DRAMATIC footage has captured the moment a police motorcycle comes within inches of causing a serious crash when it swerves into the outside lane of Scotland’s busiest motorway.
The dashcam footage shows traffic moving steadily along the M8 just after rush hour, before the police motorbike swerves across three lanes just moments after joining the motorway.
The car recording the clip, travelling at around 40mph, is forced to move to the right as the police bike moves in front with just inches to spare.
Two minutes later, the video shows six police motorcycles travelling two-by-two with two police cars following, further along the M8.
The video was recorded on April 20 at 9.37am with the police bike incident occurring at junction 21, near Govan, Glasgow.
The footage starts as the dashcam vehicle drives in the outside lane amongst the steadily moving traffic.
A black Renault in the middle lane slams on its brakes as two police motorbikes come into view.
The first bike moves immediately across the inside lane and then shifts across the middle before edging over the lines into the outside.
The driver of the dashcam vehicle is forced to hit the brakes and lets out a sound of shock as they move to the right to avoid a collision with the police bike which pulled out inches in front of them.
The driver then says: “F*****g hell. Wow, wow.”
The video then cuts to two minutes along the road to show a police convoy travelling along the outside lane, containing six police bikes and two cars, although it is not known what this was for.
Speaking about the incident, the driver of the dashcam vehicle who wished to remain anonymous, said: “”There was absolutely no reason that I could see for this police biker to merge immediately into outside lane.
“Thankfully traffic was a little bit behind me otherwise there could have been a serious crash.
“You’ll notice the other biker doesn’t swerve as aggressively, and it clearly wasn’t an emergency as they don’t pass me until several minutes later.”
“I drive a small red car and I personally think he didn’t look properly and didn’t see me.”
A spokesman for Scotland’s Worst Drivers, who obtained the footage, said: “While the police biker had his blue lights on, he nearly ended up under the wheels of the dash cam car.
“Bearing in mind the road conditions were damp, by merging from the slip road across the entire carriageway was reckless.
“Clearly the driver of the dash cam car was not expecting him to do this either.”
“It’s concerning that a police officer would attempt such a manoeuvre in what was clearly not an emergency situation.”
A Police Scotland spokesman said: “The officer was attending to duties and as such it would be inappropriate to comment further about this.
“If anyone wishes to complain about the police they can do so by visiting the Police Scotland website.”
