What sign is called "Intersection with a bicycle lane" ?

Explanation

Sign 2; a triangle with a red border and a bicycle symbol in the middle.

Sign 2 is a triangle with a red border and a bicycle symbol, and its name is "intersection with a cycle path". The triangular shape means this sign belongs to the warning family: it prohibits nothing and merely announces that a little further on a dedicated cycle path crosses your road and you must reduce speed and be ready to give way.

The safety reason for this warning lies in the driver's perception. A cyclist has a small cross-section, produces no sound, and travels faster than the eye estimates — sometimes up to 30 km/h. A car driver scanning a junction for a "car" sees the bicycle but does not process it; this phenomenon is called inattentional blindness and is the cause of a large share of car-bicycle collisions. A warning sign, before you reach the crossing point, changes the search pattern of the driver's eye.

Worth memorising is telling the sign families apart by shape rather than by the bicycle symbol, which is repeated on all of them: a triangle means a warning, a red circle a prohibition, a blue circle a mandatory instruction, and a rectangle information or a supplementary plate. That one rule immediately eliminates the four wrong options in this question.

• Sign 1 is a blue circle with a bicycle symbol and announces the cycle path itself; it is a mandatory sign, not a junction warning. • Sign 3 is a red circle with a bicycle symbol and prohibits bicycles; it conveys precisely the opposite meaning to an intersection with a cycle path. • Sign 4 is a rectangular plate with a bicycle symbol and acts as a supplementary plate; on its own it creates no meaning of an intersection. • Sign 5 is a red circle with a motorcycle symbol and has nothing to do with bicycles at all; only the visual similarity of the two symbols makes it tempting.

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