Near Miss of the Day 550: Unmarked police car driver weaves through cyclists

Here’s an interesting entry in our Near Miss of the Day series – the driver of an what we presume is an unmarked police car starting to overtake a cyclist and thinking better of it due to a couple of other riders, as well as another motor vehicle, coming in the other direction then after weaving through them, flashing their blue lights.

The footage was filmed in northwest Kent by road.cc reader Philip, who said there was no apparent reason for the driver to have flashed the lights other than because “that for some reason excused and justified their bad driving.�

He told us: “Having just cycled up Hogtrough Hill (just next to the better known Brasted Hill in Kent) I was heading down a quiet country lane.. I started taking a left turn, arm out in a clear signal with a car still approaching on the opposite side of the road. The car then continued to turn as I turned but onto the wrong side of the road, towards an oncoming car and two other bicycles.

“The car then had to stop sharply but couldn’t pull over because by this point it was parallel to me and had nowhere to go. It pulled in behind me, allowed the oncoming car and bikes to pass and then continued to pass me. While I was fine and nobody came close to me, had the oncoming traffic been faster or closer we could all have been seriously hurt.

“As I gave my usual disappointed shake of my head that I reserve for this sort of thoughtless driving the car lit up its blue lights. I can only assume that this was to show me that it was an unmarked Police car and that for some reason excused and justified their bad driving. There was no reason to light up its lights after passing the other vehicles and while passing me and at no other point were their blue lights on and almost as quickly as they passed, they turned off their lights again. (Note, in the video their side lights appear to flicker but this is just a side effect of the camera’s frame-rate).�

He added: “I find in general road users’ lack of consideration for cyclists disappointing but it is really sad that I often find that the Police are just as bad as any other ‘regular’ driver.�

https://road.cc/content/news/near-mi...-driver-281447