Martin Underwood wrote:
whose cars they scrape as they overtake
illegally on the left coming up to a junction)

One point I missed.. I don't know about your part of London but where I
am there are cycle lanes on the approach to most busy junctions.
Mostly, these are occupied by the wheels of a taxi or 4x4 (which, if it
is a solid line lane, is illegal). The use of these cycle lanes to
pass cars is perfectly legal, and the whole reason for the lanes being
there. Although theres not much point when there is a car parked on
the Advanced Stop Line.

But, of course, lots of motorists passed their test long before cycle
lanes were put in the highway code (and the area around the North side
of Putney bridge doesn't exactly match the highway code anyway) so we
couldn't possibly expect them to know that a really small lane with a
picture of a bike, or a box contianing a picture of a bike is for
cyclists only.

We need some way of forcing everyone to read the highway code... The
only way in the passed has been cameras (for box junctions and red
lights) so maybe we need cycle lane cameras.