freiston wrote:A look at Google Streetview shows that the lane the car was in had an arrow painted in it more or less where the car was - one for going straight on and for turning left. Immediately past the police station, there is a traffic-light controlled junction with a left turn. It is not unreasonable to expect a car turning left at the junction to be indicating in the same position as the car in the video. In my opinion this changes nothing with regards to culpability but does make it more difficult for the cyclist to anticipate a poor manoeuvre (i.e. turning when it is not clear/safe to do so). It also makes it more understandable why the cyclist might not have reacted to the indicator.
The left hand lane after the yellow gridded box junction appears to be empty, so the obvious reason for the car to be stationary in that position is because it is turning into the police station and is waiting for the marked police car already in the entrance way to drive further in.
What we do not know is when the driver indicated: it might be only just as they started to turn in, or they might have been indicating suitably well ahead of the entrance.
Even if the indicator was only used at the last minute, the cyclist's road craft was poor: there were already enough signs of the potential danger to prompt a competent cyclist to anticipate the car turning in and therefore to slow down.
For me the question of who was in the right/had right of way is secondary to drivers and especially (because of their much greater vulnerability) cyclists being alert and able to read the road, spot potential hazards before they become an immediate danger, drive/ride defensively and always maintain a good margin of safety to allow for errors of judgement (by themselves and by others). Part of being a good driver and cyclist is expecting other people to make mistakes, and being able by dint of appropriate speed and positioning to mitigate the impact of others' mistakes and your own.
Even if that cyclist had right of way, I would not want to ride with them, because I would consider their poor judgement to be a danger to me.
With regard to question of who did have right of way, I think this case demonstrates that cycle lanes like that are potentially counter productive if different road users have different views (as demonstrated by this thread) of the status/importance of such lanes, and therefore behave in conflicting ways that will probably cause accidents like this.
I've read of recent experiments where traffic signs have been removed in urban areas, which creates uncertainty for road users about right of way and consequently makes them drive more slowly/carefully, because they are less sure about who has priority and what other road users will do. Maybe cycle lanes like this fall into the same category: viewed in isolation they make good sense and should make the road safer for cyclists, but when combined with all the other rules and signs in a busy complex traffic environment, they are just a sticking plaster solution which further complicates that environment and potentially increases the risk of an accident, rather than reducing it.