A cyclist has shared footage of the terrifying moment they were almost knocked from their bike at a roundabout, the “very experienced” rider saying this incident was “by far the scariest I’ve had while cycling”.
“I was certain that a high speed collision was imminent,” Geraint told road.cc. Despite wearing a bright orange jersey and there being good visibility on the day, the driver of the Ford somehow failed to see him at the roundabout, pulling out and almost hitting the rider.
It happened as Geraint returned to Glasgow from Eaglesham Moor. He was crossing the roundabout between Eaglesham and Waterfoot, which links Glasgow Road to the Glasgow Southern Orbital, when it happened, the rear-facing camera showing just how close to a collision the driver came.
“I purchased Cycliq cameras after a coach ran over my bike, destroying my back wheel, and the civilian on the police station counter said that without corroborating video evidence, nothing would come from that complaint – there was no CCTV footage and they were right,” Geraint explained. “I now always ride with cameras.
“I’m a very experienced road cyclist. This incident was by far the scariest I’ve had while cycling. I was certain that a high-speed collision was imminent. I was wearing a bright orange jersey and there was good visibility. There was also a strong crosswind (approx 25-30 km/hr) which is why I was positioned well away from the edges of the roundabout; and that may have saved me on this occasion.
“It is not obvious in the video, but at the point that I was directly in front of the car and it was not visible to either camera, the front of the car dipped very noticeably as the driver braked very hard at the last moment.”
It’s been reported to Police Scotland and an officer has been assigned to investigate, but Geraint has not heard anything more at the time of writing.
“My understanding is that there is a roughly two-year lead time for dangerous driving prosecutions at the moment in Scotland, based on previous reports that I have made,” he explained.
> 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