho! Ho! Single and double white line laws (and all this 'MOT' nonsense) are regarded as tiresome over-regulation and are optional in Lancashire. Same vehicle BMW Gran Coupe J111 KDW and driver, same place, almost the same offence only 2 days apart, obviously speeding in both cases. This was before Lancashire Constabulary stopped responding to any traffic offence reports, so it was scheduled for court. A couple of years later LancsFilth abandoned the case just before the due date 'because there was no rear camera so they didn't know when he had commenced the overtaking'. You may think this is embellished, but it isn't. LC really is as bad as this. Serial offender Braverman should consider committing her offences up here- in a big posh car she's a dead-cert for any offence being ignored, as long as it doesn't get on the telly, like Sunak's! They didn't respond to this, or this or this, or this, or this...or numerous other white line offences.
KM20 KXL was due for an MOT on 10.3.23, and still hasn't had one, despite my report, because they don't like to bother owners of big cars with trivia.
Yes, motorists can cross a solid white line when passing an obstruction like a slow moving tractor; obviously assuming there is no oncoming traffic.
“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.”
I was driven off the road near a school by an oncoming car recently - had to dodge left to avoid driver's door mirror. An NIP has been sent so can't use the footage here yet.
People who drive like this need their car impounded, as happens in France for serious cases. Tired of drivers bleating that losing their licence would cause them hardship. Should have thought of that before putting someone's life at risk.
Yeah - I understand financial matters do come into the legal system (eg. we may not be able to afford "lock 'em up and throw away the key" - or even "lock 'em up" at all). However it's *never* the first time / "otherwise law abiding" - it's someone who is an incompetent or habitually reckless driver. The likely cost to society of them hitting stuff if left to continue needs factoring in.
Simply horrendous. Hope to goodness that the Police take some really firm action against this driver.
Unlikely unfortunately. Completely illegible number plate.
It says in the YT description that they've got the reg. The quality is likely to be better in the original footage.
That's the sort of driving that should result in a ban.
Quite possibly already banned. Why would it make any difference - the way they drove was so obviously already illegal, much like flouting a ban.
Unlikely unfortunately. Completely illegible number plate
Doesn't make any difference! If you have all the registrations and the taxi number, they just find some other excuse to do nothing. The police are the real enemy we have to face. Lancashire Constabulary won't even respond to the video of this alarming attack by Blackburn taxi 3356 NU62 MYH. How legible do you want it to be?
Contact the taxi licensing authority. I did this recently and they brought the driver in for a disciplinary hearing, issuing them with a final written warning. Far worse than anything the police would have done.
Contact the taxi licensing authority
Not very familiar with Lancashire, then? Why people think that the extremely obvious has not already been attempted is a mystery to me. 2 days ago I tried Blackburn with Darwen Council. I had to create an account to do anything at all- I found that 'taxis' allows you to make a complaint against a taxi driver- as long as you know his name and company and it's nothing to do with the driving. Without those details, the process will not continue. There is nothing about driving, council vehicles or anything else relevant. If you want an email address at the council, you have to consult the relevant page of the council website and there isn't one. Everything in Lancashire is designed to prevent as many complaints as possible. When I eventually get an email address, they will have no facilities for file emailing so I will have to compress it down to 20 MB and they will say it's not clear enough and advise me to contact the police! This is why Lancashire Constabulary has been encouraged to be as bad as it is, why they spent weeks motor-boating dramatically up and down the River Wyre in the Nicola Bulley case, only for the unfortunate body to turn up stuck in reeds less than a mile away- and why they were unashamed of the ludicrous proposal that the body had been swept back miles up the river from the estuary and hadn't really been there all along
This is Audi A4 PJ07 NFP, no MOT or insurance since 20.2.20, no VED since 31.1.20. It was parked yesterday 20 yards from Garstang Comedy Police Station, 200 yards from where it was first identified by me on 1.7.22 and reported the same day. I have seen and filmed it numerous times aound Garstang since then. Bus companies, taxi authorities, councils... up here thrive on indolence and collusion. Difficult to believe, but true. Forget Police Interceptors boldly ordering cars off the road for no MOT here! 'Taxis attacking cyclists' doesn't even get past the blinkers!
I'd talk to Blackburn Council again. That number doesn't even appear to be registered to a driver, could be someone operating illegally...
http://www.blackburn.gov.uk/licences-and-permits/lists-and-public-regist...
I gave them a bash on licensingteam [at] blackburn.gov.uk, and checked the vehicle registration. I didn't think to check the licence list, though! I can't find the number either, but it would be easy to miss on that non-sortable list. Interestingly, although Garstang is a fair way from Blackburn, I saw the very same vehicle in Garstang area this morning.
I didn't look for it manually, but using find/replace it's not on that list. The council are probably more concerned about phoney taxi drivers than they are about driving standards, so might be worth approaching it from that angle.
We'll see what they say- no response yet from my email of 3 1/2 hours ago
I checked what you said and was amazed they want you to set up an account.
I also checked my local council site and they no longer accept complaints about driving and tell you to contact Essex police.