I nearly knocked a cyclist off

[benb]

I honestly can't remember if I was indicating (I would think that I probably was). It's going into a one way street, so all traffic has to turn left. This is obvious at this junction, so whether I was indicating or not, the cyclist should have known that I was going to turn left.

@Lee. Yes, there was some room on my left between me and the railings, but just because there's room doesn't mean it should be used.

As I said, I will be more vigilant in future; let's hope the cyclist is too.

 

[jonny jeez]

Yep, mea culpa. I absolutely should have checked to my left, and he absolutely should not have filtered down the left.

Hopefully we both learnt something.

well said

 

[PK99]

At this junction, turning left into a one way street, so I didn't check to my left.
The cyclist had come up my left and was next to me at the line. A gap came along and we both pulled out at the same time, and I had to swerve immediately to avoid him.

Clearly I should have checked to my left quickly before pulling away, and will definitely do that in the future, but IMHO he should never had come up along my left side, but should have waited behind me.

The cylcist was an idiot for coming up on your left - that is an accident waiting to happen

 

[jeltz]

The problem is when you have cycle lanes, paths and Cycle Superhighways all on the left of traffic there is going to be an unfortunate tension between the merits and demerits of undertaking and overtaking (a conflict between best practice and the lure of cycle provision).

As I have previosuly mentioned, cycle lanes make it more difficult to overtake (but not significanlty so) as many vehicles keep out of the cycle lane and further toward the centre markings. Whilst cycle lanes may help condition drivers to use their nearside mirrors, that's not much of a consolation if a passenger opens their door into your path...

Not talking about separate lanes to the left of the "main" vehicle lane I'm talking about filtering within the same lane, with specific reference to approaching junctions. I'm not totally against filtering on the left, just that both drivers and cyclists need to be more aware of the issues.

FWIW I don't think much of the cycle lanes we have locally.

 

[Origamist]

Not talking about separate lanes to the left of the "main" vehicle lane I'm talking about filtering within the same lane, with specific reference to approaching junctions. I'm not totally against filtering on the left, just that both drivers and cyclists need to be more aware of the issues.

FWIW I don't think much of the cycle lanes we have locally.

If you're going to filter to the left (in the absence of cycle lanes) on the approach to junctions, you're going to have lots of near misses and a much higher likelihood of a collision - but the point I was trying to make is that advice and/or a campaign dealing with filtering becomes more thorny because of cycling infrastructure (and where motorists expect cyclists to be), regardless of whether cycle paths/lanes are actually in situ.