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London cyclist films bike lane motorist driving straight at oncoming riders

Other riders can be seen moving out the lane to avoid a head-on collision

A cyclist in London has captured the moment on video when a driver managed to turn their vehicle onto a cycle lane and continued to drive along the infrastructure as oncoming riders jumped out the way.

In the video, uploaded to TikTok by @cycling_in_london the driver ignores or accidentally misses the markings telling road users the left-hand lane is for cyclists accessing the infrastructure, and ends up travelling several hundred metres along the route.

The photos below show the location, Royal Mint Street near Tower Bridge, heading towards Cable Street, where the driver ended up on the wrong side of the cycle lane segregation, continuing to drive along the section of Cycle Superhighway 3 despite oncoming riders.

Royal Mint Street (Google Maps)
Royal Mint Street (Google Maps)

In the footage, nine riders pass in the opposite direction before the driver, to a chorus of bell ringing from the cyclist filming, indicates and pulls back onto the road.

"I was cycling home from work, it'd be about a 20-minute ride, when I noticed the driver enter the cycle lane," the cyclist told SWNS.

"While it did look like an accident, the driver took quite a long time to leave, despite several dropped kerbs along the way. I was worried more for cyclists coming in the other direction than my own safety as it's a bidirectional cycle lane, and I was very worried when cyclists had to take evasive action.

"From what others have said since posting it's a regular occurrence on this section.

"I started the TikTok to highlight the positives about cycling in London — good infrastructure in places, safety in numbers as more people cycle etc — as well as the negatives, and it's important to note how drivers can put cyclists at risk despite what should be clear and safe infrastructure."

Back in January last year Jeremy Vine filmed a motorist driving along a segregated cycle path in Hyde Park before mounting the pavement to get back on the road.

More recently, a bus company in Dublin confirmed it was investigating after one of its employees was filmed driving a double-decker bus on both the cycle lane and footpath in order to undertake a queue of traffic.

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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25 comments

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Adam Sutton | 1 year ago
4 likes

See this kind of thing all the time, and it isn't an accident, it's people trying to save a few seconds. Two instances I see all the time near me are drivers using a bus only lane as a cut through to the train stations, and uber eats/deliveroo moped riders using a no through road as a cut through, riding the pavement where there is barrier. Those are just annoying, this one is outright dangerous though.

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chrisonabike replied to Adam Sutton | 1 year ago
1 like

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).

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qwerty360 replied to Adam Sutton | 1 year ago
3 likes

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...

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Adam Sutton replied to qwerty360 | 1 year ago
1 like

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.

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Mungecrundle replied to Adam Sutton | 1 year ago
5 likes

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.

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chrisonabike replied to Mungecrundle | 1 year ago
1 like

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

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a1white replied to Adam Sutton | 1 year ago
1 like

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.

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ChrisB200SX | 1 year ago
1 like

I've experienced this myself at night, driver driving head-on at myself and others in the cycle lane, different cycle lane but not far from this one...

...and I've only cycled late in the evening in London once!

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Car Delenda Est | 1 year ago
4 likes

Someone should put a traffic cone at either entrance in lieu of the bollard that should be there.

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BadgerBeaver | 1 year ago
3 likes

I regularly use this route and two things are striking 1) the regularity with which this sort of thing occurs, where you are basically thinking "what on earth are you playing at???", and 2) the demographics. In fairness we don't see the driver, but I'll bet my house on it. 

A bit like the Bradford episode reported here last week, we can't say what is obvious to anyone with eyes. The same way that the police in Rotherham couldn't do anything about all that grooming and abuse. Ah well, it's only cyclists and pedestrians. Might is right etc.

I'll get me coat.

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Car Delenda Est replied to BadgerBeaver | 1 year ago
6 likes
BadgerBeaver wrote:

I'll get me coat.

Good.

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AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
0 likes

Everyone seems to have also ignored the motorbike that went down the same one way street, but on the actual roadway at the same time.

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quiff replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
0 likes

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.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
0 likes

At least they were able to use their indicators... 

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brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes

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

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Simon_MacMichael replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes

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.

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brooksby replied to Simon_MacMichael | 1 year ago
4 likes

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

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AidanR | 1 year ago
6 likes

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.

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Rendel Harris replied to AidanR | 1 year ago
3 likes
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!

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
5 likes

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. 

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quiff replied to AidanR | 1 year ago
0 likes

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    

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Jimmy Ray Will replied to quiff | 1 year ago
0 likes

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. 

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Rendel Harris replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 1 year ago
0 likes
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.

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essexian | 1 year ago
8 likes

Its okay, he pays Road Tax. 

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chrisonabike replied to essexian | 1 year ago
0 likes

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

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