Dummy opening post
I've seen a few morons, usually on mopeds, do the same, even in segregated cycle lanes!
Burton Hall Road, travelling west after the Luas tracks last week on my commute home. Traffic built up in the lane on the right, I took the left lane to go left up ahead and some idiot in a German saloon raced in from the right lane narrowly missing the last car in the line and skimmed past me. Fortunately for them I didn't catch up around the Beacon.
MOD VOICE: Indeed, time to move on as it's just people repeating the same thing. Nearly all seem to have missed the cyclist was on the footpad and so no one's point is valid, so let's just leave it there. The law has been quoted and seems clear, anyone who can't understand it can go to PM for clearer explanations
Any near misses to report there lads?
this has been one of the issues facing local authorities; DCC can't hire enough people, they're operating at ~90% nominal headcount, and the shortfall is most pronounced in areas where they can't compete with the private sector for pay, so in engineering etc.
They'll probably come to that conclusion once they've burnt through hundreds of millions of wasted Euro on 'upgrading' crap road infrastructure to still crap road infrastructure. It always seems to be the way in this country. The obvious solution is staring the authorities in the face, but they wait until years/ decades have passed before acting on it, by which point the world has moved on and money wasted.
This is sort of happening. There are dedicated teams being recruited in LA's around the country to particularly champion active transport designs. They'll be SME's so to speak. Additionally, any of the engineers are being trained using "experiential visits" to places like Utrecht. It's not exactly what you're describing, but it's a good start.
I find LA engineers now way better educated on cycle infrastructure than 2-3 years ago, in general. It's definitely improving in the two Cork LA's.
Yeah, that’s why I said interested engineers, engineers who would regularly cycle, walk or wheel (never heard of this term before this week) and would have an interest in doing it right. Would probably need to pay them equivalent of a private sector wage, however, I would imagine that there would be cost savings in the long run. Anyway a pipe dream!
Leaving aside the fact that the ROTR are not legislation.
You should check for traffic before any manoeuvre. Once you've stopped the manoeuvre is over and a new check should be done before starting the next manoeuvre.
The 'movement to the left' is not the execution of the turn, it's the positioning of the vehicle beforehand.
It's quite clear in the ROTR, the check for approaching cyclists is done before this manoeuvre. Once done, whether about to turn or stopped at lights, the vehicle has priority.
Oh I would agree. There is enough space at that junction to put in advance stop lane, earlier lights for cyclists and a proper separate bike lane, but it won’t happen until bus connects happens.
On a side note, I know there is a lot of money being allocated towards active travel, but I wish they would setup a dedicated team of interested engineers responsible for implementing these plans nationwide, instead of relying on current county councils to do it. It would also be useful if there was a way to highlight problems directly to them, like this junction, so a continuous improvement can happen where needed, instead of waiting for large projects. I guess I can dream!
Just to follow up, I was stopped again at this junction this morning, so I made a very conscious effort in where I positioned my car. I went as far right as I could with blocking the right lane, and I still believe a bike couldn’t squeeze by.
Not that it mattered, there was a bus in front of me blocking the full lane!
Two cyclist went up on the path to pass both myself and the bus. As I turned left having indicated, one cyclist cycled off the curb to continue straight without looking. I think it’s just a junction where I will have to be overly cautious!
Thanks for all the responses.
How is the OP right and i'm wrong?
It is. It's you're. I won't thanks. Where have i been wrong?
Tbh i'd expect more from a mod, you've moved from accusing me of waffling to accusing me downright trolling.
The legislation is right there in your post, remove the reasonable expectation, the vehicle has already moved. If the vehicle is already there then there can be no expectation, reasonable or unreasonable, that it's going to move to the left.
Where did i agree?. Filtering up the inside of an already indicating and already moved to the left vehicle is illegal.
The whole point is is that they shouldn't have Seth, squeezing past and banging on the car is not on. Telling the OP they shouldn't be in a painted shared cycle lane is wrong.
We all rightfully lambast a driver who couldn't wait five seconds to accommodate a fellow road user on here, is it any wonder that the cycling forum gets a bad rep when non accommodating cycling gets excused and defended.
The OP asked whether they'd done anything wrong. The answer is no, end of.
I believe they came up on the path, not the road, as I was just passed the entrance to Michaels where there is no curb.
I've just explained it based on the same law posted.
Can you post a law that entitles following traffic to filter to the left of traffic that has already moved to the left in order to execute a left turn?
You're disagreeing with your own post, the reasonable expectation bit is irrelevant as it's already happened. The OP IS approaching the turn, they've executed the move to the left, therefore making it illegal for following cyclists to filter to their left.
They are not legally allowed to filter on the left when the vehicle has already moved to the left. The OP had already moved there.
Do you agree that the cyclists had no right to tell the OP that they shouldn't be in the non-existent cycle lane?
I've said before that the new wording is nonsensical, it used to be 'has signalled an intention and HAS moved to the left'.
Why anyone thought that 'a reasonable expectation' is a clearer definition is beyond me, it's up there with 'durable relationship'.
I said should have waited. If they didn't want to wait then they were obligated to filter to the right as the OP had already moved to the left. That is the law.
You agree that the OP was entitled to be there, but still want to find fault that they didn't 'need' to be as left as they were. It was absolutely correct driving, the whole purpose of 'moving to the left' is to assert priority over following traffic, which is not entitled to filter to your inside then.
There is no cycle lane there, just paint on a road indicating that the rules and laws applying to that road are the same as one that hasn't been painted at all. Maybe this needs to be pointed out more rather than faffing about with vague wording and completely stupid 'vision zero' advertising campaigns.
You didn't do anything wrong there KnockOutNed.
For most of that stretch of road the inside lane is a bus/cycle lane but not at that junction so the cyclists are in the wrong here.
Those cyclists sound like an angry, ill-informed self-entitled bunch. Bad luck coming across them. Can't see you did much wrong. At those kind of junctions (think also N11 at the Trees Road/ Stillorgan junction) I just abandon any thought of being restricted to the cycle lane and behave instead like a car/ motorbike. In slow moving traffic you're probably going to cause less issues by just taking the lane and filtering accordingly.
As others have said, it's a case of really poor road infrastructure. Tokenism really. Perhaps the anger you encountered is a result of years of those cyclists being roared at to "get in the cycle lane" when very often there's a good reason not to use it. Or perhaps they were just angry asshats. But it should be help up as an example of what happens when you trumpet "25 Gazillion Billion Euro spent on cycling infrastructure" but in reality provide a really poor end product for people to use - it just generates conflict, confusion, fear and anger among the people using the roads.
It shouldn't be that hard to get right.
Edit: as for the banging on your car, that's not on at all. Losing the rag after nearly being taken out by a car is one thing, but nobody has the right to go around banging on other people's property just because they're angry over a perceived infraction. They'd get little sympathy from me if someone got out of their car and gave the bike a welly. There's enough aggro on the roads without that kind of nonsense being added to the pile.
it's a great case of 'paint isn't infrastructure'.
you can see from the overhead shot that a dotted cycle lane has been created on top of, not beside, the left turning lane - very clear that if the car was not to be placed partly in the cycle lane, it thus becomes a much narrower lane than the 'straight on only' lane is.
In this instance the cyclists should have waited, car was ahead, indicating, and had moved to the left before they got there.
They didn't know the rules about not filtering up the lhs of a car doing so nevermind that a dashed cycle lane isn't a cycle lane, it's a shared lane so the OP was entitled to be in it.
Sorry this was initially responding to @MangleBadger but probably covers other responses
Not sure I would agree with your last sentence.
There is no advance stop line, so where are they going. The cyclist should stop in line with the first car before the pedestrian lights, as the stop line continues across the cycle lane. Me being the second car really shouldn’t impact them too much especially as it’s a shared lane and I have indicated my position before their arrival.
Anyway, I agree on Seth’s take that it’s bad infrastructure. Hopefully the bike lane from the Merrion Gates can be extended and can proceed without Bus Connects as it’s badly needed. It also a strange junction as the green light for the Merrion Road is on 90% of the time with only a small run for both Ailesbury Road and the pedestrian crossing, so probably won’t be caught in this situation again!
*just to add, I was in the right straight lane until the bus lane ends about 50m from the junction. When I moved lanes there was no cyclists beside me or in front of me. As noted, the lights here are typically always green for traffic towards town and have very short times for the other roads / pedestrian crossing, so even the lights were red when I arrived, they do change quickly to green.
As this is a busy road and there was only one car in front of the OP at the red light, I would guess that the light had not been red for long and could reasonably expected to remain red for some time. So the cyclists were going to have to stop shortly regardless of whether the OP passed them.
If the OP had passed the cyclists and then immediately braked, forcing them to brake as well, then yes, I could see them being vexed, because that's dangerous rather than merely inconvenient. The appropriate thing to do in that circumstance would have been to wait for the cyclists to pass and then (if safe to do so) move into the left-turn lane. Of course, this would probably mean some jackass behind them blasting the horn and using the left-turn lane to overtake. But you can't drive other people's cars for them.
However, if the OP passed the cyclists some distance from the junction and gave them plenty of room before pulling into the left-turn lane, I really don't see what the cyclists were complaining about. The light was red, so they were going to have to stop anyway. So they were held up by the length of one car. It's not a big deal.
EDIT: OP, would it have been possible to just wait behind the cyclists in the same lane?
If the light is red I would think you can keep far enough right in your lane to allow cyclists filter up inside you.
In the arial photo you provide the van is covering half the cycle lane but is nowhere near the right hand line. If they moved across cycle lane is free and everybody wins.
While the cycle lane is shared use it is annoying as a cyclist when vehicles position to the left of the lane and block the ability to filter up on the inside. Cyclists shouldn't have to wait behind you at lights.
