The driver of which vehicle must give way?

Explanation

The car driver.

The blue car has signalled and is leaving the carriageway towards the side road; the black arrow on the road surface shows the very path it must follow, and that path passes right in front of the cyclist. The rule is clear: any driver changing direction must give way to a vehicle travelling straight along its own path, and in law a bicycle is a full vehicle, not a minor obstacle to be squeezed past. So priority belongs to the cyclist and the car driver must wait until he has passed.

The safety reason behind this rule shows up in urban accident statistics: the most dangerous collision with a cyclist happens precisely at the moment the car turns. The driver's eyes are on the empty space of the side road and on other cars, and the narrow body of a bicycle disappears behind the windscreen pillar or in the mirror's blind spot. The cyclist has neither a crumple structure nor an airbag; an impact that is a scratch for the car means hospital for him.

Worth memorising: "turning means the duty to give way". When turning right you must give way to the cyclist and the motorcyclist travelling in your direction on your right, and when turning left to all oncoming vehicles, including bicycles. The exam trap is that because a bicycle is smaller and slower, you assume it should wait for the car; size and speed create no priority whatsoever.

• The cyclist is travelling straight along his own path and cuts across nobody; being small or slow does not deprive him of priority.

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