Correct way to drive on this road?

RossG · 24 Mar 2009 at 22:34

Right, there's a turning near my house that has been bugging me for some time. I've taken some images from google earth:

Right, now the situation is, theres a set of traffic lights in pic 1, with the lane direction of travel inducated. If you go straight ahead in the left lane, you end up across a cycle path that runs down the outer edge of the left lane, with the rest of that left lane made up of parking spaces. Now it seems to me that if you want to take the left indicated at the top of pic 1, you should be in the right hand lane, implied by the cross hatching that can be seen in pic 2. However, a lot of people drive in the left lane if there are no cars parked in it, meaning if you are trying to turn left from the right hand lane, you have to stop dead and wait for them to pass.
Am I right or am I being silly and getting it all wrong? The pink arrow in the first pic indicated where the photo in the second pic has been taken from.

RossG · 24 Mar 2009 at 22:42

Skeeter said:
So the left hand lane at the first junction goes all the way past the second, but has marked parking bays in it so it can be blocked?

Yes. And the cycle lane in it.

RossG · 24 Mar 2009 at 22:47

That's what I would do usually too, but I don't know about driving in cycle lanes and the cross hatching would suggest that you're supposed to turn in from the right hand lane.

RossG · 25 Mar 2009 at 10:58

At the lights:

Going through the lights:

Best images I could do really. There is also a bus stop in the left lane, though I don't think that will add much, but I did forget about that big sodding arrow pointing from the left to the right hand lane. This change anything?

RossG · 25 Mar 2009 at 11:08

Yeah. I am dead careful with using my mirrors on that turning. Most people do tend to merge into the right hand lane. But there are a few who don't. A mate of mine did the same thing I do with a range rover behind him in the right hand lane, who decided it would be a good idea to undertake him just as my mate started to turn in. Enter a nice little scrape down his front wing.