Safety & Rules
The Turning Vehicle Is the Junction Conflict That Recurs
A driver overtaking a cyclist and then turning across them is one of the most common serious collisions in urban cycling. The geometry explains why it keeps happening.
What follows is an argument about junction collisions, and about where the received version of it stops being true.
The argument in brief
- The conflict comes from a vehicle overtaking then turning across your path.
- Riding beside a vehicle at a junction removes your escape options.
- Position and speed control are the available defences.
What the manoeuvre looks like
A driver approaches from behind, passes the cyclist, and then turns across the cyclist's path into a side road or entrance. From the driver's seat the cyclist disappears from view during the overtake, which is precisely when the turning decision is made. The rider, meanwhile, is travelling straight ahead at constant speed with no reason to expect the vehicle to turn.
The result is a collision in which the cyclist strikes the side of the vehicle or is struck by its rear as it turns. It is consistently among the most common urban cycling collision types wherever such data is collected.
Why it is so hard to see coming
The driver has completed the overtake and stopped thinking about the cyclist, who is now behind and beside them. Mirrors show a narrow field, and a cyclist alongside a turning vehicle can fall entirely within a blind area.
Indicators are often applied late, after the overtake, which gives the rider very little warning. Larger vehicles swing outwards before turning, which can look to a rider like an invitation to pass on the inside. The rider's own speed contributes, because arriving quickly at the junction shortens everyone's decision time.
Position as the main defence
Approaching a junction where you intend to continue straight, moving towards the centre of your lane discourages an overtake at that point. It also places you in the driver's forward view rather than in the area beside their vehicle they cannot see. Making that move early, with a shoulder check, reads as intentional and gives following drivers time to adjust.
Move back once past the junction, which signals cooperation and avoids unnecessary friction. This principle appears in cycle training in many countries, though the specific lane rules differ, so check what applies locally.
Never sit alongside at a junction
The most consistently dangerous place is beside a large vehicle at a stop line, particularly on the side it will turn towards. Drivers of buses, lorries and vans have restricted vision close to the cab, and some areas are genuinely invisible to them. If you arrive at a queue and cannot get clearly ahead of a large vehicle with time to spare, stay behind it.
With a loaded rack, being behind is slower and it removes the entire category of risk, which is a trade worth taking every time.
Never pass a large vehicle on the side it is indicating towards, and treat an unindicated large vehicle at a junction as capable of turning.
Speed and covering the brakes
Reducing speed on the approach to any junction gives you time to react to a movement that has already begun. Covering the brakes removes the fraction of a second spent moving your hands, which at urban speeds is metres of distance.
The bit that actually matters: watch the front wheels of vehicles rather than their indicators, since wheels reveal intention before signals are given. A vehicle slowing as it passes you is a strong signal that a turn is coming, and it should trigger immediate caution. None of this is dramatic riding, it is simply arriving at junctions with margin in hand.
Frames, sizes and riding positions vary enormously; borrow before you buy wherever you can.
Cycle lanes and the false sense of continuity
A cycle lane running straight through a junction can create an impression of priority that drivers do not share. Painted lanes in particular offer no physical protection at the point where paths cross. Separated tracks that run alongside the road can be worse at junctions, because riders arrive outside the driver's normal scanning area.
Good junction design addresses this with separate signal phases or geometry that slows turning vehicles, and most junctions are not well designed. Where the infrastructure does not protect you, position and speed remain the tools you actually control.
The takeaway
Do not be beside a vehicle at a junction, and arrive slow enough to stop for the turn nobody signalled.
Most of riding well is being boring and predictable to everyone else on the road.
Questions readers ask
Should I filter past stationary traffic?
Only where it is legal and only where you can see and be seen. Never alongside a large vehicle near a junction, and never on the side a vehicle is indicating towards.
How do I stop drivers turning across me?
You cannot control them, but taking a central lane position on the approach discourages the overtake that precedes it, and slowing with brakes covered gives you time if it happens anyway.
