Near Miss of the Day 417: Van driver makes close pass on tandem cyclists – then jumps red light

Close passes don’t happen by chance. Sometimes, of course, they are deliberate – so-called punishment passes. At other times, poor road design that causes conflict may play a part. But very often, it is simply down to very bad driving that puts others in danger, as we see here with a van driver in York not only making a close pass on a couple on a tandem, but then going through a red light at a junction where cyclists are crossing from each direction.

It was filmed by road.cc reader Phil, who said: “Near miss riding our tandem back into York on Hull Road on Friday. Two cars overtake safely, then a white van (with clear company markings and number plate) passes much more closely in a hatched region, and then goes on to jump a red light by huge margin with amber and red clearly visible in the video. Other cyclists crossing the same junction shortly after.”

> 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.