The terror of the close pass

When a south american bus company wanted to drum home to its trainee drivers the importance of giving cyclists a wide berth, their solution was simple; they sat them on exercise bikes at the side of the road while they overtook them at a distance closer than the recommended 1.5 metres.

Close passes by motorists are as much a part of cycling on British roads as potholes, but there can be only two possible explanations for why a motorist overtakes dangerously close to a cyclist – incompetence or malice.

In the absence of widespread and good quality infrastructure to protect cyclists from motorised traffic, The Safer Roads Partnership and operational policing teams from both Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police have pioneered Operation Close Pass – a scheme to reduce the number of cyclists killed or injured on their region’s roads. Close passes are intimidating and nationally account for around a third of all threatening incidents between drivers and cyclists.

The initiative, which is now being adopted by other forces, uses plain clothes officers on bikes equipped with front and rear facing cameras. Any driver seen passing closer than the recommended distance (1.5 metres) is pulled over.

The results are encouraging with the number of cyclists killed or seriously hurt on the region’s roads reduced by 20 per cent since West Midlands Police launched the operation. Props used by the police include giant floor mats to illustrate the correct passing distance and these are now to be complemented by a film by Cycling UK that police will show to drivers at the roadside via a VR headset. These initiatives are to be applauded, but no amount of current technology can replicate the visceral experience of having one's life threatened by a close pass.

When we asked 800 cyclists reveal their least favourite aspect of life on two wheels, the vast majority named the close pass. In response we built a handlebar-mounted flame thrower - a design that's neither practicable for everyday use nor legal for use on British roads, but does at least highlight to drivers that overtaking a cyclist too close is a life-threatening behaviour.

The solution to the close pass lies not in giant floor mats, undercover police officers on bicycles, VR films - and certainly not in flamethrowers. They say that in order to empathise, one should walk a mile somebody else's shoes. In the case of motorists, this doesn't mean imagining the world outside the metal box, it means occasionally leaving the car at home and cycling instead. In fact, there's a strong argument that the first few driving lessons should be aboard a bicycle. Last summer, a peer-reviewed study for the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention found that cyclists had faster reaction times behind the wheel compared to non cyclists.

The ethical choice

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Over 30 years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance , breakdown cover and mobility scooter insurance while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

The Good Shopping Guide judges us to be the UK’s most ethical provider.

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