London cyclist films bike lane motorist driving straight at oncoming riders

Agree re: difference between annoying / unpleasant and dangerous.  Don't know if there's any current legal mechanism for hitting the delivery companies with penalties for their staff breaking the law?  After all, the whole point of many of those companies is their business is getting stuff to people in a timely fashion and they're doing that as cheap as possible.  (The delivery sector is a bit of a black hole though so don't expect change any time soon).

I accept that in the video it could plausibly be confusion (too many possible routes and the markings are relatively minimal at the entrance).

HOWEVER - having realised they messed up the driver mostly carries on at a fairly high speed, only slowing when the alternative is a head on collision and even then going past stopped riders in front far faster than I think is prudent given how tight it is - the driver should have stopped and waited for the riders squeeze past IMHO, because even a slow moving car can crush someone, while a slow moving bike at worse risks scratches...

I am 50/50 on whether that was confusion by the fact that as you say, they kept going. I know that secton of CS3 but am not aware of the layout of the road before it was put in. Part of me thinks it was possibly 2 way before and they deliberatly used the cycle lane. I have had a car turn into the cycle lane in Chiswick, but that was a genuine mistake and they got out ASAP.

Never attribute to malign intent, that which can be explained by simple incompetence. Drivers get onto the guided bus way all the time despite signs and many clues that they may have gone a little bit wrong.

Definitely incompetent but I can't help suspecting a bit of "I reckon I can get down there" or full on "Dare you, Jim!"

I've seen it twice now (coincidentally late at night), on C4 at Rotherhithe Roundabout. Last one was a Taxi, so little excuse for not knowing the road layout. I can guarantee he did it to avoid a couple of sets of traffic lights. I didn't get out his way though, so he had to drive his black cab over the kerb back onto the the road. I passed another cyclist on the pavement who had clearly just jumped off the path out of his way. ridiculously dangerous. If I had a camera, I;d report it.

BadgerBeaver wrote:

I'll get me coat.

Good.

As far as I can tell from streetview, it's one way in that direction - the motorbike and car can both travel in that direction, they just have to be in the road not the bi-directional cycle lane.

brooksby wrote:

Wasn't this on the live blog a couple of days ago?  Serious case of deja vu... 

Well spotted, yes it was, though that blog entry focused more on reaction to the social media post. We do now and again do standalone stories on items originally published on the blog especially when we can give a bit more analysis and context, and it also helps the story reach a wider audience.

Oh thank F for that!  Was worried I was getting middle aged... 

AidanR wrote:

I'm not convinced that's an accident. I suspect that the driver is deliberately using the cycle lane as a short cut, as the road there is a one-way street flowing in the opposite direction.

It's absolutely no accident, before the Jamaica Road cycleway opened on the other side of the river I regularly used that road going to and from Canary Wharf/Greenwich/Limehouse and saw that happen several times, especially early on Sunday mornings (never when I had a camera, unfortunately). Ever since Royal Mint Street and its follow on Cable Street were made one way and the cycle lane put in drivers wanting to access spur roads have to drop a whole 50 yards south and go along the A1203, for some that is obviously far too much of an imposition and they are going to assert their rights as drivists!

Although it is a weird setup at the lights. If you come off the bridge and want to turn right, you have to go straight on, pull a u-turn and then go back to the same set of lights and turn left. No one who has bought a motor-vehicle wants to do that. It should be cyclists who have to go out of their way to make turns like that. 

Am I missing something? Pretty sure that Royal Mint Street is one way in the same direction the car is travelling, towards Cable Street - the car just needs to be on the roadway not the cycleway. See e.g. the orientation of road signs and parked cars https://goo.gl/maps/U66Zzi2XWuLatFoU6    

This is my understanding too. There was no advantage to being on the path, so unless the drivers a loon, the most obvious reason is simply driver error. 

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

This is my understanding too. There was no advantage to being on the path, so unless the drivers a loon, the most obvious reason is simply driver error. 

The road switches to one way coming the other way when it gets to Cable Street about 100 m further down, so possibly they mistakenly believe that applies in Royal Mint Street too? But yes, when I said above I'd seen people doing that before I meant going towards the Tower not away from it.

But it's a bike lane - so are they following The Rules?