wrote:
A more clearly marked cycle lane going across the junction, instead of the zig zag line, would make much more sense.
Good point, although the cycle lane design is fairly poor, on the other side certainly too narrow, and probably only marginally acceptable on the side in question.
Like most incidents this one arises from a number of factors all lining up, usually including everyone involved not doing things properly. We have noted the careless van driver and the careless cyclist. As a cycling forum it is probably the cyclist's failings that we should learn from. However, it is probably most useful to look at the infrastructure contribution.
Underlying this, as pointed out, is the invisible cycle lane. It seems to be standard practice for other road markings to take priority over cycle lanes, without obvious practical reason. A cycle lane could be continued through a bus stop marking as an advisory lane, or, better, as a mandatory lane with a legal change to make the restriction on motor vehicles entering it 'except buses', when a bus stop is marked.
Other lane markings on the main road normally continue across a cross roads if there are no traffic lights, so it is not clear why the cycle lane does not. There is a short gap before the zigzags start. The zigzags supposedly mark the lane, but are a rather obscure way of doing so. It would help if it had been the type with coloured surface. Cycle symbols would also help. Again these are frequent before the zigzags on the other side, but have been omitted within the zigzags. Without cycle markings the zigzags could easily be interpreted as similar to the type of white lining that is intended to narrow a carriageway without creating an additional lane on the left.
The whole thing reeks of both poor national design standards and randomly incompetent implementation. (See remarks in another post about timing camera markings replacing all junction markings at the Savile Road-Stoke Road junction in Bristol.)
I see that there is one of those new dual zebra crossings across the main road beyond the junction. I can only see those as another class of ambiguous road markings that will cause problems. Not using some kind of zebra stripes in the cycle part makes it difficult to grasp that it is part of the crossing.