A nurse in Manchester was cycling to work this morning when he was almost hit by a motorist who drove through red lights at a pedestrian crossing, and then went on to swear at the cyclist and deny that the light was red. Unfortunately for him, the
cyclist had got it on camera.
Alex has been cycling to work ever since he became a nurse 10 years ago — and the route he was on today has been part of his daily Monday to Friday commute for almost a year now.
Coming up to Rochdale Road from Russet Road in Greater Manchester at just past 8AM today, he stopped and waited for the light to turn red at the pedestrian crossing, so he could join the main road safely. But as he was about to do so, an Audi driver
jumped the light and came very close to hitting him.
When he let out an exclaim pointing at the state of events to the motorist, he was met with a deluge on abuse and denial.
"I'm unfortunately used to it, but in my opinion this was very good footage of someone doing something very naughty," Alex told road.cc.
As visible in the video, the Audi driver is stationary and waiting for the drivers in front of him to pass. When the light turns amber, there's still another vehicle in front of him, which goes straight ahead just as the red light comes on.
"When I turned they decided to run the red light and almost hit me," he said.
He can be heard saying: "It's a red light mate!"
The driver replies with: "Oh f*** off! No, it f****** wasn't!"
Alex said: "The thing I think is a bit different about this is that the offending car is so clearly captured being stationary behind the red light and so they have very intentionally driven through it. It was no simple accident or episode of inattention."
He told road.cc that he has submitted the footage to Greater Manchester police and is awaiting a response, but his experience with them has been "hit and miss" so far.
"If I had to describe their responses in one word it would be opaque," said Alex.
https://road.cc/content/news/near-miss-day-875-303873
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