Please report dangerous drivers to the police - Roadsafe. Report to plod, not just whinge here.

Had a run in with a No75 bus driver this morning. Sent the following email to Stagecoach and TFL.

*Today at about 7.55am I was cycling along Mayow Road in Forest Hill, London in a northerly direction as I do every day when I had an encounter with a Stagecoach operated No.75 bus being driven in a dangerous and inconsiderate manner.

As I was approaching the roundabout on Mayow Road where it meets Dacres Road and Queenswood Road at a distance of 50m – 75m from the roundabout the driver of the bus decided to overtake me leaving less than two feet between the side of the bus and myself. The driver then pulled across in front me and braked sharply as he approached the roundabout. I had to brake hard to avoid colliding with the back of the bus. If the driver had waited about 5 seconds for me to clear the roundabout first my safety would not have been put at risk by needlessly driving in this impatient and dangerous manner.

Shortly after the roundabout the bus driver then pulled into the bus stop outside Forest Hill School (stop W) to allow passengers to board and to get off. As I passed the bus I knocked on the driver’s window to get his attention and said “Thank you” somewhat sarcastically through his open window (I was rather shaken at the time), to which the driver of the bus replied “Fuck off”. He did this in front of passengers, many of which were school children. The driver’s actions during his unnecessary manoeuvre put me in great danger and his retort to me suggests that he has a complete disregard for the safety of more vulnerable road users such as cyclists. I would have thought that Stagecoach would train their drivers appropriately so that such incidents do not occur and that their drivers are aware of the risk they can pose to other road users when driving a vehicle the size of a double decker bus.

I continued to the next bus stop along Mayow Road, just after Inglemere Road and waited for the driver to pull in there for more customers so that I could take a photo of the number plate with my phone as I felt that this incident needed to be reported. As I was taking the photo I noticed the driver had lowered the sun visor in front of his face presumably to hide his face from my camera. He kept it pulled down as he drove off from the bus stop and it was clear that it was obscuring his vision, it appeared to me that he thought that hiding his face from me was more important than being able to clearly see where he was going.

I attach the photo of the bus that I took, the registration number is SN14 TWP. I apologise for the poor quality of the photo; my hands were shaking due to the frightening experience I’d just had. I imagine that the cctv on board the bus will have picked up at least some of these events and would suggest you investigate this further. I also attach a Google Streetview image of the location where the driver chose to overtake me.

I would be very interested to hear what steps you will be taking to address the poor driving and attitude displayed by the Stagecoach employee. His actions reflect very badly on Stagecoach and on TFL by association.
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