Near Miss of the Day 525: Cyclist has to thump on taxi window asdriver squeezes him into verge

A cyclist had to thump on the window of a taxi to attract the attention of a driver who, unable to overtake a tractor and trailer ahead of him, was squeezing him into the grass verge – that’s the scenario of our latest Near Miss of the Day video, shared by road.cc reader Tom.

“I moved from London to Thame (Oxfordshire) ten days before lockdown 1 last year,� Tom told us. “During my three years of commuting from Chiswick to the City I never got round to getting a cycle cam but felt that it’d be more important to get one now I’d be on less busy but faster roads (the new commute is Thame to Oxford).

“However I found out that drivers in Oxfordshire (on the whole) were much better than most in London – That is until recently; from about November I’ve had more frequent close passing and careless/dangerous driving.

“However, I’ve been working from home (no commute currently) and so recently all of my rides have been around my locale, meaning any bad driving I encounter is more than likely to be people from my local area too.

“I will say Thames Valley Police have been excellent with letting me know the outcomes of close passes that I’ve uploaded onto their portal (funnily enough each time the police officer has told me that the person driving the vehicle has said ‘I’m a cyclist myself’).

“I’m sending this video across because I’m still, even now, getting used to riding with a cycle cam and I’m still a bit naive with it,� Tom continued. “This has been a valuable learning experience if I have a similar incident happen to me again.

“This is me about two minutes from home arriving into Thame. There’s a tractor with trailer that passes me (well and with a lot of space), it’s downhill so I’m able to keep a constant speed. The driver of the tractor then lets out another tractor pulling out of a side road (I see this and moderate my speed and position in the road – this part of the road also has some deep potholes on the left so I normally take a bit more of the lane here).

“At the same time a taxi driver (in a seven-seater van) for some reason pulls alongside me (into the opposing lane for vehicles turning right) but then realises he can’t get past me and the two tractors in front. At which point he just starts to pull back in and squeeze me out into the verge.

“At the same time I’m level with the taxi’s passengers (who look a bit confused) and start gesturing for them to have a go at the driver. It gets to the point where I start to hammer on the side of the taxi (the sound is terrible on my camera but you can hear the thwacking) and he eventually pulls back.

“My naivety with cycle camming that I mentioned earlier is that I was just happy to be free of being squeezed so took the chance to establish prime in the lane and be in front – whereas in hindsight I should have pulled up and tried to get the number plate (I can’t even remember the taxi company, but I was being forced off the road so it wasn’t my priority).�

Tom added: “As you can see the lens angle isn’t wide enough for me to see the taxi company and I don’t run a rear camera. I haven’t reported this one to the police because I don’t have any details of the vehicle/company that I can attribute it to (unless someone has any advice on what I can do with this footage?).�

https://road.cc/content/news/near-mi...-window-280249

On Friday, 22 January 2021 at 18:03:39 UTC, wrote:
A cyclist had to thump on the window of a taxi to attract the attention of a driver who, unable to overtake a tractor and trailer ahead of him, was squeezing him into the grass verge – that’s the scenario of our latest Near Miss of the Day video, shared by road.cc reader Tom.

“I moved from London to Thame (Oxfordshire) ten days before lockdown 1 last year,� Tom told us. “During my three years of commuting from Chiswick to the City I never got round to getting a cycle cam but felt that it’d be more important to get one now I’d be on less busy but faster roads (the new commute is Thame to Oxford).

“However I found out that drivers in Oxfordshire (on the whole) were much better than most in London – That is until recently; from about November I’ve had more frequent close passing and careless/dangerous driving.

“However, I’ve been working from home (no commute currently) and so recently all of my rides have been around my locale, meaning any bad driving I encounter is more than likely to be people from my local area too.

“I will say Thames Valley Police have been excellent with letting me know the outcomes of close passes that I’ve uploaded onto their portal (funnily enough each time the police officer has told me that the person driving the vehicle has said ‘I’m a cyclist myself’).

“I’m sending this video across because I’m still, even now, getting used to riding with a cycle cam and I’m still a bit naive with it,� Tom continued. “This has been a valuable learning experience if I have a similar incident happen to me again.

“This is me about two minutes from home arriving into Thame. There’s a tractor with trailer that passes me (well and with a lot of space), it’s downhill so I’m able to keep a constant speed. The driver of the tractor then lets out another tractor pulling out of a side road (I see this and moderate my speed and position in the road – this part of the road also has some deep potholes on the left so I normally take a bit more of the lane here).

“At the same time a taxi driver (in a seven-seater van) for some reason pulls alongside me (into the opposing lane for vehicles turning right) but then realises he can’t get past me and the two tractors in front. At which point he just starts to pull back in and squeeze me out into the verge.

“At the same time I’m level with the taxi’s passengers (who look a bit confused) and start gesturing for them to have a go at the driver. It gets to the point where I start to hammer on the side of the taxi (the sound is terrible on my camera but you can hear the thwacking) and he eventually pulls back.

“My naivety with cycle camming that I mentioned earlier is that I was just happy to be free of being squeezed so took the chance to establish prime in the lane and be in front – whereas in hindsight I should have pulled up and tried to get the number plate (I can’t even remember the taxi company, but I was being forced off the road so it wasn’t my priority).�

Tom added: “As you can see the lens angle isn’t wide enough for me to see the taxi company and I don’t run a rear camera. I haven’t reported this one to the police because I don’t have any details of the vehicle/company that I can attribute it to (unless someone has any advice on what I can do with this footage?).�

https://road.cc/content/news/near-mi...-window-280249

Clearly the cyclist 'should be on the cycle path'. The fact that there was no cycle path doesn't seem to bother most drivers.