{"id":257408,"date":"2025-11-11T20:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257408\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:15:11","slug":"rushden-cycling-coach-dismayed-by-hatred-after-near-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257408\/","title":{"rendered":"Rushden cycling coach dismayed by &#8216;hatred&#8217; after near miss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kris HollandNorthamptonshire<\/p>\n<p>Watch: Cyclist&#8217;s near miss as car crashes off road<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A man who shared a video of a car nearly hitting him while he was cycling said &#8220;hatred&#8221; in the comments on his social media post underlined a &#8220;general disdain for cyclists&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">George Fox, a cycling coach from Rushden, Northamptonshire, captured the incident on Sywell Road in Mears Ashby, near Wellingborough, on Thursday while he was filming with a student. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The 32-year-old said some <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/videos\/cpq1xdn31dyo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">viewers of the video,<\/a> which has been watched more than four million times, had laid &#8220;bizarre&#8221; blame for the incident with the two cyclists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Fox said &#8220;We just want to get home at the end of the day&#8230; we were just bystanders in that situation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The footage showed the skidding white Suzuki Swift involved in the crash missing Mr Fox&#8217;s student by &#8220;inches&#8221; before hitting another vehicle and overturning in some hedges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A spokesperson for Northamptonshire Police said the crash &#8220;involved three cars &#8211; a blue Volvo V50, a white Suzuki Swift, and a grey Fiat 500&#8221; and &#8220;no-one was seriously injured&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762854847_857_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2a7337d0-befe-11f0-90b3-b57c162d3edc.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"George Fox George Fox in a red technical T-shirt with 'George Fox Cycling Solutions&quot; written on the chest. He is holding the saddle and handlebars of a black bike and standing against the backdrop of a construction site.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>George Fox<\/p>\n<p>George Fox said the incident was not his first near miss with a car while he has been cycling<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Reflecting on the incident, Mr Fox said: &#8220;What you can&#8217;t see from the video is how quickly it all happened for us. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We were approaching a blind bend and the car obviously came around it. We&#8217;ve looked at the dashcam video from the car behind us too&#8230; from the two together we worked out we had roughly one-and-a-half seconds to react to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s all a blur&#8230; the car probably came within about six inches [of hitting the other cyclist].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Differing attitudes <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Fox, who rides his bike six days a week and covers about 10,000 miles per year, said he and his student were &#8220;both alright&#8221; following the &#8220;scary situation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said it was &#8220;not uncommon&#8221; for cyclists to experience near misses on the road, adding, &#8220;but it&#8217;s rare you catch them on camera&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He described how attitudes towards cyclists from motorists was &#8220;different everywhere&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;In this country, I&#8217;ve always sort of said you have to ride like everyone is trying to kill you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;That way you ride sensibly and see the situations coming a bit quicker. It was a bit different last week, there was no way we could have seen that coming and had to react so quickly. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a case of riding defensively, almost waiting for it to happen rather than anticipating it,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762854847_857_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/42f330d0-befe-11f0-90b3-b57c162d3edc.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"George Fox George Fox in cycling lycra which is orange and purple. He is wearing cycling sunglasses and a white helmet.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>George Fox<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fox said a helmet and lycra were not much protection &#8220;when you&#8217;ve got a one-tonne metal box coming towards you&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Fox added the incident would not stop him from taking part in the &#8220;amazing sport&#8221; of cycling, but said cyclists were &#8220;reliant on car drivers to drive sensibly, look after each other and look after us&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s when you start reading the comments [on his social media post] and 90% of them aren&#8217;t exactly positive towards cyclists. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It starts to worry you, you think, &#8216;Crikey, is that how everybody thinks?&#8217;,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kris HollandNorthamptonshire Watch: Cyclist&#8217;s near miss as car crashes off road A man who shared a video of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-257408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}