Too Close for Comfort: Cyclist’s Heart-Pounding Close Call with Reckless HGV

Another day and another close pass on a cyclist by a reckless and thoughtless HGV driver.

Thoughtless driver incidents like this highlight the need for stricter laws and better enforcement to protect vulnerable road users. More specifically to protect us cyclists from similar close passes and near misses. So, let’s continue to advocate for safer roads and hold accountable those who endanger others through careless and thoughtless driving.

Stay safe out there, and until next time, ride defensively and always stay vigilant.

Thanks for watching.

Original Video Courtesy of Paul Boomer Terry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOj7Xetm6xE&ab_channel=PaulBoomerTerry

Paul Boomer Channel Page: https://www.youtube.com/@UCuA5w7xUfeeInoGlO0Gi4OQ

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#BikeSafety #RideResponsibly #CyclingSkills #CycleClosePass #trafficlaws #cyclingnearmiss

Welcome to the Daily ride and welcome to the channel today I’ve got a clip sent in by a viewer who lives in Oxford which is in the center of the UK the original clip is linked in the description if you want to go and check that out and show

Paul some love while you’re about it that would be great anyone else at Scot clip that they want to send in to my Channel please feel free to do so you’ll find a link to my Gmail account in the about section on my channel page that’s

All for now let’s get straight to it let’s look at this clip that was uncomfortable to watch quite frankly there’s no way that Paul got anywhere near a meter and a half which is what stipulated in the UK I don’t know how much room you’re supposed

To get in the country you’re in please let let me know but here in the UK it’s very clear as rule 163 States leave at least 1.5 M when overtaking cyclists at speeds of up to 30 m an hour and give them more space when overtaking at

Higher speeds now some of the motorists watching this that are new to the channel you might not be clear why we need this amount of space so I’ll explain that and the reason is that as a cyclist you sometimes have to maneuver around object in the road and these are

Clearly seen if if you’re actually driving things like leaves glass potals all kinds of debris and we need that space to be able to safely navigate around those obstacles and not end up hitting the traffic that’s trying to pass us and in fact Paul makes this very

Point he says the cycle Lane’s pretty wide but often collects Dey from trees and litter making half of it unusable plus every 20 to 30 m there’s a big storm drain gate in the left of the cycle Lane this is so annoying as a cyclist it really pisses me off you

Spend all that money in putting in a cycle Lane and you don’t keep it clear of debris leaves all that kind of thing it it’s annoying because they just become unusable another thing that really pisses me off quite frankly is a fact that a lot of these cycle Lanes they’re

Just unusable because they’re too narrow they’re not safe now if we look at this video again in this cycle Lane if you stay in it it can cause even more close passes because uninformed molist backed up by incompetent police forces and magistrates quite honestly May believe

That rule 163 doesn’t apply and that you don’t need to give 1.5 M of room if you’re in your respective Lane because rule 163 is not always applied consistently when when people are within their own Lanes the effect of that is sometimes motorists wrongly think they can squeeze

Past and not give you the space it’s complete and utter nonsense but then as a cyclist you’re faced with the Dilemma well I’m probably better off just riding outside the cyc lane because then people that are uninformed and don’t understand the rule are not going to squeeze past

And this is the kind of dilemma Paul found himself in and in fact what he says is normally you can take the position in the road to avoid being squeezed at the traffic Island and mostly cars hold back and then pass afterwards without incident as you drop

Into the cycle Lane as a road widens the main difference on this day was that you can see queing traffic in the other lane Direction which also has cycle Lane this is unusual as the road heading out of town is very rarely stationary so the standing traffic has stopped leaving

Space for the cycle Lane on their side side narrowing and removing much space to pass in my direction on a clear day the truck may have given a wider birth and the traffic coming in the other direction may have given Space by ingressing into the opposite cycle Lane

Now what I think Paul’s basically saying here and Paul I hope you’re watching this and police correct me if I’m wrong is on this occasion he chose to ride just inside the cycle Lane to give a little bit more space to the traffic because it was so busy very considerate

Move and and something I think we should do as cyclist to facilitate the flow whenever we can generally speaking it seems cyclist are very split on this as what you should do with these kind of cycle Lanes some say just riding the road um and

It’s probably safer to do so with us say no stay in the cycle Lane I’m not too sure I think it depends on the given situation and I think we have to um accept that Paul in this situation probably knows what’s the safest thing to do because uh from reading his

Message it appears that he he rides this road quite regularly um yeah it’s a tough one but let’s look at the slow-mo again for a second now I would say unfortunately on this occasion Paul was close to getting caught out by what I think is’s a very inconsiderate hgv driver I mean he’s

Just a foot away from him that that’s just terrible so so close and the mirror came within inches of his head if that had have struck him it could have either killed him outright knocked him off and put him under the wheels of the hgv it’s

Frankly it’s just outrageous and at 40 m hour which is apparently the limit on this road I really don’t know what the driver was thinking as Paul says I’m a key motorist myself but frequently observe such poor Behavior towards cyclists so as not to lose a precious 30

Seconds of a journey I think that last sentence sums up a lot of what I think the problems are with motorist that you’re just too impatient never mind not waiting 30 seconds to pass a vulnerable Road user a lot of motorists won’t even wait 3 seconds it’s ridiculous it really is if

You’re not patient enough to wait a few seconds to pass a vulnerable Road user I don’t think you should be driving I don’t think you have the mental maturity quite honestly and in this instance as well Paul makes it very clear that this was only a short section of the road

That was actually quite narrow and busy and that if they’d have just waited a few hundred yards that could have easily passed and Paul was also doing around 20 mil hour so it wouldn’t have taken him actually very long to get to a safe section but there we are anyway let’s

Move on and before I go on to the next section which is my verdict I just want to clarify something about rule 140 this states do not drive or park in a cycle Lane marked by a broken white line unless it’s avoidable well clearly that’s another rule that the hgv driver

Thinks he can flaat and while we’re at it the car that followed the hgv that was also less than a meter from pole rather than the 1.5 M that’s required and in fact let’s remember that r63 does require more than 1.5 M when traveling at 30 m an hour that means that since

Much of the traffic was driving at 40 mph they should have got even more room I’m not impressed with the hgv I’m not impressed with the car that followed and from what Paul said it sounds like a lot of the traffic on this road behaves pretty badly he

Commented my experience on the route is generally good but passing is usually done within around one meter that’s so bad that routinely Paul’s riding on this road and he’s got Vehicles passing him within one meter it’s not acceptable Paul maybe you should have a camera mounted all the time and just submit

Clip after clip after clip after clip to the police showing this and then maybe they’ll do something but quite frankly they probably won’t this is actually pretty straightforward for me because I think that driving so bad it really is as far as the hgv driver’s concerned that’s a

Heavy fine points on the license simple um I’d be interested to hear what would happen wherever you live in the world but that’s my verdict and this is a professional driver what the hell are you thinking what the hell are you thinking and of course then we have the

Car following I think the same points heavy fine you can’t keep getting away with this motorist that are watching you can’t it’s bloody dangerous it’s really dangerous you might not think it is I’m telling you as a cyclist it is unfortunately this wasn’t reported to the police and I’m going to criticize

The police forces around the country in just a second but in this instance yes there’s nothing to criticize the reason that Paul didn’t submit the um clip and the form that goes with it is it it was a while before he got around to reporting it and the form was so lengthy

That some of the details he’d actually forgotten so he was actually put off submitting the form and he didn’t my criticism is that if these forms are so difficult so lengthy and there’s such a high high bar to actually get in a prosecution I think you need to change

Things I think you need to change procedures you need to make it easier you need to streamline the whole process so although I’m not giving um any criticism in this instance I would say that the whole procedural um way that close pass and near misses are handled when Clips come

Across a police Force’s desk needs to be changed all in all I think the hgv driver was incredibly lucky that he didn’t get prosecuted I really do I also think that we as cyclist we need to up our game we should be reporting bad driving close passes near misses more

And more and more because there’s a hardcore and it is a hardcore of drivers who are not going to change until it starts to affect them and that’s in the wallets I think if we compare it to the 60s and and drink driving there’s a hardcore of drink drivers they didn’t

Give a about anyone and I think it’s not all motor a lot of motor is very very good but this a hardcore that really really don’t care and until they start getting points on the license fines higher Insurance rights I don’t think things will change going to leave

It there thanks for watching and if you haven’t already it would be great if you could like And subscribe it helped me out tons thank you very much and here’s another couple of videos on screen now that you might enjoy watching take care