A road safety campaigner has posted footage of a ‘tailgating moron’ who he says puts him in danger on a busy road.

Cyclist Grahame Cooper was riding through Bolton when the dark coloured Volkswagen drove within metres of his back wheel.

Grahame, 58, a retired university professor, captured the motorist with his helmet and bike cams and posted the video on Youtube and Twitter to highlight the perils of tailgating.

He told the M.E.N that the driving, which took place on Blackburn Road, north of Bolton town centre, on Wednesday afternoon, was ‘standard’ on his journeys and he has filmed worse over the years.

He added: “I retired about a year ago but before then was cycling around 100 miles a week, from north Bolton to Salford for work. I could typically encounter one to two hundred vehicles each day. I had problems with a lot of drivers who don’t understand that their driving is quite bad, and some who are deliberately aggressive.”

Married dad-of-two Grahame, a professor of computing and former lecturer at the University of Salford , described himself as ‘a motorist who chooses to travel to work on a bicycle’ and only blames ‘a minority of drivers’.

Prof Cooper, who lives in Astley Bridge, explained that he wasn’t using the cycle lane on Blackburn Rod because drivers often veer into the green area and he was nearly hit by a bus a few years ago.

He added: “The Highway Code says you’re not required to use the cycle paths; the decision depends on the cyclist’s skills and experience.”

Grahame tweeted his video to Greater Manchester Police , but officers cannot investigate unless the incident is reported by phone. The cyclist said he only calls police to report more serious offences.

Writing under his blogging pseudonym ‘Mr Happy Cyclist’, Grahame explained his position: “I can get a bit annoyed by some of the antics of a minority of drivers, though, especially when they put my life at risk just to save a few milliseconds off their journey time or to get to the next set of traffic lights half a second earlier.

He added: “I have, of necessity, learned an awful lot of stuff very quickly about how to cycle in rush hour traffic, partly from experience, partly from other people’s experience and partly from reading....I decided to put some of my own experiences here to add to the stuff that’s already out there.”

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