Near Miss of the Day 837: Mercedes driver close passes cyclist carrying four-year-old son in child seat

Just weeks after a video of a driver failing to stop to let a five-year-old cyclist and his father pass went hugely viral, another cyclist, this time carrying his infant child in a child seat – has shared footage of a driver passing them with inches to spare on a narrow London street. 

What is anyone getting out of close passing a father & 4yr old on a Sat morning? 2nd driver attempted a takeover with crossing island approaching; Share the road! 🤬 @BetterEaling @EalingCyclists @MPSRTPC @rolywest @MikeyCycling @Cycliq @W5Person @CyclingLawLDN @roadcc @CycleCalm pic.twitter.com/2j7MvnnrIZ

— Das_Pig (@Das_Pig) November 26, 2022

The cyclist, Ruairi, can be heard saying “f**king idiot” as the driver of the Mercedes overtakes on Church Road in Hanwell, West London, 20 seconds into the clip. Other vehicles are travelling in the opposite direction as the driver makes the dangerous manouevre, with parked cars making the road space even narrower. 

Ruairi told road.cc: “My son and I were on our way back from his Saturday football training. It’s a short 7km ride from Hanwell to Gunnersbury Park, Ealing, London. We travel by bicycle if dry, which has been pretty regularly this year.

“The bike is a Merida Silex 400, with a Yepp Maxi seat… a really good seat and solid attachment post.

“[There is] no real cycling infrastructure apart from bus lanes on the main roads along the route. Although Church Road is a main road, it has no cycling provisions other than bicycle paint marks.

“As you can see in the footage, we are cycling when a Mercedes performs a very close pass.

“This part of the journey is a hot spot unfortunately, but this is the worst close pass yet.”

Ruairi says he has reported the incident to the police. 

> 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