As both a cyclist and a driver, it still royally riles me when a cyclist squeezes ahead at a junction, then grinds off at the pace of a tortoise ensuring that all the the cars hes just jumped past are stuck behind him.

+1 to that.
As Bez says, I only filter when I know the lights are on red for a bit and it’s not a clear empty road ahead.

Otherwise, all those people that overtook me before the lights are going to want to overtake me again immediately and every overtake is an opportunity for me to be killed – whether by someone irate at being held up for 3 seconds or by someone absent-mindedly fiddling with the satnav while on the phone – doesn’t really matter.

Of course, in busy traffic it makes no odds, I’m as fast or faster than the cars so I’ll filter up whichever side is safest at that moment.

Legal
Location of marked cycle lanes
Location of lead in lanes for ASLs (are you supposed to jump from outside to inside at the point they start?)
Location of bus lanes which are legal for cycle use
Location of “cycle superhighway” markings
In London I’d say its actually where motorists do expect you to be because of the above, and where I’ve been shouted that I should be when I take the lane.

As above – in busy traffic(which it always is in London) you are as fast or faster than the cars and filter on whichever side is safest, which varies by section of road. On much of my commute filtering outside is riskier as I’m likely to meet traffic coming the other way before I reach the front of the queue without anywhere to pull in.

You make quick risk assessments all the time riding offroad – at present riding in the UK on road requires the same. No rigidly applied rule is going to help you.

I filter on whichever side has the most room. But then i guess they are more likely to see you in the right in their mirror. Plus if theres 2 way traffic i’d rather get pushed into the curb than an on coming car.

Speaking as a driver, I don’t get irritated when cyclists pass me.

As a cyclist I don’t get irritated when drivers overtake me.

If drivers think they should never be overtaken by a bike then surely it’s only fair that they never overtake bikes. Either faster traffic can overtake when safe and legal to do so, or it can’t.

Back to the OP

stay in your lane if traffic is moving slowly in queues. If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left

That could apply. Especially if you’re in a cycle lane.
https://www.gov.uk/using-the-road-159-to-203/overtaking-162-to-169

None of these rules matter when you have to deal with the type of driver I encounted today. Cycling in the right hand land (which is right turn only) approaching traffic lights in the primary position, lights on red, one car waiting in front of me. Knowing the phasing, I ease up so as not having to unclip, when the driver behind me (think Emma Way) gives me a blast of the horn. When I enquired as to the purpose of this, she asked why was I cycling in the middle of the road. I really don’t know where she expected me to be, presumably between the two lines of traffic on a narrow piece of carriageway where both lanes swing right before separating, so not a very safe place to be. She continued to blast her horn after the lights changed. If anyone can explain why she was upset when I was taking up less space than a car and can accelerate across the short junction just as quick as most calm drivers, then let me know. Apologies for the rambling post.

The mind boggles……

I’d have given her a simple “Because I am a road user and I am entitled to this much space, I will not allow myself to be overtaken at junctions or traffic light or in similar places where someone squeezing past me will endanger my life.”

Or the classic [when somebody squeezes past you and you talk to them about it] “Oh I’m so sorry – you’re a Doctor or undercover Policeman/woman aren’t you. No? Then obey the highway code and get the frack outta my lane before you kill someone you selfish git”

I’ve never thought about why, but cyclists moving to the front of a stationary line of traffic is usually extremely irritating

Not for me it isn’t. People are stuck in a queue of cars, not bikes. They may take their anger out on the cyclist who does this (and I’ve certainly been the brunt of this on many occassion), but they’re irritaed because a load of cars are holding them up.

What probably *is* extremely irritating is the cyclist pointing this out when they have a go at him. 😉

On a bike though I will only ever filter down the right of traffic and only then if I can see a significant time saving, i.e. the queue is large and the lights are a long distance away. Filtering to the front when I’m going to get through on the next phase anyway would be pointless.

As would be sitting in stationary traffic when I can reduce the queue length and help everyone out.

http://thecyclingsolicitor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-legal-position-where-cyclist-is.html

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/

Just that I don’t think there is any argument that, rightly or wrongly, it is very irritating to car drivers.

Tough tits. It’s their choice to be sitting in a vehicle that is too wide to get through.

As both a cyclist and a driver, it still royally riles me when a cyclist squeezes ahead at a junction, then grinds off at the pace of a tortoise ensuring that all the the cars hes just jumped past are stuck behind him.

Again, tough tits to the drivers. It’s safest for the cyclist to be at the front, and hence visible to them. If drivers had a better track record of not blindly hooking and killing cyclists sharing a queue with them, it’d be less tough tits, but for now, tough tits.

As a cyclist it’s highly irritating being held up by masses of slow moving or stationary traffic – overlarge vehicles, usually with a single occupant, occupying excessive amounts of space.

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/

“safe and enjoyable” cycling. Hmm. What advice does it have for Joat above? SafER, with our current inadequate infrastructure, but rarely enjoyable

If drivers think they should never be overtaken by a bike then surely it’s only fair that they never overtake bikes.

I’ll stop overtaking slow moving cars when cars stop overtaking me on “free flowing” road sections.

right or left whichever side is safest (and normally easiest) obviously paying attention to my place in the traffic and when traffic is going to start moving again especially around longer dangerous vehicles like HGVs and bendy buses.

However more and more I’m thinking ASLs are bloody stupid tho. Instead of sticking an ASL in a junction that you need to “take primary” in order to negotiate the junction safely, just build a safe junction you muppets!

Again, tough tits to the drivers. It’s safest for the cyclist to be at the front, and hence visible to them. If drivers had a better track record of not blindly hooking and killing cyclists sharing a queue with them, it’d be less tough tits, but for now, tough tits.

Hmm. Not sure about this. Not the tough tits bit, the safety bit.
Deaths a junctions seem to often involve cyclists that have filtered up the left in an attempt to be a the front and not been noticed.
If you’re sat in the middle of a lane owning it. You’ll have arrived there at the same time as all the vehicles around you and stay in the same location, the odds (in my experience) seem far better stacked that they will have seen you. Also, and I’m talking more about places were there’s fast moving traffic and few junctions. The dozen cars you could just filter past are a dozen cars that are going to overtake you immediately afterwards, and that’s a dozen more potential times for something to go wrong.

If you’re sat in the middle of a lane owning it

yeah but unless you put on a sprint when traffic starts moving you’re in the same situation as if you’d used the ASL feeder, ie if there’s an impatient arse behind you they’ll pull some dodgy manoeuvre to get past. You may get some mitigation for not jumping the queue but that won’t matter to hotheads.

The dozen cars you could just filter past are a dozen cars that are going to overtake you

there’s pretty much a limitless supply of cars round our way so whether you are at the front of the queue or in the middle of it you’ll be getting overtaken by lots of people after the junction, only way around it is to hang around at the junction and wait for the lights to change back to red and then set off (I know of atleast one person who does that at a dodgy section) plus you run the risk of it taking several cycles of the lights to get through. Slowing you down and all the people behind you.

I think a sensible judgement can be made sometimes, that filtering in a particular circumstance is not the best thing to do, but that’s a safety decision primarily.

But staying in queues of traffic rather than filtering, just in case you annoy drivers, would be daft. Those queues and even those traffic lights are there because of motor traffic. You wouldn’t have to stop at so many reds if cars weren’t there because there’d be a tiny fraction of the amount of traffic signals needed. And if their vehicle is too wide to filter as well (i.e. if it *is* the queue), then that’s their problem.

Filtering up the left is legal but I’m vary wary of it. Drivers just aren’t as aware of what’s on their left and passengers have no idea, if you go up the left be wary of people getting out of the car and left turners.

I wouldn’t be surpried if some of the car drivers that pull right over to the curb are letting you round the outside, if there is a bike (motorised or pedal powered) behind me in a queue I always pull to the left if they’re in the middle of the lane to give them a safe route up the middle. Some of them are bound to be cocks though.

My advise is the best way to filter is up the middle if possible, and only if it’s safe. No point racing to the front of every set of lights if the same people are going to have to get straight back past, it’ll just piss them off and you’ll have more chance of getting run over.

And never, ever, ever, ever, ever wait infront of the back of a big vehicle, and only wait infront of it if you know for sure the driver can see you, give them a nod or something to check.

As both a cyclist and a driver, it still royally riles me when a cyclist squeezes ahead at a junction, then grinds off at the pace of a tortoise ensuring that all the the cars hes just jumped past are stuck behind him.

As both a cyclist and a driver, it still royally riles me when a motorist squeezes past, then stops in a queue of traffic twenty yards ahead, ensuring that all the the cyclists he’s just squeezed past are stuck behind him or have to filter up the inside.

(Not read all that, but…)

Round here, when cars are queuing they seem to sit a couple of feet to the left of the centre line on the road, rather than a couple of feet from the kerb. On main roads, that means a car-width gap to their left, or oncoming traffic to their right. I filter (sensibly and carefully) down the left.

(Apart from on one road where the phasing of the lights means that I can safely ride down the ‘wrong’ side of the road past the queue of traffic.)

As both a cyclist and a driver, it still royally riles me when a motorist squeezes past, then stops in a queue of traffic twenty yards ahead, ensuring that all the the cyclists he’s just squeezed past are stuck behind him or have to filter up the inside.

This! 😀

Anyway, if the driver is there to be filtered past, they’re causing congestion and they’re in the bloody way.

Molgrips, is that you??

Hehe.. I do filter down the left (if there’s room) or the right if I’m turning right. But ONLY when the traffic’s stationary. If it starts to move, this is a RED FLAG danger situation imo, and I put myself in the primary position in the lane immediately. Then I use my awesome power to stay there until I’m through the junction or the car ahead has pulled away and I’m starting to hold up the driver behind.

Apparently, it’s not in the HC but it is in the Cyclecraft handbook published by TSO so I suppose that makes it semi-official.

I used to know a chap who’d wait in traffic queues on his bike. It took him forever to get anywhere, since he had the disadvantage of being slow moving but didn’t take back any time in queues.

I used to know a chap who’d wait in traffic queues on his bike.

Doesn’t really help anyone, that. You just push the back of the traffic queue further back and contribute to junctions behind being more clogged.

Someone said the other week “Sitting in a car and moaning about traffic is like strapping a plank to your arse and moaning about doorways”.

You shouldn’t get angry if someone else, who didn’t strap a plank to their arse, can get through the doorway and you can’t.

Look what we got in Scotland :

This is part of the Nice Way Code Government “mutual respect” campaign. They got so much stick about this that they had to publish a page of “clarification” about what the sign was supposed to mean.

I was very disappointed they didn’t print the whole clarification on the back of the bus.

I saw some of the other stuff done as part of the “Nice Way Code”. Absolutely appalling crap!
Have the people behind it been shot yet?

Doesn’t really help anyone, that.

No I know. All the time he could have been safely filtering, he was stationary, and he only moved off when the traffic was also moving off which was more dangerous still. He then only got to the junctions when all the traffic was whizzing through at full speed, having been unable to take a safe position up front. (this was before ASLs appeared everywhere).

This is part of the Nice Way Code Government “mutual respect” campaign.

has someone got a shot of that bus next to a government/local council approved mandatory cycle lane yet?

EDIT: not perfect but best I could find

here you go ormondroyd

Davis v Schrogin (2006) is a motorbike case but I think it’s still the current precedent for case law- basically, if a collision occurs that the filterer couldn’t avoid, it’s 100% the motorist’s fault, no blame split and no liability to the filterer.

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

People do that all the time on my commute, see you coming behind, then they pull right over tight to the kerb.

At which point you do a jolly loop round them, not forgetting to wave.

johnhe – Member

I’ve never thought about why, but cyclists moving to the front of a stationary line of traffic is usually extremely irritating, and that’s coming from a cyclist. Anyone who claims that they’re unaware that this is the general feeling of drivers isn’t trying to see the drivers point of view too much.

I take reasonable steps not to annoy drivers. But if they want to be unreasonably annoyed they will be, the only way to avoid annoying some people is to not exist.

I don’t get annoyed by cyclists passing me, kind of bewildered why any cyclist would tbh.

Having thought about it, the reason i find filtering irritating as a driver is almost certainly because I’m stuck in a queue and can’t do anything about it, while bikes obviously can. I never claimed that it was right or justified, I was just trying to point out that I expect most drivers feel the same way.

Ae a cyclist to you get irritated when drivers fly by at 70mph and off into the distance?

Anyway. Don’t be irritated by queues when driving. That’s like going to the beach and being irritated by sand.

If you look at the road infrastructure e.g.cycle lanes, they’re on the inside of the traffic, and bike boxes are at the front of where the stationary traffic sits.

Surely this suggests that cyclists are expected/encouraged to filter to the front, and past the stationary traffic don’t you think?

The problem is, the designers have put lots of effort into thinking about how you can safely enter the junction, but very, very often you’ll be exiting that junction into a complete clusterfnark, it doesn’t matter if you have Jared Graves levels of “Snap”, you’re about to be overtaken, by a queue of vehicles with acceleration on their mind, and more likely than not the exit will be narrower than the ASL…

I thought filtering (on the left or right, whichever is safer) through gridlocked roads was the main advantage of cycling. Seems lunacy to wait in a que of cars on a bike… no?

I was just trying to point out that I expect most drivers feel the same way.

Well the answer is usually staring them in the face.

I think this hits the nail square on the head.

basically car drivers are NOT annoyed by cyclist par ce, they are actually annoyed that another human being has passed them, over taken them and there’s nowt they can do about it. Self frustration. Its the root of much car versus bike rage.

Here in london village average car speed is 10mph and even a granny on a sit up and beg with wicker basket is quicker than this.

Yep

Most anti cycle hatred boils down to simple jealousy.

Motorists see someone using a cheap, fast and healthy mode of transport and redirect their anger at the cyclist rather than all the other traffic which is actually making them late for work.

(or without realising they’re making other people late)