Near Miss of the Day 643: Police officer pulls out on cyclist

Good lord!  You mean those flashy orange lights serve a genuine purpose?  Well I never...

Not on BMWs in my experience.  Rumours of the man fitting the indicators on them being made redundant are rife.

But but if they've checked and assessed the situation first then it's OK if they're an advanced driver or trained police driver!

I'm sanguine about the police having to do it differently "in extremis" but they didn't have their blues on so it don't look like the Sweeney here. Just careless. Or "lacking courtesy" if you like.

You don't indicate if you know there is nobody going to be affected by your actions.

An advanced motorist is therefore proving the point that they were unaware of the approaching bike.

The exceptions suggested include signalling on a roundabout rather than trying to signal when spotting an approaching vehicle, so you are not distracted by the action.

Don't signal if your intention is ambiguous (e.g. changing lane just before a junction where an emerging car might make an assumption).

IanMSpencer wrote:

You don't indicate if you know there is nobody going to be affected by your actions.

Perhaps, but pulling out from behind a parked vehicle, when parked on the righthand side of the road, into an oncoming traffic lane, with poor visibility - that is going to require indication everytime.

IanMSpencer wrote:

Don't signal if your intention is ambiguous (e.g. changing lane just before a junction where an emerging car might make an assumption).

The correct course of action there would be don't change lane - but if you must, you should definitely indicate. Otherwise the emerging driver will very like emerge into the lane that you are foolishly trying to move into. If I'm emerging from a junction and a car in the right hand lane is signalling left, there's no way I'm going to take that as a cue that it is safe to emerge, quite the opposite. Heck if there's a car in the left lane indicating left, I'm not going to emerge, unless I also see that they are reducing speed significantly (or already travelling slowly enough for me to emerge safely).

What would you do if you are turning left at traffic lights which are about 30 metres from the previous left junction, when the bus lane ends 5 metres before the previous junction?

I can assure you that signalling left gets drivers to pull out every time.

Try Google maps and have a look at Lode Lane approaching Solihull By-Pass and the relationship to Hermitage Road.

And I have done the Advanced Drivers Course and I am quoting their guidance.

IanMSpencer wrote:

You don't indicate if you know there is nobody going to be affected by your actions.

The idea that you can know this, without room for any doubt whatsoever, bothers me. I understand that the idea is to get drivers to observe carefully and consider, rather than just indicating thoughtlessly as a matter of routine. But where is the harm in making careful observations and indicating, just in case you're, you know, human and fallible after all?

The advanced driving philosophy is that if you don't know for sure, then you haven't observed.

I used to be a signal all the time, and not signalling forces you to properly consider your observation. Think about it. If you signal automatically, you just signal. If you signal if another road user is around, then you have a cue to make sure you have looked. If you really can't see, e.g. going around a wooded roundabout, then by all means signal, but the starting point is observation, not signalling.

Anyway, don't take it up with me, have a go at the police accredited testers for advanced driving and the likes of IAM. It is driving systematically, so every decision is deliberate.

I wasn't taking issue with you personally, it was just convenient to quote the words you'd used. When I said 'you', I meant 'one'.  As I said, I understand the theory, but for most drivers, I don't see the harm in proper observations and indication. If you're a vulnerable road user who hasn't been seen, then it makes little difference if the person who failed to see you is an advanced motorist whose training tells them not to indicate, or a basic driver who just doesn't bother. Indicating offers a degree of protection from fallible drivers in both camps.