Near Miss of the Day 656: Driver cuts across rider at cyclist priority junction

Troon wrote:

What a terrible junction layout and mark-up.

Agreed.

Troon wrote:

... conscious of then blocking the oncoming cars is a lot to expect. 

Not agreed: in fact, F that for a game of soldiers. "Not holding up the traffic" is just part of the madness. If the BMW driver stopped there until they could see that it was safe to proceed, they'd delay the arrival of the waiting cars at the back of the next queue by about 5 seconds. This should actually happen at EVERY side road - a pedestrian might have started to cross from either direction and must be given way to.

I've found the same cultural issue when supervising a learner driver - they are terrified of stalling, or being in the wrong lane and having to wait for a gap, knowing that Mr & Mrs Gammon of Furytown are behind them having apoplexy because they might be 1.36 seconds later to the garden centre and have to park 16.4 metres further away from the door. I tell the learner to take all the time they want, because they are perfectly entitled to be where they are, doing what they are.

I agree that your position is correct from an ideal point of view, but as you state, many will struggle with that position.

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

So what you are saying is you would ignore the big red signs

I've looked at Street View now, as the Twitter video resolution didn't allow me to read the red sign. There is indeed one in the opposite direction, reading "GIVE PRIORITY TO PEDESTRIANS AND CYCLISTS AT SIDE ROAD" although it's unlit, non-standard, on the opposite side of the road from the thing that needs thinking about and in my opinion, easily missed by someone trying to navigate unfamiliar territory. I also don't think it helps that the cycle path "appears" out of the brickwork with the car then having to cross three lanes of alternately-travelling traffic. Would be even worse with the bus stops occupied!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing the driver completely, who was at least clearly hesitant and confused rather than arrogantly blasting through. It is a obvious case of information overload though — and I agree that the ideal way to deal with that is to drive as slow as necessary to be able to deal with the rate of incoming information. 

Good pic (from here) - you can see another reason why the details are so important - because of the colour of the cycle lane and the markings for entering cars you have a patch of what looks like side road on the right. The cycle lane ending and turning into the footway-coloured "shared footway" also helps this impression.  a quick glance by the motorist from further back (as per your image) is going to tell them that this is a normal side road entry. If you're looking you would notice it's a bit odd but I've highlighted the overall "impression".

There are some other minor things which also may not help like other cars pulling out to round any bus in the bus stop and the hatched area making the road further to cross. That part probably comes down to basic driver competence though.

Troon, I agree. There's a lot wrong with the set up of this junction and the poor design makes errors like this more likely. The cultural problem I described adds to the driver load as well; we need both to be changed to make the junction safe.

Troon wrote:

What a terrible junction layout and mark-up.

Whilst the driver is clearly in the wrong, I have a lot of sympathy with them in this case and may well have made the same mistake myself if navigating that in a car without knowing the layout in advance. Watching for gaps in the oncoming cars to turn right, then having to look backwards for same-direction bikes coming a lane over and hidden by the other traffic whilst being conscious of then blocking the oncoming cars is a lot to expect. 

what we have here are two travel corridors side by side, can you imagine if the camera cyclist wanted to turn tight, waited for a gap in the oncoming bike lane, and then pulled across the road without looking? "Oh, it was too difficult to check for oncoming bikes and cars coming from behind me while I was waiting" would cut no ice. There would be unanimous agreement that the cyclist was wrong.

Thats what the driver did to the cycle route.

Most road users are not the best. If we build infrastructure that assumes the best then we will be disappointed.

In this case I assume the oncoming Merc gestured to the BMW driver, who may even have paused to check oncoming cycle traffic as well, but never expected any vehicles from the other direction. Certainly the cycle lane appears visually not to extend in the direction behind the BMW, so the driver would not be teed-up to expect that.

To be honest, I'm not sure how the junction can be made to work. Generally I think that the continuous pavement element should be visually far stronger, offering no suggestion other than that a driver is required to mount the kerb and drive over a pavement.

New layouts generate some doubt and confusion inevitably, and the design should be that the beneficiary of such doubt is the vulnerable user.

In other words, the design should leave drivers to start their education from the point of asking themselves, "am I even allowed to drive through here?"

Might have been the merc warning the car / bike. Luckily the cyclist was expecting it.