A motorist who made a close pass on a cyclist at 90mph has been banned from driving for six months in the first prosecution brought under Northamptonshire Police’s Operation Snap.
The footage was shot by road.cc reader Dave, whose videos have been featured in our Near Miss of the Day series a number of times, although he was unable to share this one with us until the court case concluded.
Dave, who several years ago met with the force’s then chief constable, leading to it conducting its first ever operation targeting close pass drivers, told us that the incident on 11 September on Bedford Road, Rushden, “frightened the life out of me.”
On Monday Denzel Masawi of Rushden, aged 26, was convicted of driving in excess of a 30mph speed limit after pleading not guilty of the offence at Wellingborough Magistrates’ Court.
Besides the six-month ban, he was also fined £592 and ordered to pay a £59 victim surcharge and costs of £620.
PC Dave Lee from Northamptonshire Police’s Safer Roads Team said: “Operation Snap was launched to allow members of the public who capture bad driving on camera to easily submit it to Northamptonshire Police.
“This new process makes it easier for both those with cameras capturing the bad driving and for us to be able to process it.”
> What to do next if you’ve been involved in a road traffic collision
> 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.